At this moment, my blood froze. He looked at me calmly, without a trace of anger.
The moonlight peeked out from behind the dark clouds, and I saw his face clearly. I had seen this man before.
——The young man on the bicycle.
Although my little trick just now failed him, the situation has changed now. My right hand was pierced by the knife and nailed to the windowsill. The severe pain made it impossible to use any strength. I could only rely on my left hand to cling to the windowsill.
He grasped the knife handle and pulled it out with force; I screamed, and my back was soaked with cold sweat.
The tip of the knife dangled from the back of my left hand, poised to plunge down at any moment. My right hand began to slip as the blood spread, and for a few seconds I nearly lost my grip on the windowsill.
If I get stabbed in the left hand, I will immediately fall from the eighth floor.
The tip of his knife tapped lightly against the back of his hand, his calm black eyes frighteningly cold. I'd never been looked at like this before, not even during the most tense times with Xu Tuo—this person looked at me like someone meticulously carving up a fish on a chopping block.
Then he asked me a question.
"-How many identities do you know of him?" he asked.
I was stunned. Then I realized he wanted to know how much I knew about Xu Tuo's past. However, I only knew him as "Xu Tuo." Even though I had seen Xu Tuo's fake ID bag, I hadn't specifically memorized the names.
"Never mind." He scoffed, "The teacher's opinion is to kill you anyway."
I looked up at him and asked, "Did someone ask you to kill me?"
He didn't answer and was about to pierce my left hand. I called out to him.
"I think I know something you don't," I said. "I'll tell you, will you let me go?"
"What's up?"
"You can't kill me." I lowered my head slightly, "and you're going to die."
Unlike those dim-witted villains in TV dramas, he instantly understood why I said that and tried to turn around, but it was too late. Xu Tuo was standing behind him, the thin blade of the combat knife quickly kissing the back of his skull, deeply inserted, until it was halfway up the handle. Xu Tuo expertly twisted the handle half a turn, and before he could even see the blood leak out, the man convulsed violently and fell silently to the ground.
We were both covered in wounds. He shook out the frozen meat I'd stuffed inside his clothes. The bag had several cuts on it. Just in case, I'd hidden the frozen meat from the freezer under Xu Tuo's clothes and wrapped him in a blanket. If the other party tried to finish him off, these things would at least have a certain chance of blocking him.
The man wasn't dead yet, twitching occasionally. But I knew he couldn't get up again. Xu Tuo's blow just now was merciless, sweeping through his nerves and cerebellum. Death was only a matter of time.
"Can you put him somewhere for now and let me rest for a while?" Xu Tuo smiled bitterly, "I'm a little tired... Once I've rested, I'll get rid of him..."
"I can handle it."
"You won't. You need to rest too. The injuries to your hands and feet haven't damaged any nerves, have they?"
—It's hard to say. I have lost feeling in three fingers on my right hand. But compared to Xu Tuo's injuries, they're all minor.
I bandaged the wounds on his hands and feet and started antibiotics. I temporarily wrapped the attacker in a rug and put him in the storage room. I opened all the deodorants and threw them in there to prevent him from losing control of his bowels or urinating or dying too quickly and stinking the next day.
Xu Tuo took the medicine and fell asleep. I deliberately leaned close to his face to observe whether he was really asleep or not. The first two times, he forced himself to reach out and rub my head. By the third time, he was finally too tired to wake up and fell into a deep sleep.
So I also took two antibiotics and prepared to go to the hospital emergency room, using the excuse that it was an accident injury, and asked for some more antibiotics and disinfectants.
There was a little blood on the screen of my phone, and when I wiped it, it woke up. There were a few unread message reminders from Qi Mengzhu. Basically, they said he wouldn't bother me anymore, but hoped I wouldn't tell anyone about him, and so on.
On the way home from the hospital, an idea suddenly struck me. After a few minutes of careful consideration, I called Qi Mengzhu.
At two o'clock in the morning, we agreed to meet at Green Garden.
He arrived half an hour early and was nervous outside the car, checking his cuffs and suit every three seconds to see if they were neat. This guy was very cautious and changed to a nondescript car.
I walked out of the woods. "You didn't tell anyone else?"
He shook his head and walked towards me excitedly: "No. Everything is ready, tools, packaging, body disposal plan... What happened to you?!"
As we approached the streetlight, he saw the bandages on my body and was horrified. I'm really fed up with this kind of pretentious rich second-generation guy who keeps saying he wants to kill someone to fulfill his dream, but then loses control of his emotions just by seeing a bandage.
"Can you really do this?" I looked at him questioningly. "Don't freak out when you see your target."
"Could you please not be so harsh?"
"Am I being mean?"
"No one ever told you you were mean?"
After those three childish questions, I reflected on myself for a few seconds, but I couldn't recall any mention of Xu Tuo complaining about my harshness. Sure enough, the rich second generation is just too pretentious.
He told me his plan for disposing of the body. They were using the safest route, the incinerator. Qi Mengzhu's family business owned a plastic recycling plant in the suburbs of the city. The incinerator was running 24/7, and the access route was monitored, but he could first go to the plant and request that the surveillance be suspended.
The man was in the trunk, in the largest suitcase I had. He was still alive, but looked like a broken animatronic, his arms and legs bent backwards, and he was shaking constantly.
The car first drove to Qi Mengzhu's private villa, where he lived alone. As soon as I entered the yard, I knew this must be his home, because I had never seen a garden with flowers and plants arranged in squares, without a single weed in sight.
The same is true at home. The marble floor in the living room is pure white, the walls are pure black, and all the decorations are minimalist and so clean that it makes people uncomfortable.
"Should I drag this suitcase, or should you?" I pointed at it. "If I damage your marble floor, don't bother me."
Qi Mengzhu thought about it and simply opened it at the entrance. As soon as the lid was opened, he was stunned and started to retch, covering his mouth and nose.
"——Why is it so disgusting?!"
"This is very clean, cleaner than I expected," I said. "There's not even a few drops of blood at the scene. The technique is very good."
"I don't want someone who feels this way!"
"Do you think this is a talent show?"
"Dai Xueming, this is more important than a blind date. It's a ritual, a feeling!" He was so excited that his hair was messed up. He explained to me nervously, "It's not just anyone who can do it!"
"...Can't you use him as a training ground?"
"I'm not a murderer!"
——There was once a person who swore to me that he was not a murderer. I didn't believe him.
But this time, Qi Mengzhu seemed really angry.
I put him back into the suitcase. He left me at the entrance and went into the living room, where he paced back and forth before finally sitting on the sofa, not saying a word for a long time.
After a while, I followed him into the reception room: "What do you want?"
He covered his face and took a deep breath. There was incense in the reception room, probably to dispel the terrible smell in the suitcase.
"...I don't ask where that person came from. I'm not interested." He said softly, his voice sounding a little tired. "...Dai Xueming, you've gone too far this time."
"I followed your request—"
"That's not what I want! Did he get into a fight with someone to become like this? I have no way of knowing for sure whether he wants to die or not!"
"Anyone who becomes like this will want to die." I am sure of it.
A cup was thrown at me and shattered on the wall behind me; I covered my head and ducked, staring at the furious man in amazement.
"Do you know what it means to respect life?" he asked me.
I almost thought I had heard it wrong and looked at him with wide eyes.
"I have a very strange feeling about you," Qi Mengzhu sat back on the sofa, "some of your ideas are different from those of normal people."
I laughed: "Are you normal now?"
"I said I wanted to kill someone because I wanted to complete something like this, to make my life complete and elevated. I wanted to experience the moment of controlling life and death," he said. "This person must desire death but cannot obtain it, so I will give it to them. Only through elevation can I understand the true nature of my past self."
"Then next time, kill two people and level up again when the experience bar is full?" I made a very inappropriate joke.
He didn't say anything, just waved his hand to signal me to get out.
I had no choice but to retreat to the entrance and leave with my suitcase. When I lifted the suitcase upright, the buttons weren't fastened properly, and the person inside fell out. Seeing him like that, my heart sank.
——Dead.
I don't know if it was because of his serious injuries or because he suffocated due to the confinement in the suitcase, but he died just now.
Qi Mengzhu heard the sound from the entrance and came out of the reception room to see what was going on. I squatted in front of the body, avoiding his gaze with a guilty conscience.
"...He's dead," I muttered. "Can you... lend me the factory's incinerator?"
"I don't want to get into trouble because of you."
"...No, I guarantee this guy has no legal status."
"That's even more troublesome. His origins and background are unknown."
"I owe you a favor, okay?" My tone became humble. "I will continue to look for the person you want for you. Please help me this time."
He stared into my eyes, hesitating in his heart.
"You couldn't have killed this man, so why didn't you let the person who killed him dispose of the body?" he asked.
I made up a lot of answers in my head, but my real purpose was ridiculously simple—I just wanted Xu Tuo to rest for a while and not rush to deal with this guy.
"I can't say." Finally, I decided to be honest. "I can't tell you anything. The more I tell you, the more trouble you'll get yourself into. All you have to do is lend me the factory incinerator. This man has no identity in the world, living like a ghost. Burn him, and everything will be over."
A quarter of an hour later, before dawn, we were on the road, heading for the factory on the outskirts of the city. Qi Mengzhu had contacted the factory duty office in advance to suspend surveillance and allow the incinerator staff to leave.
When I got home again, it was already 7:30 in the morning. When I opened the door, the bedroom door was open. I remembered that I closed it before leaving.
There was no one at home.
Where's Xu Tuo? My injured hand suddenly started to ache—he was gone. Did he leave?
I took two arduous steps forward, as if entering a living hell. I knew very well that if he decided to leave, I would have no chance of finding him again.
I walked into the living room in a daze. I heard the door close behind me, and a slightly cold hand grasped my wrist - he was hiding behind the door, retracting the combat knife in his hand.
"...You're back?" His voice was hoarse from weakness. "I didn't see you when I woke up, so I thought you were gone."
"Didn't you tell me to run away?"
He lowered his head and smiled: "Well, I want you to escape quickly."
"You should get some sleep. I brought some medicine and a packed lunch. Just heat it up and you're ready to eat." I put the grocery bag on the table and took out the items one by one. "Don't worry, I'm not leaving. At most, I'll go down and take out the trash when the trash can opens in the morning."
"Let's pour it out tonight." He held my hand tightly.
"The trash can for wet garbage isn't open at night." I glanced at the rough stitches on his waist and abdomen and lowered my eyes. "Are you scared? Afraid that I won't be here when you wake up?"
"I have nothing to fear."
"You're scared." I laughed. "Were you thinking just now that once your injury heals, you'll turn the garbage manager who doesn't open the wet garbage bin at night into wet garbage?"
He sat back on the sofa, resting against the cushions. I covered him with a thin blanket and went to the kitchen to get a rag to clean up the mess in the house, so that my mother wouldn't be scared to death if she suddenly came in.
"Xueming," he called me in the living room, "When I wake up this afternoon, let's go meet a friend of mine together."
"The kind of friend who would stab you three times?"
"That one has become wet garbage. The one you're going to meet this afternoon is a real friend," he said. "You'd better go with me. No, you must go."