Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My name is Yu Xiaotao. I’m twenty-one years old, and I’m… blind.

When I was five, I was in a car accident. Shards of glass flew into my eyes.

After that, no matter how bright the place was, all I could see were vague shadows.

But I quickly learned to take care of myself.

In 2019, I found a job as a call operator and moved into an apartment in Wangjing with my boyfriend.

He was rich and gentle. When I touched his face, I could feel his high, straight nose and perfect jawline.

He could have had any able-bodied girl he wanted.

“But do you know something?” he once said to me. “I just want to protect you.”

I was grateful all the time. After all my misfortune, I had still been lucky enough to meet him.

Until that night, when I came home from work and found him gone.

I called his name several times. No one answered.

Then my phone received a WeChat message from him.

It was text, so I needed to use an app to convert it into audio.

“Xiaotao, something came up and I have to go on a business trip with my boss. I won’t be home until tomorrow.”

He knew I couldn’t see, so he had never sent me text messages before.

I called him.

But the call wouldn’t go through.

I stood there in a daze for a long while.

A bad feeling began to rise in my chest.

Then I opened the lower section of the refrigerator, intending to take out a cup of ice cream my boyfriend had bought for me.

The first drawer of the freezer had frozen stuck. It took me a lot of effort to yank it open.

The drawer was clearly almost empty, yet the force of it sliding out was enormous. When it came free, it slammed straight into my knee.

I hurried to steady the drawer, and then…

The smell of blood surged up.

It was very faint, but unmistakably clear.

A blind person’s nose is never wrong.

Something had happened to my boyfriend.

I did everything I could to stop myself from trembling.

Calmly, I took that cup of ice cream out of the refrigerator.

In that instant, I touched something that was still warm…

It was probably my boyfriend’s body…

I just didn’t know which part.

I wanted to use my phone to call the police right away, but I held back.

Because the smell of blood wasn’t the only thing wrong in this apartment.

From the moment I walked in, I had smelled something strange.

It was like sweat mixed with the scent of incense candles, seeping out from fabric.

At first, I thought it had drifted in from outside the window.

But now I understood. That smell belonged to someone else.

And after I entered the apartment, no matter where I went, that smell followed me like a shadow.

So that person had been following me.

He was the killer.

And right now, he was standing behind me.

I forced my trembling lips still, took a deep breath, stood up, pushed the drawer back in, and closed the refrigerator door.

Bang.

Then, I calmed down.