I'm Shen Yanqing, a former criminal investigation squad captain and now a funeral home mortician.
Three years ago, my partner Lin Yue died while we were pursuing a criminal, and I was dismissed from the force for “serious misconduct.” Everyone said I was responsible for his death, including me.
At dawn three years later, I received a text: “The seventh trash can downstairs from your home. What you need is inside.”
In the bin was a neatly severed hand and a human head.
The inside of the wrist was tattooed with my police badge number. The head belonged to the deputy director who had fired me.
The forensic examiner found an old photograph in the palm. It showed me ten years ago. On the back was a line of writing:
“You are the seventh body. The first six have already died in your place.”
Even more bizarrely, surveillance footage captured the person who pushed the bin. Wearing a hoodie, he walked slowly down the street in the middle of the night.
The sign he made was a signal Lin Yue taught me before he died:
“If I'm captured, make this sign. It means there's someone behind me.”
But Lin Yue died three years ago.
Unless he didn't.
Unless the person I've thought was “me” all these years isn't really me at all.
This is a story about doubles: lives replaced, identities stolen, and a “doppelganger game” that has gone on for twenty years.
When you discover that the person you thought was yourself is actually someone else...
Can you still believe you know who you are?
