The Six Degrees of Separation Hypothesis
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Under the old tree, I sat in silence. I understood the words coming from his mouth, but my throat was choked with shock.
Lauren Vance's hand drifted to her waist, closing around the edge of her police radio.
She said: Do you realize what you're saying?
He said: Please don't overreact, Ms. Vance. I'm not some pedophile. Serena and I began our relationship when she was nineteen, and we married when she was twenty-one. Mr. Ashford, I apologize—for the sake of clearing my name, I had to disclose this... Intimacy between us only occurred after her marriage to you.
My mind went blank.
He walked into the storage room and, from an inconspicuous corner, produced two certificates—a marriage license and a divorce decree.
Lauren Vance contacted her colleagues and confirmed the documents were authentic.
She looked at me, uncertain.
I said nothing.
After a long silence, I asked: Was such a marriage even legal?
Lauren Vance said: By that time, their foster relationship had already been dissolved, so... yes, it was legal.
Dr. Ashmore added: And both Serena and I entered into it voluntarily.
I asked: Why did you divorce?
He said: It was her decision. I respected her choice. As for the external reason, I believe that would be you, Mr. Ashford. Five years ago, she told me she had fallen in love with another man.
I remembered that winter five years ago. Heavy snow had blanketed the city.
She had turned down my invitation to be together, offering no explanation.
Then the next day, she'd nervously twisted her fingers and asked: Ian Ashford, would you marry me?
Of course I would.
I held her, overwhelmed with joy.
She buried her face in my chest, choking back sobs, murmuring:
Thank you. I'm free now.
At the time, I'd thought her reaction was odd. Now I understood—it was the reaction of someone who had finally escaped despair.
Beatings. Imprisonment. The people around her manipulated through targeted psychological guidance. Thumbtacks scattered in self-defense before she jumped.
Their marriage had never been Serena's choice.
I clenched my fists and said to Lauren Vance: Keep asking.
Lauren Vance opened her notebook and said: The social psychology project you mentioned earlier—can you explain it in detail?
Dr. Ashmore said: Through six people, you can connect to anyone in the world. Let me explain—assume every person knows one hundred sixty others. One hundred sixty to the sixth power is 16.7 million, which covers the entire world population. Of course, this is rather imprecise. It's merely a hypothesis. It's also called the Six Degrees of Separation Hypothesis.
Lauren Vance said: And your specific research methodology?
He said: Still collecting data. Nothing has been formally launched.
Lauren Vance said: What approach do you plan to use?
He said: For example, attempting to connect with the President of the United States?
Lauren Vance nodded, making notes on her pad.
I caught a glimpse of her writing the numbers five and six.
Through six people, you can reach anyone in the world.
But the shadow figures I saw numbered five.
Even if I counted Dr. Ashmore as the sixth, he hadn't appeared among the shadow figures.
What was going on?
I had a sense I was drawing close to the truth, yet I was missing the most crucial piece.
Lauren Vance closed her notebook and said: No further questions for now. Shall we—
I said: Wait.
I stared into Dr. Ashmore's eyes and said: How did you learn about Serena's death?
Only now did I realize why the shrine had felt so jarring. Lauren and I had arrived today bringing news of Serena's death, yet he had already set up a shrine before we got there—and the incense on that altar held over twenty burned sticks, which meant it had been placed at least a day ago.
I pressed him: You knew in advance that this would happen to Serena?
He said: I was devastated the moment I learned she had jumped from a building. It was Ms. Vance who—
Lauren Vance walked toward me, patted my forehead, and said: Relax. I'm the one who told Dr. Ashmore last week.
I noticed a faint smile on her lips, and she gave me a quick wink.
---
Lauren Vance and I sat in the car on the drive back.
She stared out the window and said: He's very suspicious.
I was still processing everything and only managed a grunt.
She said: That question you asked was a good one.
I looked at her, confused.
Her reflection in the car window gazed into the distance, her fingertips idly playing with a strand of hair.
She said: I told him Serena had died in an accident, but I never mentioned she jumped. Those five friends of yours also hadn't been in touch with him afterward. And Serena wasn't a public figure—there were no news reports.
She said: He shouldn't have known that much detail.
That day in the car, we shared everything we'd found and pieced together multiple points of suspicion: He had known the victims' cause of death in advance. The shrine was inexplicable. Serena's marriage to him appeared coerced. The connection between the so-called Six Degrees of Separation and the five shadow figures. The victims had all asked the same question before they died—and he knew the answer.
The words lingered in my throat for a long time, but in the end, I still didn't tell her what I'd seen in the color photograph.
Lauren Vance noticed.
She said: You puzzle me too, you know.
I said: How so?
She said: In the elevator, when you lied, your eyes didn't shift.
I said: That's because it wasn't a lie.
She said: Either you're an exceptionally skilled liar, or you've done your own investigation on the side and uncovered leads I don't know about—but you won't share them with me.
A steadfast materialist, huh. I smiled.
I said: So what's your conclusion?
She said: No conclusion. I'll maintain my suspicion. But don't worry—I'm not building a case against you. It's just a habit of mine. I can tell you're not a bad person.
I said: So this is the presumption of innocence.
She turned around and rolled her eyes at me.
After a while, she opened her notebook, pulled out a stack of photographs, and handed them to me.
I said: What are these?
She said: Found in the storage room. They're all photos of Serena. I thought you'd want them.
I nodded and said: Thank you.
She covered her mouth and made a deliberate little cough.
I quickly said: Ah—those were the ones I stole.
She turned her head back toward the window.
In the glass, her reflection smiled with satisfaction. She twirled a strand of hair, closed her eyes, and hummed a simple melody.
---
My left eye.
I stood in the bathroom of my apartment, quietly studying my left eye in the mirror.
Brown irises—the normal eye color for an Asian. From the outside, it looked perfectly ordinary.
But when I lit a cigarette and let the smoke drift into my eye, the left eye underwent a physical transformation.
Like ink blooming in water, the pupil of my left eye began to dilate slowly.
It wasn't so much a stress response as the awakening of my left eye's other side.
When the burning sensation reached its peak, I snuffed out the cigarette, raised my head, and looked at my reflection in the mirror.
My entire left eye had turned black.
The black pupil had swallowed the whole of my left eye.
It was in this state that I could see the shadow figures acting around Serena. The rule of activation was simple—subject the left eye to intense stimulation. Cutting it was too costly. Cigarette smoke was the most efficient method.
As for how to explain this left eye.
After looking through the stack of photos Lauren had given me, I figured it out.
Over forty photographs, spanning Serena's childhood and youth.
In every single one, behind Serena's smiling face, the shadow figure of Dr. Ashmore appeared.
In every one—abuse and imprisonment... and many other forms of torment that I hardly wish to describe.
Torment—for the Serena of the past, and for the present me.
The scenes I saw were often disjointed. One moment, Serena was standing beneath the tree; the next, she was being held by the hair and forced face-down into a basin of freezing water.
The only trace of warmth was that, at the end of each scene, she could hold herself in the storage room.
Later, I realized I was wrong.
Those scenes were disjointed because they were playing in reverse.
They depicted events that happened before the photographs were taken—just as the five shadow figures I'd seen through the Polaroid had appeared before Serena's jump.
This actually makes sense. A human eye is like a mirror. What my left eye sees as the left hand is, for Serena, her right hand.
So what my left eye perceives as a moment after is, for Serena, a moment before.
There was no warmth at all. The real timeline was this: Serena hid in the storage room, scattering thumbtacks in a desperate attempt to defend herself. Then Dr. Ashmore appeared, opened the door, dragged her from the storage room, and tormented her... before finally forcing a smile onto her face and photographing her.
Adding to his private collection.
And I finally understood what I had been seeing all along with my left eye.
It was always the despair Serena hid behind her smile.