Episode 10 | The Forty-Seven Minutes He Doesn't Remember
Zhou Yuheng was unmistakable in the surveillance screenshot.
So clear that no angle or coincidence could explain it away.
Black shirt.
Silver watch.
The mark left by a ring on his right index finger.
That ring had been a gift from Xu Zhiqing.
In the second year of their relationship, she couldn't afford an expensive present, so she could only pick out the most ordinary pair of silver rings.
On the night they broke up, Zhou Yuheng had taken his ring off in front of her.
That was why she remembered the mark.
"That's you," Xu Zhiqing said.
Zhou Yuheng stared at the image.
"It looks like it."
"It doesn't just look like it."
She enlarged the photo.
"The clothes, the watch, the ring mark—they all match."
"I know."
"But you said you were at the hospital all night."
"I remember being at the hospital."
"Remember?"
That word made Zhou Yuheng look up.
Xu Zhiqing didn't look away.
"Were you really at the hospital, or do you only remember being there?"
The only sound in the office was the computer running.
Zhou Yuheng looked back at the screenshot.
"After the ambulance took Su Yanxi away, I drove to the hospital."
"What time did you arrive?"
"Around eleven thirty."
"The copy shop's surveillance timestamp is 11:47 p.m."
"Then the timing doesn't add up."
"Or you could be lying."
Zhou Yuheng's fingers stopped at the edge of the screen.
"If I wanted to lie, I wouldn't be admitting only now that the person in the footage looks like me."
"You're not admitting anything," Xu Zhiqing said.
"You just have no way to deny it."
His expression shifted slightly.
Five years ago, he had looked at her the same way.
Back then, Su Yanxi had been lying in the hospital with scrapes on her wrist and knee.
Xu Zhiqing had kept insisting that she hadn't pushed her.
But Zhou Yuheng had only asked her one thing.
'If it wasn't you, why are you the only one standing behind her in the photo?'
Now the evidence had landed on him.
He finally knew what it felt like to be unable to prove you hadn't been there.
Xu Zhiqing didn't feel any satisfaction over it.
She only felt tired.
"Call the police first," she said.
Zhou Yuheng immediately forwarded the email and its attachments to the address designated by the police.
Less than five minutes later, the officer who had just left called them.
They were instructed to stay at the company, not go to the copy shop, and not go to the Zhou residence for the paper bag first.
The police would send people back.
After the call ended, Xu Zhiqing sat as far away from Zhou Yuheng as possible.
"Tell me what happened that night again."
"You suspect me?"
"I'm not the only one who suspects you now."
She pointed at the screen.
"The photo suspects you too."
Zhou Yuheng closed his eyes.
He looked as though he were struggling to piece together the images from five years ago.
"After the stairway incident, I followed the paramedics downstairs first."
"Was Su Yanxi conscious then?"
"Yes."
"Did she say I pushed her?"
"Yes."
"What were her exact words?"
"She kept crying and said you touched her from behind, and that's why she missed a step."
"Touching someone and pushing them aren't the same."
Zhou Yuheng opened his eyes.
"Everyone said it was a push at the time."
"So you remembered it as a push too."
He didn't argue.
"What happened next?"
"I drove behind the ambulance."
"Was anyone with you?"
"Chen Jiawei."
"He was in your car?"
"Yes."
"Why isn't he in the surveillance footage now?"
Zhou Yuheng paused.
"I don't know."
"What did you do after you got to the hospital?"
"Yanxi was taken in for tests. I waited outside."
"What about Chen Jiawei?"
"He went to handle the paperwork."
"What time?"
"I don't remember."
"Where was your car parked?"
"In the hospital parking lot."
"How far was the copy shop from the hospital?"
Zhou Yuheng pulled out his phone and checked.
The copy shop had long since closed.
Its old address was only 1.8 kilometers from the hospital.
Less than five minutes by car.
About twenty minutes on foot.
"Did you leave the hospital?" Xu Zhiqing asked.
"No."
The answer came too quickly.
She stared at him.
"Are you sure?"
"I..."
Zhou Yuheng's voice faltered.
His brow slowly furrowed.
"I went to the parking lot."
"Why?"
"To get something."
"What?"
"A charger."
"What time?"
"I don't know."
"How long were you gone?"
"A few minutes."
Xu Zhiqing glanced at the timestamp on the screenshot.
"Did you run into anyone?"
"No."
"Did anyone call you?"
"A lot of people called me that night."
"Su Yanxi?"
"She was being examined."
"Lin Yao?"
"No."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because we'd already lost touch by then."
After Zhou Yuheng finished speaking, he fell silent too.
Someone he had long since lost touch with.
Someone he had assumed had left the party early.
Yet that person might have been standing in a copy shop less than two kilometers from the hospital, holding the complete set of photos.
"Do you still have your old phone?" Xu Zhiqing asked.
"No."
"You replaced it?"
"It broke at the end of that year."
"How?"
"It fell into the water."
"What water?"
Zhou Yuheng's expression suddenly froze.
"The river."
The air seemed to freeze.
Xu Zhiqing stared at him.
"Which river?"
He didn't answer.
She already knew.
"The one where the white coat was found?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"About a month after Lin Yao disappeared."
"What were you doing there?"
"Taking a walk."
"Did you normally take walks along the river at midnight?"
"I did sometimes around then."
"Why?"
"I couldn't sleep."
"How did you drop your phone?"
"It slipped out of my hand while I was answering a call."
"You couldn't retrieve it?"
"The current was too strong."
Every answer sounded perfectly reasonable on its own.
Together, they sounded like a story prepared in advance.
Xu Zhiqing asked quietly, "Did you know a coat had been found there?"
"No."
"You didn't know Lin Yao was missing either?"
"No."
"And yet you happened to lose your phone in that same river."
Zhou Yuheng's jaw tightened.
"I know how suspicious it sounds."
"It doesn't just sound suspicious."
"Zhiqing."
"Don't call me by my name."
She stood up.
"Five years ago, you decided I had pushed someone based on a photo that had been cut in half."
"Now the surveillance footage shows you outside the copy shop, and you want me to believe you simply forgot."
"I don't need you to believe me."
"Then why are you telling me all this?"
"Because I really don't remember."
For the first time, obvious confusion entered Zhou Yuheng's voice.
"I remember going to the parking lot to get the charger."
"I remember that when I returned to the emergency room, Su Yanxi had already finished her examination."
"And I remember the doctor saying she didn't have any broken bones."
"But in between..."
He suddenly stopped.
"What about in between?"
"There's a stretch of time I can't remember."
Xu Zhiqing said nothing.
"After I walked from the emergency room to the parking lot, my next memory is being back at the hospital."
"Didn't you just say it was only a few minutes?"
"I always thought it was only a few minutes."
"How long was it really?"
Zhou Yuheng took out his phone.
He searched for the procedures at the hospital from five years ago, then went through the examination records Su Yanxi had sent him at the time.
The time on the photo was 12:24 a.m.
She had entered the examination room at 11:32 p.m.
Fifty-two minutes lay between the two times.
"Chen Jiawei can confirm when you returned," Xu Zhiqing said.
"He told me back then that you had been at the hospital the whole night."
"That's because I told him to say that."
A voice came from the doorway.
They both turned around.
Chen Jiawei stood outside. He seemed to have hurried over, sweat covering his forehead.
"Didn't you leave?" Zhou Yuheng asked.
"After I went downstairs, I saw that Su Yanxi didn't call a car."
Chen Jiawei caught his breath.
"She got into a black sedan."
"Whose car?"
"I couldn't see clearly."
"What about the license plate?"
"Something was blocking it."
Xu Zhiqing looked at him.
"You just said Zhou Yuheng told you to tell me he'd been at the hospital all night?"
Chen Jiawei's expression turned grim.
"Yes."
"When?"
"Five years ago."
"Why?"
"Because he left in the middle of the night."
Zhou Yuheng stared at him.
"Where did I go?"
"You don't know?"
"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking you."
Chen Jiawei seemed unable to tell whether he was lying.
"That night, after you arrived at the hospital, you kept looking at your phone."
"Then you received a message and said you had to go to the parking lot."
"Who sent it?"
"You didn't say."
"How long were you gone?"
"Forty-seven minutes."
Exactly from 11:37 p.m. to 12:24 a.m.
Long enough to get from the hospital to the copy shop and back to the emergency room.
"Did I bring anything back?"
"No."
"Was there anything unusual about me?"
"Your cuff was wet."
Zhou Yuheng lowered his head and looked at his sleeve.
As if the water stains from five years ago were still there.
"It wasn't raining that day," Chen Jiawei said.
"That's why I asked where you'd been."
"What did I say?"
"You said you went to wash your face."
"For forty-seven minutes?"
"I thought it was strange too."
"Why didn't you keep asking?"
Chen Jiawei gave a bitter smile.
"Because you looked terrifying then."
"What was terrifying about me?"
"You were holding a photo."
Xu Zhiqing's breath caught.
"What photo?"
"The one at the stairwell."
"The complete one or the cropped one?"
"I only saw it for a second."
"How many people were in it?"
Chen Jiawei thought carefully.
"I think three."
Besides Xu Zhiqing and Su Yanxi, the complete photo also captured Lin Yao in the glass reflection.
"Did you ask where the photo came from?"
"I did."
"What did he say?"
"That he'd found it."
Zhou Yuheng shook his head.
"I don't remember any of this."
"But you remember telling me to lie for you," Chen Jiawei said.
"The next day, you called and said that if Zhiqing asked, I should say you'd been at the hospital all night."
"Why would I do that?"
"You said you didn't want her to get the wrong idea."
Xu Zhiqing couldn't help laughing.
"What could I possibly have gotten the wrong idea about back then?"
Everyone had already decided she was the one who pushed Su Yanxi.
Zhou Yuheng had also broken up with her in the hospital hallway.
Yet he had deliberately arranged an alibi.
Not to protect their romance.
To cover up those forty-seven minutes.
"Why did you agree to it?" she asked Chen Jiawei.
"I thought he had left the hospital to meet you."
"Meet me?"
"He was in a terrible mood when he came back, and he was holding that photo."
Chen Jiawei lowered his voice.
"I thought the two of you had argued privately and he didn't want Su Yanxi to know."
Xu Zhiqing looked at Zhou Yuheng.
"You didn't come looking for me that night."
"I know."
"You didn't give me the complete photo either."
"I know."
"Where did that photo go afterward?"
"I don't know."
There it was again: I don't know.
Those three words had become nauseating.
The police returned to the office ten minutes later.
There were more of them this time.
An information specialist immediately preserved the original email data, while the officers questioned the three of them separately.
Zhou Yuheng voluntarily disclosed that he might have a gap in his memory, as well as the fact that his phone had fallen into the river a month later.
The officer's expression grew noticeably more serious.
"Do you take sleeping pills or any other medication regularly?"
"No."
"Did you drink that night?"
"A little."
"How much?"
"Two drinks."
"Is it possible someone put something else in your drink?"
"I don't know."
"Before you left the emergency room, did you drink anything?"
Zhou Yuheng closed his eyes.
After a long time, he said, "A bottle of water."
"Who gave it to you?"
"Su Yanxi."
Chen Jiawei immediately looked up.
"It wasn't her."
Everyone turned toward him.
"Su Yanxi was already in the examination room by then."
"I bought that bottle of water outside."
"Are you sure?" the officer asked.
"I'm sure."
"Did you leave the bottle unattended?"
"I put it on a chair in the hallway and went to the desk to handle the paperwork."
"How long?"
"A few minutes."
"Who else was nearby then?"
Chen Jiawei thought for a moment.
"A friend of Su Yanxi's."
"Which one?"
"I don't know her name."
"What did she look like?"
"Long hair. She was wearing a mask."
"Man or woman?"
"A woman."
"Did you see her face?"
"No."
Xu Zhiqing suddenly remembered the person in the copy shop.
A hat.
Long hair.
A white coat.
The person in the surveillance footage also appeared to be a woman.
But in the group photo from the party five years ago, nearly every woman besides Su Yanxi had long hair.
That detail did nothing to narrow the field.
The officer continued questioning them.
"Did Zhou Yuheng show any unusual symptoms after drinking the water?"
"He looked exhausted," Chen Jiawei said.
"His reactions were slower than usual too."
"But he could still walk normally?"
"Yes."
"What about after he came back?"
"He looked pale and kept asking me what time it was."
Zhou Yuheng suddenly raised his head.
"How many times did I ask?"
"At least three."
"Did I say anything else?"
Chen Jiawei's expression gradually grew hesitant.
"You said something strange."
"What?"
"You said, 'That's not Lin Yao.'"
No one in the office spoke.
"What wasn't Lin Yao?" the officer asked.
"I don't know."
"Did you ask him what he meant?"
"I did."
"How did he answer?"
"He looked at the photo and said he'd mistaken someone for another person."
"Lin Yao's reflection is in that photo," Xu Zhiqing said.
"Why would he say it wasn't Lin Yao?"
"Maybe he wasn't talking about the photo," Zhou Yuheng answered quietly.
Xu Zhiqing looked at him.
"Then what was he talking about?"
"The person in the copy shop."
The person in the surveillance footage had never shown her face.
If Zhou Yuheng had received a message and been summoned to the copy shop to meet Lin Yao, only to discover that the person inside wasn't Lin Yao, then who had he seen?
The police recorded all of Chen Jiawei's testimony.
One of the officers received a call and stepped into the hallway.
When he returned, he was carrying electronic data that had just been sent over.
"We've found the records from the riverbank case back then," he said.
"The blood on the white coat belonged to a man."
"Was it Lin Yao?" Xu Zhiqing asked.
"They couldn't make a comparison at the time."
"What about now?"
"Lin Yao's remains were later found in another county, and the samples were preserved."
The officer paused.
"Preliminary results show that the blood types match."
When Su Yanxi fell down the stairs, she had injured her knees and wrists.
Everyone had assumed the blood on the coat might have come from her.
But it had actually belonged to a man.
"What about the writing on the collar?" Zhou Yuheng asked.
"It wasn't written with an ordinary marker."
"Then what was it?"
"Waterproof pigment mixed with blood."
Xu Zhiqing's stomach churned.
Someone had used a blood-stained pen to write Zhou Yuheng's name inside the coat.
Zhou Yuheng knows who I am.
It wasn't merely an accusation.
It seemed more like a message left before death.
"Did Lin Yao write it?"
"That hasn't been confirmed," the officer replied.
"However, the forensic investigators recorded one detail at the time."
"The writing on the collar was completed in two stages."
"What does that mean?"
"The words 'Zhou Yuheng' were written first."
"The sentence that followed was added after some time had passed."
The two sections might have been written by different people.
They might also have been left in different places.
The first person wrote Zhou Yuheng's name inside the collar.
The second person added the rest.
Knows who I am.
"The receipt and memory card in the paper bag may be related to the case," the officer said.
"We'll be going to the Zhou residence to collect them now."
Zhou Yuheng immediately stood up.
"I'll go with you."
"You're not currently in a position to handle evidence."
"That's my mother's house."
"Which is exactly why you can't touch anything."
Zhou Yuheng could only sit back down.
After the police left, the office fell silent again.
Chen Jiawei stood in the doorway.
He looked as though he wanted to say something but didn't dare.
Xu Zhiqing looked at him.
"Is there something else you haven't told us?"
"I'm not sure."
"Tell me."
"After Zhou Yuheng returned to the hospital, he had a key in his hand besides the photo."
Zhou Yuheng frowned.
"What kind of key?"
"A storage-locker key."
"How do you know?"
"It had a numbered tag on it."
"What number?"
Chen Jiawei shook his head.
"I can't remember clearly."
"Approximately?"
"Somewhere in the forties."
Zhou Yuheng suddenly looked at the surveillance screenshot.
A promotional flyer was taped to the lower-right corner of the copy shop's glass.
It read:
'Self-service printing, luggage storage, and twenty-four-hour lockers.'
He immediately enlarged the image.
At the very back of the shop stood a row of gray metal lockers.
One of the doors was slightly ajar.
The person in the white coat blocked the number, leaving only the last digit visible.
Seven.
"Locker forty-seven," Xu Zhiqing said.
The same as the number of minutes Zhou Yuheng had disappeared.
And the same as the length of the recording.
The conversation between Lin Yao and Su Yanxi had lasted exactly forty-seven seconds.
That number couldn't have appeared three times in a row by chance.
Zhou Yuheng stared at the locker.
"Someone wants me to remember that night."
"Do you really not remember any of it?" Xu Zhiqing asked.
He didn't answer immediately.
In the surveillance footage, he stood outside the glass.
His gaze didn't seem to be fixed on the person in the coat.
It seemed to be looking deeper inside, at locker forty-seven.
Zhou Yuheng closed his eyes.
A broken image suddenly flashed through his mind.
White light.
The sound of a printer running.
A cold key being pressed into his palm.
And someone speaking to him through a mask.
'If you still want to save Xu Zhiqing, take what's inside.'
His eyes flew open.
"I took it."
"Took what?"
"The thing in locker forty-seven."
"What was it?"
Zhou Yuheng's breathing quickened.
"A camera."
Xu Zhiqing stood motionless.
"Where's the camera?"
"I don't know."
"You forgot again?"
"No."
His face grew paler and paler.
"I brought it back to the hospital."
"And then?"
"Someone was waiting for me in the parking lot."
"Who?"
Zhou Yuheng's lips trembled slightly.
At last, that face emerged from the blur of his memory.
Not Lin Yao.
Not Su Yanxi.
And not anyone who had appeared in the group photo from the party.
"My father," he said.
At that exact moment, the doorbell rang at Zhou's mother's house.
She assumed it was the police.
Without looking outside first, she opened the door.
A woman wearing a hat stood outside.
In her hand was a yellowed paper bag.
It was identical to the bag that had held the white coat five years ago.
"Who are you looking for?" Zhou's mother asked.
The woman slowly raised her head.
Her eyes curved above her mask.
"I'm here to take back my memory card."
Before Zhou's mother could close the door, the woman had already wedged her foot into the gap.
She lowered her voice.
"And the receipt that must never be handed over to the police."