Please Be Our Third Person - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I couldn’t sleep that night.

At 1:17 AM, my phone buzzed once.

It was a voice message from an unknown number, only seven seconds long.

I tapped it and heard a woman’s voice, thick with suppressed tears, whispering, “Don’t hang up on me. I’ll die.”

The sound made my back stiffen instantly.

That wasn’t the voice Shen Yanxi usually used in my consulting room.

It sounded more like my mother, Lin Wanyun, when she was forty-that phone call she made to me while curled up on the kitchen tiles after swallowing half a bottle of sleeping pills.

I was sixteen, sitting in evening self-study.

She had sounded just like this on the phone, choking back her sobs before asking me, “Yanqiu, are you going to abandon Mama too?”

I stared at the voice message for a full minute, motionless.

A second call came in soon after.

It was Xu Mingche.

“I’m sorry to disturb you so late.”

His voice remained steady, carrying only a hint of slight fatigue.

“Yanxi’s state isn’t right. She just locked herself in the bathroom, and I can’t get the door open.”

I should have told him to call the police or go straight to the hospital.

But when I grabbed my car keys, my movements were so swift it was as if I had planned the route long ago.

At 2:00 AM, I stood at their front door.

It was a penthouse apartment in a high-rise. The lock was the latest model, and the elevator lobby was covered in thick carpeting, so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat.

As soon as the door opened, a faint scent of bergamot wafted out.

It was identical to the top notes of the perfume I usually wore.

“My apologies.”

Xu Mingche stood behind the door, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. A bit of fresh blood was seeping through the gauze on his wrist.

“I didn’t want to make you come all this way.”

“Where is she?”

I ignored him and walked straight inside.

Shen Yanxi was sitting on the living room rug, hugging her knees. Her hair was half-damp, and her face was as pale as if she had just been pulled out of water.

When she saw me, the rims of her eyes instantly reddened.

“I knew you would come.”

The way she said “you” was far too natural.

My footsteps faltered for a moment.

Xu Mingche, however, seemed completely oblivious to the familiarity. He leaned over and handed her the warm water from the table.

“I only went to the study for a meeting. When I came out, she was gone.”

“She’s been like this lately.”

“Whenever I leave her sight, she loses emotional control.”

“Shut up.”

Shen Yanxi suddenly looked up at him. Her voice was trembling, yet sharp.

“You know exactly why I’m like this.”

Xu Mingche didn’t get angry.

He even leaned down to brush a stray hair from her cheek, his movements as gentle as if he were tending to a frightened bird.

“I know.”

“That’s why I invited Ms. Qi over.”

In that moment, a very strange feeling washed over me.

I hadn’t been invited to handle a crisis.

It felt more like they had summoned me into a scene that had already been meticulously staged.

I followed protocol-asking questions, assessing risks, and confirming verbal abuse, history of self-harm, and frequency of medication use.

Shen Yanxi’s answers were intermittent; most of the time, she just watched me.

Xu Mingche, on the other hand, cooperated with excessive detail. He remembered exactly which day last month she had suffered from insomnia, which time she had smashed a glass, and which occasion she had scratched herself.

He was like a living human observation report.

“Where is your bedroom?”

I stood up to check if she had any tools for further self-harm.

Xu Mingche led me there. When he pushed the door open, I froze again.

On the nightstand sat three of my books.

The spines showed obvious signs of wear from frequent reading. Beside them lay a silver fountain pen-the same model as mine.

Further in, on a small round table by the window, there was English black tea, sugar-free mints, and a dark gray ceramic mug.

That was the exact color palette I used when hosting clients in my consulting room.

“You two really enjoy studying me.”

I stood at the doorway, my voice turning cold.

Xu Mingche didn’t deny it.

“Study brings peace of mind.”

“Especially studying the person who might decide whether we continue to rot or not.”

He looked at me, his eyes devoid of any embarrassment at being caught.

There was only an almost candid focus.

“Ms. Qi, you should be able to understand.”

I didn’t understand.

But I also knew I was lying to myself.

Because, of course, I understood.

I studied people too.

In fact, I studied them longer, deeper, and with far less dignity than they did.

I recorded every visitor’s shortest pause, their slightest frown, their most instinctive cry for help in my private journals.

I told the world it was a professional habit.

Only I knew that wasn’t entirely true.

On some nights, I pored over those records repeatedly-not for case reviews,

but to confirm that there really were people in this world who had broken down in front of me, that there really were people who had endured one more night because of me.

I needed that evidence of being needed.

Just as they needed the evidence of each other’s wounds.

At 3:30 AM, before I left, Shen Yanxi had already fallen asleep against the sofa.

Xu Mingche saw me to the door and suddenly said, “If you officially take the case tomorrow, we can reserve Thursday afternoons for you.”

“Also.”

He glanced at the collar of my trench coat.

“Did you change your perfume today?”

“No.”

“Then I must have misremembered.”

He gave a slight smile.

“I thought you liked bergamot and cedar as well.”