Psychological fragments

I stood there, stunned, my mind blank. This question was like a knife chilled to ice, piercing straight into my thoughts, which had been in turmoil from the successive deaths—before this, I had been so disturbed by the two identical deaths and Lin Nian's resurrection that I had never even considered this core question.

"And also," he tapped his fingertips lightly on the sofa armrest, his tone growing deeper, carrying the sharp edge characteristic of a detective, "those six dead psychiatrists. If she really killed them, why would she kill them? What was her motive?"

I shook my head blankly. As a psychological counselor, I should have an almost instinctive sensitivity to people's behavioral motivations, but at this moment, faced with this tangled mess of a case, I couldn't find a single clue.

"And," he paused, looking up at me with a gaze like a searchlight, piercing straight into the most unsettling part of my heart, "have you noticed something in common?"

"What?" My voice was a little tense.

"Those six psychologists all died after they had access to her files and provided her with counseling."

My head went blank, like something had exploded.

The seven file folders on the archives table, the string of numbers on the back of the folders, the sticky notes with the name "He Chunfang" on them, and the seemingly unrelated patient information instantly connected in my mind.

"Officer Fang," I stood up abruptly, the chair leg scraping against the floor with a screeching sound, "I have something to show you."

I walked quickly to the door of the archives room, put my hand on the doorknob, turned it, and pushed the door open and went inside.

The next second, I froze on the spot.

The metal filing cabinet against the wall is still there, with rows of file boxes neatly stacked inside. The air still carries the familiar smell of disinfectant mixed with paper and ink. But the seven file folders that I used to neatly arrange on the wooden desk by the window are gone.

The desktop was spotless, with only a thin layer of dust. Not even a trace of paper had been left behind, as if those file folders containing secrets had never been there.

"What's wrong?" Fang Jue's footsteps came from behind me, and he followed me into the archives room.

"The files." My voice trembled without me even realizing it. "Those seven file folders were on this table yesterday, and now they're gone."

"What file?" His tone instantly turned serious.

I quickly told him about the digital chain: from 0723 to 0318, seven consecutive numbers, seven seemingly unrelated patients, each file folder containing a note with He Chunfang's name on it, and the back of each folder marked with the next file number, all the way to the last one, 0318, which contained only a blank note.

After listening, Fang Jue remained silent for a few seconds, his brows furrowing into a knot. Then he walked to the filing cabinet and opened the drawer.

"What's the number?"

"0723, Li Mingyuan. 0531, Wang Jing. 0812, Liu Zhiqiang. 0924, Zhao Xiaolan. 1107, Sun Limin. 0103, Chen Hong. 0318, Zhou Jianguo." I recited the string of numbers word for word; these numbers were etched into my mind, impossible to forget.

He followed the numbers one by one, running his fingertips along the spine of the file box, and pulled out the seven files one by one, placing them on the table.

0723, Li Mingyuan. He unseals the file folder and pours out the pages inside. They are all routine psychological counseling records: course of illness, chief complaint, intervention plan, all neatly written, without sticky notes or handwritten numbers.

0531, Wang Jing. The consultation record is also complete, clean, and without any abnormalities.

All seven file folders were opened, and their contents were spread out on the table. They were all just ordinary consultation files, without the sticky notes I mentioned, without that strange string of numbers, nothing at all.

"There are no such things as you mentioned." Fang Jue raised his head and looked at me.

I walked over quickly, bent down and flipped through the pages one by one, my fingertips tracing the paper. I looked at every single one, scanned every line. Indeed, they were all normal consultation records. The sticky notes and numbers I had seen with my own eyes yesterday had vanished without a trace, as if they had evaporated into thin air.

"Impossible." I looked up, my voice filled with barely suppressed panic. "They were here yesterday! I took them out of the cabinet myself, laid them out one by one on this table, and opened them one by one to check! The back of bag 0723 had 0531 written on it, and the note inside was written as He Chunfang. I followed the numbers all the way down to 0318, where there was only one note. I saw it with my own eyes!"

"You saw it with your own eyes?" Fang Jue looked at me, his tone calm but carrying an invisible sense of pressure.

"Yes! Right here, on this table!"

"Whether I believe it or not is not important," he said, turning his gaze back to the seven files spread out on the table. "What is important is that these files do not contain what you mentioned."

I stood there, feeling as if my blood had instantly turned cold, and my mind went completely blank.

Someone has tampered with these files.

Someone came to this archive room after I left yesterday and replaced the seven file folders that contained the secrets, destroying the notes and numbers inside, leaving only these flawless regular files.

who is it?

He Chunfang?

The file records a middle-aged woman who appeared three times in the waiting area, claiming to be a patient's family member, and who had a slight limp in her right leg.

"Officer Fang," I suddenly realized, "the security cameras! The clinic's security cameras!"

He nodded, said no more, turned and strode out of the archives.

The clinic's surveillance main unit was hidden in a metal cabinet under the reception desk. Xiao Zhou hurriedly opened the cabinet door and pulled out the main unit. We pulled up a chair and sat at the reception desk. The cold light from the screen shone on our faces. All the lights around us were off, and only the screen's light shone in the darkness, casting long shadows of us.

I pulled up the surveillance footage from after the clinic closed last night and fast-forwarded it.

The scene jumps rapidly: at 8 p.m., I locked the door of the clinic and left; at 9 p.m., the cleaning lady pushed in the cleaning cart and carefully cleaned the waiting area and the clinic, and left at 10 p.m.; 11 p.m., 12 p.m., 1 a.m., 2 a.m.... The scene is always empty, with only the motion-activated lights in the corridor occasionally turning on and off because of the sound of cars outside.

The screen suddenly flickered.

"Stop," Fang Jue said immediately.

I abruptly pressed the pause button, and the screen froze at 2:03 AM. The screen was covered with dense static, and the black and white noise jumped wildly, making it impossible to see anything clearly.

"Keep releasing."

I pressed play. The static lasted for a full three minutes, then the picture flickered and returned to normal.

The time jumped to 2:06 AM. The waiting area in the video was empty, the corridor was quiet, and the door to the archives room was tightly closed. Everything was exactly the same as it had been three minutes ago, just like the static screen from before, except that the equipment had malfunctioned.

Fang Jue tapped his fingertips lightly on his knee, then turned to look at me: "These three minutes are enough for someone familiar with this place to come in, change the file, and leave without a trace."

I nodded stiffly, my back already soaked with cold sweat.

"This person is familiar with your surveillance system, knows where the blind spots are, knows the location of the archives, knows what time you leave the clinic every day, and even knows which drawer in the front desk you keep your spare key." Fang Jue's voice was deep, each word striking my heart. "This is something no outsider could do."

My heart clenched suddenly, as if gripped by an icy hand.

"You mean...?"

"I mean," he looked up at me, his gaze sharp enough to see right through me, "this person is very likely someone close to you."

The people around me?

Xiao Zhou? She's worked at this clinic with me for three years, always meticulous and reliable, never making a single mistake. Aunt Zhang, the cleaning lady? She's been here for five years, always spotless, even carefully picking up a pen a patient left behind. Or… someone else? Someone I know well, someone I've never suspected?

"And another thing," Fang Jue interrupted my thoughts, steer the conversation back to the case, "have you ever thought about why He Chunfang killed those six psychologists?"

I shook my head.

"Because they were all Zhao Min's psychologists," he said. "He Chunfang didn't want anyone to get close to Zhao Min, didn't want anyone to see through her, and didn't want anyone to help her. So she killed everyone who tried to get close to Zhao Min and tried to help her."

A thought suddenly flashed through my mind, like a lightning bolt cleaving through the deep darkness, instantly illuminating all the details I couldn't understand before.

"Officer Fang," I suddenly looked up, my voice trembling slightly, "what's Zhao Min's mother's name?"

"He Xiuying." He blurted out almost without pausing, "She's from Henan, and she's 57 years old this year."

He Xiuying.

He Chunfang.

Two names collided wildly in my mind: the same surname, similar age, and what Xiao Zhou had mentioned before—that the woman had a heavy Henan accent. It all matched perfectly.

"Could He Chunfang be He Xiuying? Zhao Min's mother?" I asked eagerly.

Fang Jue looked at me, his eyes instantly becoming complicated, a mixture of understanding and a deeper sense of gravity.

"Possibly." He nodded, then changed the subject, "But there's one problem you can't explain."

"What?"

"If He Xiuying is He Chunfang, and she killed six psychologists who tried to help Zhao Min, then why would she kill her own daughter? And why twice?"

I opened my mouth, but was instantly speechless.

Yes, why?

If everything she did was to keep people away from Zhao Min, then why did she let her daughter die twice in my clinic?

"Furthermore," Fang Jue continued, posing an even more pointed question, "if He Xiuying is truly the mastermind, then what about Zhao Min? What role did she play in this whole affair? Was she a victim controlled by her mother? An accomplice? Or was she, from beginning to end, another victim?"

I remained silent, unable to utter a single word.

These questions were like a dense net, trapping me in the middle, and I couldn't answer a single one of them.

It was already 10 p.m. when Fang Jue left.

The bodies outside had long been taken away by the forensic vehicle, and the police who had cordoned off the area had gradually withdrawn. The clinic door was locked again, leaving me alone in the large space.

I sat in my office chair in the clinic, without turning on the lights. Moonlight streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting a thin layer of silver frost on the cold white floor and clearly outlining the silhouette of the fabric sofa opposite me.

I just stared at that sofa.

This afternoon, Lin Nian sat there. With her eyes downcast, she asked me the same repetitive questions, said those incoherent things, and finally looked up at me, giving me that one and only, fleeting smile. Then she stood up, walked out, and two steps from the door, collapsed, never to rise again.

If someone told you that there's someone in your life who isn't the person you thought you were, would you believe them?

Her voice, like a persistent, insidious infection, echoed repeatedly in the empty consultation room.

She asked the question twice.

One time last week, and another time today.

Who exactly is she asking?

Who exactly is the "not the person you think he is" she's talking about?