In a couple of days, America is going to release "The Titanic", a two-hundred-million-dollar blockbuster. If only we could import it, Susan Wright said. Fiona Bennett nodded repeatedly, though in reality she knew nothing about it and had no desire to find out. She kept pondering how to steer the conversation in another direction, naturally.

There were plenty of fabric shops, shoe stores, and clothing boutiques along Sichuan Road. Normally, Fiona Bennett loved to wander in and out of every shop, but today she didn’t enter a single one, just walked forward absentmindedly. Susan Wright accompanied her like this, stopping in front of the Workers’ Club. Ahead was Yokohama Bridge; after crossing it, they would enter the busiest section of Sichuan Road.

Fiona Bennett finally realized how ridiculous she was, actually hoping the topic could transition naturally—transition naturally to... murder?

“Let’s go back, I’m a bit tired,” Susan Wright said.

A wave of intense frustration surged in Fiona Bennett, and she once again hated her own personality. But she was also surprised—after all, they had only walked a short distance. Then sadness gripped her: Susan Wright’s body had already weakened to this extent.

They took the No. 21 tram, and after two stops, arrived at the terminal, Lu Xun Park.

Fiona Bennett felt she had to speak up.

“You picked up that bottle of water?” Susan Wright suddenly asked.

Fiona Bennett was about to speak, but the question stopped her in her tracks, her expression turning odd.

“I know it was you who took it,” Susan Wright said. “When I went to the restroom after class, the water was already gone. You were the only one who left the classroom during that time.”

Fiona Bennett nodded. She hadn’t planned to deny it anyway, but the conversation wasn’t unfolding as she had imagined. Always the passive one, she thought.

Susan Wright suddenly smiled and said, “Actually, the person who most wanted that bottle of water to disappear should be that person.”

Fiona Bennett froze, then realized who “that person” referred to, and hurried to explain, “It wasn’t me, don’t get the wrong idea, it wasn’t me.”

Susan Wright’s smile softened. “Of course it wasn’t you. The only one without any suspicion is you.”

A warmth spread in Fiona Bennett’s heart, then she exclaimed, “Oh no! I didn’t know you were trying to draw that person out. That’s terrible, otherwise...”

Susan Wright shook her head. “I didn’t think that far. When I discovered it, I was so scared—you heard me cry out. My mind was blank, I just wanted to throw it away. Escaping disaster was already lucky enough; I was just fortunate.”

The water had been bought at the school supermarket before class that morning. Except for the brief time in the restroom, it had never left Susan Wright’s sight. But Fiona Bennett’s attention at the time was focused on the kidney slice under the microscope, and she couldn’t recall who might have lingered by Susan Wright’s seat during those few minutes. Obviously, only someone in the lab had the opportunity. Excluding the professor, there were ten people in total.

“She’s getting bolder and bolder,” Susan Wright sighed. Her expression was so calm, not at all like someone who had just survived an attempt on her life. It was precisely this quality in Susan Wright that Fiona Bennett deeply admired. There are always some people you can only look up to.

Of course, Fiona Bennett could sense the fear Susan Wright was hiding. She was like a porcelain doll with cracks—hard on the surface, but weakness seeped out thread by thread from the fissures, impossible to conceal.

“At first, I didn’t believe it. When you told me during dissection class yesterday, I kept thinking I must have misheard.”

“You thought I was crazy, right? Getting up in the middle of the night to wipe my cup, unable to stop myself from looking at those faces—every one of them seemed like they wanted to kill me.”

“You’re not crazy. Someone really is trying to hurt you! Let’s call the police, Susan, let’s call the police. Look at you, you’re so weak you get tired just walking a little. Last time you went to the hospital, they really didn’t find anything? But the most important thing is, you can’t go on like this. You escaped this time, but will that person give up? What about next time? We have to call the police!”

Fiona Bennett spoke more and more urgently, her voice growing louder, but Susan Wright suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist, giving it a firm shake.

“No, no,” Susan Wright said. “Don’t call the police. Fiona Bennett, can you just pretend you don’t know about this? Or, let’s wait a bit longer, just wait.”

“What!” Fiona Bennett stared at her.

“Listen to me. Lately, my health really has been getting worse day by day, and I have been suspicious, wondering if I offended someone, if I was poisoned. But last time I went to the hospital, I had a full check-up—my body’s fine, just a bit weak. If I’d been poisoned, they should have found it then. Some things are okay to think about, but if you’re going to say it out loud, you need evidence.”

“Isn’t that bottle of water evidence?”

“This is the first time I’ve actually found something wrong with what I was drinking. But it could also be a misunderstanding—maybe the bottle was already damaged at the supermarket, maybe I bought it that way?”

“Bought it that way? Who would randomly poke a hole in a bottle of mineral water?” Fiona Bennett realized that even Susan Wright could be so hesitant and unsure. But with something like this, she had to persuade her to report it.

“Maybe it wasn’t poked with a needle,” Susan Wright’s voice dropped, as if she herself found it hard to believe.

After a moment of silence, she asked, “So, what did you do with that bottle of water?”

“I asked a senior to take it to the toxicology lab.”

Susan Wright was startled. “You just took it over like that?”

“I poured the water into another bottle before taking it. Don’t worry, I said I had a paranoid relative who forced me to get it tested.”

“That’s good. Then the results should come out soon. If... if it’s confirmed, if it’s real, I’ll call the police. I’m just worried that if I’m wrong, it’ll be a huge mess.”

Fiona Bennett nodded. She looked at Susan Wright, sighed, and said, “This sponsored training class—everyone wants to get in, and once you’re in, you still have to face selection. The competition is fierce. I noticed it as soon as I joined—the atmosphere here is different from regular clinical classes. Everyone is polite, but it always feels like there’s a barrier, and no one really tells you what they’re thinking. Only you are different. I just can’t figure out who would do something so vicious to you.”

Susan Wright sighed and said, “I don’t know either. I can’t figure it out. Let’s wait for the test results.”

“All right. But actually, even without the results, I can already be sure that this morning’s bottle of water wasn’t the first time.”

This was completely unexpected. Susan Wright’s face went rigid. She stared at Fiona Bennett, unconsciously holding her breath.

At that moment, Fiona Bennett’s pager went off. She glanced at the number and her heart sank—it was Frederick Bennett. She should have called earlier to report on her life and studies over the past few days. It was an unwritten rule—she was like a soldier under Frederick Bennett’s command, his only soldier, forever a soldier.

So much had happened since yesterday that Fiona Bennett had forgotten to make the call. It was the first time since starting school.

There’s always a first time, Fiona Bennett thought. She felt no urge to rush to the phone booth to call back, and even she was surprised by this.

“Do you remember the white fungus and red date soup I gave you the day before yesterday?” Fiona Bennett asked.

Susan Wright nodded.

“I made it at home especially for you, packed it in a plastic container. I gave it to you before lunch, and you drank it after lunch, right?”

Susan Wright looked at Fiona Bennett and slowly nodded again. It was two days ago, but she remembered it clearly.

“It was delicious. Was there... something wrong with it?”

Actually, Susan Wright hadn’t wanted to drink the soup at first, Fiona Bennett now realized. Susan Wright had casually put the container on her bed, and only drank it after lunch because Fiona Bennett had urged her, showing it off like a treasure.

She must have thought she couldn’t be the one poisoning her, so she drank it, Fiona Bennett thought in frustration.

“The plastic container was tied with a string. I remember you untied the knot in one go,” Fiona Bennett said.

“Wasn’t it just a regular... bow knot?” Susan Wright recalled.

“It shouldn’t have been a bow knot. I tied it the way my dad taught me, a knot he learned in the army. That kind of knot isn’t common—most people seeing it for the first time would have to study it a bit to figure out how to untie it. When you pulled it open so easily, I had a feeling that maybe it wasn’t the knot I originally tied. But I didn’t think much of it until last night, when I remembered this detail again...”

Susan Wright fell silent. The color drained from her face, leaving a lifeless white, almost unreal.

No matter how careful or guarded she was, the poison had already been swallowed. And who knew how many times before.

Even the strongest person would feel deeply frustrated, Fiona Bennett thought. She couldn’t bear to face Susan Wright at that moment and went off to return the call.

As she dialed Frederick Bennett’s number, Fiona Bennett felt like a marionette. She heard her father’s stern voice.

She pretended she was calling from downstairs in the dorm, said she hadn’t slept well the night before and had taken a nap in her room at noon. Then she reported on her classes over the past few days, focusing on her progress in anatomy.

You must catch up next week, Frederick Bennett ordered. You really don’t seem like my daughter, he said again. I survived the mountains of corpses and seas of blood in Liangshan.