Someone Else’s Body

That night, a little after ten, someone suddenly added me on QQ. I never liked connecting with strangers, but his request read: “Let me expose your girlfriend’s secret.” So I accepted, even though I was pretty sure he was lying to me.

No sooner had I accepted than he messaged me: “Chen Mu, do you like men or women?”

Seeing that, I had the urge to block him right away, but the fact that he’d called me by name made me think maybe it was someone I knew playing a prank. So I asked directly who he was and what he wanted, warning that if he kept wasting my time, I’d delete him.

He replied quickly: “I’ll be straight with you then. Your girlfriend isn’t a woman—she’s a man pretending to be one.”

I only sent back two words: “Idiot.”

Then I ignored him, closed the chat window, and went back to my game. But he kept messaging, relentless. I didn’t reply, but I read what he sent. He told me to think about why my girlfriend’s voice was rougher than most women’s, why she never wore tight pants, why she’d never let me share her bed, wouldn’t even let me touch her chest.

Honestly, I froze when I finished reading, because every point hit home.

I’d met my girlfriend a month earlier in a local group chat. She looked delicate, but her voice really was a bit strange—not unlike a certain famous actress’s, but definitely husky. She’d told me she was conservative and wanted to wait until marriage before giving herself to me, said she didn’t like men who were too forward. So I’d kept my distance, never tried to cross the line; we held hands at most, maybe a kiss on the cheek.

Now, after what this guy had said, I couldn’t help but feel something was off. If my girlfriend were right here, I’d almost want to pull down her pants just to check.

Just then, he sent me a photo. The picture was taken from a distance and a bit blurry, but it was clear enough to make out a person showering.

He claimed it was my girlfriend in the shower. If I didn’t believe him, he said, I should rush to her place right now and see for myself.

I didn’t hesitate. I dashed out the door and headed straight to her place—not because I believed she was a man, but because I recognized the background in the photo: it was her bathroom. Someone had been spying on her. How could I not be worried?

Her apartment was only a five-minute drive away. When I arrived, my urgency faded a bit. I suddenly wondered if this was her, using an alternate account to test my feelings, or maybe she wanted to lure me over for something more intimate. The thought was oddly exciting.

Soon I was at her door. It wasn’t fully closed—just half-shut. I gently pushed it open and went inside.

Quietly, I made my way toward the bathroom. Her place was done up like a hotel, with a glass shower door, so from three or four meters away I could see someone showering inside.

Then I was stunned. Damn, it really was her under the spray, long hair tangled over her shoulders. But her chest—there were pectoral muscles! And between her legs—there was something there!

My mind exploded; everything went blank. My stomach churned so hard I nearly vomited. All this time, had I been holding hands and kissing a man?

I couldn’t take it anymore. I had no strength to confront her or say a word. Without thinking, I turned and bolted.

I ran all the way home, collapsed on my bed, and lay there gasping, everything spinning. It was all too sudden—like a nightmare. Honestly, when I saw what was between her legs, I thought it was the most disgusting thing in the world.

I lay there in a daze, chain-smoking half a pack before I started to think. If she was a man, why pretend to be a woman to date me? I wasn’t some rich kid—what could she possibly want from me?

In the end, I could only think of one explanation: he was gay, probably had seen me before and liked me, and went to these lengths to be with me. It was too revolting, too twisted.

That night, I barely slept. It was past four or five in the morning before I finally drifted off. But no sooner had I fallen asleep than someone started banging on my door.

I opened it to find two police officers. When I asked what was going on, they said I was connected to a case and needed to come with them for questioning.

Completely bewildered, I had no choice but to go.

At the station, a middle-aged officer in his forties asked me a few basic questions, then tossed a few photos at me, asking if I recognized the person in them.

I picked up the photos and froze. The person pictured was my girlfriend, Fang Lin—or should I say, boyfriend?

I told the officer I knew her, then kept looking at the rest of the photos. When I finished, I was completely dumbfounded.

All the pictures were taken in Fang Lin’s bathroom—nude photos. To be honest, seeing her male body again made me feel sick.

But more than that, I was terrified. In the photos, Fang Lin was lying on the floor, hair loose, skin deathly pale, completely bloodless.

Her face was as white as paper, and her eyes bulged out grotesquely, as if she’d died with deep resentment.

My heart skipped a beat. Fang Lin was dead?

That’s when I realized why I’d been brought in—I’d been to her place the night before. Damn it, did they think I was the killer?

Panic set in. Before the officer could even question me, I blurted out everything about Fang Lin and the stranger who added me on QQ the night before.

After I finished, the square-jawed officer finally explained Fang Lin’s situation. He said the first to discover the body had been her downstairs neighbor. They’d heard water running all night above and, sensing something was wrong, went up to check—only to find Fang Lin in the bathroom.

At the time, Fang Lin was still standing, propped up against the wall with her hands. But the forensic report showed she’d already been dead for some time. The killer had deliberately posed her like that, so when the neighbor touched her, she collapsed to the floor.

Which meant that when I’d seen Fang Lin, she was already dead!

Thinking about it sent chills down my spine. I’d been looking at a corpse.

Then the square-jawed officer narrowed his eyes at me, his gaze sharp as if he could see right through me, and asked, “Chen Mu, is there anything else you need to confess?”

I could tell he suspected me, but I had nothing left to say, so I shook my head.

He pressed further, his voice low: “Chen Mu, you went to your girlfriend’s house late at night, found her like that, and just ran home without doing anything else?”

I looked at him helplessly and said, “Officer, I already told you—I found out she was a man and freaked out. What else could I do? I honestly didn’t realize she was dead. If I had, I’d have called the police myself.”

He squinted at me for a moment, then suddenly pointed to the photos, telling me to look closely at Fang Lin’s neck.

I did, and soon noticed there seemed to be a faint ring around her neck—not very obvious, but on close inspection, it looked like a flesh-colored line wrapped around her throat.

Then the officer said something that made no sense at first: “Your girlfriend wasn’t a man in disguise. She really was a woman, but the body was someone else’s.”

At first, I didn’t understand, but then the realization hit me. My scalp tingled, a cold sweat broke out, and every hair on my body stood on end.

I’d been deceived. Fang Lin wasn’t a man—she had been murdered. And alongside her, another man of similar build had been killed.

Fang Lin’s head had been severed and sewn onto that man’s body.