Republic-Era Profile Writer

I once profiled the most normal of madmen, until I became the maddest one of all. I transmigrated to Republican-era China and woke up in the body of a female constable who had already died once. Investigate cases, unravel the mystery, stay alive. Then I discovered I couldn’t leave this town. Every time I reach the boundary, I wake up on the iron bed in the constables’ station, and time resets to four in the morning. The bloodstains on the case files are real. The note in my pocket is real. The woman’s voice in my head is real, too. “You shouldn’t be here,” she says. Her name is Shen Qingwu, the body’s original owner. She isn’t quite dead, and she has no intention of making things easy for me. I investigate cases, and she berates me for breaking the rules. I use profiling to pin down a murderer, and she says, “You carry Its scent.” Later, I find a case file in the archives. Over the past five years, multiple “individuals exhibiting abnormal behavior” have been taken into custody by the Old Ones’ Church. On the final page is a photograph of Shen Qingwu, with a note: “In custody, Number Seven.” I thought I’d come here to investigate a case. It turns out I’m the one being investigated.