When Xu Tuo is not at home, I actually secretly investigate his identity.
"Xu Tuo" was a fake identity, a complete dupe from start to finish. He kept several spare fake identities in a waterproof bag under his bed.
If he wanted to hide, he could have hidden somewhere harder to find. Perhaps it was because we'd been together for too long that our initial wariness of each other had dulled, like two gentle, harmless creatures living together, never likely to eat each other.
I thought he would be back in a few days, but after two weeks, he seemed to have disappeared without a trace. I even took the risk of checking the morgue to see if there was another unclaimed body in the area.
I usually use the excuse of "rushing home to cook for my roommates" to turn down company socials. These past few days, I didn't rush home to cook, and I was immediately caught. The two team leaders dragged me into their car while berating me: "Xiao Dai, you're just too withdrawn, too withdrawn. You're the type of guy girls like these days. Be more confident."
I don't know if the two uncles would be surprised if I told them that not only the little girl likes me, but the serial killer also likes me.
The fraternity's restaurant was a Japanese barbecue restaurant in the city center. People sat next to each other. The group leader was Uncle Zhou's friend, and he tried hard to get me to hang out with the girls.
——That was the day I met Qi Mengzhu.
He was obviously dragged here by his colleagues, just like me, and seemed out of place among the bustling crowd. But his expression was much softer than mine. In his words, when he saw me sitting across the table with a sour face that day, he thought I was the one responsible for paying the bill.
Actually, meeting someone like Mr. Qi at a social gathering was quite surprising. He was thirty-five, handsome, refined, and dressed in a well-tailored suit. The company we were meeting was a joint venture that made electric motors, and he was a mid-level executive. I could sense the difference in the way women treated us. This guy, showing up at a social gathering meant for matchmaking, was like a maxed-out character savaging a newbie in a village.
From what I heard on the other end of the conversation, his father was one of the company's directors. Qi Mengzhu, who studied business in the UK and worked in overseas departments for several years, was transferred back to China last year. His resume was impeccable, making him a true second-generation rich man.
I was a little dazed. After spending so much time with Xu Tuo, suddenly seeing Qi Mengzhu, an animal destined to live in the sun from birth, felt a lack of reality.
Inside the private room, the smell of barbecue and the sounds of conversation mingled in clouds of hot smoke. I was sitting there, playing with my phone, when suddenly someone kicked my foot.
A few seconds later, I realized it was Mr. Qi, the guy sitting across the table from me, who had kicked me. He smiled at me and asked, "Does your department usually come into contact with corpses?"
"Maybe," I replied simply. Like a gutter bug afraid of the dry sunlight, I instinctively moved away from him, afraid that the sun would reveal any trace of me.
He kicked me lightly again.
"—I thought male employees in your company weren't allowed to have long hair."
I read the regulations carefully before joining the company, and the only thing they said was that I was not allowed to wear shorts to work.
The grill in front of us was a little burnt, so no one paid much attention to the barbecue. Qi Mengzhu wiped his hands with a hot towel and used tongs to push the cooked vegetables to the sides, one piece of meat to the left and one to the right, making them even.
——Towel holder, chopstick holder, condiment dish, mobile phone... everything on his side was neatly placed point to point and corner to corner.
"Dai Xueming," he called me, "Are you hungry?"
Qi Mengzhu picked up some meat with tongs and brought it to my plate; I was still distracted, and the screen of my phone was showing the interface for sending a message to someone - what was Xu Tuo doing now?
"Xiao Dai, Mr. Qi is talking to you." The team leader reminded me.
I came to my senses. The meat tongs Qi Mengzhu was holding were dripping with oil. Perhaps it was an illusion, but a brief look of disgust flashed across his eyes.
"I'm not hungry." I gave a very tactless answer, "I'm going to the bathroom."
The barbecue restaurant was bustling with business on the weekend, but the hallway leading to the bathroom behind the restaurant was deserted. I stood there, my phone in hand, staring at the screen. I'd revised the message to Xu Tuo several times, but in the end, I never sent it.
Someone lifted my hair from behind. I trembled all over, jumped and turned around, looking at the person warily - it was Qi Mengzhu.
"You don't like this atmosphere either, do you?" He smiled and withdrew his hand as if he had done nothing. "Me too. Do you want to go out and get some fresh air?"
"No."
"You're not here to use the restroom."
"I'll be there soon. I'll just tell my friend about it first."
"What news is coming this time?"
I don't like this person.
Although Xu Tuo and I have known each other for a long time, we've never been the type to venture into each other's safe, private areas. Xu Tuo can be a bit of a jerk sometimes, even getting a little excited when he talks about murders, but I'd rather be surrounded by ten Xu Tuos than face this one.
Qi Mengzhu set off a warning light in my heart. This wasn't easy. I'd lived with a serial killer for so long, and I'd become incredibly discerning about whether people or things were dangerous. My tolerance for dangerous people was unimaginably high. But what was that man looking at me with? It wasn't like a human looking at another human, but like a snake staring at a frog.
"Are those marks on your neck... from being strangled?" he asked.
"The clothes my mother picked for me have too tight collars and they're strangling me." This is my ever-changing safe answer.
He tilted his head and smiled: "It was the rope that strangled me."
I cursed in my heart.
"When playing with the neighbor's kids, they were ignorant."
"How many answers have you prepared?" He smiled even more, his eyes even brightening. "--Are you thinking of committing suicide?"
No more contact with him.
Someone approached from the other end of the corridor, and I took the opportunity to push past him and run back to the private room. Before the team leader could urge me to sit down, I had already grabbed my bag and left: "Grandma doesn't seem well, and my mom asked me to go home to check on her."
It was ten o'clock in the evening, and there were few people around the residential area. I drove into the underground garage of the complex, ready to park and go home.
In addition to my footsteps, the garage also echoed with the footsteps of another person. Because of the echo, I couldn't tell which direction the person was going, so I just locked the car door and hurried to the elevator.
The moment I pushed open the glass door of the elevator, a figure in a suit and tie flashed out from behind me and grabbed my shoulder.
——It's Qimeng bamboo!
My blood froze and my hand, which was trying to push the door hard, slipped on the doorknob.
"...These are signs of hanging..." He leaned close to my neck and lowered his voice, "It wasn't strangled, it was hanged from above..."
"Get lost!" I wanted to kick him away. Xu Tuo sometimes got into trouble, and his way of dealing with it was to kick him away; but I had obviously overestimated the versatility of this method - he dodged my counterattack, which had neither speed nor strength, and grabbed both of my shoulders.
"Dai Xueming, do you want to commit suicide but can't bring yourself to do it?" His eyes gleamed with extreme excitement, appearing incredibly strange on his gentle face. "—I'll help you! Let me help you! I know I won't be wrong, believe me..."
Before he finished speaking, a muffled "bang" echoed throughout the parking lot.
Qi Mengzhu fell. Behind him, Xu Tuo threw the iron bucket he was using for washing cars, which rolled on the ground, leaving bloodstains. He used it to hit Qi Mengzhu hard on the back of the head.
"I saw your car entering the complex, and I wanted to go out to the parking lot and walk with you." There was some confusion in his eyes, and he kicked the person on the ground with his toes. "Who is this? Your new boyfriend?"
I dragged him back home, and my hands were shaking when I opened the door and held the key.
"Don't worry, he woke up after a while. I didn't do anything cruel. I was worried that it was really your new boyfriend."
"…He'll call the police…"
"No. He might be even more guilty than us. I can tell at a glance whether a person will call the police or not."
Xu Tuo dropped his backpack on the sofa. He had just returned from a long journey and collapsed onto the cushions, letting out a long sigh of relief. I was still worried about Qi Mengzhu, so I stood by the window, hesitating.
"It's okay, Xueming." He smiled bitterly, "I'm here."
"It's trouble because you're here. Did you leave any dangerous items behind? Just in case, take them all and dispose of them first."
I found the waterproof bag he'd hidden his fake ID in and burned it all on the kitchen gas stove. Xu Tuo's voice rang out from the living room: "You have thirty-seven messages for me in your drafts... Do you miss me so much? Why don't you send them to me? Why are they all in the drafts?"
"Don't play with my phone!" I rushed over to grab it back and emptied my draft box. "If the police don't show up the day after tomorrow, everything will be fine... You'd better pray that Qi Mengzhu really doesn't call the police."
"Are you worried about me?" He smiled and turned over to sit up, squatting on the sofa, "Xue Ming, I can leave at any time."
I was stunned. "What?"
"—I've stayed in this city for too long."
Xu Tuo once said that he rarely stayed in one place for a long time, usually from a few days to a few months.
But he has been here for several years.
I never asked why he stayed here. I was used to him being here.
"But I might really have to leave," he said. "Maybe next week, maybe tomorrow. I came back this time just to tell you this."
I stared at him blankly, not knowing how to answer.
"You don't want me to leave?" he asked.
"…"
"Can you find a reason for me not to leave?" He reached out and took the phone from my hand. "Xueming, you haven't even realized it yet. You're just like a child. Someone you've exchanged secrets with can make you feel at ease. And only children take exchanging secrets so seriously, as if it were exchanging wedding rings."
He didn't unpack the travel bag. I knew what that meant. Not packing the travel bag meant a new trip was coming soon.
I held the phone tightly and didn't let him pull it out of my hand.
"Xueming, I know what you want to do."
"You know."
"When I was in elementary school, I often heard classmates say, 'If you don't play with me, I'll ignore you.'" His eyes held a calm smile, reflecting my slightly distorted expression. "...If I don't play with you, will you call the police?"
"...Do you want to try it?" I took a step back and hid my phone behind me.
His eyes narrowed slightly: "Don't make trouble."
After a few seconds of silence, I sighed.
"—I'm just kidding." I said, "If you want to leave, go ahead. Just remember to pay this month's rent."
He shrugged and leaned back on the sofa: "I was worried that you, kid, would be too possessive and want to burn everything down..."
——The moment he finished speaking, he jumped towards me from the sofa.
The speed was too fast. Although I was prepared, my body couldn't react and he knocked me down by twisting my neck.
The phone fell out and the screen lit up, showing the interface for sending a message to Uncle Zhou.
Xu Tuo stepped on my chest and picked up the phone from the ground. He lifted the coffee table a little and stuffed my phone under the table. Then, the coffee table fell heavily to the ground, and the table legs crushed it to pieces.
"The family game is over, Xueming." He looked down at me. Because of the backlight, I couldn't see his expression clearly. "I can't leave you alone. I have to kill you and your mother downstairs. Only then can I leave in peace."
He dragged me into the bedroom, took a rope from the drawer, and wrapped it around my neck. He then opened the window and fastened the other end to the bracket on the air conditioner's exterior, just as he had done the previous time. Xu Tuo dragged me to the windowsill, smoothed down my hair, which was damp with cold sweat, and slowly tightened the rope.
"...Have you ever thought about this scene?" I asked softly.
He nodded. Under the moonlight, the man's expression softened again.
"Fifty to fifty percent," he said.
Xu Tuo hugged me one last time, patting my back gently as if lulling a child to sleep. Half of my body was already outside the window, and he could let go at any moment, becoming the very moment of a roller coaster drop.
"What if..." I didn't reach out to grab him. I knew that if I made a move to grab him, he would immediately throw me out the window. "What if I have something that can keep you?"
Xu Tuo didn't answer, but continued to comfort me and pat my back.
"Someone's been preying on young women, disguising them as suicides by hanging. There have been three cases in this district this month, and probably over 20 in the city in the past six months."
Hearing my words, he stopped moving. My breathing also stopped, and I didn't know if I would fall in the next second.
Then I heard his voice.
"—How did you know that?"
"...I saw the photos in our database...Cases concluded as suicides rarely come to us. I saw one case where the rope used to hang the deceased was very unique, so a colleague took the opportunity to record the trace...I later searched the city's archives, and this unique rope mark appeared in other suicide cases."
"How special?"
I looked into his eyes, which trembled a little and turned downwards.
I said, "Just like the rope marks on my neck, they were caused by high-gauge German climbing rope."
Xu Tuo smiled at me. I rarely smile, but at this moment, for some reason, I smiled at him too.
Immediately, I was pushed off the windowsill and began to fall.