Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I went to Mass Grave Hill in the dead of night.

Xiao Huairen followed behind me, a lantern in his hand. He didn’t ask where I was going; he only reached out to steady me when the mountain path was at its slickest.

I pulled away.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him.

It was that these days, I didn’t even trust myself.

There was an unmarked grave on the northern slope of Mass Grave Hill. Three years ago, when I first woke up, I had crawled out of a muddy pit right next to this very grave.

Back then, I was covered in blood, and the only thing in my mind was the name Su Wanzhao. I remembered that I knew how to perform autopsies, that the County Office was short a Coroner, and that Su Cheng’s letter of recommendation was tucked into my robes.

I didn’t remember Jiang Heng, nor did I remember Pei Yan.

Later, as fragments of memory began to return intermittently, I came back to dig up this grave.

It had been empty.

No coffin, no bones-only a few scraps of rotting fabric from a wedding dress and a shattered jade button.

Tonight, however, the grave had been disturbed again.

The freshly overturned earth was damp and black, looking like it had just been carved out of a person’s belly. Xiao Huairen crouched down to inspect it. “Someone beat us to it.”

I began clawing at the dirt, and soon my fingernails were packed with bloody mud.

A foot deep, my fingers brushed against a piece of bone.

It wasn’t mine.

It was a human phalanx, wrapped in red string with seven knots tied into it.

The moment I touched the bone, the scene before my eyes shifted violently.

A rainy night.

A woman knelt before the grave, digging with a shovel. She wore the green official robes of a Coroner, the sleeves embroidered with the subtle patterns of the County Office. She dug quickly, as if she knew exactly where the coffin was buried.

The lid opened.

A New Bride lay inside.

Her face was the same face that had appeared repeatedly in my dreams.

Jiang Heng.

The woman leaned over, touched Jiang Heng’s eyes, and sighed. “These eyes… how wonderful it would be if they were mine.”

The vision flashed, and I saw the woman turn around.

Her face was identical to the one I had now.

Su Wanzhao.

Xiao Huairen suddenly caught me by the arm. “What did you see?”

My throat tightened. “I saw Su Wanzhao digging up Jiang Heng’s grave.”

“You are Su Wanzhao.”

“No.” I placed the finger bone into an evidence bag and looked up at him. “I might just be the person living inside Su Wanzhao’s body.”

Xiao Huairen remained silent for a long time.

The mountain wind made the lantern light flicker, casting his shadow into the grave pit like an inverted blade.

“You expect me to believe that?”

I said, “I don’t want to believe it myself.”

But the hands Pei Yan saw before he died, the Jade Bracelet, the finger bone in the old grave-every clue pointed toward the same conclusion.

Three years ago, Jiang Heng died.

Su Wanzhao had died once, too.

Someone had swapped their lives.