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墨書 Inktalez
Dragon City Jinlun Road Police Station
Li Weiyi's emotions had mostly stabilized, but whenever he mentioned his wife and mother, he couldn't help but be overwhelmed by sadness. Jiang He believed that emotions were the most complex and difficult to analyze in this world, yet they were also the most useless.
Emotions could cloud a person's judgment of the truth. Jiang He felt no emotions; he never experienced sadness, anger, or joy. He was like a highly intelligent robot, capable of performing most tasks that humans could do, and even some that they could not, yet he had lost the most essential part of being human.
This reality was reflected in Li Weiyi's insistence that Jiang He not sit in the same room with him. Jiang He simply did not understand why he was being pushed away when he was the one who could help the most. After Wang Chao promised to inform him as soon as he had any information, Jiang He finally left the office.
However, two hours later, Jiang He was once again asked to leave.
This time it was Xu Yiman who expelled him. Let us return to two hours earlier to see what had transpired.
After being dismissed, Jiang He encountered Xu Yiman, who was on her way to the morgue to examine a body. For Jiang He, studying the demise of a living being was his second favorite thing; his first was solving cases.
Why do people live? Why do they die? What is the meaning of existence?
These are questions that every living person hopes to understand. Therefore, death is something to be revered; one must treat a corpse with the same care as one would a living person.
As two female corpses lay on the autopsy table, Xu Yiman showed great respect for them. Before beginning the dissection, she murmured something.
Jiang He listened closely and heard her say, "Regardless of whether you were good or evil in life, rich or poor, happy or sad, whether your life was smooth sailing or fraught with hardship, you have completed your journey. I hope you can be reborn well."
Jiang He couldn't help but retort, "I have a ninety-nine percent probability of believing that there is no such thing as past or future lives. Aging and dying are natural processes; death is as ordinary as birth—just like eating. Why should we view them differently?"
Xu Yiman wanted to slap herself for allowing this person into the Autopsy Room just moments ago.
Xu Yiman's knife moved steadily without a hint of tremor. Under her skilled hand, the corpse resembled an artwork waiting to be sculpted; the blade glided swiftly and confidently.
As Xu Yiman dissected the corpse, she spoke to Jiang He with a hint of irritation, "If life and death are so indistinguishable, why are you still alive instead of choosing to die? Doesn’t that imply you fear death?"
Listening to Xu Yiman's words, Jiang He replied calmly, "Life and death are universal laws of nature. Just as I do not pursue life, I do not deliberately seek death. When my bodily functions reach a certain stage, all my organs will degenerate, and at that point, I will naturally die."
Xu Yiman paused her cutting and looked at Jiang He. She genuinely wanted to dig into his brain to see what thoughts were swirling inside. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't decipher anything from his expression; he remained impassive, making it impossible to tell whether he was happy or sad.
Xu Yiman felt that Jiang He was an entirely different species from her.
However, she quickly redirected all her focus back to the dissection. Xu Yiman worked swiftly, taking just over an hour for the procedure. As Jiang He watched her knife glide beneath the muscles of the corpse, he couldn't help but recall his own experiments with pigs.
To simulate various injuries sustained by people under different impacts, Jiang He had been quite ruthless with those pigs. Yet when he first encountered a human corpse, he realized that no matter how similar the anatomical structures of pigs and humans might be, they were ultimately two distinct species.
In the dissection environment, Jiang He observed clearly that both corpses only bore wounds on their abdomens; there were no injuries elsewhere—specifically, there were no fatal wounds.
While continuing her dissection, Xu Yiman instructed Jiang He to take notes. "The fatal injuries on both corpses are stab wounds to the abdomen. In the case of He Huijuan's body, the blade penetrated her stomach vertically. As for Wu Guifeng's body, the wound is longer; after slicing through her stomach, it also severed part of the large intestine."
Jiang He recorded her observations while examining the internal organs of the corpses.
The interiors of both abdomens were gruesome; blood mixed with gastric fluid had turned into a black liquid substance. Many organs had already begun to decompose, releasing a foul odor. However, neither Xu Yiman nor Jiang He even furrowed their brows; it was as if they were completely oblivious to the stench.
Xu Yiman explained, "After gastric bleeding occurs, blood and gastric fluid mix for an extended period. The blood oxidizes in the gastric fluid, resulting in this peculiar black color. However, it's evident that aside from some remnants of food, neither of them had consumed a significant meal. This indicates that they hadn’t eaten lunch yet."
The detail about not having eaten lunch struck Jiang He deeply. The time of death for both corpses was around eleven o'clock; it seemed they were preparing to eat.
"What about the time of death?" Jiang He asked.
Xu Yiman replied, "The time of death for the two bodies differs by about forty minutes. He Hui Juan died around a quarter past eleven, while Wu Guifeng died around eleven fifty."
Jiang He’s pen tip moved incessantly as his mind raced. The forty-minute interval between the two deaths allowed for numerous possibilities.
"In those forty minutes, many unexpected events could have occurred," Jiang He said, looking at Xu Yiman as he presented his analysis. "The first possibility is that Wu Guifeng killed He Hui Juan and then spent over forty minutes in inner turmoil before deciding to commit suicide. The second possibility is that Wu Guifeng only returned home forty minutes after He Hui Juan had died."
A spark lit up in Jiang He's eyes. "This means that this case is definitely not as simple as we imagined; there must be some deeper reason behind it."
Xu Yiman set down her scalpel and looked at Jiang He, clearly excited. "I don’t understand you. Are you happy that someone is dead? Can’t you hope for a simpler case? Why do you need to complicate things just to satisfy your curiosity? You just can’t stand to see others do well, can you?"
Jiang He replied, "I'm not happy about anyone's death; I just hope to encounter some challenging cases. Don’t you think this is interesting? It’s like solving a puzzle—at the beginning, you only have a few clues, but you have to delve deeper step by step to uncover the truth of the matter."
Xu Yiman’s expression remained unchanged. "So if you're only interested in your own amusement rather than seeking justice for the deceased, I hope you’ll leave and stop bothering me here. The existence of these two bodies is not meant to satisfy your curiosity!"
Jiang He wanted to say something more but was pushed out by Xu Yiman.
"Don’t worry, once the report comes out, you'll see. I won’t make light of the deceased's situation; everyone is an independent individual, and I can't control your thoughts. As long as you can find the murderer in the end, I’ll be grateful."
With that, Xu Yiman slammed the door shut.
Standing at the door, Jiang He stared at the closed door of the autopsy room, confused about what he had done wrong. No wonder he often heard that women were an incomprehensible species; but wait, why did Li Weiyi, a grown man, also kick him out?
Yet Jiang He felt no anger. As he paced outside, he contemplated the details of the case.
A locked room on the sixth floor, two victims—a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law—killed with the same knife, a missing Apple Phone, and graffiti on the wall. These seemingly unrelated elements gradually connected into a coherent line in Jiang He's mind. Everything was crystal clear in his head; there was no way he could forget it.
When An Jinzhong caught Jiang He at the police station and asked him what kind of person he was, Jiang He replied that he was a patient. This statement was accurate, for Jiang He truly was a patient. Since the age of six, he had been afflicted with a condition that anyone would envy.
Jiang He could no longer forget.
The human brain is like a stomach in another sense; the food consumed most recently is always the most filling, and memories work similarly. Events occurring now are always more vivid than those from a week ago. Some memories are like gourmet dishes; once tasted, the flavor lingers forever. Others are as mundane as home-cooked meals, easily forgotten after being consumed.
However, Jiang He had lost the ability to forget; he could never let go of anything.
He remembered everything he had done, everyone he had met, every book he had read, and every path he had walked. Whenever he wished, those memories would come rushing back. He could even recall who sat next to him while reading or how many telephone poles lined the streets he had walked.
His classmates envied Jiang He's remarkable memory. Indeed, while others struggled to memorize texts after dozens of attempts, Jiang He needed only one glance to retain the content firmly in his mind. He would never misplace anything and would always remember where he had put his keys.
At six years old, Jiang He believed this was the best gift life had given him—a mark of distinction between himself and others, a comfort for his wounded spirit.
Indeed, Jiang He was unique. In this world, there were over sixty others who shared his condition. Out of seven billion people globally, only seventy were afflicted. This was a one in a billion chance.
But why was this considered an illness?
In the days that followed, Jiang He would come to understand that his inability to forget was the greatest torment he faced.
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