Chapter 1 His Handsome, Chiseled Yet Blurred Profile

Last night, there had been heavy rain, and the entire city was shrouded in a damp chill.

At seven in the morning, when the alarm rang, Zhuang Zi had already been sitting at her computer desk, studying a reference book for over an hour.

She put down her pen, turned off the alarm on her phone, and leaned back in her chair with frustration, her eyes scanning the book’s densely marked keywords—psychological risk factors, antisocial stimuli, what constitutes personality disorders…various professional terms.

She had no clue at all.

She pressed her lips together, exhaled heavily through her nose, and ran her hands through her hair. When she looked up, her gaze fell on a photo on the desk.

Two young and beautiful girls, their faces close together in an intimate pose. One looked cool and bright, the other charming and lovely, with a noticeable resemblance in their features. In the photo, their smiles were bright and vivid.

It had been half a year since her sister left her, and she still couldn’t accept this fact.

A car accident? An accident?

Zhuang Zi furrowed her brows and glanced out the window. The sky was gray and overcast, looming heavily over the city.

She didn’t believe it!

A clap of thunder broke the silence, pulling her back to reality. She closed her book, turned off the desk lamp, and got up to wash up in the bathroom.

…

It was late October, deep into autumn. Everything was withering, and the weather was dry and cold.

As she walked out of her apartment building, raindrops fell intermittently. The wind stung her face.

Zhuang Zi quickly walked to her car, opened the door, got in, threw her bag onto the passenger seat, fastened her seatbelt, started the engine, and headed to work.

Halfway there, her phone rang. She put on her Bluetooth headset to answer; it was Jiang Zhihao.

“Brother-in-law.”

“Are you on your way to work?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve already made an appointment with Dr. Feng for you. You can go see him directly tomorrow; you’re the first appointment.”

At a red light, she slowly came to a stop. “Okay.”

“Is your insomnia still severe?”

“A bit.”

“How about the headaches?”

“Occasionally.”

“Have you had any more episodes of mental confusion?”

“No.”

Two months ago, a series of strange events began to happen at home.

At first, she didn’t suspect much, thinking they were her own mistakes.

What truly caught her attention was the night after work last Friday.

That night, when she got home, she habitually went to the coffee table to pour herself a glass of water. As she was about to swallow, she looked up and froze on the spot.

She stared in shock at the peace lily on the balcony, feeling as if she had been doused with cold water from head to toe.

That peace lily was a gift from her sister on the day she moved in, and it had always been placed by the TV in the living room for almost two years. She watered and pruned it regularly, taking good care of it, and had never moved it, not even considering doing so.

But why was it suddenly on the balcony?

She stood there in a daze for a moment, then put down her glass, turned, and ran to the bedroom.

There were no signs of rummaging in the house, and nothing valuable was missing from the bedroom cabinet.

She also checked the security door and windows; there were no signs of tampering.

A sense of fear welled up inside her.

Living alone, she went to the security room to check the community surveillance just in case, but found no trace of anything unusual.

The possibility of a break-in was ruled out.

The community security guard asked if she might have moved it to the balcony and forgotten.

Zhuang Zi thought that was impossible. She had a strong memory, well-known to others. She would never forget if she had moved the peace lily.

But the fact remained that there was no evidence of anyone else entering her home.

It was too strange. If she didn’t move it, how could the potted plant have mysteriously changed its position?

Now, every time she saw that peace lily, she felt an inexplicable sense of eeriness.

After several days of fear and anxiety, she couldn’t take it anymore and told Jiang Zhihao about these events.

Since her sister’s death, Jiang Zhihao was the only person in Yicheng she could trust. She could only turn to him for help and analysis.

Upon hearing this, Jiang Zhihao immediately contacted a specialist in psychiatry and psychology for her.

“Our company once had a young man who developed a similar condition due to post-graduation employment pressure. He was later diagnosed with somnambulism caused by psychological issues.”

Somnambulism?

Zhuang Zi found it hard to believe. Although she had psychological trauma that others couldn’t understand, she didn’t think there was anything abnormal about her bodily functions.

But on second thought, there was no reasonable explanation for the strange things that had happened, and it seemed like this might be the only possibility.

“I’m not in that bad of a state.”

“Just in case, you need to go see the doctor.”

“Okay.” The green light ahead turned on, and she restarted the car. “But I still feel something is wrong.”

“Don’t overthink it, and don’t let your mind wander to bizarre ideas.” On the other end of the phone, Jiang Zhihao was clearly worried. “Your current situation is very dangerous, you know?”

Zhuang Zi responded calmly, “If it’s really an illness, it’s not that scary.”

If it was an illness, the doctor would be her savior. If it was something else, that would be truly terrifying.

Jiang Zhihao was silent for a moment, then spoke again, his voice filled with sorrow, “Zhuang Yao’s sudden accident was due to a relapse of her illness. I don’t want the same tragedy to happen to you.”

Zhuang Zi thought for a moment and asked, “Are you sure it was an accident?”

Jiang Zhihao paused, puzzled, “What else could it be?”

Zhuang Zi focused on the road ahead, “I have a feeling that my sister’s accidental death was unusual.”

Her sister had always been a careful and meticulous person. How could she have been so careless that day, driving herself out when she wasn’t feeling well?

Although she had no evidence yet, she felt that the incident was sudden and strange.

Jiang Zhihao sighed helplessly, his tone sad, “I know you, like me, still can’t accept Zhuang Yao’s accident. But the police have closed the case, confirming it was an accident. I don’t want to believe it either, but we have to accept reality, Zhuang Zi.”

Zhuang Zi remained silent. She didn’t know how to explain. Without reasonable speculation and concrete evidence, saying anything more was futile.

“Brother-in-law, I’m driving. I’ll hang up now.”

“Okay, take care. And remember to see Dr. Feng tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

…..

On a rainy day with poor road conditions, Zhuang Zi drove very slowly and arrived at the company just at eight o’clock.

As she walked into the office, the previously lively environment suddenly became much quieter, as if everyone had a mutual understanding.

Her colleagues and the young receptionist were all secretly glancing at her, observing her condition and mood, looking for something new.

Due to insomnia last night, she didn’t look well, which made everyone even more certain that this incident had hit her hard.

Lost in her own thoughts, Zhuang Zi walked to her desk with her eyes slightly lowered, not noticing the inquisitive looks from everyone.

As soon as she sat down, a young male colleague at the next desk leaned slightly towards her and softly comforted her, “What is lost was meant to be lost. Something better is surely waiting for you.”

Zhuang Zi put down her bag and looked at him, puzzled.

The male colleague, a handsome guy with bright eyes, looked at her sympathetically. “I hope you can get out of the gloom soon.”

He went back to his work, and Zhuang Zi also turned on her computer and began to immerse herself in her tasks, soon forgetting his inexplicable words.

It wasn’t until she went to the cafeteria for lunch that she suddenly understood what her colleague’s sudden comfort meant.

There was a wall-mounted LCD TV in the cafeteria, and the local TV station was broadcasting the midday news.

On the TV screen, a pretty girl stood tearfully in the middle of a heart made of candles, surrounded by pink rose petals. In front of her, a well-dressed man knelt on one knee, looking noble and handsome, holding a large bouquet of blooming red roses and a black velvet ring box containing a sparkling diamond ring.

The background was the Wanda Plaza in the city center, with the large display screen showing several eye-catching English letters: “mArrY me.”

It was a romantic and grand proposal scene, and the man proposing was all too familiar to Zhuang Zi.

Jiang Tianchen, the man she almost married two years ago.

She stared at the screen for two seconds, squinted slightly, then calmly looked away and continued to eat her lunch.

After returning from the cafeteria, she finally realized the sharp gazes everyone was casting her way, as if they were trying to cut open her body and see into her heart.

She pretended not to notice, continuing to work as usual. All the way until she went home after work in the evening, she showed no abnormal emotions and wasn’t affected by the incident at all.

In the evening, she simply cooked some noodles, took an early bath, and went to her room to continue reading her reference book.

At one in the morning, she turned off the light and lay in bed but couldn’t sleep.

She took a sleeping pill and lay in the dark, staring blankly.

No matter how hard she tried to live her life, she couldn’t escape the threads of fate.

She thought that if it weren’t for the sudden changes in the Zhuang family and their decline, maybe the Jiang family wouldn’t have broken off the engagement back then.

Was she sad?

She didn’t know.

Because such a luxurious thing was something she was destined never to encounter in her life, and she never hoped for it.

…

The next day.

The rain had stopped, but the weather remained overcast.

After the rush hour for work and school had passed, the neighborhood was quiet.

Suddenly, a piercing siren shattered the silence, coming closer and closer, heading straight for the community.

Soon, a crowd of onlookers gathered outside a unit building, drawn by the sound. Everyone was talking at once, curious about what had happened.

“Someone on the third floor attempted suicide!” An excited old lady pointed at the figure above. “The door is locked from the inside, and the police are climbing the wall to rescue them.”

Some worried about the police officer climbing the wall. “It’s so high, what if he falls?!”

A tall, lean man in black plainclothes, using a rope thrown down from the fourth floor by his teammates, deftly climbed from the second-floor balcony up to the master bedroom window on the third floor, using the outer wall for support.

…

Inside, the blackout curtains were drawn, making it as dark as night.

Zhuang Zi was awakened by an urgent and frantic knocking.

To be precise, she wasn’t fully awakened.

Her body remained in a deep sleep, but her mind momentarily cleared.

For some reason, she couldn’t muster the strength to open her eyes.

In a semi-conscious state, she tried to move but found herself weak all over. Her head hurt, and she felt nauseous.

A strange smell filled the air, causing her to instinctively frown and try harder to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt glued shut, and all her efforts were in vain.

The only clear sensation was the noise in her ears.

She retained a faint sense of awareness and heard what seemed like someone knocking on her window.

Suddenly, there was a loud “bang,” accompanied by the sounds of metal breaking and glass shattering.

Her heart raced with fear.

Someone had broken in through the window!

She struggled to turn her head toward the window and tried once more to open her eyes.

Through a blurry vision, she saw a nimble figure backlit by the light, leaping gracefully from the high wall outside into her bedroom.

Before she could react, the bed beside her sank slightly, and a faint scent of fresh grass mixed with a hint of tobacco enveloped her.

A man’s fingers, slightly calloused and cool to the touch, pressed against her neck to check her pulse.

The thin blanket was suddenly pulled off her, and perhaps because her pajamas were so light, he draped a coat over her. In the next second, she was lifted into the air and cradled in a warm, unfamiliar embrace.

Her neck, too weak to support her head, leaned against his shoulder.

She was carried out of the bedroom into the living room, and after the door opened, an unfamiliar voice asked, “Captain Si, how is she?”

She heard the man holding her speak, his chest vibrating with strength, “She’s alive.”

She tried once more to open her eyes with great effort.

Through a faint and blurry glimpse, she saw it.

The man’s side profile, handsome and chiseled, yet indistinct.

NOTE: This novel is fully translated and available to read. Contact me (@Mily_) on Discord to buy it.