Chapter 2: The Shadow of a Witness

At 2:00 AM, the interrogation room in the police station was bathed in cold white light. Song Ye sat on a metal chair, his hands clasped tightly on his knees, knuckles pale. Across from him, Lin Ce threw a stack of papers onto the table. His eyes were calm, yet there was an underlying aggressiveness in them.

"Mr. Song, you said you were alone at home last night," Lin Ce spoke in a steady tone, but his words felt like a current beneath the surface—unsettling.

Song Ye nodded slightly, his voice almost a whisper, barely audible above the hum of the air conditioning. "Yes, I was at home."

"Can anyone prove that?" Lin Ce pressed, his gaze sharp.

Song Ye hesitated, then shook his head slowly, his voice so soft it almost seemed to be swallowed by the cold air. "No, I live alone."

Lin Ce’s lips curled into a half-smile, a smirk that didn’t quite reach his eyes. "Living alone doesn’t mean no one saw you. We’ve got a witness."

Song Ye raised his head, a brief flicker of something in his eyes.

"Just before the incident, around 11:50 PM, a neighbor saw someone enter Lin Yin’s apartment from her balcony," Lin Ce slid a blurry surveillance screenshot across the table. "Care to guess what they looked like?"

Song Ye didn’t answer. His eyes fixed on the photo. The figure in the image was wearing a black puffer jacket and a hat, the details too blurred to make out clearly. But the posture and body shape… it felt familiar.

"Looks like you," Lin Ce said, almost casually.

"This photo is too blurry to make out even a face," Song Ye retorted, but his voice lacked conviction.

Lin Ce studied him for a moment, then suddenly smiled, as if certain of a win in a game of chess.

"Don’t rush. We’ve got more," he said, before standing up and leaving the room. The door clicked shut behind him, and only then did Song Ye finally let out a long breath, as if surfacing from underwater.

In another office, Aunt Jiang was giving her testimony.

Aunt Jiang was nearly sixty, with short, tidy hair and a clear, methodical way of speaking. She was the neighbor who lived directly across from the victim, Lin Yin. A keen flower enthusiast with a sensitive and meticulous nature, she had always observed her surroundings closely.

"I saw him, it was definitely Song Ye. He was wearing a black puffer jacket, walking into Lin Yin’s apartment at exactly 11:50. I remember it very clearly," she said with certainty.

"How are you so sure it was him?" the officer taking the notes asked.

"I often saw them together. Sometimes they’d take the trash out together, or come back home in the evening. I thought they were a couple," Aunt Jiang furrowed her brow. "Lin Yin had only moved in less than half a year ago. She was always polite and smiled a lot. That night, her lights were on very late."

Lin Ce entered the room and turned off the recorder. "Did she ever tell you she was scared, or that she was being followed?"

Aunt Jiang paused for a moment. "No, but recently she did seem a bit on edge. She often looked over her shoulder, and the door lock had been malfunctioning several times. She came to me a few times asking if I knew someone who could fix it."

Lin Ce nodded thoughtfully before leaving, his mind already piecing together the puzzle.

Lin Yin’s phone records and calls were slowly leading in a clear direction. Three days before her death, she had frequently contacted a person named "Liang Zhinan." He was not a friend or relative, but a registered private investigator.

Lin Ce personally called Liang Zhinan.

"What was your relationship with Lin Yin?" he asked bluntly.

On the other end of the line, there was a brief silence before a calm male voice responded, "I was the private investigator she hired. Three days ago, she contacted me, saying she suspected someone was following her."

"Did she say who it was?"

"No, she mentioned a name, but her tone was uncertain." Liang Zhinan paused for a moment. "She said it might be… Song Ye."

Lin Ce's eyelids twitched.

"But my investigation didn’t point to him," Liang Zhinan continued. "The person following her looked a lot like him, but it wasn’t him."

Lin Ce furrowed his brow. He had a sinking feeling that there was something more to this case—a layer of mistaken identity and psychological projection that hadn't been uncovered. He remembered that Lin Yin had studied psychology in university and worked as a counselor afterward. Perhaps, she had already sensed some kind of cognitive dissonance in the situation.

Meanwhile, Song Ye had been released and temporarily left the police station. Instead of going home, he checked into a small hotel in the city center. The room was simple, with old wallpaper and a yellow-lit street visible through the window. Sitting on the bed, he repeatedly stared at the call log on his phone—the call he received from Lin Yin on the night of the incident, at 11:42 PM.

When he picked up the phone, Lin Yin's voice was low and hurried. "Can you come over? I think someone’s been in my apartment."

"Did you call the police?" he asked at the time.

"No, I’m too scared."

"Where are you?"

"At home."

Song Ye hesitated for a few seconds, then grabbed his coat and left. When he arrived at Lin Yin’s apartment, the door was slightly ajar, and the apartment was dark. Lin Yin stood in the living room in her pajamas, her expression tense.

"I just went out to take out the trash, but when I came back, I felt the door was loose," she whispered. "I’m sure I locked it."

Song Ye walked around the apartment, but didn’t find any signs of forced entry. However, the door lock did show slight signs of tampering. He remembered how her hands had been shaking, how she even leaned against the wall, too afraid to move. He tried to reassure her. "I’ll stay with you for a while."

"No, it’s fine," Lin Yin urged him, "you should go. I’ll be okay alone."

Reluctantly, Song Ye left. At the time, he had thought the situation was strange, but he never imagined that the next day he would receive news of her death.

Her last words echoed in his mind: "You should go."

Had she known someone was watching her? Or was she afraid that keeping him there would put him in danger?

The streetlights outside flickered uncertainly, and Song Ye’s thoughts swirled in confusion. He couldn’t erase the image of Lin Yin’s fearful expression that night. She had always been strong and composed, but that evening, she had been like a frightened animal.

Suddenly, his phone buzzed.

A text from an unknown number appeared on the screen, containing only one sentence:

"You said you didn’t go in, but your shadow has already been left behind."

His hand trembled, almost dropping the phone.

It suddenly hit him—someone had been watching him. Someone knew the details he hadn’t told the police.

Who was it? Had someone else seen him enter Lin Yin’s apartment that night? Or was it that "other self"—someone closer to the truth than he had imagined?

He stared at the message, his fingers cold, as Lin Yin’s words echoed in his mind:

"If you see someone who looks exactly like you walk out of the mirror, don’t trust him—he might not really be you."