Volume 1, Chapter 8: She Is Not Dead, Where Is She?
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Zhou Jincheng stared at her, shaking his head. “It’s not like that.”
He stepped forward, reaching out to hold Chu Nanqing in his arms, but grasped at nothing. His body collided with the shelf; a glass trophy wobbled precariously before shattering on the floor with a sharp crack.
The shards cut into his arm, leaving a bleeding wound. Bright red blood dripped down his long, jade-like fingers onto the pale gray marble tiles.
The sting in his arm jolted him awake. Bewildered, he looked around, but Chu Nanqing was nowhere to be seen.
He realized it had all been an illusion brought on by drunkenness.
The curtains by the floor-to-ceiling window fluttered open, letting in a gust of cold wind.
He sank onto the sofa, casually picked up a bottle of medicine from the coffee table, twisted off the cap, and poured a few pills into his palm.
His Adam’s apple moved twice as he swallowed dryly.
The pills’ hard edges scraped his throat, causing pain that was more tangible than the medicine’s effect.
His body melted into the single armchair, his long arms resting on the armrests, legs naturally spread as he found a comfortable position.
With eyes closed, his slender, straight eyelashes trembled occasionally, but no sleep came.
Outside, the window gradually brightened; the deep blue night faded into a dull daybreak, the whiteness irritating.
At 4:30 a.m., the sky was already light.
Zhou Jincheng hadn’t relapsed like this in a long time—he hadn’t slept all night, his mind foggy and hallucinations creeping in.
He had dreamed of Chu Nanqing before, but never like this...
He felt his condition had worsened.
At 5 a.m., the Mercedes parked below the apartment departed earlier than usual.
Zhou Jincheng drove to a private clinic.
The female doctor closed the notebook in her hands, stuck the pen into it, and solemnly advised, “Lawyer Zhou, if you want to get better, you have to cooperate with the doctor.”
She asked him many questions. He refused to answer unless she changed them, unwilling to say anything insincere.
This was a disease of the heart.
Zhou Jincheng remained silent and turned to leave.
The doctor, standing behind him, suddenly remembered something and said, “Seeing her ghost last night is impossible. That was just your hallucination.”
“If you truly believe she came back to find you, you shouldn’t come to me—you should go to a shaman.”
Zhou Jincheng paused, his voice low and hoarse. “A shaman?”
“I’m teasing you, Lawyer Zhou. Can’t you tell?”
The doctor shrugged helplessly. Without the patient’s cooperation, how could she help?
“I don’t understand these things. When I’m sober, can a shaman really make me see her?”
Zhou Jincheng’s tone was serious, not joking.
The doctor’s eyes widened, startled, and she quickly asked, “You’re not planning to hold onto the hallucination forever, are you? You’ll die.”
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Zhou Jincheng glanced at her, said nothing, and turned to leave.
The doctor watched his retreating figure with helplessness, regret, and worry. As his attending physician and longtime friend, she knew all too well the depth of Zhou Jincheng’s feelings for his former lover Chu Nanqing.
He loved her to the point of no return, long trapped in obsession.
If not for medication and regular hypnosis sessions over these five years, who knows what he might have become?
A madman, a mental patient, or even a deranged murderer...
Fortunately, he came to her and not a hospital. Those doctors would have insisted on hospitalization.
Hospitalized where?
A psychiatric institution.
She had poured all her skills into treating him, bringing him close to normal—he only needed an occasional pill to function like anyone else.
She was unaware of what had happened in recent days that had completely undone all her efforts with Zhou Jincheng.
His condition had regressed to square one—perhaps even worse.
She dared not say whether Zhou Jincheng would drive straight to a shaman after leaving her clinic, but she hoped he still had some sanity left.
There are no ghosts or spirits in this world—only demons of the mind.
The dead cannot be resurrected. His problem wasn’t understanding that truth, but his inability to face his emotions.
After Zhou Jincheng drove away, another car pulled up outside the clinic. A handsome young man in a deep black suit stepped out, gentle and refined, with a clean, oversized white coat draped over one arm.
“Senior Brother Situ,” the female doctor exclaimed joyfully, running out to greet him. “Did you go to the sanatorium for volunteer work again? Why work so hard?”
Situ Suinian’s eyebrows and eyes were soft and warm as he smiled, “Not hard at all. Recently, I met a girl at the sanatorium... she’s very cute and interesting.”
“What’s her name? How old? Where does she live?” The doctor’s eyes sparkled with anticipation.
“Yu Jin,” Situ Suinian’s face turned serious. “Too many questions. We barely know each other.”
“Just a brief meeting, and you already call her cute and interesting? I’ve known you for twenty years and have never heard you praise me once.”
Situ Suinian lowered his head and smiled, offering no explanation. Changing the subject, he said, “Doesn’t Master praise you all day? Are you still not satisfied?”
The doctor pouted, grabbed his sleeve, unable to contain her curiosity, and pressed on.
“Whose daughter is she at the sanatorium? Why haven’t you mentioned her before?”
She wanted to sneak a look to see what kind of girl had caught her senior brother’s eye.
Her senior brother hadn’t liked anyone in over twenty years; even their master suspected he had secretly taken vows as a monk.
“She came to visit Aunt Jin. She said she’s the daughter of a friend of Aunt Jin.”
“Aunt Jin? You mean Madam Chu, wife of Chairman Chu and mother of Chu Nanqing?”
The doctor’s eyes widened in shock; she swallowed hard as a chill ran down her spine.
Situ Suinian nodded and walked ahead of her into the clinic.
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“Could it really be... the ghost has returned? No, that can’t be.”
The doctor muttered to herself, lowering her head. No one had visited Jin Suyi in five years; her biological daughter had died in prison. How could a girl suddenly appear claiming to be a friend’s daughter?
“What are you thinking about?” Situ Suinian looked back, noticing she had fallen behind.
“Nothing. You go ahead. I have some matters to attend to.”
The doctor hurried away, destination unknown.
Near Jingjiang City, in a nearby village, a winding mountain road twisted through the rugged terrain.
Here lived a renowned shaman, said to be gifted in the ways of yin and yang.
“Grandma, someone’s here!”
A group of village children, chatting like little birds, were tasked with bringing visitors to see the shaman.
Zhou Jincheng strode into a narrow red-brick house adorned outside with bones. The interior was decorated with strange patterns.
On the table stood several statues of deities, incense burning and sending up wisps of white smoke.
A shaman wearing bizarre clothing knelt on a cushion, her tangled long hair reaching her waist. She wore a colorful woven cap.
Mumbling incomprehensible words like incantations, she was unaware of Zhou Jincheng’s footsteps behind her.
She stopped chanting, clasped her hands, and waved at the statues.
“The person you ask about still has time to live.”
“Heaven and earth can turn, but the outcome depends on man.”
Her speech was like a chant, her enunciation unclear, each syllable trembling as if possessed.
“You know why I’m here?”
Zhou Jincheng had not spoken. Merely by entering and standing behind her, it seemed she understood.
The shaman rose from the cushion, offered incense to the statues, then turned to him.
Her face was youthful and round, flawless skin like that of a child.
“Noble one, before you arrived, the spirits told me.”
“You mean... she’s not dead?” Zhou Jincheng’s tone was flat, brow furrowed. “Where is she now?”
The shaman’s gaze shifted to the statues on the table; her speech slowed to a crawl.
“To find this person, you must feel with your heart, not see with your eyes or hear with your ears.”
The vertical crease deepened between Zhou Jincheng’s brows; his thin lips pressed into a straight line.
“Explain in more detail.”
He pulled out twenty thousand yuan in cash from his briefcase—the money he hadn’t used at the prison—and placed it on the table.
The shaman’s eyes brightened as she touched the red bills, about to speak when the door slammed open.