51e tableau à l'huile

Chapitre 8

The defendant, Jiang Lan, is a 35-year-old woman born in Portugal. Her parents are Portuguese citizens of Chinese descent.

In 1998, Jiang Lan returned to China and settled there, becoming a contracted painter at the E City Art Academy. On the night of May 5, 2002, due to a dispute with her live-in boyfriend, Hong Kong art dealer Chen Zhongjie, Jiang Lan murdered him with a paint knife while he slept. That same night, she transported the body by motorcycle to a volcanic rock ruin forest dozens of kilometers away and buried it. According to Chinese criminal law, Jiang Lan was guilty of intentional homicide and was therefore sentenced to death. Jiang Lan confessed to the aforementioned crime.

Several thousand people came to watch the sentencing hearing held in the city square. After the hearing, Jiang Lan was taken to Heiyunpo, 30 kilometers away, to be executed. It was a fixed execution ground, surrounded by barbed wire, and outsiders were not allowed to approach.

After reviewing the materials related to Jiang Lan's murder case, Wu Bingbing felt incredibly fortunate to have met Zhang Qun. It was as if Zhang Qun had untied the knot in her heart, and she felt she had something she wanted to tell her. That afternoon, she called Zhang Qun to thank her for showing her the materials. Her earnestness surprised Zhang Qun.

“I thought I was the only one interested in this case,” Zhang Qun said. “I didn’t expect you to be interested as well.”

“I am interested,” Wu Bingbing said. She wanted to say that because this case was related to her, and based on information from various sources, the heart of this female painter named Jiang Lan might be inside her, and she had repeatedly felt the memories and experiences of that heart. But she was afraid that saying this would frighten Zhang Qun, so she could only say, “I am very curious about this female painter.”

"Yes, her fate was both tragic and mysterious."

"Did they ultimately fail to ascertain Jiang Lan's identity?"

"All we know is that she returned to China four years ago; we can't find out anything before that."

"Surely someone knows her? Perhaps one of Chen Zhongjie's family or friends knows her? And what about her colleagues and friends at work? Don't they know anything about her past?"

“They went to Hong Kong to investigate Chen Zhongjie. He had been single for many years, lived alone, and drifted around. No one knew him, let alone the women he knew. As for Jiang Lan’s workplace, the answer was always the same: they had no information about her past.”

"It seems the only option is to investigate abroad?"

"They said the Public Security Bureau didn't have the funds to go abroad, and that there was no need to go abroad to investigate."

"So, you think her identity is unclear?"

"I don't think so, it's just that it's a bit harder to investigate."

"By the way, that female colleague at her workplace, the one she's usually closest to—what's her name, Wang? Doesn't she know about her past? Didn't Jiang Lan tell her anything when they were getting along?"

“No. If there were, the police would have investigated long ago. I was not reconciled, so I went to see that woman twice. The second time was in the hospital, and I asked her to recall—alas, she never said anything until she died.”

"What? Her female colleague is dead?"

"Suicide. She jumped from the third-floor window of her apartment—she didn't die from the fall, but she broke her leg, suffered a brain hemorrhage, went blind, spent a week in the hospital, and then died..."

"Blind in both eyes?" Wu Bingbing asked warily. "What did that woman look like?" She recalled the woman in her dream whose eyes had been gouged out. "Was she very thin? Short? Long hair?"

"Yes, she's short, thin, and pale-skinned—"

"A flat face, and a mole on her chin?"

“Yes, yes,” Zhang Qun asked, “How did you know?”

I've seen her before, not only in my dreams, but also seemingly in other places. Wu Bingbing hesitated again, the words on the tip of her tongue. All the dead people who appeared in her dreams were confirmed in reality; some she foresaw, others were reenactments afterward, and all of them seemed to be connected to her heart.

This heart belongs to Jiang Lan. The woman in white, filled with resentment, had already told her that she possessed the heart of a murderer. That heart relentlessly recounts its owner's past, stubbornly playing her memories and experiences within the new woman's body, revealing an overwhelming resentment and anger…

"I'll tell you. That's all for now, I have something to take care of."

After finishing her call with Zhang Qun, Wu Bingbing's first thought was to find her father and Dr. Meng, to lay everything out on the table and uncover the secret of her heart transplant. However, her father wasn't home, and being an impulsive person, she immediately hailed a taxi and rushed to the hospital. She was determined to tell Dr. Meng everything she had discovered and see how he could still hide it from her.

She rushed to the hospital, but Dr. Meng was out in a meeting and she couldn't see him, so she had to leave disappointed. As she walked out of the hospital, she saw the burly man with gray hair and a pair of goldfish eyes in the parking lot. He was driving away.

Without hesitation, she hailed a taxi and followed the car he was in—she wanted to find out who that person was. After following him closely for over half an hour, the car finally pulled into a large compound, and the man got out. She got out of the taxi at the gate, looked up, and recognized the building as the Intermediate People's Court. She asked around and learned that the man was President Geng of the court. This made Wu Bingbing hug her shoulders tightly, her delicate brows furrowed in deep thought.

Dad—Dr. Meng; Dr. Meng—Dean Geng; Dean Geng—Jiang Lan; she understood, their contact must be related to my heart transplant. No wonder Dr. Meng didn't tell me who he was. He was afraid I'd know too much.

But why did I dream about him? Why did I dream about the death of Dean Geng? ...

That night, Wu Bingbing had a serious talk with her father. She told him, in bits and pieces, about her doubts and what she had seen and heard over the past few days. Her father had never listened so attentively before. Either he had something on his mind, or Bingbing's words had taken on weight. He paced back and forth in the room, smoking incessantly, and finally admitted the fact that Jiang Lan's heart had been used for her heart transplant.

The father recounted the whole story, and Bingbing was not surprised at all.

Dad continued, “It was unavoidable; we waited for almost a year. Every time someone died in a traffic accident or from other illnesses at the hospital, I would meet with Dr. Meng. I've seen dozens of patients in total. Either their blood type didn't match yours, or their families didn't agree to the donation. Finding Jiang Lan's heart was actually quite accidental. She was sent to the hospital for treatment after a suicide attempt in prison, and Dr. Meng happened to be her attending physician. During her examination and testing, we discovered her blood type, and her heart matched yours. So, after we learned she had been sentenced to death, we consulted with Dean Geng of the court, and when Jiang Lan was finally executed, the hospital's mobile surgical vehicle came to the execution ground and took her heart…”

Dad paused, sighed deeply, and said, "Forgive me for not telling you. At the time, I felt it was better not to let you know, and I didn't even tell your mother."

Bingbing listened calmly, her arms crossed and resting on the edge of the table opposite her father. Occasionally, she would look up at him questioningly, but she never knew what to say. She felt that there was a hole in her father's heart, deep and unfathomable, and as she tried to peek into it, she felt a chill seeping into her skin.

She suddenly asked, "Has no one come to collect Jiang Lan's body?"

Dad said, "If we can't find her parents, no one else can handle it on her behalf."

"What happened to her body in the end?"

"After her heart was removed, the hospital took her away for cremation."

"And what about her ashes? Are they also kept in the hospital?"

"No, that's not the case. The court decided to take her for cremation, and they sent someone to accompany the procession. After cremation, the urn will be kept by the court, waiting for her parents or relatives to claim it. But so far, we haven't been able to contact her parents, nor have we heard any news about any of her relatives..."

Bingbing sighed, her mind in turmoil, and said, "It's like a ghost that won't leave, it's definitely like a ghost that won't leave! She hates others, she thinks others are the ones who hurt her and that's why she's like this..."

Dad asked, "A lingering ghost? What do you mean?"

"She's like a persistent ghost...she'll get her revenge!" she said, holding her head in her hands in frustration.

The father smiled bitterly and said, "She's dead. I don't believe there will be any ghosts seeking revenge."

Bingbing shouted impatiently and abruptly, "Three people who underwent surgery have died one after another. If it wasn't revenge, what else could it be? First, Kang Qiujing, then He Guomin—that sanitation worker—he was shoveling sewage into a sewer drain when he suddenly fell in and was already dead when he was found. And then there's Wei Pan, who was perfectly healthy until suddenly something happened, and then she died. If she wasn't murdered, what else could it be?"

"Someone else is harming them? How could that be? You didn't see it yourself, you're just suspecting it. They've all had surgery, it must be a physical reason!"

“Wei Pan had surgery five years ago and was fine all those years, but something happened this month. And Kang Qiujing, her brother said she was usually very healthy, but—they all died in the last month.”

Dad took a deep drag on his cigarette, then suddenly coughed. After a while, he said, “This is what I’ve been worried about these past few days. It can only mean that the surgery wasn’t successful, or that the recovery wasn’t good. Sometimes I wonder if Dr. Meng’s skills are really that reliable. But your situation is different. Not only Dr. Meng, but all the doctors and nurses say that your surgery was perfect and there won’t be any problems. You don’t need to worry.”

Bingbing said, "What about my dreams? Those chaotic nightmares, the ones where I keep seeing Jiang Lan, those places I've never been, the wild beasts chasing me, and the dead people on the road—how do you explain all of that?"

“Then don’t bother explaining,” Dad said. “Everyone dreams sometimes, and dreams are naturally strange and unusual. Dr. Meng said that people like you who have had heart surgery have subconscious worries and fears that accumulate there over time and are slowly released through dreams…”

“I don’t understand.” Bingbing was frustrated because she couldn’t communicate with her father. “Take Jiang Lan for example, I’ve never met her before, so why did she appear in my dream? Some dreams are even connected to things that happened during the day.”

"You've definitely seen her, either in the newspaper, on TV, or a few years ago in a park, in a shop window or on a bulletin board. Sometimes you just don't remember."

"I really haven't seen her," Bingbing shook her head. "Why is she chasing me like a devil?"

“Dreams are magical,” Dad said. “I often have strange dreams too. Sometimes I dream that I’m being chased and beaten bloody by an enemy… I secretly remember their face, and the next day at work, I realize it’s a colleague in the office, smiling broadly as he reports to me. Isn’t that absurd? Do you think these dreams can be taken seriously?”

"Anyway, I can't explain it clearly," Bingbing said dejectedly. "I also feel like I can't explain it."

Her father came over, patted her head, and said, "Don't worry, Dad's here, you'll be fine. -- Okay, I have to go out for a bit. You go upstairs and watch TV with your mom."

Dad put on his coat and got ready to go out. Bingbing said, "It's so late, Dad, you shouldn't go out." Dad said he had something to do at work and had to go. Bingbing threatened, "Dad, you need to spend more time with Mom; she's going through menopause." Dad said, "My precious daughter is enough for me; I'll be right back."

Just as her father was about to leave, Bingbing remembered something and called out again.

"Dad, I forgot to ask you. I remember the day I was discharged from the hospital, you made a phone call to someone, something about buying a painting... Did you buy a painting by Jiang Lan?"

"Yes, I wanted to buy her paintings. Firstly, collectors say her paintings have potential value, and secondly, I thought having them at home would have a commemorative meaning and a sense of familiarity. So I contacted them to buy, but art academies and museums wouldn't sell them to me no matter how high the price, so I gave up in the end."

"I heard from a reporter that Jiang Lan said in court that she wanted to burn all her paintings."

"I haven't heard of that, but her case and her death have made her paintings more famous."

An art dealer offered seven figures for one of her paintings… Okay, I'm leaving.

Bingbing murmured sadly to herself, "To burn all the paintings she created in her lifetime, it seems she was utterly desperate. Now I understand the meaning of 'heart turned to ashes'—"

"What are you saying? Are you alright?" Dad asked.

"It's okay, Dad. Go and come back quickly!" Bingbing said.

After her father left, Bingbing turned off the light. She didn't go upstairs to watch TV, but instead sat there lost in thought. The soft moonlight streamed in through the large window, casting a large shadow of her. The curtains fluttered in the wind, casting hazy, fragmented shadows before her…

Chapter Eight

She bent down, her eyes glazed over, and slowly reached out to place her hand on the little girl's shoulder—when suddenly a chainsaw-like screech erupted behind her, startling her. She was as if waking from a dream, drenched in a cold sweat.

Wu Bingbing spent the entire morning in the bookstore. Around noon, she was still there, leaning against the bookshelf, browsing a novel called *The Silence of the Lambs*. She was captivated by the gripping plot and read more than ten chapters in one go. She was just reading about how Dr. Lecter asked Officer Starling, "Do you still wake up in the middle of the night, in the pitch black, and hear the lambs screaming?"

Starling didn't deny it. Lecter asked again, "If you caught Buffalo Bill yourself... do you think you could stop the lamb from screaming?" Starling said yes. Wu Bingbing looked up from her book, and thoughtfully muttered to herself, "Yes. I think... it should be."

She couldn't bear to look any longer. Suddenly, her mind started buzzing, as if countless pulses of electricity were flooding in, distracting and interfering with her attention. A jumble of sounds and images flashed before her eyes, and even the words on the book seemed to superimpose into bizarre patterns and faces—a white gate with red lettering, a swarm of elementary school students pouring out, an exposed construction site, a girl with short hair, a murky puddle, floating human bodies…

She put down her book and unconsciously walked out. There were many people on the street, and she walked among them.

She looked like a fish swimming blindly, yet she didn't look left or right, just kept walking straight ahead. She was oblivious to the noise around her, and seemed to be blind to the endless stream of people in front of her.

As he brushed past people, his eyes never blinked, but gazed straight into the distance, over the heads of the crowd.

Her eyes became more vacant than ever before, frozen on her expressionless face like glass prosthetics embedded in a doll's face. Her gait also became stiff, like a puppet on strings. And her steps were heavy, as if she were carrying something on her back.

After wandering through the streets and alleys for a while, she didn't expect that when she looked up, she would find herself in front of the gate of an elementary school. She had never been to this school before.

She felt a little confused. What am I doing here?

She stood there blankly for a while, squinting as she thought, and finally seemed to remember. She looked into the campus and saw groups of students walking out, chatting and laughing, skipping and jumping. She hid behind the openwork wall next to the gate, coldly watching each student who came out.

Most of the students had left, leaving the campus feeling empty. She spotted her among the last few groups of students. Although she had never seen her before, she didn't know why, but she could draw her attention among the many children, and the moment she saw her, a voice inside her said: It's her!

A female classmate was walking beside her. They came out of the gate.

She had big eyes, a high nose, and a pointed chin. Wearing a blue school uniform, her slender body made her appear exceptionally agile. When she glanced over casually, she saw her peeping. Her gaze, like that of a gazelle, paused for a moment before quickly and timidly looking away.

She felt a sense of familiarity, as if they had known each other for a long time. She began to doubt herself: Had she seen her somewhere before? — Then she remembered, in a dream, in a dream. The girl being chased by wild beasts, the girl fleeing in terror, the girl cruelly torn apart, leaving only fragments of flesh and blood… She tried to recall the dream, but her mind was a jumbled mess, like smoke and mist, she couldn't remember clearly, only that face—the innocent and pure face of the girl before her.

She and her classmates walked ahead, and she followed closely behind, neither too close nor too far.

A voice, like the wind, whispered in my ear: Stay close, stay close, don't let her go.

After walking two blocks and turning at a T-junction, the female classmate parted ways with her. She walked alone, looking around without a care in the world.

At the end of the road, there was a construction site that had been abandoned. The foundation had been dug, but the underground work was still incomplete, leaving a large pit surrounded by numerous retaining piles. The girl indeed stopped there, clutching her schoolbag, and squatted by the pit, peering into it. Because it was midday, there were no frogs croaking. She seemed quite disappointed, constantly throwing clods of earth into the water, standing up and then squatting down again.

"Go over there, go over there, push her down! —"

She clearly heard the voice urging her on, and involuntarily moved her feet, tiptoeing forward, her eyes fixed on that petite back.

As the girl giggled, she was already standing behind her. The girl was clearly unaware, still engrossed in playing with the tadpoles.

She bent down, slowly reaching out to place her hand on her shoulder—just then, a chainsaw-like scream rang out behind her: "Miao Miao, Miao Miao! What are you doing?!"

The shout startled Wu Bingbing. She stood there dumbfounded, as if she had just woken up from a dream, not knowing what she had just done or what she was thinking. Looking at the girl in front of her and her hand slowly withdrawing, she broke out in a cold sweat and bit her lip in fear and pain.

It was Xu Miaomiao's mother who arrived. She was a short, plump, middle-aged woman with a ruddy complexion. Just as she pulled her daughter away, a large section of the ground where her daughter had been squatting suddenly collapsed. The earthen slope rolled and tumbled into the pit, creating a deep whirlpool in the water and splashing up countless bubbles like bull's eyes.

She cried out in alarm, "Oh dear, look how dangerous this is! Are you trying to get yourself killed by squatting here?"

Then, she glanced at Wu Bingbing, nodded with a complicated expression, and couldn't tell what she was thinking.

Wu Bingbing is quick-witted and adaptable. She immediately composed herself and said ingratiatingly, "I was just worried that she might be in danger, so I came over to help her. Thank goodness you arrived in time."

The woman immediately smiled and greeted her, "Thank you, you're such a kind person. My child is so naughty, always playing around when she walks, it's worrying me. I wasn't going to pick her up, but I happened to be passing by on my way and saw her, otherwise who knows what might have happened. She's such a worry."

Next, Wu Bingbing walked with the mother and daughter towards their home.