Chapter 4
Edward Quan ·
I've set my sights on a demon that should never have been awakened.
Perhaps the girl doesn't really want to hurt me.
She's been frightened and helpless all along.
That would explain why every apparently vicious attack has failed.
Perhaps he's found some way to threaten this inexperienced, silent girl into taking part.
Make her his accomplice.
His tool for life.
At last, she nods and turns toward the wardrobe to fetch the saw.
Lin Kan smiles and approaches me, step by step.
I stare, struggling like a fish stranded on land.
The sheet rustles underneath me.
He wipes his hands with the tissue he used on his eyes and tosses it aside.
Crouching, he takes my leg and slowly rolls up the trouser cuff.
Perhaps he rubbed too hard earlier.
Bloody scratches mark the skin beneath his eyes.
With his dark circles, they make him look like a demon.
19
He takes a fresh wipe and cleans my leg.
“Don't be afraid. Let me disinfect you first. I hear adrenaline stops you feeling pain at the beginning.”
“MOMO, aren't you happy? You're the only fan who gets to share a room with me.”
“Oh, a gift. You wanted a gift, didn't you? Wait.”
He finds a new box, opens it, and pushes it in front of me.
Photographs fill it.
Pictures of me sneaking in to watch him, taken at every time and angle.
So...
While I was watching him, I was being watched too.
Smiling, he tucks loose hair behind my ear, tender as a longtime lover.
“Your exclusive level-60 fan gift.”
“Do you like it?”
“Do you like it?”
“Like it? Like it? Like it?”
“Why won't you answer?”
He grips my chin.
Pain brings involuntary tears. The mask quickly absorbs them.
When I don't respond, he shoves me away.
I lower my head, full of regret.
The silent girl returns with the saw.
And the phone I hid in the wardrobe.
Pleased, he gives her a thumbs-up.
He switches it on.
After the startup tune, it requests facial recognition.
Reluctantly, he crouches to remove the tape from my mask.
“Let's make a deal, MOMO.”
“Give this a smile, and I'll reward you with two doses of anesthetic. All right?”
I nod frantically.
He's pleased by my surrender.
Once the tape is gone, I gulp air.
“Can I know what time it is?”
Puzzled, he shows me the screen.
11:34 p.m.
Time flies.
Almost a new day.
Deeply satisfied, I lean toward his ear and let out a horrible laugh.
“Hee hee hee...”
I keep laughing until I can hardly breathe.
Disgusted, he pushes me.
“Crazy bitch! You're about to die, and you're still at it?”
I laugh until tears spill.
“Lin Kan.”
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
“With your own hands?”
The question seems to catch him off guard.
He freezes.
He hasn't noticed that I've already cut the ties around my wrists with my scissors.
20
His eyes still bother him.
He rubs them with his sleeve, making the red marks worse.
I whisper again.
“You need to threaten a young girl into cutting off a leg for you.”
“Coward.”
“Spineless coward.”
“Your life never belonged to you. When are you paying back what you owe?”
He suddenly clutches his head and drops to his knees.
“Shut up!”
“Shut your mouth!”
“What do you know?”
“I killed someone years ago!”
“Yes! Ha ha ha...”
“That bitch deserved it!”
“It wasn't my fault!”
“She brought it on herself! Not my fault!”
Panting, he lunges for me.
I move aside and drive the scissors into his palm.
He screams.
“You bitch!”
“How did you—”
The silent girl stands before him with the saw.
“That's right, Jiajia!”
“Shut her up!”
“Do that, and I promise I won't make you do anything else!”
“I'll set you free immediately!”
Bastard.
I laugh harder.
The person he calls Jiajia takes two steps toward me.
Then turns abruptly and swings the saw into his thigh.
He clutches his leg and howls.
She doesn't press the attack.
Quickly withdrawing the saw, she cuts my feet free and pulls me up.
“Zhang Yang.”
“More than six years.”
“You've finally admitted what you did.”
Under his horrified gaze, I remove my mask.
21
Lin Kan...
No.
Zhang Yang.
Dragging his bloodied leg, he staggers backward, leaving a long trail across the sheet.
“Don't... don't come near me...”
He keeps retreating.
Another smell rises beneath the blood.
Poor thing.
Already lost control of his bladder.
I don't know if he's terrified because he remembers who I am, or because of the burn scars covering nearly half my face.
It doesn't matter.
By now, he may be dizzy and struggling to breathe.
I added something to the perfumes I gave him.
Number one. Number two. Number three.
Each harmless by itself.
But he'd outsmarted himself.
To win my “trust,” he deliberately wore number one whenever he went out.
To leave a trace in his bed, he soaked his pillow in number three and slept on it every night.
He'd been wary of number two and never opened it.
Until I emptied it into his eyes.
Together, the substances were deadly.
“Zhang Yang, remember me? Remember the fire at Yingchun Orphanage six years ago?”
He only shakes his head frantically.
“Don't want to talk? I'll talk for you.”
I take half a broken pencil from inside my clothes and pretend to jab it toward his leg.
“You remember this, don't you? And Lin Miaomiao, the girl you killed?”
At the sight of the pencil, he clutches his head and screams wildly.
“Six years ago, you wanted Miaomiao to be your girlfriend.”
“She cared about her studies and refused. You tried to assault her.”
“She fought back with the pencil she used to record her mistakes. Stabbed you in the waist.”
“The graphite left a permanent mark. So you covered it with a tattoo.”
“Did you think hiding the mark hid your crime?”
He inches backward.
I follow.
The roles have reversed again.
I'm still the butcher who could cut him apart at any moment.
Only...
I'm a butcher carrying grief.
At last, there's nowhere left to go.
He's cornered against the wall.
“No... I didn't mean it... Not me! Not me! She deserved it!”
He repeats a filthy accusation about her, insisting she welcomed another man's abuse but rejected him.
A man can be that certain of his own righteousness.
I'd like to give him half my self-doubt.
Dying, and still inventing slander about someone who's gone.
I grind my foot into his injured hand.
“Let me finish. Please don't interrupt before you die.”
“A timid girl had wounded you. You felt humiliated.”
“Then you saw the porcelain ink bowl beside you.”
“So you just happened to pick it up and hit her head with it.”
“Again. And again.”
“She stopped struggling. Blood covered her face.”
“Only then did you realize what you'd done.”
“You were afraid.”
“You couldn't have a criminal record.”
“So you accidentally—so very accidentally—dropped a discarded lighter there.”
“A fire could erase everything you'd done.”
“And draw a frantic sister into the flames to find her.”
“'Goodbye, big sister.'”
“The last words that desperate sister heard before being pushed out of the room.”
Crash.
The beams fell.
Burying everything from that day.
23
Zhang Yang clutches his chest and crashes to the floor.
Foam spills from his mouth. Broken rattles come from his throat.
He's not quite dead, yet he already smells sour and rotten.
Disgusting.
I lift a corner of the waterproof sheet, intending to roll him inside.
At least it will cover some of the smell.
A hand catches my trouser leg.
“Save... me...”
I kick it away and cover that ugly, unseeing face.
“Know why you lost?”
“You thought too highly of yourself.”
“You were born a demon, all right. But even demons come in grades.”
“And you're the cheapest defective kind.”
Once the sheet is rolled up, the world is finally quiet.
24
I pick up the chainsaw, judge the length, and cut the hair on my other side to match.
The girl gives me a puzzled look but asks nothing.
Used to it.
Changing laboriously out of the skirt and into sports clothes, she complains.
A low, hoarse male voice comes out.
“Next time, can we stop disguising me as a schoolgirl? This pleated skirt is a nightmare.”
I explain that the innocent appearance is precisely what makes men like him lower their guard.
It makes them impatient and careless.
“But we can't let them discover who you are. If those bastards knew you were intersex, who knows what they'd do.”
I pat Mingyu's head.
“All right. Don't be angry. I remember. Our next target likes mature women. Flared trousers next time.”
He pouts.
“And check your dangerous equipment properly. If I hadn't slipped you that note through the secret passage in the wall, you really might have ended up a Headless Horseman.”
“Yes, yes. I know.”
“And don't forget to request the refund. I'll be eighteen in two months.”
“Oh! I nearly forgot.”
I open the streaming app, upload the documents prepared in advance, and tap the refund request.
Back on the home page, a fan-group message appears.
“I haven't been feeling quite myself, so I'll be taking a week off streaming. My beloved fans, wait for Kan's triumphant return!”
That brat Mingyu...
Making decisions without asking me again.
But...
A week will indeed be enough.
I smile.
Mute notifications.
Leave group.
The End.
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