Epilogue: The Girl Who Sees the Future
My name is Sophie, and I can always foresee terrible things.
Fires, car accidents, murders...
I watched those horrifying events happen with my own eyes, but I couldn't stop any of them.
Until I met Shawn Shaw.
---
0
"Sir, you really can't go into this building!"
"This is my own home, why can't I?"
"I... my name is Sophie, you probably don't know me, but you have to believe me..."
He checked his watch. "Miss, I need to get back for a very important meeting right now. Don't waste my time."
He strode toward the building entrance. I had no choice—I grabbed his arm and held on for dear life.
"You'll die! If you go in this building, you'll die!"
He froze.
"Whoa, there's actually a crazy person bold enough to come to our neighborhood!" Two security guards came over, rolling up their sleeves, cigarettes dangling from their lips, and bodily hauled me toward the neighborhood gate.
I watched as the middle-aged man entered the building. Then, just as I'd foreseen—
Three minutes later, he plummeted from the twentieth-some floor with a sickening thud.
---
1
My name is Sophie, and I can see the future.
---
2
"I don't know him. How many more times are you going to ask me?"
Southside precinct interrogation room. Across from me sat a young police officer.
After that incident, I'd been held as a suspect for an entire day, then subjected to intermittent police questioning for a month. That day, I'd finally lost patience.
The officer across from me was momentarily stunned by my outburst, then smiled. Gently.
He was the first detective to smile at me in a whole month.
"This really is the last time," he said. "I'm an intern at the precinct. The senior officers already decided you're clear, so they sent me for practice. Once I'm done, the case is officially closed."
I hadn't expected that response. "So are you done?"
"The official questions are over, but I have one more thing I'm personally curious about..."
"Whatever."
"Okay, this might sound silly." He cleared his throat. "I want to ask—can you really see the future?"
---
3
To be precise, what I see are only fragments of the future. Starting two months ago, they'd appear in my mind like video memories—random, uncontrollable—and not long afterward, these events would actually happen.
I'd told only a handful of people about this, and the police were definitely not among them.
Because they'd never believe me. Saying something irrational would only deepen their suspicion of me.
So...
"How do you know that? Who are you?" I asked, on guard.
"I introduced myself already. Intern officer Shawn Shaw."
He smiled.
Only then did I actually study him. He was about five-foot-eleven, on the lean side, with a clean-cut face that made him look like a college student. When he wrote, his fingers were elegant.
"Guessed?"
"It's not that hard. The witness statements from the two security guards, plus your fingerprints left at the scene—if you reconstruct what happened, it's clear you knew the victim was going to die, but you had zero connection to him." He spun his pen. "One of my favorite stories says that when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth..."
I nodded. "The Sign of Four, Sherlock Holmes."
"Actually that's Conan—"
I rolled my eyes with exaggerated force, so wide I could feel the strain myself.
I didn't want to admit my ability, because my instincts told me the more people knew, the more trouble it would bring. Especially a police officer.
"Officer Shawn, I think your theory lacks sufficient evidence, and it's completely unscientific..."
"True, but your reaction just now made it very clear—I guessed right."
When Shawn said this, his eyes suddenly changed.
I was speechless, and he kept reasoning.
"I read all your case files, and I kept wondering—why did you try to save him that day? A person falling from a great height is dangerous and terrifying. Most people would stay far away..."
He spoke as if thinking aloud, but every word seemed to nail itself to my heart.
"Then I figured it out. You wanted to change it. Change the future you could see."
"Stop..."
"You must have a very strong motive. What is it?"
"I don't have a motive! Stop analyzing me!"
"That motive is—you saw something terrifying. Something terrifying about yourself."
"Enough!"
I hurled my cup to the floor, where it shattered.
"Officer Shawn, are you done or not!"
Shawn froze for just a moment. Then he gave me that "student-style" smile again.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you angry."
He held up his notebook, showing it to me.
"Sophie, that last bit was all my own wild speculation. I didn't write down any of those questions or your answers." He scratched his head. "I watch too much anime. Please don't mind me."
He stood, giving me a slight bow.
"I don't think any more officers will contact you after this. Sorry for the inconvenience. On behalf of the Southside precinct, thank you for your cooperation."
With that, Shawn turned and walked slowly toward the door.
I sat there, still stunned by how thoroughly he'd seen through me.
"Officer Shawn?"
I called out, and he stopped.
"Yes, Sophie?"
"You knew I was going to stop you, didn't you?"
"I did. Because you need my help."
"You guessed wrong this time."
He smiled. "Did you?"
"I once saw a little boy get hit by a car on the road, a construction worker fall from scaffolding and break his leg, and... that man who fell from the building. Every time I tried to change it, but the future can't be changed."
"Then how about letting me try?"
---
4
"Okay, if I tell you something I've seen about you, can you change it?"
"Definitely."
"There was a police callout. Four of you—you, a middle-aged officer, a chubby guy, and a pretty female officer. You went to a residential building to make an arrest. One suspect ran, and the chubby guy went after him alone. He was stabbed and gravely injured."
---
5
For a month after that, I didn't see Shawn again.
My life seemed to return to normal, but in truth, it could never go back.
I started suffering night after night of insomnia. When I finally fell asleep, I'd dream. In my dreams, that man fell in front of me over and over, broken and bloody.
Jolted awake, insomnia, nightmares, jolted awake.
An endless loop.
One day, over something trivial, I blew up at my boss. A friend came to comfort me, asking what was wrong, whether I wanted hot pot or to go get drunk.
I refused. Those pleasures couldn't save a person in despair.
I kept seeing the future, but I didn't try to intervene anymore. I knew that no matter what I did, I couldn't change it.
I saw motorcycle thugs snatch a girl's purse, saw an elderly person hit by a bicycle helplessly crying out while nobody helped, saw a fire, saw a car accident, saw a murder...
Until Shawn knocked on my door again.
"May 30th, the day before yesterday, at 4:17 PM, we received a tip that a group of criminals was temporarily staying at a residential building in Yuguang Village. At 4:35 PM, we mobilized. At 5:27 PM, Captain Zhao, Officer Chen, Officer Wu, and I successfully apprehended four criminals. No one escaped."
He showed me a photo of the four suspects in interrogation.
"Correct?"
The four men I'd seen in my future vision.
Then Shawn dialed a video call. To chubby Officer Wu.
"Hey, bro, what's up?"
"What's a big guy doing on video?"
"Shawn, are you sick?"
Shawn hung up and looked at me with a grin. "Does he look like someone who was gravely injured?"
I stared for a long moment, then realized what an extraordinary thing Shawn had just shown me.
He'd changed the future I'd seen.
He could change those futures I thought were unchangeable.
"Hey, don't... don't cry, Sophie... Sophie?"
I hugged him.
"Save me, Shawn..."
"Save me..."