In that instant, Xiao Haiyang felt split into three parts. The first part was dumbfoundedly asking his own ears, "What did that old windbag say?"
The second part, meanwhile, was controlling his hands, wanting to open the metal ring on Fei Du's neck. Unfortunately, while Officer Xiao had an eidetic memory, he was entirely ignorant towards machinery and small appliances. And having heard the woman say just now that there was a bomb, he was even more at a loss, not knowing where to start, so panicked he was numb all over.
The remainder of his concentration was at his back, prepared to take the bullet about to breach flesh. Although he'd never had an easy time, he'd still never had a gun pointed at him before. Like a condemned criminal lying under a blade before the sentence was executed, he could already imagine his death.
A condemned criminal, bearing stocks and fetters, couldn't move at all under the blade.
Xiao Haiyang couldn't say clearly what he was bearing. All at sea with his enormous terror, he couldn't understand why he didn't dodge.
But still, he didn't dodge.
There was an abrupt gunshot behind him, and Xiao Haiyang went stiff, a thought slipping through his mind: "I'm going to die."
"Going to die" was only a fleeting feeling. He didn't have time to recall his brief life; nor, like literary works described, did he feel distant grief. His mind was in chaos, like a huge sea he didn't know where to start describing. Hundreds of thousands of thoughts rose and fell and were destroyed like the tide; the most urgent was, "How do I open this ring?"
The next instant, Xiao Haiyang was pushed aside. Still stiff from being scared out of his wits, he turned and noticed that the sharp pain he'd expected hadn't come. There was only a small hole in his pocket—
In the moment he'd shot the gun, Fan Siyuan had been kicked by Luo Wenzhou, who had come charging in. The bullet had gone astray, clipping the edge of Xiao Haiyang's clothes, hitting the broken-screened phone Lang Qiao had left behind. The phone, only its screen originally broken, died on the spot in the line of duty, thoroughly beyond repair. Meanwhile, the terminally ill patient's fragile bones couldn't handle the kick. Fan Siyuan's arm broke with a crack, and he was nimbly handcuffed by Lang Qiao, charging in after.
Starting from when he'd heard of Fei Du's disappearance, Luo Wenzhou had been in a state of high stress—he'd roughly thrown aside all of his emotions, run a huge distance, sent Fan Siyuan's gun flying with a kick. He knelt on the ground, not looking at Fei Du, taking what he'd just heard, just seen…screening it all off outside of his consciousness, focusing all of his energy into a narrow thread, quickly scanning the structure of the metal ring, methodically feeling the back of Fei Du's neck.
At the same time, he could still systematically order, "Call in the bomb expert."
There was a click, and the metal ring opened.
The air rapidly rushing in like a gale swept through Fei Du's injured throat, forcing his slackening consciousness into alertness. Violent coughing made him convulse, and the fatal handgrip at last slipped out of his hand. Luo Wenzhou hugged him. Only now did the half-bloodstained pant leg and the bruises on Fei Du prick his eyes as though they were pincushions. All the voices, the anger, worry, and terror he'd just screened off became like floodwater pouring in through a sluice gate, crashing in and drowning him.
Luo Wenzhou went weak, hardly able to hold Fei Du.
The colleagues he'd just left behind quickly charged over.
"Captain Luo, put him down!"
"Flat! Lay him flat, let him breathe!"
"Slow down… Come over and help!"
Blood from Fei Du had rubbed onto Luo Wenzhou's hands. He faintly noticed that the EMTs, not caring that the scene hadn't been cleared yet, had come in, and he blankly followed their instructions, walking after them.
Fei Du seemed like a bonsai that had never been pressed by wind and frost.
He wasn't hard to support. In day-to-day life there were only two sorts of things he didn't eat—he didn't eat this, and he didn't eat that. His honeyed words were the international standard, and he had the qualifications of a PhD advisor in seeking pleasure and making merry.
He was like glass, seamlessly weak and indifferent.
"Strangling someone is a lengthy and enjoyable means of killing."
"Could you…give me another chance to pretend I'm seeing my mom?"
"The cause of her death isn't what's trapping me."
"There are hundreds of thousands of tall buildings in the world. Why did she choose this one?"
"I don't have any…trauma."
The damp, ice-cold basement hiding boundless secret memories, the involuntary coughing every time he mentioned it, the eternally looping song…
All the signs strung together at Fan Siyuan's few words, and the unimaginable dark truth collided without warning, for a moment hollowing out Luo Wenzhou's chest.
He remembered that summer day, the boy who seemed unable to integrate into the world, leaning back against the lonely villa, his clear, stubborn eyes seeming to hide countless secrets.
He wished he could rip through time, stride seven years into the past, pick up that silent child, scoop him out of his unrevealed pain, say to him, "I'm sorry, I came too late."
"I came too late…"
Only when he was in the ambulance did Fei Du recover some consciousness. His unfocused gaze lingered on Luo Wenzhou's face for a long time. Then he seemed to recognize him; he showed a smile.
With an effort, Luo Wenzhou managed to understand the words he was mouthing soundlessly.
He said, "You didn't… The monsters are all cleared away, and I'm the last one. Can you shut me up in your home?"
Three generations, beginning with filthy money and desire, the hatred continuing ceaselessly to ferment and expand…now the dust had finally settled.
Luo Wenzhou couldn't bear it any longer.
Maybe all the Feis really were natural sadists. With only one breath left, Fei Du could still rig up the greatest torture of Luo Wenzhou's life to torment him with.
"Hey, Specs, are you all right?" Lang Qiao wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and pulled Xiao Haiyang up. Her jacket had vanished long ago, and her rather fashionable heavy gauge sweater had encountered some mishap, turning into a "fashionable" beggar's sackcloth. If she'd washed her face, her unconventional appearance could probably have appeared in a few novelty-seeking street shots in a weekly magazine.
Xiao Haiyang woke as though from a dream and climbed up. Seeing Lang Qiao, he suddenly remembered something and reached into his pocket. "Xiao Qiao-jie, your phone…"
As he spoke, Xiao Haiyang suddenly froze, then felt around all over himself.
"Don't worry about the phone," Lang Qiao said. "What are you looking for?"
"My work ID just fell out," Xiao Haiyang whispered, passing his fingers through the charred hole in his pocket, frowning as he looked around.
"Wait a while and have them help you look." Lang Qiao pulled his arm to let the bomb expert past. "It's not safe here, withdraw for now."
"Oh… Hey, I see it!" Xiao Haiyang's work ID had flown out along with his gun and fallen nearby, at the feet of Fan Siyuan, who was being held up by two police officers. The case had opened when it had fallen; Little Glasses carried a photograph of Gu Zhao along with his work ID.
Xiao Haiyang didn't like Gu Zhao's black-and-white memorial photograph. The one he carried with him was a photograph of the two of them, taken at a park when Gu Zhao had been on vacation and taken him out to play. The man in it looked younger, a little more relaxed. He had a hand on the little boy's head and was holding up cotton candy for him, smiling a little unnaturally at the camera, looking quite different from the memorial photograph.
For some reason, Fan Siyuan had his eyes fixed on that photograph. He felt that the man in it was very familiar. When the police dragged him away, his gaze was still stuck firmly onto it.
Xiao Haiyang stepped up to pick it up, rather grudgingly blocking Fan Siyuan's view, wiping the dirt off it.
"Whose photograph are you carrying?" Lang Qiao asked carelessly as she urged him to hurry up and leave.
"Uncle Gu's," Xiao Haiyang said.
"Oh," said the young policewoman in her ringing voice, "that's Officer Gu Zhao? You really knew him? Hey, let me have a look…"
Fan Siyuan shook all over as though struck by lightning. He quickly turned his head and struggled, trying to get at Xiao Haiyang. "Wait!"
The criminal policemen escorting him thought he was up to some trick again and firmly held him back, sternly scolding, "What are you doing? Settle down!"
"Wait…wait! Show me! Come back! Let me look at him…"
But Xiao Haiyang coldly turned his head to look at him, not pausing at all.
Fan Siyuan was held by the policemen so his feet didn't touch the ground. With his neck twisted at an unbelievable angle, he was still implacably turning his head.
Fourteen years ago, in his mind, Gu Zhao's image had become that memorial photograph, always wearing the same expression; any difference, and he couldn't recognize him anymore.
The shy, gentle young man at Yan Security Uni, riding his bicycle under the parasol tree leaves that rustled as they fell… All of that had vanished like smoke, the traces silent. He only now realized with a start that he had forgotten Gu Zhao, forgotten how he looked when he smiled.
It had been over a decade, and the only things that remained in his mind were one Zhang Chunling and one Zhang Chunjiu.
The Chunlai Conglomerate had carved its imprint into his flesh and bones; along with his own efforts, it had molded him into what he was today.
Zhang Chunling watched Fei Du being carried away. Then the police officer who had handcuffed him searched him and took his phone from his pocket. At the moment he removed it, a message notification lit up the screen. The contents of the message appeared on the lockscreen: "Time's up. Game over. [photo]."
The photograph wasn't viewable in locked mode. Zhang Chunling, panicked, voluntarily offered the code. "That's the lockscreen code, let me look at him, let me see him!"
The criminal police officer holding him put the phone in an evidence bag. Through the clear plastic bag, he benevolently unlocked the Zhang Chunling's phone and showed him the photograph. The countdown had reached zero. Zhang Donglai had fallen to one side, his eyes closed, his white shirt stained red, not moving.
"No! No—"
"No, no, no, stop pouring, it's sticky!" Meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean, Zhang Donglai suddenly leapt up. He was still tied up. "Red wine costs money! And you can't make me play by myself!"
A ring of merrily smiling young ladies surrounded him. One oval-faced girl shook his phone. "You lose! You lose! Zhang-dage, the person who got your messages didn't answer. Either you're too much of a failure, or they saw through it. Anyway, you lose, don't back out now."
Smiling, Zhang Donglai let the girls help him out of the cords, then shook the wine off his head—he'd been playing a dull game of Truth or Dare with the girls. When it was his turn, he'd chosen "dare," and they'd asked him to pretend to have been kidnapped and send photographs to a friend, see whether they responded.
Zhang Donglai had been poured so full of wine by the chirping beautiful young women that he was swaying all over the place. He hadn't noticed anything inappropriate about this game and had happily agreed. He'd been tragically refused. "Don't fool around, let me see who this wretched…"
His words came to an abrupt halt as he saw who the chat was with. He leapt up on the spot. "Crap! Jiejie! You're really something else! Do you know who you sent the message to? That's my frigging dad!"
The girl who'd taken pictures with his phone innocently tilted her head. "You call your dad 'The Tycoon?'"
"The old man, you know," Zhang Donglai said, hiccuping and pulling at his collar, which was wet with red wine, "he's very stern at home. I've never seen him smile. When I was little, he'd sometimes come home, and when we talked to him, he'd make me and my sister stand two meters away from him, like we were giving a report at work. I remember once when Zhang Ting was little, she secretly wore a floral-patterned dress under her school uniform. Even the teachers at school didn't say anything to her, but when the old man saw, oh, hell, he flew off the handle so badly even my uncle didn't dare to try to soothe him. A teenage girl, going around all day looking dejected… Though we got quite a bit closer to him after we grew up. Maybe it's because the old man was getting on in years."
At this point, he suddenly stopped, because he'd found that the playful girl still splashing him with wine had a strange look. In her eyes, doubly screened by heavy makeup and contact lenses, a trace of unspeakable pity appeared, and her flower-like smile became forced. Zhang Donglai said, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I remembered my tragic school uniform from when I was little." In the blink of an eye, the girl controlled her expression. "We haven't finished punishing you yet, don't change the subject. Go order wine!"
Sweetly tormented by a crowd of girls, Zhang Donglai didn't know whether he ought to cry or laugh. "Spare me!"
Looking down from on high, Zhou Huaijin glanced at the crowd surrounding the swimming pool and walked out silently.
The sun had started to sink in the west. He heard Lu Jia talking on the phone with someone not far off. Lu Jia's expression was very tense. He asked the person on the phone twice over, "Are you sure everything's all right?" Then he relaxed slightly and his voice softened. Zhou Huaijin faintly heard him say, "We'll go back in a couple of days, don't worry."
Go back—go back where? Zhou Huaijin thought, his mind wandering.
China was unfamiliar to him, and the old Zhou residence wasn't his home. His only close relatives were separated from him by the Wangchuan1.
Where else was there to go back to?
After a good while, Lu Jia silently came over to him. He'd gotten two ice creams somewhere and gave one to Zhou Huaijin—according to Lu Jia, the Western devils' sense of taste wasn't keen, and the ice cream was made sweeter than at home, which happened to suit his tastes; he had to eat his fill before going back.
Zhou Huaijin hadn't researched the subject of regional ice cream tastes. As a cold breeze blew on him, he tasted a bite and shivered. These two men who were entering middle age sat side by side on a cold stone step in the hotel's backyard. Lu Jia said, "They've all been caught."
Zhou Huaijin turned his head.
"The head of the Chunlai Conglomerate—that's the crowd that tried to kill you before—and that gang of nut jobs who killed your little brother. They've all been caught." Lu Jia paused, then roughly put the whole story in order for him to hear.
The preposterous wealthy family drama, the sinister Zheng Kaifeng, the Dong family's father and daughter who had been used…and Zhou Huaixin, lying in a coffin in his place.
The whole story was very complicated; after all, it stretched in an unbroken chain of bitter hatred over forty or fifty years. He and his brother had only been swept by a corner of that storm of hatred; they were insignificant characters in this story.
They didn't even count as walk-on parts; they were probably only worthy of being called "props."
Zhou Huaijin nodded and slowly ate a mouthful of the ice cream Lu Jia had given him, feeling that perhaps his sense of taste was frozen. He couldn't taste any flavor. With a bit of cream sticking to the corner of his mouth, he slowly lowered his head, buried his face between his knees, and began to wail.
The westering sun buried today's version of itself to the sound of his crying, and in Yan City, day broke on the last day of the year. The scattered sounds of fireworks going off one after another rang out. The criminal policemen working overtime quickly washed their faces, had a short meeting like in battle, and each got busy. In an interrogation room, Wei Lan, who had given herself up, wearing last night's faded makeup, pulled her hair back from her temples with both hands and asked the police for a cigarette.
"My original name is Wei Lan. I killed someone, and then I ran. They offered me shelter, gave me a false identity."
"Yeah…I can. I can testify."
"Regret?" Wei Lan paused, then lowered her head and smiled, tapping out cigarette ash. Someone in the area had gotten up early and set off a series of firecrackers, making such a large explosion that all the cars by the road began to clamor in unison. You could even hear it faintly inside the interrogation room. Wei Lan listened to it for a moment and let her mind wander. Not answering the question, she whispered, "It's about to be the New Year, isn't it?"
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Author's note:
(1) A river in the underworld.