Qi Mengzhu still refused to give up and came to block me downstairs in my neighborhood. With all his trouble, I wasn't sure whether to call Xu Tuo for help. After all, he didn't seem to be a madman, just a bit mentally unstable.
That day Xu Tuo went to meet a friend, and I went downstairs to find Qi Mengzhu.
"Why don't you go to the intensive care unit and look for someone to kill?" I asked. "There are many people who would rather die than continue to live."
"It's not aesthetically pleasing." He answered seriously, and at the same time reached out to fold my collar neatly.
"Hypocrisy. You're still trying to show off after all this time. Wait until you get hit on the head with a bucket again, and maybe it'll make you behave more normally."
I felt the value of Xu Tuo. People are born with some harmless perverted hobbies, the key is whether they can avoid causing trouble to others.
We were talking at the gate of the residential complex when a young man on a bicycle passed by and hit Qi Mengzhu's car door. Mr. Qi glared at him but didn't intend to make a fuss.
This guy was quite nice. He got out of the car and came over to apologize. "How about changing your contact information? I think your car is quite expensive."
"No thanks." Qi Mengzhu didn't want to give out his contact information to anyone, so he opened the car door and got in. "I'm leaving now, Dai Xueming. If you change your mind, let me know."
The man who had left the car watched him drive away blankly, then turned to me and gave me an awkward smile: "Are you his friend?"
"no."
"I see... I was going to ask you for his contact information. I just feel like it's not a good idea to leave the car alone."
I was too lazy to listen to his mumbling and turned away. He gave me a few steps and caught up with me: "Brother, you really don't know his phone number?"
At this moment, a hand reached out from the side and pulled me behind it; it was Xu Tuo.
He stood between us and asked the man with a smile: "I'm his friend, do you want my contact information?"
Somehow, his smile gave me a sense of exhaustion. The hand holding my shoulder was trembling slightly, not because of fear, but because he had just used a lot of strength, causing the hand muscles to tremble.
The young man didn't bother to argue anymore and rode away on his bike. Xu Tuo and I walked back. I was quite surprised: "Why are you back? Didn't you go to meet your friends?"
"That's it," he said.
It was dusk, the sky gray, and the streetlights still dark. He walked slower and slower, and just as he was about to enter the hallway, Xu Tuo leaned sideways and leaned against the wall. His hands covered his waist. I realized then that his black clothes seemed to be soaked with something.
"...blood?" I hesitantly reached out and touched the mark. "Are you hurt?"
He nodded.
I lifted him up and wanted to take him to the hospital, but Xu Tuo stopped me: "Go home... I'm fine."
"If you decide to go home...even if you regret it and want to go to the hospital, I won't take you there."
He smiled and said, "No... I'll just go home and deal with it and it will be fine. My friend and I haven't seen each other for a long time, and we're both a little emotional."
I paused. "What about your 'friend'?"
He just lowered his head and chuckled without answering.
When I got home, I dug out the medicine box. He had been stabbed in the waist with a sharp object, and blood was constantly gushing out of the wound.
After cutting the shirt open, my heart sank. There were three wounds, not just one. The stabbings were rapid, likely from being pinned to the ground while the opponent was fighting and stabbing repeatedly.
Xu Tuo took two antibiotics and a painkiller, then clenched a pillow between his teeth to sterilize the sewing needle. As he stitched himself up, his hands trembled more and more. I felt his forehead and found his temperature was very low, and he was already bleeding.
"We need to go to the hospital." I gathered my things decisively. "If you're worried about your identity, I can take you to a private clinic. It's run by an old classmate of mine. If you pay him, he'll shut up."
Xu Tuo looked at me and smiled bitterly: "Xue Ming, the only way to shut his mouth is to make him shut up forever."
"Save your energy for talking. When you're better, explain the whole story to me."
He was quiet for a while, lying on the sofa watching me pack my things. I took out all the cash I had, packed a few changes of clothes, and prepared to drag him out. During this time, he was very quiet, and I even thought Xu Tuo had fallen asleep.
Just as I packed up my things and ran back to the sofa, the sharp tip of the knife was pointed at me.
Xu Tuo pointed the knife at me, his smile growing weaker and thinner, the mask of smile seeming to dissolve. Then, he turned the knife in his hand, the handle facing me.
"...Take it," he said. "Leave me here, and leave home immediately. Stay somewhere safe for two months. After two months, they shouldn't... won't..."
His eyes were closed, and his breathing was weak. I looked at the knife that fell to the ground in surprise. It was an ultra-light small fighting knife that even an ordinary person could quickly master.
"...You're kidding..." I wrapped him in a thermal blanket, staring at the combat knife, contemplating the situation. This guy, who had lived in our house for years, yet no one even knew his real name, seemed to have always been at the top of the combat food chain, and occasional injuries were no big deal. Now he'd been stabbed three times, and his last message before he passed out was, "Run!"
The only reason was that something was coming that he couldn't handle.
Half a minute later, I made a decision—I dragged Xu Tuo off the sofa and hid him under the bed in the bedroom. All the doors and windows in the house were shut, and a porcelain or glass plate was placed in the corner of each door and window. After doing all this, I grabbed a climbing rope, climbed up to the bedroom window, and carefully moved to the air conditioner's outer casing on the exterior wall. Then I closed the window from the outside.
Generally speaking, because of the high-strength fixings used, the chassis' frame can support not only the chassis but also additional weight. Of course, this extra weight can't be too much. Even though I weigh less than the average man, I wouldn't dare put my entire weight on it. I placed my right foot on the water pipe on the outer wall to distribute some of the load from the chassis.
I once had a fight with Xu Tuo because I caught him taking part of his prey home and storing it in the refrigerator as a temporary souvenir. After that, I installed a real-time surveillance camera in the living room, and that never happened again. The data from the camera is transmitted to my phone, so I can see what's happening in the living room right now.
How long will Xu Tuo's threatened arrival come? If he doesn't show up, how long should I wait outside? Should I take Xu Tuo to the hospital? If the situation gets out of control, should I consider calling the police? ...
Hypotheses raced through his mind. Just then, something moved on the phone screen.
——The main door at the entrance opened.
A stranger entered my house. He was unarmed, but even if I had been unarmed, I wouldn't have wanted to engage him in hand-to-hand combat.
The man, wearing a mask and of medium build, saw I was planning something after knocking over the first plate. He pulled a folding knife from his pocket and unfolded it. After wandering around my house, he finally made his way to the bedroom, out of the living room's surveillance range.
The opponent was alone, and seemed to have only a folding knife as a weapon.
He could only use his peripheral vision to ascertain the situation in the bedroom. This person was incredibly perceptive, and he almost immediately spotted Xu Tuo under the bed. Fortunately, Xu Tuo was now seriously injured and unconscious, and was deemed no threat.
He left the bed and looked around the bedroom. Just when I thought he was going to come find me, the man suddenly returned to the bed, dragged Xu Tuo out from under the bed, and stabbed him many times without mercy.
I bit my lower lip hard and tapped the glass with my fingertips.
The light sound attracted his attention. He walked towards the window and ignored Xu Tuo on the ground.
The window opened. The man was wary and didn't immediately lean out. But he was standing not far from the window, less than twenty centimeters away from me.
What is he thinking about?
I had to prepare for the worst—assuming he was a being of equal combat power to Xu Tuo, I had no chance of winning in a head-on fight, unless he suffered a sudden heart attack. Similarly, if it was Xu Tuo, would he realize I was hiding in the external computer case on the outer wall?
Absolutely.
This kind of person's hunting sense is completely different from that of ordinary people.
My current hiding place and my current plan are based on the worst-case scenario of minimizing combat losses, assuming the enemy has already discovered my hiding place. If he realizes that I am hiding outside, less than half a meter away from him, he will definitely attack me!
Then, a quick and experienced knife stabbed my thigh - his hand stretched out of the window, as if it had eyes, and stabbed me accurately.
I gritted my teeth and held back, trying to grab his hand as planned. As long as I could grab his hand that was attacking me, I would almost win!
And I didn't catch it.
The hand holding the knife quickly retracted. The window was silent, and I could only hear my own heartbeat and panting. When would the second blow come back? Three more such attacks, at most, and I wouldn't have the strength to continue standing.
The second strike must be caught!
I adjusted my stance, and the next second, the knife flashed out of the window again. Because I was prepared, I grabbed his hand the moment it pierced me. Ignoring the pain of the knife's cut, I used all my strength to hold the arm and drag him out the window.
He didn't expect me to fight back, and he stumbled and stuck his head out the window. In that instant, I took the biggest gamble, gripping the rope tightly and leaping over.
While I was preparing, I had already laid out the ropes. They were simply secured with scotch tape along the outside edge of the window, and a slipknot was tied at the bottom. I held the other end of the rope in my hand—this would be a gallows at the window. As soon as his head popped out, I'd leap from it, holding the rope. My own weight and the speed of my fall would instantly cause the large loop of rope wrapped around the window to fall loose, landing on his neck and instantly tightening.
The climbing rope creaked as it tightened. I held onto it, dangling in mid-air; the loop at the other end tightened around the neck of the man leaning out the window. He struggled desperately, but to no avail. Even if I tried to cut the rope with a knife, this special composite climbing rope would resist even small knives.
He fell back into the bedroom. The vibrations at the other end of the rope stopped, and the man stopped struggling.
I breathed a sigh of relief and struggled to grab the climbing rope and climb back to the windowsill. But just as I grabbed the edge of the windowsill and prepared to flip back, the folding knife appeared from the darkness of the bedroom and pierced my palm, nailing my hand to the windowsill.
In the bedroom, the attacker, the rope still around his neck, staggered to his feet. His face was a terrifying purple-red from lack of oxygen, his eyes bloodshot. To lure me back, he'd been patiently refraining from struggling, creating the illusion of strangulation.