Chapter 4
Edward Quan ·
Wu Ye was beaten.
When he came around, he was tied to a chair.
He looked up dazedly.
Mr. Ruan was coming out of the kitchen with a pointed knife roughly forty centimeters long.
Wu Ye snapped fully awake.
“Please, sir! Spare me! I won’t say a word! Your mother was old. Say she died naturally. No one will suspect anything. My parents worked so hard to raise me...”
“Shh.”
Ruan loomed over him and threatened him with mutilation.
“Enjoyed sleeping with my daughter, did you?”
Wu Ye knew what the madman intended.
Desperately, he tried another approach.
“My parents know I’m here! They call at nine every night. If they can’t reach me, they’ll call the police!”
Ruan sneered.
“You think that scares me?”
“Then... for the sake of the fifty thousand yuan I gave you for Jingjing’s hospital bills, couldn’t you let me live?”
Ruan slapped him.
“You touched my daughter. You owed her that money!”
Wu Ye lost all hope.
Then Ruan said, “Still, it isn’t impossible. You do come from a rich family.”
Hope flared.
“Yes! My father has plenty of money! I’ll give you more!”
Ruan smiled coldly.
“But you’ll have to do something.”
“Wh-what?”
He jerked his chin toward the little bedroom.
“Dismember my mother.”
Wu Ye understood instantly.
With nerves this steady and plans this calculating...
Was the man really just a breakfast-shop owner?
Ruan was growing impatient.
“Well? Will you do it or not?”
Weeping, Wu Ye shook his head.
The old woman had never harmed him. He couldn’t do it.
“Useless!” Ruan snarled. “What does Jingjing see in a coward like you?”
His phone rang.
“Your phone!” Wu Ye shouted. “It might be the hospital!”
“Shut up!”
Ruan clamped a hand over his mouth and took out an old phone.
A middle-aged man’s voice came through.
“Ruan, how’s your girl?”
“Still in emergency.”
“There’s something... I’m not certain. I was going to call the police, but I thought I should tell you first.”
Ruan frowned.
“We’ve been neighbors for years. We play chess and drink together. Stop beating around the bush.”
“Some temporary workers from the chemical plant came to my barbecue place. One of them, a blond lad, is drunk. He’s boasting that he attacked that medical-school girl last night.
“I don’t know whether he’s just talking rubbish. Should I call the police?”
“Don’t!”
Ruan’s face changed.
“Keep him there. I’m coming.”
He hung up and stood smoking, one hand on his hip.
At last he seemed to decide.
He went to the balcony and returned with a suitcase, rope, tape and several other things.
Wu Ye was both frightened and hopeful.
“Have you found the man who hurt Jingjing? Are you going after him? Let me go. I’ll help!”
“Let you go? So you can run straight to the police?”
That was exactly what Wu Ye intended.
Of course he didn’t say so.
“No! You’re my girlfriend’s father. That makes you like my own father. We’re family. I’d never betray you.”
Ruan fetched an enormous rolling pin and approached him, raising it high.
Wu Ye’s terror peaked.
It was over.
The old man was going to silence him for good.
A savage blow struck the back of his head.
Everything went black.
Pain woke him.
His head felt pierced by a thousand needles. He was sick with dizziness.
He had been hidden under the bed, bound and gagged, able to make only muffled sounds.
He struggled against the rope.
His hand brushed something.
Not quite soft. Not quite hard.
His heart lurched.
He knew what it was.
With difficulty, he turned his head.
Jingjing’s grandmother lay inches from his face.
Her skin was gray. Her half-open eyes stared ahead without expression.
His skin crawled. He nearly wet himself.
Somehow he found the strength to writhe and roll out from under the bed.
There was a noise in the living room.
Voices.
Who was there?
The police?
A neighbor?
He looked up.
The bedroom door was shut, but a narrow gap on the right admitted a strip of yellow light.
The will to live gave him another burst of strength.
He crawled over and looked through.
His heart sank.
Ruan had brought back another captive.
The man was tied to a chair.
He was in his twenties, with dyed blond hair and a dark-blue chemical-plant uniform. He looked rough, and his face was already battered.
Ruan rolled up his sleeves.
Smack.
The blond man’s nose began to bleed.
“I’ll ask you again. Why did you kill my daughter?”
The worker wept, mucus running from his nose.
“I didn’t! I didn’t kill anyone! I was drunk and showing off!”
Ruan seized his hair and shook him.
“I spoke to the cleaner who found my daughter. She saw a flash of yellow nearby. And you’re still saying it wasn’t you?
“They’re right about killers. Always coming back to the scene.
“Tell me! How did you know my daughter? Why did you take her eyes?”
Panic flashed in the worker’s eyes.
But he held out.
“I don’t know your daughter! I swear!”
Ruan lost patience.
He pulled over a meat grinder.
“Know what this is?”
He threatened to put the young man through it and turn him into filling for steamed buns.
The worker went white.
Ruan patted his head, then described further threats with a knife.
The young man wet himself. Drops pattered onto the floor.
“I... I remember now!”
He could barely speak.
“I did see your daughter last night! But I didn’t kill her!”
Ruan grabbed his throat.
“Explain.”
The worker’s eyes darted. He was gasping.
“I was coming home from the night shift. Your daughter was talking to Mr. Guo at the entrance to the alley.”
Ruan stared.
“Guo? Her old high-school homeroom teacher?”
The worker nodded.
“Yes. He was mine too. Made my life hell for three years.
“He divorced a few years ago, after an affair. Lost everything. Now he lives in Building Five, Xingfu Estate.
“Whenever I think about what he did to me, I get so angry I go and throw stones through his windows—”
“Enough rubbish,” Ruan interrupted. “Did you see him kill her?”
The worker shook his head.
“I saw him holding a pretty girl and trying to kiss her. She didn’t want him to. She was crying and pulling away.
“She said she had a boyfriend now. They were getting engaged. She wanted nothing more to do with him.
“Guo just grinned and threatened her.
“‘If you won’t let me kiss you, we can go to the police. Tell them about you and your father. That would cause quite a stir.’”
Ruan’s hands shook with rage.
“And then?”
The worker swallowed.
“He kept forcing himself on her. Then they left together.”
Ruan gripped his chin.
“That’s all? Anything else?”