Chapter 3

Chapter 3

My heart clenched, and the coffee cup nearly slipped from my hand.

“Wh-why?”

I had expected his answer, yet my voice still shook uncontrollably.

Who would do such a thing to a girl who had just turned twelve? What hatred could drive someone to torture a child so inhumanly?

“There was dirt beneath her nails. She tried to climb out so desperately that two nails tore free,” Xu Yan said.

“Someone fighting that hard to survive was not trying to kill herself.

“Have you ever considered that she didn’t merely choose not to drink—that she couldn’t drink?”

My scalp prickled. “What do you mean?”

The idea struck me as absurd. What threat could stop a trapped child from touching a bottle of water and make her let herself die of thirst?

“Some external force made her afraid or unable to drink,” Xu Yan said, his eyes burning with concentration. “If so, that force knew your sister very well.

“The culprit was someone she knew. Perhaps someone she trusted completely.”

My mind went blank. My entire body stiffened as if lightning had passed through it.

Over the last ten years, I had returned to that abandoned shaft countless times and obsessively searched every inch of the scene. Again and again, I sat at the bottom and tried to reconstruct what had happened, hoping to find even the smallest clue.

I found nothing.

I had imagined every possibility.

Had the fall damaged her mind?

Had she believed her family didn’t love her and refused water out of spite?

But I had never considered that she might have been unable to drink.

At that moment, my phone rang. It was Auntie Chen, a community volunteer who helped rescue stray cats. One of the cats I cared for had died.

“Tian, that cat of yours died. I’m so sorry. She was always such a wild little thing. She ran off for two days, and when she came back, I filled a whole bowl with food for her.

“I don’t know what happened. It was like she had some strange illness. She kept a mouthful of food but wouldn’t swallow. She’d spit it out, put it back in, and then she starved herself to death…”

I had begun caring for the cat three years after my sister’s death. Her nickname was Jingjing—my sister’s name.

My head buzzed, and I nearly dropped the phone.

“A mouth full of food she couldn’t swallow. A full bowl in front of her, and she starved to death…”

It was almost exactly how my sister had died: water beside her, snacks still in her mouth, and not a bite or drop swallowed.

Xu Yan noticed the blood drain from my face. “What happened?”

I drew a deep breath and repeated what Auntie Chen had told me.

“It seems that person never left,” he said, his eyes darkening. He snatched up his car keys. “Come on. We need to examine the cat’s body.”

Half an hour later, we stood over the stiff corpse on Auntie Chen’s balcony.

The orange cat’s body was already rigid, her mouth hanging partly open. Sure enough, her mouth was packed with soggy, sticky cat food. Dried saliva crusted her chin. Her cloudy eyes stared helplessly and resentfully into empty space.

What torment had she endured before death?

That final despair—desperate for food, yet unable to swallow—dragged me back to the mine shaft ten years ago.

Had my sister spent her last days like this cat, staring at the water and food before her while her body and mind were tortured beyond endurance?

Auntie Chen stood to one side, wringing her hands and repeating her account of the cat’s bizarre death.

“I’ve hardly ever seen an animal die like this. Must’ve been ten years since the last time. A few cats and dogs died back then too. Looked just about the same as Jingjing does now…”

Ten years ago? My sister had died exactly ten years ago.

I seized Auntie Chen by the wrist. “What did you say? Ten years ago? Where did they find those cats and dogs?

“Who usually fed them? Did anyone strange ever show up nearby? Please, Auntie Chen, think. This is incredibly important to me!”

She stared at me, bewildered, then shook her head. “It’s been ten years. How could I remember it clearly? They were just strays. Hardly anyone paid them any mind.”

“He Tian.” Xu Yan pulled me back from the edge of hysteria. “Don’t rush to a conclusion. We need an autopsy to confirm what happened. Appearances alone prove nothing.”

I nodded.