The room was tiny. It was only big enough for a desk and chair. The walls were covered in Lin Yues research.
Lin Yue went inside. Shut the door behind her. She did this even though she lived by herself. Lin Yue liked to have her space.This was something she got used to doing. She did it even when she did not really need to.
Lin Yue had learned that people can take things away, from you quickly. So Lin Yue thought that she had to keep everything. Lin Yue had to protect her research and her things.
She sat down at the desk. Turned on her computer. It was starting up so she looked at the wall in front of her.
There was a picture of Zhang Wei on the wall. The picture of Zhang Wei was, from his architecture companys website. Zhang Wei was wearing a suit and he was smiling at the camera.
He had no idea that someone had been watching Zhang Wei for a long time like a person waiting for the perfect moment to do something.
Lin Yue had everything about him around his picture. She knew what he did every day because of the things he posted on media. She even knew the way he went to work she had drawn it on a map.
Lin Yue had taken pictures of the things he shared on WeChat. She had found articles about the buildings he designed. Lin Yue also found the paper he wrote when he was a student at Tongji University.
She read it to see how the mans mind worked. She wanted to know everything about the man, in the photograph.
To Zhang Weis right were pictures of his wife, Xu Qing.
Lin Yue did not know much about Xu Qing because Xu Qing was not really on media.. Lin Yue found what she could.
Pictures from medical meetings articles that talked about Xu Qings successes as a surgeon.
From these bits of information Lin Yue made a picture of Xu Qing in her mind: Xu Qing was smart she focused on her career she was not very emotional and Xu Qing was probably not happy in her marriage to Zhang Wei.. Xu Qing was too proud or too busy to do anything about it. Lin Yue thought Xu Qing was, like that.
Below them were the children. Zhang Ming, the sixteen year son was easy to find out about because the children these days live their lives on the internet.
Lin Yue had looked at years of things Zhang Ming posted online. She saw how he changed from a happy kid to an angry teenager.
If you look at what Zhang Ming posted you can see he is rebelling against everything from his hair color, to the mean things he says about school and his family.
Zhang Ming is struggling Zhang Ming is unhappy. It is clear that his parents do not pay enough attention to Zhang Ming.
Unhappiness is a problem because it can be used against you. When you are unhappy it is easy for people to take advantage of you. Unhappiness makes you weak. People can exploit your unhappiness.
Zhang Xiao, the twelve year daughter did not have much of an online presence but what was there was really interesting. She mostly posted drawings on a website for artists.
Lin Yue looked at every one of Zhang Xiaos posts and noticed some common ideas. A lot of Zhang Xiaos drawings had people in them who were all alone. They were usually small with a lot of empty space, around them. Zhang Xiao also drew pictures of families.
In these drawings the family members never touched each other. Zhang Xiaos drawings were pretty revealing. Lin Yue thought about what they might mean.
On the side were the grandparents. Zhang Guoqiang was a man who looked very traditional in every single picture.
Wang Lian was smaller than him. She still managed to look like she was in charge even in photographs.
The grandparents lived with the rest of the family in a style house in the historic part of Suzhou. Lin Yue did a lot of research.
Found things, like property records and tax papers and even old news articles from when Zhang Guoqiangs textile factory was doing really well. Zhang Guoqiangs textile factory was very successful then.
The computer was finally done loading. Lin Yue opened up her files. She had everything really organized. There were folders for each person in her family.
There were also folders for the Zhang family business.. Then there were folders for all the people they knew both friends and people they worked with.
Lin Yue also had a folder that was locked with a password and encrypted and this folder was just called "Evidence", for the Zhang family.
This had all the information she had found out about the accident. She had gotten police reports by paying people off or finding ways to get to them.
There were statements from people who saw it happen that did not match what the officials said. The woman had pictures of the place where the accident happened. She also had reports that showed what really was in the persons system, which nobody else knew about.
There were records of money being moved from one bank account, to another which showed that people had been paid to keep quiet. The woman had all the things she needed to show what really happened on that night.
She was not going to tell anyone about it at not for now. The law had not helped her all. The system had helped the Zhang family. Said her dead husband was the bad one.
She found out that people with money and important friends can get away with anything. They can even make people think they are innocent when they are not.
So she stopped trying to get help from the law. Started thinking of something different. Something that would really work. Something that would make the Zhang family pay for what they did, to her and her dead husband. The Zhang family had taken a lot from her. She wanted to take something from them too.
Lin Yue opened the folder that said "Phase One: Transformation" on it. She went through everything in the folder. This was the plan she had been working on for two years now. Lin Yue made sure every little thing was just right.
Phase One was, about changing Lin Yue completely. She wanted to become a person someone the Zhang family would not know. Lin Yue needed to fit into the Zhang familys life without them realizing who she really was.
To do this Lin Yue found a doctor named Dr. Liang. Dr. Liang was a surgeon who would do what Lin Yue wanted if she paid him enough money. She looked at what Zhang Wei liked on his media.
Then she figured out what features would be most attractive, to Zhang Wei. She did this by checking what Zhang Wei posted about and what he liked on his media. This way she knew what Zhang Wei would find attractive.
She studied psychology too. She read a lot of books about how people manipulate others and persuade them to do things.
She learned how to get people to trust psychology and persuasion she learned how to make people like psychology and persuasion. She learned how to make people depend on psychology and persuasion.
She changed herself from a woman who was very sad because her husband died into something something that could hurt people but if you looked at her now you would just see a quiet and sad woman, in her thirties who looks like she is still grieving.
Things will be different soon. She is going to meet Dr. Liang week to talk about the final surgical plan for the Chen Mei transformation.
After Chen Mei has spent three months recovering she will become Chen Mei, a new person, with a new face and a new identity and Chen Mei will be ready to start her secret mission to infiltrate the Zhang family.
The wall opposite the photographs had a timeline that went all the way across it.
On the side it showed what happened before. There was the night of the accident, which was marked in black.
Then there was the discovery of the coverup. That was marked in red. The day she decided she wanted revenge that was marked in gold. After that it showed three years where she got ready, for what she was going to do.
She made a note of every thing that happened. She learned how to paint. She took classes to learn about the history of art. She even researched Suzhou. Every single part of her identity was made carefully and written down.
The right side was about what is going to happen. They had already planned the surgery for week.
Lin Yue stood up. Walked really slow around the room. She looked at her work from angles.
Lin Yue had spent three years on this. All that time was there on these walls. She had given up much for this.
Lin Yue had stopped talking to her friends because they wanted her to move on. She only saw her parents when she had to.
Lin Yue did not go to work anymore. She used her savings to get by. Her whole life was about one thing now. Lin Yue had made her life, about getting to that one target.
Sometimes she thought about what Zhao Jun would think of this situation. Zhao Jun was a good man. He was a teacher who believed in education and giving people another chance.
Zhao Jun would have been really upset. Zhao Jun would have asked her to stop what she was doing.
Zhao Jun would have told her to let go of her feelings and choose life of trying to get revenge.. Now Zhao Jun is dead and what Zhao Jun thought no longer matters.
Lin Yue went back to her computer. Opened a document called "Chen Mei. Background". This was the made up life she had come up with for her identity Chen Mei.
Chen Mei was from Guangzhou. She had no brothers or sisters. Her parents had died in a car crash.
It was a reason why she did not have any family to visit. It gave her something to talk about with people.. It was also kind of funny, in a sad way, which made Lin Yue feel something inside.
She liked that Chen Mei had a story because it made her new identity feel more real.
Lin Yue thought about Chen Mei a lot. She really liked the person she had created. Chen Mei was a part of her life now.
Chen Mei went to Sun Yat-sen University to learn about art history. Lin Yue made school records and even got into the universitys computer system to add false information.
Chen Mei was a cultured person she knew a lot about art and music and she was very emotional in a good way, which is what someone like Zhang Wei would like.
Chen Mei had all the things that Xu Qing did not have she was. Artistic and people liked being, around her.
When the surgery was finished Chen Mei and Lin Yue would not look like they were related in any way. Dr. Liang was getting rid of Lin Yue. Making Chen Mei. He was changing everything about Lin Yue to make Chen Mei. Chen Mei was going to be a different person, from Lin Yue.
Lin Yue saved the document. Then she shut down her computer. She got up. Walked to the door.
Lin Yue paused to look at the room one more time.
When Lin Yue finally left this apartment and moved to Suzhou as Chen Mei she would get rid of all of this stuff. Lin Yue would make sure to leave no trail that connected Lin Yue to Chen Mei.
But that was still weeks away.
For now, she turned off the light and locked the door securing the key around her neck.
She returned to the main part of her apartment, the emptiness and silence. Tomorrow she would count down to another day until the surgery, another day until she could finally begin.