Chapter 2

My voice caught.

“All my anger is directed at your parents.”

“I think yours should be too.”

“So if you want me to let go...”

I looked at him seriously, my voice stern.

“Whatever you did to my daughter...”

“You're going to do to your mother.”

Liu went blank.

The hand holding the knife drooped.

I turned and smiled at the woman on the floor.

She was trying desperately to move.

She couldn't.

All she could do was stare, tears streaming from her eyes.

Hadn't she raised this demon herself?

Let her taste the consequences.

I kept pressing him.

“Look at your father.”

“You don't have a way back.”

“The only way you'll be saved is if you make my anger go away.”

“You understand.”

“No matter how many people you kill, they won't sentence you.”

He was only ten.

But he understood all of it.

“Hurry.”

“Or I'll do to you what I did to your father.”

I moved the head on the table.

It rolled once.

Liu broke completely.

He burst into tears and lunged at his mother.

The look in her eyes...

Utter despair.

“Mum... I'm sorry...”

“It's your fault... Why wouldn't you let me play games at home?”

“If you'd let me stay home, I wouldn't have gone out...”

“Your fault...”

“All your fault...”

“You blamed me. You hit me...”

Excuses.

He was only a child. How could he willingly take responsibility?

So he put it all on his mother.

Only then could he do it.

He hurt her, crying and shouting as he went.

He began describing how he'd attacked my daughter.

Now, under my threats, he was repeating that cruelty against his own mother.

Fair.

Her face twisted with pain, tears flowing, she stared at me as though I were the one hurting her.

Even now, she believed I was behind it.

If anger still burned in those eyes, it would be gone in another thirty seconds.

While Liu sobbed and attacked his mother, I stepped forward.

I'd achieved what I wanted.

I'd seen enough.

I struck him with my knife.

He looked up at me in disbelief, as though demanding to know why I'd lied after promising to spare him.

His body sagged.

He was still alive.

His mother was still watching.

“Look. It hurts him.”

I continued until he died.

Then I wiped my face and smiled brightly at the only person left.

There was nothing in her eyes now.

Perhaps despair.

“Don't worry. You won't get an easy death.”

A family ought to die together.

Why should father and son suffer, while the mother was spared?

Of course she wouldn't be.

I wiped the fruit knife clean and came toward her, smiling.

“You'll hurt the longest. Longer than either of them.”

Now even despair had left her eyes.

Only emptiness remained.

I put the house in order and left before dawn.

I didn't want to confess yet, psychiatric diagnosis or not.

There were three families left.

Every one of them had to pay for what my daughter had suffered.

Two had moved to the county town. The other had gone to a distant province.

After doing those terrible things, I hid and rested for a week.

I had no nightmares.

I slept soundly every night.

Then one morning, Mr. Jiang messaged me.

Liu's family had been found. Officers from the neighboring city had come to work on the investigation.

At last, they were paying attention to us.

At last!

At last, they were paying attention to what had happened to En'en.

Perhaps this was the only way to make them take it seriously.

Wasn't it?

I laughed until I cried.

Mr. Jiang probably meant I couldn't wait any longer.

I'd intended to return each family's cruelty a hundredfold. A thousandfold.

That no longer seemed possible.

Three families still remained.

Leaving the one in the other province aside for now, there was Xu Wenhua, fourteen, living in the county with his grandparents. No parents.

A little demon with no one to discipline him.

Then Ye Jiawen's family of three.

All of them had to die.

I called my husband to discuss what came next.

He sounded unsettled—not afraid, but worried I'd be in danger.

He'd learned, while speaking to the investigators, that they'd apparently warned the two families in the county.

I laughed again. Tears came with it.

Why?

They hadn't been so righteous when my daughter was hurt.

Why did Liu's family's deaths immediately make them suspect us of revenge?

Why protect the people responsible?

Ridiculous.

The people who should have dealt with them for us were protecting them instead.

My husband was calm.

“You've done enough. It's my turn to do something.”

“No. Stay with En'en.”

To make our motive for revenge less obvious, Mr. Jiang had even told us not to bury her or let anyone know she'd died.

But my husband said, “They've been to our house. They'll soon discover En'en isn't there.”

“Then I'll move faster.”

“You'll be arrested. That's all right. Mr. Jiang's found a lawyer. And if we can, let's follow his arrangements.”

Of course I agreed.

We were only a poorly educated rural couple.

For more than a year, Mr. Jiang had stayed by our side, cared for us, spent his money and time helping us, and taught us all sorts of psychology.

All so we could be in the best possible state to care for En'en.

He hadn't expected her to die that way either.

Still less could he have expected everything he'd taught us to become support for our transformation into killers.

To let me kill our enemies calmly.

Even children.

As though it had all been arranged beforehand.

I asked about his plan.

My husband relayed it: I was to kill Xu openly, in broad daylight.

“That lets him off too easily.”

“It's part of the plan. It will make you look mentally ill and cause enough of an uproar to terrify Ye's family.”

“Won't they run?”

“That's what he expects. They'll be easier to reach once they leave.”

“You'll kill them? You'll be sentenced to death.”

“Mr. Jiang has arranged everything. He understands the law.”

I fell silent.

The tears wouldn't stop.

“Does that mean... we won't see each other again?”

My husband went quiet too.

At last, through gritted teeth, he said, “We will. Down below. We'll go back to En'en together.”

I cried.

So did he.

I did my best to look mad.

I really did kill Xu Wenhua in broad daylight.

It was quick and clean.

Far too easy for him.

Afterward, I laughed loudly, walking and running at random.

The police were so slow.

I ran a long way, right out into the countryside, and they still hadn't caught up.

I stopped and waited ages.

Eventually, they came.

I laughed as they took me away.

They questioned me. I said nothing.

Laughing was enough.

They asked and asked, getting nowhere.

Two particularly stupid officers came several times, insisting I confess.

“Confess? Fuck you.”

They got angry, turned off the camera, and prepared to beat me.

I thought about it. If they were that stupid, perhaps I could use them.

I said I'd confess if they did me a favor.

Warn Ye's parents to look out for themselves. Do that, and I'd confess.

They actually considered it.

So stupid.

If they really delivered the warning, all the better. The parents might disbelieve anyone else. They'd believe the police.

Perhaps they did.

The following day, I heard Ye's whole family was dead.

A road accident.

My husband was in hospital too. His car had struck theirs.

So that was it.

That was the plan.

I worried terribly about his injuries.

A few days later, my lawyer came.

His surname was Chen. He'd been Mr. Jiang's student, earned a master's degree in law, and become a lawyer.

My husband was all right, he said.

But three people had died. Ye's father, who'd been taken to intensive care, hadn't survived.

The crash would result in criminal charges against my husband. He would certainly be sentenced.

Whether Chen could secure a suspended sentence would depend on how the case developed.

As for me, he was confident.

I wouldn't bear criminal responsibility.

Exactly as Mr. Jiang had predicted.

I was innocent.

But I didn't like how he'd arranged the crash.

Wasn't killing them that way too merciful?

Only later did I understand.

Mr. Jiang hadn't been foolish.

His arrangement had another purpose.