"Hello? Hello? Hello?" When no one spoke on the other end, Lang Qiao at once became rather nervous. "Are you still there, boss? Give me a peep, you not making a sound is making me panic!"
"Okay," Luo Wenzhou answered absently. "I'm all right."
When he'd finished, he didn't listen to Lang Qiao jabbering but hung up the phone on his own initiative.
There was no ventilation in the basement. The air was stale. Against the white background, a faint smell of blood permeated. There was a long hair caught on the headphones hanging on the back of the chair. Luo Wenzhou carefully plucked it off, his fingers brushing over the cold back of the recliner.
The confining belts showed clear traces of wear and tear.
This was a typical setup for "aversion therapy"—while the screen projected images, the stimulus of the electric shocks and drugs would force the person who had bound himself to the recliner to establish a conditioned reflex, making him associate the deeply ingrained pain with the images he was seeing, triggering a physiological loathing, with the aim of "correcting" some type of behavior…or some type of thought.
The human body was like a precise instrument. Seeing delicious food, it would crave it. Seeing a beautiful person, it would be attracted. It would feel pain when beaten, shed tears when heartbroken… Each type of sensation corresponded to a feeling transmitted by the sensory organs. And rough "aversion therapy" was like pulling out the wires of the human body and forcing them into incongruous ports, and using a soldering iron to reinforce the connection.
But how could a flesh and blood human being become a circuit board, have his connections casually switched?
Even a circuit board might short circuit under that kind of "personalized modification," so what about a living body?
The corner of Luo Wenzhou's eye twitched fiercely, remembering Fei Du's ever-changing tattoo. Was that to hide scars?
Were his frequent trips back here to come to this place and "recharge his batteries?"
Wasn't he afraid he'd accidentally do himself some irreparable harm?
He might even simply kill himself, and his body would rot in the black and lightless basement. No one would find it for months.
A well-fed, well-dressed young master, exquisite down to the frames of his glasses, wasn't he afraid of becoming a heap of rotting meat, being revealed under the light of day along with the maggots?
Oh, right. Maybe Fei Du really wasn't afraid.
He had absolutely no reverence for life and death and no care whatsoever for his body. He'd stop at nothing, because it seemed he really didn't care about anything. If he croaked here one day, he'd likely still be very calm. He didn't care who he went around with, didn't care who he slept with. Everything about him was a large "whatever," and yet he'd still rather come here alone and tie himself to this electric chair, playing with his life, rather than leak the tiniest bit of sincere speech to anyone.
Wrapped up in the gloomy atmosphere of the basement, when the initial shock and profusion of feelings had passed, an anger boiled up in Luo Wenzhou that made him dizzy. He'd have loved nothing better than to charge up to the second floor and break Fei Du's door down, drag him to the bathroom sink, and teach him a good lesson with cold water—time after time, the asshole had disregarded his warnings, trailed after him pretending to be in absolute earnest, until he'd been ready to take him seriously, ready to take him into his heart…
It turned out that he'd only been diverting himself before retreating to his windowless, doorless bastion, coldly keeping everyone a thousand li away. Insulting himself this way, he was also insulting others' regard.
Luo Wenzhou turned and left the basement, charging up to the second floor in a few steps.
Fei Du hadn't gone to the room he'd stayed in when he'd been a teenager. Instead he'd occupied the bedroom where his mother had killed herself. There wasn't a sound inside the room. He was holed up in there, doing who knew what.
Luo Wenzhou concentrated, then knocked on the door.
Fei Du's eyes moved slightly. A bit of living energy suddenly appeared in his eyes like glass marbles. He looked quietly at the door.
Luo Wenzhou said, "Fei Du, open the door. I have something to say to you."
Fei Du stared at the door, not moving a muscle. He thought of something, and the corners of his mouth suddenly went up gently in a half-smile, as if he were watching a movie and anticipating some plot point.
Luo Wenzhou paused, then issued an ultimatum in a heavy voice. "You're shutting me out? Fei Du, I'll give you another half a minute, and if you still haven't opened up, I won't come knock on your door again."
There was a rattan rocking chair in the bedroom by the window, overlooking the house's little garden, though now all you could see was a field of limestone slabs; there was really nothing attractive.
Fei Du stretched out his legs and indolently leaned back in the rattan chair. At his movement, the bird's nest-like chair rocked lightly. Hearing Luo Wenzhou's words, he uncompromisingly lowered his eyes, looking out the window.
"Then don't knock," he thought apathetically. "Leave."
The second hand of the clock on the wall didn't miss a breath. As good as his word, Luo Wenzhou waited exactly half a minute. Then the sound of his even footsteps came from outside, knocking on the stairs one after another, gradually getting further, gradually becoming inaudible.
Fei Du was silent for a moment, then turned on the little screen at the head of the bed, connected to the security camera at the front door, and as expected saw Luo Wenzhou open the door, leave the unlucky abode, get in the car, and go.
Fei Du stared after the lousy car for a while. His gaze was limited by the camera lens, and the car quickly vanished. He thought there was absolutely nothing stirring in his heart. Only, like at the moment he had witnessed Zhou Huaixin's body, it was as if he'd driven over a pebble in the road. Another lurch.
Though perhaps this time what he'd driven over had been a brick; the car slanted at a rather large angle.
Fei Du thought, "Too bad. Next time I go the City Bureau, there'll be another frosty look."
But that didn't matter. He wouldn't stay long at the City Bureau, anyway. The car that had driven over the brick was still functioning properly. A few bumps, and it would continue going forward. This wouldn't get in the way of anything.
He silently closed his eyes. Perhaps the low blood sugar and dehydration after throwing up hadn't been fully alleviated; he still felt exhausted. He'd meant to get rid of Luo Wenzhou, then go to the basement for a while, but he was so tired he didn't want to move at all. From resting his eyes, he shifted right into a light sleep.
As he dozed, perhaps remembering and perhaps dreaming, in his half-sleeping, half-waking state, he thought of something that had happened when he'd been a teenager.
At that time he really hadn't wanted to live with others. He'd dismissed all the housekeepers, but he didn't know how to do anything himself, so he had to regularly go to Tao Ran's house to scrounge some food. That day he'd gone to the police station as usual to wait for Tao Ran to get off work. While passing through an estate, he'd encountered an altercation between the property management and the property owners. They were all talking at once, about to break out into a brawl; the cops had been called to break it up.
The cops were Luo Wenzhou and Tao Ran. Fei Du saw them from afar. He saw Luo Wenzhou, standing like a male model among the babbling middle-aged and elderly representatives of the property owners and property management, like an actor from an idol drama who'd mistakenly ended up in the cast of a domestic sitcom, unusually awkward and out of key.
The two young police lackeys tried to cajole the community dispute to a resolution, running up against a new problem as soon as they'd solved an old one, pushed and pulled back and forth by both sides. Restrained by his position, Luo Wenzhou bore with it for five minutes, then presumably had borne it up to his limit. He exploded into a rage, wading into the battle as a third party, one against two, launching an indiscriminate attack while Tao Ran sweated in the background.
Because the great scoundrel's combat strength was unsurpassed, the two sides that had originally been fighting each other had no choice but to temporarily reconcile, presenting a unified front. Luo Wenzhou had unexpectedly achieved the result of "resolving a civil dispute." When Tao Ran had dragged him away, Luo Wenzhou turned back and called from a distance, "Go register a complaint! Don't be cowards! If you don't dare, you're a bunch of losers. Grandpa's badge number is XXXXX—"
Tao Ran, filled with dread, covered his mouth. Unable to speak with his mouth, Master Luo had to put up with second best, sticking up his middle finger at the legion of old ladies that had dared to hinder him.
Walking by at a distance, Fei Du could still hear him heroically announcing to the heavens, "Nothing but trifles all fucking month, and they want to order me around—what the fuck am I doing being a cop, I don't wait on people!"
Tao Ran said, "You can't throw away your work ID!"
He hadn't finished the sentence when across the street a pickpocket snatched a girl's wallet. Luo Wenzhou entirely forgot that he'd just thrown his work ID into a garbage can. Like a well-trained Great Pyrenees, he howled, "Stop!" and gave chase, enveloped in the flames of war.
Afterwards, the thief had been caught, and the girl who'd lost her wallet treated them to skewers—Fei Du scrounged a meal. He didn't know why he remembered it so clearly; he could even clearly see the order the dishes were served in… Perhaps it was because the food had been so inedible.
In the twilight glow, they were surrounded by boasting people with bottles of beer in their mouths. The scents of cumin and chili powder wrapped in recycled cooking oil floated for ten li around. All around was the noise and smoke of humanity, all the people sitting there sweating like rain. As usual, Fei Du hadn't wanted to talk. He'd had something to drink, then sat quietly to one side playing on his game machine.
Right, supposedly Luo Wenzhou had been the one to buy that game machine. No wonder he'd looked at it quite a few times.
Luo Wenzhou had distastefully passed him a mushroom skewer. "Tao Ran, going out for skewers is a grown-up pastime, what are you always taking him around for? Hey, you eat mushrooms, right? You shouldn't be here. You don't fit in."
Don't fit in.
Fei Du smiled. He didn't want to fit in.
After they'd said goodbye to the owner of the stolen property, history's most unreliable people's police officer Comrade Luo Wenzhou ran grovelingly back to the scene and exchanged a helpless look with the garbage can that had swallowed his work ID. Making a face that could have amused Fei Du for a whole year, he tried his luck for three minutes, then pulled a length of iron wire from his pocket to pick the garbage can's lock…
The sound of the picked lock clicking open seemed to ring in his ears. Fei Du woke up a little. Just then, a draft passed over the back of his neck, and he froze at once, looking over in disbelief, stupefied to find that Luo Wenzhou, who had gotten into his car and driven away, had returned, and he had a length of iron wire in his hand.
Fei Du: "…"
This guy really was an experienced burglar.
Luo Wenzhou stuck the wire in his pocket. "I said I wasn't going to knock again. Get out of there."
Seeing Fei Du frozen, not making a sound, Luo Wenzhou, brooking no argument, charged in and lifted him to his feet. "What time do you call this?"
Fei Du answered instinctively, "…six-thirty."
Luo Wenzhou choked at this answer, raising a hand to smack the back of Fei Du's neck. "Do I need you to tell me that? Can't I tell time? You're still sitting here meditating at this hour? Haven't you eaten?"
Fei Du had been sitting too long. His legs were rather numb. He tottered the whole way as Luo Wenzhou dragged him, then was even more shocked when he saw the side dishes on the dining room table, along with very complicated-looking noodles.
The noodles cooked in the little pot were still steaming. The kitchen, purely decorative for ten thousand years, had actually opened for business. The desolate first floor was filled with strange cooking smells, turning the whole atmosphere of the haunted house strange.
"There aren't enough of your lousy supermarkets around here. I had to drive around for ten kilometers to buy groceries. What's the benefit of living in this damn place aside from acting like a prick and flaunting your wealth?" Luo Wenzhou picked up a bowl and asked, "Do you eat water-cooled noodles?"
Fei Du hadn't yet had time to nod when Luo Wenzhou issued a viewpoint in his place. "When you've just thrown up, you'd better make do with something hot."
Fei Du: "…"
Then why did you ask?
He'd thought he had no appetite—every time he'd been tormented half-dead by being sick at blood…or other things, he'd gone to the hospital to be put on an IV drip. But he took the bowl from Luo Wenzhou's hands and accidentally ate all of it. The noodles had been cooked to moderate firmness, a little chewy, but not hard to digest. He felt warm when he swallowed them, the ice-cold stone in his stomach quietly thawing.
"You… Hey, wait, I don't…" Fei Du put down his chopsticks and was about to say something when Luo Wenzhou uncompromisingly took his bowl and refilled it.
"When you're finished eating, come back to work overtime with me," Luo Wenzhou said. "No rest this weekend."
Fei Du: "…"
Luo Wenzhou raised his eyelids and looked at him. "Do you have any objections?"
Fei Du quietly took the bowl. "No, none."
"Based on my experience, when you're unsatisfied, eight or nine out of ten times, there are two basic reasons," Luo Wenzhou suddenly said after waiting quietly for him to finish eating. "The first is that you haven't had enough to eat, and the second is that you haven't slept well."
Fei Du stared.
"Drinking sugar-water and taking sleep aids doesn't count." Luo Wenzhou looked at him meaningfully. Before Fei Du could react, he added, "The remaining one or two times, the circumstances are rather complicated.—This is what I wanted to tell you last time in front of Su Xiaolan's box of ashes. Later I forgot."
Fei Du indicated that he was all ears.
"Go wash the dishes. Don't use the dishwasher for a lousy couple of dishes like this," said Luo Wenzhou. "I've put dish soap and a dishrag there. First wipe away the grease, then rinse it with water. Do you know how to?"
Fei Du: "…"
"If you don't know how, you can learn slowly," Luo Wenzhou said. "The person who cooks doesn't do the dishes. That's a basic principle."
Who knew whether Fei Du had ever washed a dish in his life? He hesitated, then went. Luo Wenzhou wasn't worried about him dropping a dish and breaking it—anyway, he had the money.
"When a person's been burned to ashes and become about the same as a piece of apatite, there's nothing there worth revering. So why do we treat it like a big deal?" Luo Wenzhou crossed his arms and said from behind Fei Du, "Why are there holidays to mark the beginning and end of each year? Why do you have to make a public confession and stroll around in the streets together before getting in bed with someone? Why, to live together legally, in addition to needing a certificate, do you need to invite your friends and family to a useless ceremony? Because life and death, dark and light, partings and meetings, all have the meanings people have endowed them with. You can't see them or touch them, you don't know what use they have, but the difference between you and me and a lump of chemicals lies in those bits of meaning."
Fei Du paused.
Luo Wenzhou reached around from behind him and took his wrist, guiding him to put the clean bowl back into its original place. "If you don't understand, I can tell you later slowly. You called me, and that's a 'ceremony,' too. I gave you the chance to repent. Now it's too late for returns.—Come on, let's go back to the City Bureau."