Chapter Four: The Driver in the Mirror

A date appeared in the upper corner—the night of Xingyao's crash. Chengjun reached for the cassette. Xingyao hugged it to her chest first and wrote: TOMORROW. FOUR LISTENERS. "Why four?" Minglan asked. Xingyao pointed to Shen Yan, herself, and Minglan. Then she drew an eyeless nightingale. The fourth listener was not Chengjun. It was the piano. The next morning, no one could find a working cassette player in the manor. Han was still hospitalized, and every servant claimed ignorance. At last, Wei'an brought a portable player from the old wine cellar. "Father likes preserving stupid things people said when they were young." He set it down and read the label. "Mingxi. Where did you find this?"