Only at night can one truly feel the world.

During the day, people are swept along by the world, tossed and battered, eventually left like a thin gruel splattered into every corner. At night, this gruel gathers itself, curling up into a whole, and only then can one sense the entire world looming coldly before them—a silent, indescribable, chaotic world wavering between good and evil.

It is three in the morning. Susan Wright has been dead for nine years. Fiona Bennett still feels that Susan Wright is watching her. It’s a chilling sensation. Fiona Bennett sensed something was off as soon as she woke up; when her consciousness returned to her body, her eyes were still closed, and that strange feeling crept over her, coldly crawling up her cheek, neck, and arms. This intangible yet soul-piercing unease felt oddly familiar. Then she remembered—nine years ago, she had felt the same way. Nine years ago, in the early hours of November 25, 1997, she was sleeping in the dormitory of the Shanghai Medical College’s sponsored class. In the darkness, the bed curtain was gently lifted, and Susan Wright appeared at the opening, her long hair loose, leaning toward her, staring at her face. Yes, it was exactly this feeling.

The unease grew heavier and heavier, so dense that it formed an indescribable, terrifying mass in her heart, struggling violently. These days, Fiona Bennett often woke up in the middle of the night feeling uneasy; the strange sensation wasn’t new tonight, but it had never been this intense. Fiona Bennett knew her husband was sleeping beside her. She wanted to open her eyes, but was afraid that in the darkness she wouldn’t see Frank Bishop, and would instead see the phantom of Susan Wright. In fact, lately she rarely saw Susan Wright anymore; it was more often Gabriel Adams. Still, she decided to open her eyes, because Frank Bishop always gave her a sense of security—from the moment he pulled her out of the pool of corpses, to when she was driven out of her home and stood helpless on the street as he knelt to propose, and through all the years of stable family life since. No matter how stormy the world outside, he was her anchor. Even before Susan Wright died, she had said to her, “It’s not Frank Bishop.” In this world, there was now only this one person she could trust completely.

Before Fiona Bennett opened her eyes, she felt the Simmons mattress shift, then heard the sound of slippers and soft footsteps. These sounds were faint, but in the night they reached her ears with crystal clarity. The strange feeling vanished, and Fiona Bennett slowly opened her eyes. The skin on her cheeks, neck, and arms trembled even more, goosebumps rising. She realized that the person who had been silently watching her in the dark for so long was Frank Bishop.

From the moment she woke up to when Frank Bishop got up, at least five minutes had passed—maybe he had watched even longer. Even if it was just five minutes… who would stare at their partner in such darkness for five minutes? Five minutes is fleeting in the day, but in the night it stretches on, long enough for countless thoughts to swirl in one’s mind. Even at the height of their romance, neither Frank Bishop nor herself would have done something so strange. Besides, the shivering in her body told Fiona Bennett this wasn’t because of love. So, what was it?

Fiona Bennett thought Frank Bishop was going to the bathroom, but judging by the direction of his footsteps, it didn’t seem so. She waited ten minutes; Frank Bishop didn’t return, and there wasn’t a sound outside. It was as if Frank Bishop had vanished into the darkness.

The unease piled up in her heart, and Fiona Bennett finally got up.

She didn’t put on shoes, stepping barefoot onto the floor, silent as a shadow.

She left the bedroom. The living room lights were off, but she was used to the night’s dimness and could tell her husband wasn’t there.

Where was he?

Fiona Bennett went to the bathroom first, glancing into the kitchen as she passed—he wasn’t there either, nor in the bathroom. That left only the study.

The study door was open.

Lately, Frank Bishop rarely entered the study; it had become Fiona Bennett’s “secret room,” filled with things related to the cases of Susan Wright and Gabriel Adams.

Fiona Bennett stood at the study doorway. Frank Bishop had his back to her, standing at the desk. The curtains weren’t fully drawn, leaving a gap through which moonlight squeezed in, casting a white streak across Frank Bishop’s shoulder.

Frank Bishop didn’t realize his wife was watching him from just a few meters away. He kept his head down, motionless in that posture. What was he looking at, Fiona Bennett wondered. Was he looking at something related to the case? In this light, staring so intently, it didn’t seem reasonable.

She stepped forward again, and this time finally startled Frank Bishop.

He turned his head, half turning his body, letting Fiona Bennett see what was on the desk.

It was an open brocade box. Moonlight shone into the box, reflecting a cold, chilling gleam.

The cold light came from blades. Dozens of scalpels.

This was Frank Bishop’s knife collection box. He had a habit: after every major surgery, he would keep the scalpel and bring it home, placing it in this box. You could say, the number of knives in the box represented the number of people he had saved.

Fiona Bennett had seen her husband put knives in the box before; over the years, it had become a routine gesture. But Frank Bishop had never, until now, examined these scalpels so closely.

With a snap, Frank Bishop shut the box and stuffed it back into the desk drawer.

“Couldn’t sleep, just looking around. Did I wake you? Go back to bed,” he said.

He left the study, walked past Fiona Bennett, into the shadows of the living room, then turned back to call her.

“Go to sleep.”

The two of them returned to bed, each crawling back under their own covers.

“Did I scare you?” Frank Bishop asked.

“Getting up at night like that… it’s a bit strange.”

“Sorry.”

Fiona Bennett didn’t close her eyes. On this night, it would be hard for her to fall asleep again.

Getting up at night to look at scalpels, the cold gleam of the blades seeping into her bones.

What was her husband thinking at that moment? Was he reflecting on his career? What obstacle had he encountered? There was no doubt something was weighing on his mind, enough to keep him tossing and turning, enough to make him stare in the dark, enough to subconsciously do something so meaningless. Meaningless, perhaps, but it was a projection of something inside him.

Fiona Bennett’s unease had lasted a week. She hadn’t known where this late-night anxiety came from, but it always left her sleeping lightly, easily startled awake. Now she understood—maybe this was the first time he’d gotten up at night to look at the knives, but her partner’s silent gaze in the night must have been happening for many days.

What was he thinking?

For no reason, Fiona Bennett thought of that night many years ago, when Susan Wright got up in the middle of the night, lifted curtain after curtain, and gazed at each sleeping face.

A gaze in the darkness, suffused with malice.

Fiona Bennett’s heart suddenly raced.

Is he going to hurt me?

He wants to hurt me? He wants to hurt me!

No reason, no evidence, just a damned intuition.

He was thinking about whether to kill her, staring at her neck, at the artery there! Was he planning to use those scalpels, or was he silently speaking to each of the people he’d saved, thinking that after saving so many, killing one would balance it out?

If that’s the case, then Susan Wright’s death—Frank Bishop was involved.

After Gabriel Adams died, Fiona Bennett took over Gabriel Adams’s investigation leads and began looking into the nine-year-old murder case. She had risked everything, and naturally no longer tried to hide things from her husband. She had always thought Frank Bishop had nothing to do with the case—after all, even Susan Wright herself had ruled him out as the killer.

But now, Frank Bishop wanted to kill her.

Maybe it was just a lingering evil thought, maybe he’d never actually do it, maybe she was just wildly guessing and misunderstanding…

Fiona Bennett closed her eyes.

If it were Gabriel Adams, how would he judge?

Fiona Bennett remembered a line he’d written on the flyleaf of his Criminology textbook: An investigator should never overlook even the smallest possibility, because rare and vicious crimes often stem from rare and tiny possibilities.

Even if Frank Bishop wasn’t the murderer, his involvement in Susan Wright’s death must have been significant.

Before dawn, Fiona Bennett finally fell asleep. When she woke, Frank Bishop had already gone to work. She opened the curtains; the sun outside was bright. People always feel immense unease and fear toward the world at night, but by day, they become much more optimistic.

Maybe she was just overthinking it, Fiona Bennett thought. After all, he was someone who had lived with her for so many years.

She turned her head and seemed to see Gabriel Adams sitting at the bedside, smiling at her—then he was gone. It was just a fleeting reflection on the bubble of a dream.

He was worried about her, wasn’t he? Well, it never hurts to be careful.

2

How does one get closer to the truth, step by step? Fiona Bennett felt that Gabriel Adams was teaching her, hand in hand. It was almost not an illusion.

Gabriel Adams’s death and Susan Wright’s death were now linked by a single thread.

To obtain Gabriel Adams’s final help, even though she found it hard to face his parents, Fiona Bennett had knocked on the door of The Adams Family two weeks ago. Both elders were there, and at a glance, it was clear—they were two withered bodies that had lost all warmth.