The Missing Daughter – CH 012

Chapter 12. Boyfriend 3

I couldn’t remember how I got home after that. I only remembered holding Jiang Shen and crying and crying.

What he said, what I said, I remember nothing.

Finally, I was exhausted from crying, and I fell asleep holding him.

—That was probably the only thing I remembered.

When I woke up, I was already in my own bed.

It was broad daylight, but I slept very soundly until 3 PM. I didn’t remember how I got back, but I did remember putting on an eye mask while I slept, so I didn’t even realize it was dawn.

Everything in my memory was a jumbled mess, like a nightmare.

But when I opened my phone and saw He Chenghui’s name and his phone number in my contacts, I’ve never hated those three characters so much.

Let me explain, Officer He, I have no problem with you personally.

But to me, you have become a symbol of bad luck, constantly reminding me of everything that happened yesterday… wasn’t a dream.

The room was empty. I called Lianyu, but the phone was still off. Dr. Sun wasn’t answering either. It was after getting off work last night, so it was normal for him not to answer, but not answering now meant either he had changed his number or he had changed jobs.

I sat in the living room, lost in thought.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a full-length mirror in the living room.

The mirror looked old, the frame slightly faded. It was the mirror Jiang Shen had used since childhood. He later sold his old house, bringing only this mirror with him to his new home. Neither of our bedrooms had this mirror. He wanted to put it in my room, but I thought it was ugly, and he thought it was ugly too. But he was reluctant to throw it away.

In the end, we decided to put it in the living room to give our guests a nostalgic atmosphere.

I met Dr. Sun because of this mirror.

I had a habit of sleepwalking. One night, I woke up in the middle of the night to find myself standing in the living room looking in the mirror. It was midnight, and this ghost-story-like turn of events startled me.

Ever since then, I’ve always felt strange noises coming from that mirror, like someone was tapping it, and I felt like someone was watching me from behind. But behind the mirror was just the frame, leaning against the wall with a base to keep it upright; there was absolutely no space behind it for anyone to hide and spy on me.

Lianyu introduced me to Dr. Sun, saying he was a well-known psychologist in Chushui City.

Dr. Sun diagnosed me, saying I was probably under too much work pressure. I studied design and worked in advertising design after graduation, often dealing with clients who preferred understated wealth or flamboyant simplicity. I also frequently stayed up late. Considering my occasional sleepwalking, he prescribed some common sleeping pills and advised me to maintain emotional stability and avoid staying up late.

“The image of yourself in the mirror is your imagined self, trapped by pressure. You want to break free, so you keep hitting the mirror, creating the auditory hallucination of hitting the mirror in your mind.”

I took sleeping pills for a while, and it did help a lot. The auditory and visual hallucinations decreased. I followed Dr. Sun’s advice not to stay up late, and I rarely stayed up late afterward; I even worked through the night.

Thinking of this, I suddenly stood up, went to the medicine cabinet at home, opened the lid to check, and sure enough, the remaining sleeping pills, along with the bottle, were gone.

Sleeping pills weren’t easy to buy outside; Jiang Shen took them from home.

I was under so much work pressure, and I hadn’t committed suicide, so why should he?

My phone rang. It was my boss asking why I wasn’t at work today.

I said I’d taken a few days off and might need to take another long leave, about two weeks.

Going to work in this state, I was afraid the orders I designed for clients would have a funeral-like feel to them.

“What matter requires so many days off? We have so many orders this month that we can’t keep up; we absolutely can’t afford to be short-staffed. You absolutely must come to work today; there’s a project with a deadline of tomorrow!”

My boss always liked to do this. He received this project a month ago, but he insisted on transferring it to us only two or three days before the deadline and then made us work overtime to catch up.

“What could be more important than company business? Did someone in your family die, and you have to go back for a funeral?!”

I waited for him to finish his tirade before slowly saying, “Yes, someone in my family died.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end. He wasn’t sure if I was raving or if there really was a funeral, but I didn’t want to argue with him anymore, so I hung up.

I knew I’d lost this job, but it gave me a chance to rest and find another one. With my connections and abilities, finding another job shouldn’t be a problem.

~

Later, I finally learned Dr. Sun’s whereabouts. It turned out his clinic had been shut down, and he had been taken away for investigation in connection with a criminal case.

I only found out because the video app’s big data push detected local news and showed it on my app’s homepage.

That afternoon, I went out and bought a lot of groceries.

Jiang Shen said he would take the flight back on the 25th. What if he wasn’t dead? What if everything I saw that day was just a hallucination? What if he got home on the 25th and had nothing to eat? That would be so pitiful.

When I got home, I needed to use facial recognition to enter the residential complex.

A tall, thin man was waiting at the gate, wearing a black hat and mask, carrying a full load of groceries. Seeing me, he followed me into the complex.

I glanced at him. “You aren’t a resident of Anquan Complex, are you?”

The young man smiled. “I do live here, but I’m staying at my girlfriend’s place. We haven’t known each other for very long, and the access control system doesn’t have my information.”

I nodded and smiled. “No need to explain, I understand.”

He was clearly a delivery driver posing as a resident. Delivering food wasn’t easy these days; it wasn’t always cooked food, some people ordered snacks and raw vegetables.

However, this man had a faint smoky scent about him, unlike typical delivery drivers.

The young man entered the complex and headed towards Building Nine.

He thanked me a few times before leaving.

Everything seemed normal.

I cooked a few dishes and set them out in the living room, waiting for Jiang Shen to return. He didn’t return all day.

My messages to Lianyu went unanswered.

Suddenly, I felt utterly alone.

My phone rang.

I immediately picked it up and saw it was He Chenghui.

Officer He, I really have no problem with you personally, but your call…

It disgusts me because it forces me to confront a fact.

Jiang Shen was dead.

He would never come back for dinner.

**

Officer He asked me to come to the police station the next day to discuss the investigation into Jiang Shen’s suicide.

At the station, I told him about the sleeping pills. He Chenghui nodded, indicating he understood. He wasn’t particularly surprised that the sleeping pills were taken from my home.

“Because of your insistence and requests, we’ve conducted a detailed investigation of Jiang Shen’s death scene and his movements over the past few days. We can basically confirm…”

I stared at him, waiting for his final conclusion.

“It was suicide.”

If it were suicide, then the medication was brought by the deceased himself, which made more sense.

I still insisted on asking him, “Can I know why you made this judgment?”

He Chenghui handed me a folder containing relevant investigation materials. “According to flight records, Jiang Shen did indeed leave the country on the 24th, but on the same day, he went to the company, saying he was under a lot of work pressure and wanted to resign. His colleagues and superiors can testify to this. The company didn’t want him to resign, and a normal resignation requires a month’s notice. By doing this, he wouldn’t receive any compensation. However, according to the recollections of those involved, Jiang Shen was very depressed at the time and insisted on resigning.”

“On the morning of the 25th, the day of his death, he took a 1 AM flight to the nearest airport in Chushui City and arrived at his hotel at 2 AM. After checking in at 2:10 AM, he ordered roses, scheduled for delivery on the afternoon of the 25th.”

“Between 2:30 and 3:00 AM, he was captured on camera at a supermarket and ATM near the hotel. He first withdrew 50,000 yuan in cash, then went to the supermarket to buy a fruit knife—the same knife he used to cut his wrists at the scene.”

“At 3:15 AM, the hotel lobby security camera captured him returning to the hotel. He told the front desk that he had accidentally lost his room key on his way to the supermarket, and the front desk gave him a new key and reported the original key lost.”

Officer He’s investigation was indeed very detailed. Following his narration, I could almost imagine all of Jiang Shen’s movements on his last night.

“The last time the surveillance cameras captured him was in the hotel elevator. He got a new room key and returned to his suite’s floor. Due to privacy concerns, there were no cameras in the hallways on the floor.”

“There were no signs of intrusion. Besides the biological traces of the cleaning staff and Jiang Shen himself, there were no other traces of anyone else in the room. Because it’s a five-star hotel, many items are thoroughly cleaned and washed. Of course, our investigation at the scene was only preliminary, but everything points to suicide.”

Everything seemed logical, yet it pointed to a conclusion I absolutely refused to believe.

I thought of a question. “You said he withdrew 50,000 yuan in cash, but you also said before that only his ring was missing. So, is the cash still there?”

He Chenghui shook his head. “We didn’t know he withdrew money before. We checked his account and found the withdrawal record, which led us to check nearby banks and ATMs. However, my initial guess is that he might have been robbed on his way back, which is why the cash and room key were lost.”

“Robbery?”

“Yes, the body showed signs of a struggle, and there were bruises on his arms, but the situation wasn’t serious. I think he might have already been preparing to commit suicide, and this incident exacerbated his suicidal thoughts. Since he had been abroad, the ring story wasn’t a lie; losing his wedding ring might also have been part of what broke him.”

A person who already had suicidal thoughts, quit his job, lost his important wedding ring, and was robbed… It was possible he didn’t want to call the police; after all, at that time, he was already determined to die.

Everything Officer He said made perfect sense—

If the protagonist wasn’t Jiang Shen. I lowered my head and said, “But… he wasn’t a suicidal person.”

He Chenghui knew he couldn’t convince me. He sighed. “Actually, in suicide cases like this with no suspicious points, the answer is already quite clear. It’s just that after the lesson learned from the last case, I wanted to find more evidence to avoid overlooking any truths, so I continued the investigation.”

He put away the folder. “My condolences.”

I remained silent.

He Chenghui continued, “Everything has been packed. In a bit, you and my colleagues will go collect his belongings. Jiang Shen’s body can be transferred directly to the funeral home. How it’s handled is up to you.”

Me. “So, in your opinion, who is the murderer in his death…?”

He Chenghui shook his head. “There is no murderer. If we have to find one, then the murderer is himself.”

I was about to stand up when He Chenghui stopped me. “Actually, I have another case on my hands, and I’d like to ask you about it.”

I looked at him, puzzled. He Chenghui took out Lianyu’s photo. “Do you know her?”

I nodded. “Yes, she’s my best friend, but…”

“But what?”

I said, “She recently found a new place, not in the city. She’s taking the high-speed train to Yangshan City, but since yesterday, I haven’t been able to contact her. Her phone is switched off.”

He Chenghui nodded. “Yes, her parents also came to the police station today, saying they can’t contact their daughter.”

He asked again. “Do you know how Lianyu’s mood has been lately? Has anything unusual happened?”

I thought for a moment, “Like Jiang Shen, in my memory, she’s perfectly normal.”

He Chenghui asked again. “We checked her ticket purchase records. The ticket order shows that you bought the tickets together on the 26th, which is… the same day Jiang Shen died, but… why didn’t you go with her that day?”

I thought for a moment and replied, “I was supposed to go with her, but when I woke up that morning, I couldn’t find my ID card, and I didn’t have time to get a temporary ID.”

“Do you know that you can take the high-speed rail without an ID card, but with a passport, household registration book, or driver’s license?”

“I don’t know, because we didn’t get tickets, so we needed our ID cards to enter the station. However, my ID card and other documents were in a document bag, and the whole bag was missing.”

He Chenghui asked again, “I remember you took out your ID card when you came to the police station that day.”

“Yes,”

I nodded and replied, “I found the document bag in the corner of the living room in the afternoon; I must have accidentally dropped it there.”

He Chenghui asked some other questions.

I didn’t expect that Lianyu’s failure to reply to my messages meant she was missing, and according to He Chenghui, she disappeared after getting off the high-speed rail. They contacted the landlord of the apartment she was supposed to rent, but the landlord said he hadn’t seen her.

He Chenghui. “There was a murder across the hallway from where she used to live. I can understand her wanting to move, but wouldn’t most people choose to stay in the city? Why would she go to Yangshan City, so far away?”

I took out my phone and opened my chat history with Lianyu on the video platform. “This is a video she shared with me. Yangshan is by the sea, and she wanted to see the ocean. She’s also very interested in the talk of sea monsters there, but many people say it’s just a gimmick by the Yangshan tourism bureau. She’s quite interested in this kind of thing and has always wanted to see it.”

He Chenghui frowned. “Sea monster?”

I gave a wry smile. “I also think it’s ridiculous. They say it’s some kind of half-human, half-fish monster, and some people say it’s a mermaid.”

He Chenghui clicked on the video. The video quality was very blurry; it only showed a blurry, moving black dot in the overcast sea.

The video was noisy, filled with the sounds of people chatting, wind, and a baby crying. The person filming said, “Look, what’s that?”

“Nobody’s swimming in this weather, is there?”

“Definitely not! Is it a sea monster? Quick, film it! Look how fast it’s moving!”

The video ended there; it was very short.

It was a stretch to call this video a mermaid or a sea monster.

“Anything else unusual?”

“I don’t know if this counts… She told me a few days ago that she received several strange text messages telling her not to go to Yangshan, saying the area was unsafe, but she just thought they were harassing messages and blocked the senders.”

He Chenghui took notes and said, “Thank you for your cooperation.”

I knew I couldn’t help with Lianyu’s disappearance, and I’d been in a daze these past few days because of Jiang Shen, but before leaving, I thought about what happened in the park that day.

I turned back to He Chenghui and told him about the attack I experienced at the Chushui Bridge Park.

I didn’t mention seeing Jiang Shen.

He probably would suspect I had mental problems.

He Chenghui noted the location and cautioned me, “Although Lianyu disappeared in Yangshan City, there have been quite a few missing persons cases in our city recently; be careful if you go out alone.”

Before leaving, I asked He Chenghui, “Officer He, do you believe in sea monsters?”

He Chenghui thought for a moment and replied, “Sea monsters are impossible. Even if they exist, they are just unknown marine creatures. Ultimately, they are unknown species living on Earth, not monsters.”

“Then do you think ghosts exist?”

He stared at me for a while and said, “I know a professional psychologist. Do you want his contact information?”

I politely declined his offer.

**

Back home, I turned on the lights. The living room was empty.

How strange.

It was the same furniture that used to be here, so why did it suddenly feel like the space was too big and there was too little stuff?

Was it because…

Someone was missing?

I didn’t tell my parents about Jiang Shen’s death.

I was afraid they’d cry even harder than I did if they came.

That was just how I am; I couldn’t stand seeing others cry, and I couldn’t stand seeing Jiang Shen watching me. When others cried, I couldn’t stop my tears; when he looked at me, I couldn’t hold back either.

It was like how I didn’t shed a single tear at the police station but cried until I lost my memory under a streetlamp in a deserted park.

I didn’t want to see or hear the word “corpse.” After Jiang Shen’s ashes were cremated, I temporarily placed them at the funeral home. They offered a full range of services; as long as the money was right, after the funeral, they could send the ashes directly to the cemetery. I didn’t even have to bury him myself.

But every time I came home, the sight of that mirror still reminded me of him.

I walked to the mirror, looking at the mottled marks and stains, and gently patted its surface.

A cold sensation spread from my palm.

A bizarre thought suddenly popped into my head.

I could no longer hear any more tapping sounds, nor feel any more gazes reflected in the mirror.

After Jiang Shen’s suicide, this mirror…

It seemed to be dead, too.

I hurried to his bedroom, dragged out the cardboard box, and opened it.

The box contained all of Jiang Shen’s belongings, retrieved from the police station. I searched through each item, trying to find any evidence that he hadn’t committed suicide.

A cell phone, a watch, a wallet, identification…

Until I held the suicide note, looking at the last sentence.

【Nie Qingyu, 口口口, don’t be sad.】

What were those three blacked-out words?

The injuries on his body, the missing cash, the ring, and the room key could all be explained as a robbery with no perpetrator to be found. But what I really wanted to know was…

What were those three words that he wanted to tell me, yet didn’t want me to see?

I thought of a good plan.

I needed to find Jiang Shen’s ghost, even if it was just a ghost I imagined.

That way, I could ask him myself,

What were those three words?

There was only one way to see him.

When Nie Qingyu walked alone at night, Jiang Shen was always by her side.

When Nie Qingyu was in danger, Jiang Shen was always the first to appear.

I hailed a taxi and gave the driver extra money.

I needed to go to the Chushui Bridge.

**

The wind on the bridge was strong at night, making me shiver.

The driver assumed I was going to the bridge park for a date, took the money, and left without lingering.

We receive a massive amount of information every moment in this world.

The key issue was that we didn’t know which information was crucial to our lives and which was meaningless.

But I did know that the ghost sighting at Chushui Bridge Park must have an explanation.

I walked onto the bridge, looked around, and, seeing no one nearby, carefully climbed over the railing.

On a sunny day, the river water beneath my feet should be clear, rushing eastward, passing through Yangshan City, and finally flowing into the sea.

On a rainy day, the water would be murky, carrying yellowish-brown mud.

But it was nighttime, so the water was also black, like a whirlpool of death, rushing past my feet.

I stood in the cold wind for over ten minutes, almost crying from the cold, wondering if Jiang Shen’s ghost really would only appear after I jumped.

As I clung to the railing with one hand and wiped away tears with the other, someone finally reached out and pulled me up with tremendous force. I turned around, and the excitement on my face instantly froze.

“How could you be so young and think of doing something like this? Look at you, so pretty and young; you have so many good days ahead of you! Come here, come here! Tell Aunt Liu what’s wrong!”

Me: “…”

And so, I was pulled to the side of the road by the kind-hearted Aunt Liu, who had just finished her square dancing and was heading home, and given a half-hour lecture.

She wasn’t satisfied until I promised I would never try to take my own life again.

However, Aunt Liu insisted on watching me leave the bridge before she was at ease.

“What if you jump again after I’m gone?”

I could only promise her I’d go home immediately.

The moment I turned around, I heard music coming from the broken speaker on Aunt Liu’s waist behind me.

The kind-hearted Aunt Liu was playing an inspirational song for me.

That was Phoenix Legend, the Auntie’s favorite.

Linghua’s emotionally charged voice sang behind me—

“Too late, too late, but I still want to sing for you…”

“Spring songs, summer cicadas, tomorrow’ll be a good day…”

And the Auntie’s strained voice urged, “Girl, life’s journey is long; look forward!!”

I walked and walked until I was out of the Auntie’s sight, but those words still echoed in my ears.

“Too late, too late…”

I felt both guilty and moved.

Guilty because I didn’t come here to die, yet the Auntie cared for me for so long.

Moved because Phoenix Legend sang that song so beautifully.

Even non-emo people felt emo after hearing it.

I squatted by the roadside, burying my face in my knees.

That way, no one would see my tears.

I wanted to wait until I’d cried enough, until my legs went numb, and then wake myself from this unrealistic fantasy, tell my parents about Jiang Shen’s death, and then completely forget him. I wanted to find a new boyfriend and marry someone else—there were so many men in the world…

So many…

But none of them was him.

Even in summer, the roadside was cold at night.

I started sneezing as I cried.

A coat was draped over me.

I heard Jiang Shen’s ghostly voice, sounding helpless. “Why are you crying again? This place is so dangerous; don’t you learn your lesson?”

I shivered inside the coat, muttering a denial, “I wasn’t crying.”

He reached out and pulled me up, straightened the coat, draped it over my shoulders, and looked at me, saying, “Nie Qingyu, what are you doing out here? Do you know how much I…”

He didn’t finish his sentence.

I looked up, but the crying only intensified. “Jiang Shen, why did you show up?”

He chuckled, a mixture of amusement and exasperation in his voice. “You were the one who wanted to find me.”

My vision blurred; I could only make out his indistinct silhouette. “If I wanted to find you, couldn’t you have just stayed? You came and then left. Where am I supposed to find you now?”

My voice was hoarse from crying, choked with resentment, and I spoke haltingly, “…Do you know…taking a taxi here…it’s expensive…you can’t always make me come here to find you. It isn’t safe, and it’s so cold at night…”

He gently patted my head, listening to my accusations, and then said in a gentle, soothing tone, “You’ve been looking for me everywhere; how could I not come? How about I go home with you?”

I continued to cry, the tears unstoppable.

That’s how people are; the more afraid they are, the harder they cry.

I wasn’t afraid of ghosts, but I was afraid that the Auntie would come by and see me like this, and then she’d put on “Undersea” for me again.

I cried and cursed, “Jiang Shen, I hate you! I don’t like you at all! You’re the worst person in the world! You’re a liar!”

He pulled me to the side of the road, answering as we walked, “Yes, I’m a liar, I’m the worst villain in the world, but you can’t not like me.”

I couldn’t see the road clearly, but I knew that following him would be the right thing to do. I asked him, “Then why did you come looking for me? If you died, you could be reincarnated. Why did you come looking for me?”

Jiang Shen sighed, suddenly stopped, and turned to look at me. “Nie Qingyu, you asked me why I came looking for you.”

He paused for a long time before I heard his soft, low voice.

“Because I missed you too, I wanted to see you.”

I really hated him. I had already stopped crying, but hearing these words, my tears started falling again, trembling like a leaf inside his coat.

“Don’t cry,”

He said, as if comforting a child.

Jiang Shen used to comfort me often, but I’d never heard his voice so cautious, gentle, and tentative before.

“Don’t cry; I’ll take you home, okay?”