Chapter 2

6

Reporter Lu told me his story.

“I was born in the early nineties. I was five when it happened, but it’s haunted me ever since. My parents were factory workers. We weren’t rich, but we were happy.

“Then came the mass layoffs of the nineties. Our family wasn’t spared. Both my parents lost their jobs.

“Suddenly we had no income. Life became terribly hard. I remember moving again and again, each place smaller and darker than the last.

“We could barely afford to eat. My mother tried selling flatbread on the street, but her stall was smashed up. My father planned to go abroad and work illegally with someone from his hometown, only to be cheated out of all his travel money.

“Every day, my parents went to the market to collect discarded vegetables and scraps of meat. If they were late, there’d be nothing left. So many other unemployed workers’ families were fighting over the same scraps. We lived on thin gruel, month after month. The house was always full of my parents’ sighs.

“I was little, but I wanted to help. I followed some people down to the river to catch fish. I was so hungry that my blood sugar dropped. I got dizzy and fell in. I nearly drowned.

“They pulled me out, but I developed pneumonia from the water in my lungs. That made things even harder...”

Lu Zeming could not go on. Tears glistened in his eyes.

He was, after all, only in his twenties. Without such a wretched childhood, perhaps he would never have become so obstinate.

I was much older than him. It hardly seemed my place to judge. All I said was, “I understand. I lived through those troubled years too. What happened next?”

“Then... someone wanted to marry my mother.”

His voice caught.

“For five hundred yuan, my father let her go with him. The man promised to treat her well for the rest of her life.

“I was only five. I’ve forgotten a lot of the details, but I’ll never forget the moment she turned to look at me as she boarded the train.

“Through the crowd, she looked at me with such love and pain. She reached toward me—just like the woman in your painting—but then she firmly lowered her hand, turned away, and disappeared into the dark carriage.

“I screamed for her. ‘Mom!’ My father held me back so I couldn’t follow. The train left, and it never came back.

“When I was little, I hated her. I couldn’t understand why she’d abandoned me. I only understood when I grew up. A few years later, my father worked himself sick and died.

“So when you said you were an orphan, I thought, so am I. The difference, perhaps, is that I once had parents. Having them and then losing them makes the longing hurt all the more.”

“Losing something and never having it are two different kinds of pain,” I said. “I don’t really understand what it means to have had it, but I’ve longed for a mother’s love too. What happened after that?”

Lu Zeming continued.

“At fifteen, I already had a knack for reporting. I could write well. I contributed to the local paper and even serialized a novel.

“I wrote like mad, day and night, until I’d earned over five hundred yuan. After asking around for a long time, I found the man who’d taken my mother away. I wanted to bring her home.

“He took my money, dragged me out to eat and drink, and took me all over the place without telling me anything. Only after he’d spent it all did he say that a year after taking my mother away, he’d sold her to the sort of people who...

“You know. People in that business. Selling women’s bodies...”

Lu Zeming broke down in tears.

I sighed. “I understand. That’s why I painted it. Everyone else saw a passionate lover. Only you saw a mother. Don’t cry. Have some water.”

“I never saw my mother again,” he said miserably. “Isn’t that sad?”

“For more than ten years, I’ve lived a mediocre life,” I said. “Goddess is my only good painting. I’m rather sad too.”

...

7

I told him my story.

As I had said, I was abandoned at birth. Those were years of mass layoffs—and of abandoned babies.

On a national scale, it was “normal.” I was a girl, after all. For the individual child, it was a tragedy.

I had always been physically weak, and my mental health suffered too. Each made the other worse. With society in such a state, I was lucky simply to survive.

...

On Lunar New Year’s Eve in 1998, I sat alone watching the Spring Festival Gala in the home of the woman who owned the grocery shop.

I felt none of the festive cheer, so I set up my easel. But I stared at the blank paper for a long time without being able to paint.

Near midnight, when the countdown began on television, I went out onto the balcony to catch snowflakes.

That was the moment everything went off course.

White snow... flake after flake.

Dark liquid... drop after drop...

I looked at the sticky liquid in my palm and raised it to my nose. A sweet, metallic smell.

Blood.

Slowly, I looked up.

On the balcony above, a woman’s upper body hung over the railing.

She faced down; I looked up. Her face, newly dead and contorted with pain, stared straight at me.

Her head hung upside down. One arm dangled toward me.

Blood ran along it, dripping.

...

I screamed.

But the firecrackers drowned me out.

A moment later, the arm was pulled back up.

The killer had noticed me.

I ran inside, switched off every light, and hid in the dark.

...

After a while, he came to the door.

He knocked.

“Anyone home?”

“Something fell onto your balcony...”

A man’s voice, with the hint of a laugh.

I held my breath.

A minute later, he left.

But then...

He climbed in through the balcony.

His hand closed around my throat.

8

“What happened next?” Lu Zeming asked impatiently.

I went on.

“‘It’s snowing,’ Chen Ling said. ‘There’s snow all along the railing, except where you were.’ He gave a cold laugh and began to squeeze. I still remember exactly how it felt, being unable to breathe.”

“I see.” Lu Zeming nodded. “Looking down, he could see one stretch of your railing without snow on it. When you saw him, you’d been leaning over it, wiping the snow away.”

“Yes. That was how he knew it was me. He came straight down.”

“And then? He was strangling you. What did you say when you were about to die?”

“He nearly crushed my throat, but suddenly my mind became perfectly clear. Can’t you guess what I said?”

Lu Zeming shook his head.

“No. You said it was a prophecy.”

“To be precise, I said two things. The first made him loosen his grip. The second made him let me go. It was the second that became a prophecy.”

“I honestly can’t imagine.”

I nodded.

“All right. Earlier, you called me a clearheaded egoist. I entirely agree. Never mind the egoism. It’s the clearheadedness that matters.”

“Please stop going in circles.”

“You can’t pursue your own interests without a reason. Every bargain needs a fair exchange. To benefit yourself, you have to offer something that benefits the other person. Take this interview. If I want your story, I have to give you mine. Conversely, if you want to stop someone from hurting you, you have to make it cost them. When Chen Ling had his hand around my throat, I understood at once that we were bargaining over my life. He wanted to kill me. I had to make him see there’d be a price.”

Lu Zeming considered this.

“But you hadn’t called the police. What price could there be?”

“I knew that. I had to find a way to make up for my mistake.”

“So what did you actually say?”

“You still don’t understand.” I sighed helplessly. “Let’s take Chen Ling. I told you he was intelligent—so intelligent he’d lost all humanity. Do you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because he was an even more clearheaded, ruthless egoist. He understood the nature of a bargain. You know about his childhood. He and his mother were kidnapped. There was no ransom, and his mother was killed.”

“Yes... Wait. Something’s wrong. If there was no money, wouldn’t they have killed both of them? Why kill his mother and let him go?”

“That’s precisely the point,” I said. “Because it wasn’t the kidnappers who killed his mother. It was Chen Ling himself.”

“What?”

“Without a ransom, the kidnappers weren’t going to simply let them go. Nobody believes a promise like ‘I won’t tell the police.’ To save his own life, Chen Ling let them record evidence of him killing his mother. It became an exchange for his freedom. Each side had something on the other. His crime was arguably even worse. Only then did the kidnappers believe he wouldn’t report them, and let him go.”

Lu Zeming stared.

“That is possible... I just never imagined he could be so coldhearted. A psychopath, all right. So you did the same...?”

“No. There was only the two of us there. Who could I have killed? All I could do was turn my earlier mistake into a gamble.”

“You mean not calling the police?”

I nodded.

“Yes. While he was strangling me, I forced myself to ask him, ‘Why haven’t I called the police?’ Then I pointed to the landline nearby.”

Lu Zeming frowned.

“What good would that do? Why would he believe you hadn’t reported him because you wanted to cover for him?”

“Of course that wasn’t it. Think of it another way. If someone witnesses a murder, reaches safety, and still doesn’t call the police, how likely is it that they’re like me—mentally unstable, so intent on painting the corpse that they forget to report the crime?”

“Not very likely.”

I nodded.

“So I lied. I said I hadn’t called the police because I couldn’t. I was a wanted criminal. The police were hunting me.

“He killed people, and so did I. I wouldn’t report him. We each had something on the other. He no longer needed to silence me. Killing me would only create more trouble, because I was already on a wanted list.”

“I see...” Lu Zeming still looked troubled. “But that was only your word. Why would he believe you?”

“He might not have. But he still stood to gain more by leaving me alive.

“He hadn’t seen my face, because I’d switched off the lights. Investigation methods were less advanced then. They relied mostly on witnesses. I didn’t know what he looked like. All he had to do was tie me up or knock me unconscious, then get away.

“In any case, it was a gamble. And I won. He not only spared me, he told me about his kidnapping.

“I had the feeling... that he felt some strange kinship with me.”

An odd look crossed Lu Zeming’s face.

“Kinship... You and Chen Ling felt a kinship...”

I smiled.

“Yes.”

“Something isn’t right... Wait. I think I’ve missed something...”

His gaze began to waver.

“You don’t look well,” I said with concern.

“I don’t feel well. It started about half an hour ago.”

He closed his eyes.

“What does it feel like?”

“I have no strength. My head’s spinning... Why...?”

Suddenly his eyes flew open. He stared at me.

The glass on the table was knocked to the floor.

9

“Just a little sleeping medication.” I picked up a length of cord beside me. “It’s what I usually take. Of course, I’m used to this dose. It has a rather stronger effect on you.”

“You... What are you going to do...?” Lu Zeming fought his drowsiness. He pushed himself to his feet, then collapsed to the floor.

“Remind you what you missed.” I stood, went over to him, and crouched beside him. “The prophecy.”

“‘I’m a wanted criminal.’ That was a prophecy. Almost twenty years later, it’s finally about to come true.”

“Wh... why...?” His eyes filled with terror.

Slowly, I looped the cord around his neck.

“For an ordinary person, meeting Chen Ling might have been a disaster. For me, it was a blessing. God’s gift to someone as untalented as I am.”

The cord crossed behind his neck. Lu Zeming struggled, trying to crawl toward the door.

“He made me realize that I wasn’t truly without talent. The switch that turned mine on simply worked differently from other people’s.”

The cord began to tighten.

“My best painting—my debut, Goddess—was a painting of that woman’s corpse, hanging halfway over the balcony on Lunar New Year’s Eve. I took it to an art instructor. He was deeply moved. Looking at it, he exclaimed, ‘This is love.’ Then he admitted me to the academy without charging tuition.”

“But after that, I could never paint anything worthwhile again.”

The cord pulled taut. Lu Zeming gasped, suffocating as though he were drowning.

“I kept trying to recall how I’d felt while painting Goddess. Tense, stimulated, exhilarated. Nothing else in my mind. If I could just reach that state again, I could paint.

“Over the years, I tried everything. Drinking, racing cars, even drugs. I indulged myself until my mind was in ruins. But however I tormented myself, I could never reach the state I wanted.

“All those failures proved one thing. Only death—only seeing a human being die with my own eyes—could do it.”

The cord tightened further. In agony, Lu Zeming arched his upper body back and raised his arms, as though pleading for some unseen protection.

“Very good,” I told him. “That’s the pose. Hold it a little longer.”

“Eighteen years ago, I was lucky enough to encounter Chen Ling committing a murder. That gave me Goddess. What are the odds of meeting a killer in your lifetime? And of seeing his victim with your own eyes?

“It’s something you might chance upon, but can’t seek out. Once in a lifetime is enough. If you want more, you have to take it for yourself.

“All these years, I’ve endured the pain of mediocrity while holding back the urge to kill. In the end, the first overcame the second. When Chen Ling was arrested, I understood more clearly than ever that I couldn’t keep waiting. I couldn’t rely on anyone else. I had to create death with my own hands.”

The cord bit into his flesh.

“I know that once I act, I’m lost. My career is over. But it will be a complete ending, far more meaningful than a hopeless existence.

“It hurts too much. How can I accept that someone who once painted Goddess should remain mediocre forever? I can’t bear it. I’ve lived like a walking corpse for more than ten years. All those years, I’ve suffered because I wouldn’t kill.

“Now I can finally paint a sequel to Goddess. God has brought the goddess’s son to me. For more than a month, you kept following me. I refused you again and again, but you wouldn’t leave. It turns out this was heaven’s will. I can’t keep holding back. Nor should I.

“My instincts tell me that you and the goddess in the painting are mother and son. You’ll join her in heaven. That will make your life complete. And your sacrifice will make mine complete too.

“Everyone wins.”

10

“That is my full confession.”

An hour earlier, the police had entered the studio and found one living person, one corpse, and two paintings.

One was Goddess, now renamed Mother.

The other was Son.

In Mother, the woman leaned down, her hand extended in protection.

In Son, the fallen child looked up, pleading for help.

The two paintings faced each other—the mother above, the son below. At last, their eyes met.

They were complete.

The police asked, “What’s their story?”

“The mother leaves on a train. She leans down, wanting one last touch. The child runs after her and falls. All he can do is reach up in vain.”

“It’s Reporter Lu’s story.”

The police were preparing to take me away, but they asked one more question.

“Were they really mother and son?”

“I have only my instincts to go on,” I said. “But a DNA test would make it more complete.”

An officer shook his head.

“Impossible. The woman’s body was never found. We can’t verify it.”

“She was real,” I said softly. “That night, when I held out my hand to catch the snow... two drops of blood fell into my palm.”

“That was the beginning—and the end—of the story.”

THE END