Chapter 2 — Listening to the Rain to Read Hearts

Her complexion was stark, drained of all color. I knew my words had struck home.

Over the past half year, has his violence against you been growing increasingly frequent?

She bit her lower lip and nodded slightly.

You came to ask whether your husband was seeing someone else, but that was never about confirming the truth. What you really wanted was to find a reason to finally leave him.

Tears welled up and spilled over her cheeks. That day, I did not charge her any money. It was not out of any saintly, goddess-like benevolence, but because looking at her reminded me of my own mother. Our circumstances were different, yet the way we were trapped inside them was identical. My mother had been caged within her reality, utterly unable to escape, and so she had ultimately sold her own child. This woman, too, was locked away behind invisible walls, with no way out. Sooner or later, desperation would drive her to do something drastic.

Just go.

I told her:

You do not need to invent a reason. If you are not yet ready to leave, go to the Women Federation. There is legal aid available right here in the county.

When she left, she turned back to look at me just once. That gaze is etched in my memory to this day. It was not gratitude. It was the quiet, profound relief of someone who had finally heard another person voice the very thoughts she dared not speak aloud. The days drifted by, one after another. My business at the stall gradually stabilized. Every day I made thirty to fifty yuan, which was quite enough to scrape by in the county town back in 1998. I rented a small single room and bought a tiny coal stove. In the winter I burned briquettes for warmth, and in the summer I used a palm-leaf fan. Everyone in the market had grown accustomed to my face. Some would claim with their mouths that they did not believe in such things, yet whenever trouble struck, I was always the first person they sought out. My life was very peaceful. Until the summer arrived. On a scorching day in June, the heat oppressive beyond measure, I packed up my stall earlier than usual. As I reached the mouth of the alley, I spotted an army-green Jeep parked by the roadside. A man was sitting inside. Half the window was rolled down, and he was smoking. I glanced his way, paid him no mind, and kept walking. The next day, that same Jeep was parked in the exact same spot. On the third day, it was still there. I began to take notice of him. He was in his early thirties, with a short buzz cut, a black t-shirt, and a tall, broad-shouldered frame. His posture in the car was rigidly upright, straight-backed and open-chested, yet without the stiff artificiality of a green recruit; instead, it possessed a relaxed fluidity, as if he could spring to his feet at any given second. I had encountered this breed of person before. My grandmother used to say that soldiers and policemen both carried an inherent authority etched into their very bones. A soldier spirit resides in the spine, while a police spirit lingers in the gaze. With this man, it lived in his eyes. He was watching me.

On the fourth day, he did not sit in the car. He walked straight over to stand opposite my stall, bought a bowl of chilled herbal jelly from the neighboring vendor, squatted down nearby, and ate it. He did not look at me. Yet his entire, undivided attention remained locked upon me. The sensation was difficult to put into words. It felt much like sitting at a desk during an exam, acutely aware of the proctor standing directly behind your chair. Even though that person is not staring straight down at your paper, every single movement you make is captured within their field of vision. I pretended to be oblivious, continuing to read palms for my customers. That day, an elderly woman came to ask about her son’s prospective marriage. While I was in the middle of interpreting her lines, I caught sight of the man out of the corner of my eye as he set his unfinished bowl of jelly on the ground and stood up. He walked away. He did not come on the fifth day. Nor did he come on the sixth. On the seventh day, as I was packing up my stall for the evening, he suddenly materialized right in front of me. Up close, he was even more striking than from afar. His gaze was razor-sharp, yet the corners of his mouth held a trace of incongruous gentleness. He was like a lethal blade resting peacefully within an unpretentious scabbard.

Are you the famous little fortune teller?

His voice was deeper than I had anticipated.

That depends entirely on what you wish to see.

He drew something out from his pocket. Not his hand, but a photograph. A black-and-white picture. A woman. Lying flat on her back, her eyes half-open. A corpse. The tips of my fingers grew instantly cold.

Three lives.

He pulled the photograph back, fixing his intense gaze squarely on me:

Use your arts to figure out where the killer is hiding.

I did not answer. I looked at him, and he looked at me. After a long, suspended silence, I spoke:

You are a police officer.

He did not deny it.

Shen Zheng, deputy captain of the criminal investigation division for Nanhe County.

He flashed his identification badge. The movement was swift, but I still clearly caught the raised official seal gleaming upon it.

I do not meddle in criminal investigations.

I know.

He tucked the badge away:

But we have a case on our hands that has seen zero progress in three months. Three dead, all women between the ages of twenty and thirty. The dumping grounds vary, but the cause of death and the method are identical.

Why are you coming to me?

Someone up at the municipal bureau made a suggestion, mentioning that there is a young woman in Nanhe County who reads palms with uncanny accuracy.

He paused:

I do not believe in these superstitious tricks. But the case is hanging over us, and the pressure inside the bureau is suffocating.

I lowered my head and began gathering up my blue cloth mat.

I do not read for the dead.

Why not?

My master forbade it.

Shen Zheng did not press further. He stood watching me in silence for a moment before turning on his heel and walking away. The heavy leather soles of his shoes crunched steadily against the dirt path of the market, a firm and measured cadence. I foolishly believed the matter had come to an end. Three days later, a fourth murder occurred. The entirety of Nanhe County erupted into chaos. The victim was a young female worker from the textile mill, twenty-three years of age. She had vanished after finishing her night shift, and her body was discovered the following morning inside an abandoned industrial warehouse in the southern part of the county town. The methodology was an exact match.