Chapter 2
Edward Quan ·
04
“Well...” Officer Zhang hesitated.
“His name is Xiaomei,” I said. “He has a severe dissociative identity disorder. The main personality is a girl of about ten. The other is a robber who kills without blinking.”
Officer Zhang blinked.
He stood there for a long time, unable to digest quite that much information.
05
Xiaomei's enormous shadow swallowed Wang Ba.
Wang Ba gaped, still struggling to take it in.
“Mister? What's wrong?”
Xiaomei reached out a hand the size of a fan to tug at his sleeve.
Wang Ba jumped and shouted, “Get away, you freak!”
Startled, Xiaomei pulled back. Head lowered, eyes reddening, he looked ready to cry.
It wasn't an act. It was exactly the look of a child who believed she'd done something wrong.
The sniffling only emboldened Wang Ba. Apparently this mountain of a man was all bark and no bite.
His manner changed at once. He pulled off a shoe and swung it at Xiaomei's face.
“Teach you to scare me!”
The crying Xiaomei caught his wrist.
Fast as lightning. Unerringly precise.
The grip made Wang Ba grind his teeth with pain. He couldn't move.
When Xiaomei raised his head, his expression had changed completely.
Same face.
But the cold eyes and sinister smile belonged to someone else.
“You dare touch her?”
Even his voice was different.
Wang Ba screamed and begged him to let go.
“Xiaomei” paid no attention.
Smiling coldly, he seized Wang Ba by the throat with one hand and yanked the trapped wrist with the other.
Crack.
The arm snapped.
Watching from outside, Officer Zhang winced and rubbed his own arm.
I smiled and pointed at the monitor.
“I invited you as a witness. A man breaks into a patient's room, disturbs the patient, triggers an episode, and gets hurt when the patient defends herself. Entirely reasonable, wouldn't you say?”
Understanding dawned on Officer Zhang's face. He smiled knowingly and wrote in his notebook:
“Wang Ba sustained a fractured right arm when a young girl resisted his assault.”
He considered this, then added:
“The young girl was approximately two meters tall and weighed an estimated one hundred and fifty kilograms.”
Meticulous work.
06
Sweat beaded on Wang Ba's forehead.
His face was white, his lips trembling.
“Xiaomei” took his fingers and bent them backward, one at a time.
“My little sister gets bored. It's not often someone comes to play.” He spoke slowly. “Be good and keep her company. Otherwise I'll kill you. Understand?”
Wang Ba's eyes bulged with pain. He writhed on the floor, nodding frantically.
A moment later, the cruelty drained from Xiaomei's gaze.
Those eyes turned clear again.
The harmless little girl was back.
“Mister!”
Xiaomei looked close to tears.
“I'm sorry. I was bad. I shouldn't have frightened you.”
Wang Ba jolted upright, then dropped to his knees and began knocking his forehead against the floor.
“I was wrong! I'm sorry! Please stop playing with me, big brother—no, my lord! You're my own dear father!”
Xiaomei tilted her head, puzzled.
“Are you playing a game with me?”
Just like that, she brightened.
“Let's play whack-a-mole!”
Humming, she climbed onto the bed and ripped open a stuffed doll.
There was no stuffing inside.
It held tools.
Hammers. Saws. Daggers.
A miniature arsenal.
Xiaomei quickly found a favorite: an enormous iron hammer, about a meter and a half long and weighing forty kilograms.
“Whack-a-mole! Whack-a-mole!”
Beaming, she lifted it and brought it down at Wang Ba.
Terror made him lose control of his bladder. He rolled aside just in time.
Crash!
The floor split.
Dust showered from the ceiling.
Even the image on the surveillance screen shook.
“Help!”
Survival instinct took over. Wang Ba scrambled out of the room on hands and knees.
Xiaomei didn't follow.
Instead, she covered her eyes with both hands and silently counted to thirty.
Then she dragged the giant hammer out into the corridor.
“Ready or not, little mouse... Here I come.”
In the dark corridor, only her heavy footsteps remained.
Clang... clang...
07
Xiaomei strolled through the darkness, dragging the hammer behind her.
She opened the rooms one by one.
They had all been wards once. Their furnishings were simple: a bed and a wardrobe, nothing else.
Apart from those wardrobes, Wang Ba had nowhere to hide.
Finding him was only a matter of time.
Unfortunately, there were a great many rooms.
One empty room. Another...
Within ten minutes, a child's patience was wearing thin.
She cupped her hands around her mouth and called in an exaggerated voice:
“I can see you!”
Wang Ba was an old hand. He wasn't falling for that.
Half a minute passed. The corridor remained silent.
Xiaomei called several more times without an answer, then stood helplessly still.
Tears welled up. She threw back her head and began to howl.
Stamping her feet, she shouted, “Brother! Brother! My little mouse is gone!”
The child's wailing echoed down the corridor, making the place uncannier still.
Soon, the crying stopped.
“Xiaomei” spoke gently.
“There, there. Don't cry. I'll find it for you.”
He smiled coldly, hefted the hammer onto his shoulder, and entered the next room.
He didn't bother opening the wardrobe.
He smashed it.
Boom!
Wood flew. The wardrobe exploded into pieces.
The brother didn't care whether Wang Ba lived or died.
He only had to find him.
Even a heap of mangled flesh would be something he could hand over to his sister.
No one in this room.
Without hesitation, he moved to the next.
Crash! Crash! Crash!
His strength seemed inexhaustible.
He demolished several wardrobes without flushing or even breathing harder.
At last Wang Ba could no longer endure the dreadful pressure drawing closer.
He screamed and burst from one of the rooms.
The brother was ready. He grabbed a sharp piece of wood and hurled it.
Thud!
It lodged in Wang Ba's calf.
His knee buckled. Momentum sent him tumbling across the floor.
“Aaaah!”
He clutched his leg and screamed.
He had actually reached the far right end of the corridor. The staircase was less than three meters away.
Green light glowed from the stairwell. To him, it must have looked like the gates of heaven.
Gritting his teeth, he crawled toward it.
The brother wasn't in a hurry.
He had all the patience in the world for playing with his prey.
He picked up another length of wood and crushed it in one hand.