I want to kill myself.

Because I am a dead man.

When I heard this sentence from the little girl’s lips once more, a chill ran through my body again, and the shock in my heart was even greater than before.

The first time the little girl spoke those words to me, I thought she was warning me of danger, telling me I might die. But now, several days have passed, and she still says this to me—perhaps it truly means something else.

So I asked her, “What do you mean? What do you mean, I’m a dead man?”

She continued to look at me, but after she said that, the fear in her eyes faded. She returned to her usual indifference, her vacant gaze fixed on me.

Seeing that she didn’t answer for several minutes, I grew anxious. I slammed my hand on the table, stood up, and tried to look as fierce as possible, glaring at her. In a low, threatening voice, I said, “Little girl, you’d better be honest with me. Don’t think I won’t dare hit you just because you’re young. I’ll ask you again—why do you say I’m a dead man?”

She still stared at me in silence. Eventually, my patience snapped. This girl was more terrifying than most adults—I couldn’t treat her like a child and pity her anymore. So I suddenly grabbed her hair and pressed her head down onto the table.

But when I forced her head down, she didn’t cower. Instead, she glared at me with wide, defiant eyes. Her young face was stubborn, as if the more I hurt her, the less she would tell me.

I pressed her head harder, but she only puffed out her cheeks, lips tightly sealed, refusing to say a word.

Somehow, seeing her so stubbornly resist, something in my heart was touched. In that instant, I found myself unable to keep bullying her, so I released my grip on her head.

Only after letting go did I realize that I’d been thinking of the photograph of us together. Perhaps, deep down, I saw her as a friend, which is why I couldn’t bring myself to hurt her further.

At that moment, the interrogation room door suddenly opened. Jin Ze walked in and called me out.

It turned out Fang Qinghe was looking for me. He led me to another room and called Miao Miao in. To my surprise, he asked Miao Miao to do my makeup.

Fang Qinghe wanted Miao Miao to give me a gruesome look, as if I were a dead man shot through the forehead, blood streaming down my face.

At first, I didn’t understand why he wanted this, but I quickly realized his intention—to cooperate with the little girl. Since she called me a dead man, Fang Qinghe would make me look like one, hoping to scare her into revealing more—maybe gain something extra.

The only thing I still couldn’t figure out was why he chose a bullet wound to the head. Wouldn’t a beheading or a slit throat look even more terrifying?

Perhaps a gunshot wound was simply easier for Miao Miao to create. As she worked her slender, jade-like fingers over my face, a thought suddenly popped into my head: did Fang Qinghe choose this makeup because he knew something? Had I suffered a head injury before and lost my memory because of it?

I didn’t want to dwell on it, so I shook my head to drive the thought away, afraid of overthinking myself into madness.

As I shook my head, Miao Miao, with her ample figure, got blood makeup on her hand. She shot me a cold glare and said, “What are you doing?”

I was too embarrassed to reply rudely. Instead, I looked at her and asked, “Miao Miao, do you believe in me? You said you saw the killer’s figure and that it looked like mine—do you still suspect I was the one who kidnapped you?”

Miao Miao stared at my face for a moment, then finally said, “You’re not.”

Her words made my heart clench. Could it be that she trusted me just because I’d saved her once?

But she quickly continued, “I’ve met many deranged killers—you don’t have that aura.”

I was speechless, but Miao Miao was soon finished with my makeup. I returned to the interrogation room. When the little girl saw my bloodied face, her body stiffened. She stared at me with her mouth open and quickly curled up in the chair, trembling in terror.

Seeing her like this, I thought there was hope. I lowered my voice and asked, “What’s your name? Why do you say I’m a dead man?”

She glanced at me sideways—perhaps she wanted to look but was too afraid, so her eyes were wide, showing only the whites.

Suddenly, she replied, “My name is Xia Tian. Because you’re already dead.”

I was stunned and quickly asked, “How did I die?”

She said, “I don’t know. I only know that, brother, you’re already dead.”

Since she was answering, I pressed on, “Did you hurt He Ping? Were you behind all those murders?”

She shook her head. I continued, “Then who was it?”

She still looked at me with those white eyes and said, “It was you…”

At that, my body tensed. I instinctively wanted to turn off the surveillance and the recorder in the interrogation room, but I knew it was too late. Fang Qinghe outside had definitely seen everything.

I had no choice but to ask, “Don’t talk nonsense. Who is the real killer?”

Just as I finished, she finally looked directly at me, and in an urgent voice, said, “Brother, you have to remember. You must remember, or you’ll die again.”

I’ll die again. The phrase itself was a paradox—if I’m dead, how can I die again?

So I asked directly, “Who wants to kill me?”

She said, “You want to kill you.”

I want to kill me.

I don’t know why, but upon hearing her words, I suddenly felt deeply uneasy, as if I were suffocating, someone’s hands tightening around my throat.

I wanted to ask Xia Tian more questions, but her body began to tremble uncontrollably. She curled up in the chair, looking as if she’d revealed some heavenly secret and was being punished for it.

I knew she would answer no more, and I was already overwhelmed. So I rushed out of the interrogation room.

I went to the restroom, shoved my head under the faucet, and let the cold water run over me until I regained my senses.

When I finally came to, I saw Fang Qinghe and Jin Ze waiting outside the door, as if worried about me. But I knew they also feared I would try to escape, since my interrogation with Xia Tian had been so unfavorable to me.

As much as I didn’t want to believe it, the conversation I’d just had with the little girl made it clear: my other personality was the killer. Because I couldn’t remember that side of myself, that personality wanted to kill me?

But thinking it through, the logic didn’t hold. If that personality killed me, wouldn’t it die too? If I died, it would die as well, wouldn’t it?

It was impossible to fathom—but then, who can make sense of the world of the mentally ill from a normal perspective?

Just then, Fang Qinghe walked over, put a hand on my shoulder, and said, “Chen Mu, calm down. Don’t let the interrogation shake your emotions. Even though her words are unfavorable to you, it’s possible everything the girl said was prepared in advance, orchestrated by the real killer to unsettle you and push you to the edge. So, even though she’s been caught, it may have been intentional.”

Fang Qinghe’s words were like a long-awaited rain, soothing my parched heart. I managed to calm down and control my emotions.

As I steadied myself, a thought suddenly struck me: if I had really lost my memory, and if mental breakdown and reconstruction of the scene could restore it, perhaps Fang Qinghe didn’t actually want me to recover those lost memories?

At that moment, Jin Ze’s phone rang. As he answered, his brow furrowed—bad news, it seemed.

He quickly hung up, then told Fang Qinghe, “Chief Fang, there’s news from the hospital—He Ping didn’t make it. He’s dead.”

Fang Qinghe’s body stiffened, and he quickly asked, “Did he say anything before he died?”

Jin Ze replied, “Yes. Before he died, He Ping kept repeating one sentence: ‘Chen Mu is not Chen Mu.’”