Chapter 2
Edward Quan ·
7
Less than two days later, Chang Fei messaged me. I could start work.
I was so excited I couldn't sleep all night.
Elsewhere, being a convicted killer might frighten people off. At a karaoke bar, it was practically a badge of honor.
The place was hardly clean. Naturally, it needed a few people who weren't clean either.
With a record like mine, I couldn't take the respectable road. I didn't want to go back to the criminal underworld, either.
That left only this gray area.
I went straight to my father's place.
I wanted to tell him I wouldn't need his help anymore.
I could make a good life for myself.
But when I reached the door, I heard him arguing with that woman.
“If you dare give him any more money, you can get the hell out!”
“I told you, this was the last time. The last time! He's my son. He came right to the door. What was I supposed to do? Even if he were a beggar, I'd have to give him something to make him leave. Besides, he's killed someone. Aren't you scared?”
“Fuck! If I'd known you had a son like that, I'd never have married you! Don't let me see him here again!”
High heels clicked across the floor.
Startled, I hurried upstairs to hide. I watched the woman slam the door and leave.
So, to my father, I was no different from a beggar.
Strangely, I didn't feel sad.
Instead, I wanted to run after her and say:
“If you ever shout at my father again, I'll kill you.”
That seemed more in keeping with who I was supposed to be.
In the end, I held back.
I left the thousand yuan the karaoke bar's owner had advanced me outside my father's door, to repay what he had given me.
Once I'd made something of myself, I would come back.
Perhaps then he would be willing to acknowledge me.
8
The pay at the karaoke bar was decent. I moved out of the old neighborhood and rented an apartment in a fairly nice complex nearby.
I thought my life was finally on track.
I never expected the job to last only a year.
The owner turned out to be involved with drugs.
The entire bar was sealed off and investigated.
Fortunately, I had known nothing about it and escaped trouble.
Chang Fei was arrested, though.
The money I had saved over that year soon ran out.
At least I had paid a year's rent in advance. I still had somewhere to live.
But I had nothing left for food.
After several days chewing cold steamed buns, I thought of my father again.
I went to ask him for a loan to get me through.
I expected him to refuse.
Instead, he agreed.
Perhaps paying him back last time had awakened his conscience.
I kept looking for work.
But the crackdown had shut many karaoke bars. Even the gray area was closed to me now.
There was nothing for it. Each month I went to my father for living expenses.
That woman never appeared again.
To this day, I don't even know her name.
Without her, some of the distance between my father and me seemed to disappear.
He handed over the money readily each month and even asked how I had been.
That continued for almost a year.
Then, a few days ago, I went to his place for money again.
He wasn't home.
I called him.
He said he was away on business and would transfer the money later.
For some reason, I didn't want to leave that day.
I had secretly watched his apartment before and noticed that he kept a spare set of keys in the fire-hose cabinet outside.
On an impulse I couldn't explain, I took the keys and let myself in.
The apartment was filthy. Cigarette ends littered the floor; no one seemed to have cleaned for ages.
My father had never cared much about hygiene.
He was almost proud of it.
I sat on his sofa and lit a cigarette.
I even started imagining what it would be like to live there with him.
If only I could come into this home openly, as someone who belonged.
Perhaps one day he would accept me again.
Just as he had eight years ago, when he would stroke my head and call me his son.
Suddenly I wanted to surprise him.
Why not clean the place?
I found a mop and a cloth on the dusty balcony and set to work.
I had never cleaned even my own room so carefully.
As I worked, I looked around.
The furnishings were simple: a few clothes, a few everyday necessities.
I found nothing belonging to that woman.
It seemed she really was out of my father's life.
The thought cheered me so much that the mop almost danced in my hands.
It took me all afternoon just to make the living room presentable again.
Exhausted, I lay on the sofa and fell asleep.
I dreamed my father was cooking for me, making his specialty: spicy stir-fried chicken.
The next morning, I ate a quick breakfast and began cleaning the bedroom.
A locked drawer caught my eye.
Nothing else in the room was locked.
Why this drawer?
Was that where he kept his money?
Somehow, I had completely forgotten his disgust for me.
I felt like a child again.
There were no secrets between my father and me.
An inmate had once told me how to open a lock.
Acting on that same strange impulse, I took a piece of wire and slipped it into the little lock.
It actually opened.
I couldn't help feeling excited.
I wanted to see how much money my father had.
What if he was rich enough for me to live like a wealthy young heir?
Perhaps everything so far had only been a test.
The moment I opened the drawer, that lovely dream fell apart.
There was only a notebook inside.
Disappointed, but curious, I wondered what it contained.
Was it his diary?
I opened it carefully.
It was.
Most of the pages had been torn out, leaving only ragged scraps.
Why would he tear pages out of his diary?
The first surviving entry was dated July 3, 2007.
My birthday.
He had written that he bought me a huge cake.
The next page made my heart race.
July 20, 2006.
He had written:
I saw Zheng Luoshan today. Why is that bastard here?!
Zheng Luoshan.
I would never forget that name.
He was the man I had stabbed to death in the karaoke bar eight years earlier.
But there was something strange.
On July 20, 2006, I hadn't even met him yet.
Which meant—
My father had known Zheng Luoshan long before I did.
9
I began to shake.
Why did my father know Zheng Luoshan?
As far as I remembered, he didn't know the man at all.
I had met Zheng Luoshan through his younger brother, Zheng Luohai.
Zheng Luohai and I attended the same school. I was the tough guy in my class; he was the tough guy in the class next door.
Once, after a quarrel, I took my boys and gave him a thorough beating.
He threatened to get his brother to finish me off.
The next day, Zheng Luoshan stopped me outside the school gates.
He was fifteen years older than me and had been out in the world for years. How could a schoolboy compete with him?
Normally, people like us would have a fight, settle the score, and leave it at that.
But one thing he said sent me into a rage.
He said my mother had given birth to me but never bothered to raise me.
Everyone at school knew my mother was my sore spot.
Insult her to my face, and I would fight you to the death.
I went for him like a madman.
But I was just a schoolboy. Against him, I was a helpless little chick.
He soon left my face covered in blood.
That was when I threatened to kill him, sooner or later.
Afterward, I took my anger out on Zheng Luohai and told him to send his brother to the karaoke bar for a showdown.
Zheng Luoshan came.
Alone, as before.
I had drunk four or five beers and my head was spinning. I yelled and charged at him.
I was still no match for him.
He soon knocked me to the floor.
Sneering, he spat on me.
“Pah! You little bastard. Go get your father!”
Then he got up to leave.
As he reached the doorway, I called him back.
I had a fruit knife hidden in my hand.
The moment he turned, I drove it into his stomach.
I hadn't meant to kill him.
I only wanted to teach him a lesson. To show him I wasn't someone he could push around.
I had no idea a person could be so fragile.
One stab, and he crumpled like a strand of limp noodle.
Seeing blood spread across the floor sobered me instantly.
Only one thought remained.
I'm finished.
10
I went over it all in my mind, but I still couldn't see how my father fitted into it.
Had he really known Zheng Luoshan before I did?
Puzzled, I turned the page.
What I read next made my skin crawl.
June 25, 2007.
Zheng Luoshan must die!!!
That was the day I had fought Zheng Luohai.
The diary ended there.
More torn pages followed.
What did my father know?
My heart raced.
Fragments of memory began to surface.
Before I could put them together, a cold voice sounded beside me.
“What are you doing?”
My father.
I spun around and met his eyes.
I had never seen that expression on his face.
Fury, menace—and a trace of fear.
“Why are you here? Get out!”
He shoved me.
Then he saw the diary in my hand, and his movement faltered.
I couldn't stop shaking.
Holding it up, I asked:
“Why do you know Zheng Luoshan?”
He ignored the question and kept pushing me toward the door.
“Get out! Stop bothering me!”
He had forgotten I was no longer a child.
He wasn't strong enough to move me.
“Why do you know Zheng Luoshan?”
I asked again.
I wasn't trying to change what had happened.
I wanted the truth.
He tried to push me out again.
I couldn't take it anymore.
I turned and shoved him to the floor.
“I'm asking you! Why do you know Zheng Luoshan? What have you been hiding from me?”
My shout stunned him.
For a moment he stared blankly. Then his eyes dulled.
He took out a cigarette, lit it, and slowly exhaled a ring of smoke.
“Nothing. Some things you're better off not knowing. I've got a bank card here. The PIN is your mother's birthday. It's all my savings. Take it and leave. Let's never see each other again. Call it compensation.”
He tossed me the card.
Just as he had tossed those two hundred yuan at my feet.
But I wasn't a beggar.
I didn't pick it up.
I stayed where I was and stared at him.
We remained like that for several minutes.
Until his cigarette burned down.
Suddenly, he flew at me in a rage.
“I told you to leave! Are you deaf? Why are you such a fucking nuisance? Why didn't they execute you back then? Get out! Get the hell out!”
I snapped too.
We fought savagely, from the bedroom into the living room.
We wrecked the place.
Broken glasses and dishes covered the floor.
How could he be a match for me?
I soon had him pinned down, unable to move.
I took a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and blew out a ring of smoke.
I kept asking the same question.
“Why do you know Zheng Luoshan?”
He stared at me.
He hadn't expected me to be so stubborn.
After a long, long silence, he finally told me the truth.
11
He and Zheng Luoshan came from the same village.
My father had been among the first villagers to leave and find work elsewhere.
He was quick-witted and had made some money.
Zheng Luoshan was more than ten years younger.
Seeing how well my father had done, Zheng Luoshan's parents begged him to take their son along.
He agreed.
Zheng Luoshan was still a minor, but things were loosely regulated then. Give a made-up age, and you could get illegal work on a construction site.
According to my father, though, Zheng Luoshan couldn't endure hard work.
He soon gave up and went home.
In that short time, however, he had discovered a terrible secret about my father.
A secret that, my father said, could put him in prison.
One of the main reasons Zheng Luoshan returned to the village was that my father had paid him to keep quiet.
They agreed never to meet again.
Yet more than a decade later, Zheng Luoshan reappeared.
By then, my father had moved several times and brought us to a city where no one knew us.
He had never expected to run into him again.
Zheng Luoshan was just as surprised.
His parents had died, he said.
He had made a fair amount of money and brought his younger brother, Zheng Luohai, to live in the city.
At first, my father wanted little to do with him.
But he had overlooked one thing.
Zheng Luoshan was a scoundrel.
Most of the money he had earned was gone.
He didn't want to work anymore.
So he latched onto my father.
Every month, as soon as my father was paid, Zheng Luoshan caught the scent of money and came knocking.