Xu Tuo slept until six in the evening. I didn't wake him. Actually, around four o'clock, his phone had received several calls, but I had muted them.
When he woke up and looked at the clock, he was stunned. It was the first time I saw his disheveled hair and dull face, and I laughed beside him.
"That guy hates being stood up the most. I guess he's going to get a beating." He hurriedly changed his clothes, packed his things and pulled me out.
On the way, I told him that I had disposed of the man's body.
"Borrow the incinerator from a friend's factory."
"Give me the address of your friend."
"He won't tell anyone."
Xu Tuo sighed and said, "I'm too lazy to talk to you." The two of us, the injured, arrived at a Western restaurant in the old city half an hour later. It was peak dining time, and there was a line at the restaurant entrance. The number of people who had received the queue code had reached over 70.
He sent a few messages and dragged me to find an empty seat. Two young men were occupying two seats with their bags, so Xu Tuo asked them to move them.
"There's someone here," he said.
"I didn't see anyone," Xu Tuo said, picking up his bag and throwing it into the middle of the road, asking me to sit down on a chair. The man looked at his bag in astonishment as it was crushed by the traffic and turned to argue with him.
"Old scoundrel," I muttered.
Xu Tuo scared the young man away and sat down next to me: "Xue Ming, you are just trying to be a dog biting Lu Dongbin. This old scoundrel is only doing this for your own good."
"You're meeting your friend at the restaurant? Is he still there?"
"Still there, even though he's furious after being stood up for two hours."
"Then why don't we just go in?"
"He made us wait outside for a table."
I looked at the waiting number in my hand and saw that there was a small table 78 in front.
We waited an hour, and 78 became 70. I couldn't bear it anymore, so I limped into the store.
"The Health Bureau is conducting a random inspection of food safety!" I shouted. "We're closed for the day!"
Xu Tuo rushed in, covered my mouth and dragged me out. The people in the restaurant stared at us in confusion, and no one stood up.
"Why is this place so crowded?!" I was almost starving from waiting, so I looked up the name of the place on my phone. "...Oh, it's an internet-famous place. Looks like it's owned by a male singer."
In the end, we waited for four hours until 10pm before we finally got a table. To avoid starving to death, we went to the supermarket next door to buy some oden to fill our stomachs while waiting, but we didn't feel hungry at all when we sat down in the restaurant.
The waiter smiled and brought over several menus: "This is our regular menu, this is the recommended menu... and this is the event menu."
I looked at the couples activity package.
Xu Tuo glanced at the message on his phone, then looked up and said, "I want a couple's meal."
"..." I was speechless. No matter what, I didn't want to eat that stupid strawberry milk heart cake in a western restaurant.
"—A friend asked me to order this." He pointed to his phone. "I'd better do what he says, or he might not see me."
My instinct was to ask if his friend was mentally normal, but then I thought, no, is there anyone normal around him besides me?
Just like that, the couple's set meal was served. A pile of pigmented white chocolate surrounding a pink heart-shaped cake was really unappetizing.
Xu Tuo received another message: "...He asked me to feed you."
"Your friend's brain..."
"He's quite intelligent. He used to be the one who came up with the plans, and I was the one who did the implementation."
"Do you admire him?" All I wanted now was to go home, hang myself, and then fall asleep comfortably.
He scooped up a piece of cake and put it to my mouth: "We've known each other for many years. This is just his personality."
The girl at the next table was secretly filming us. I saw it and gave her a stern look.
After eating the cake, the friend still didn't show up. At this moment, the stage in the middle of the hall suddenly lit up.
According to the introduction, this store will have a stage performance at 7pm. But it is already past 10pm.
A waiter walked onto the stage with a microphone and said, "We have a temporary stage event tonight. Please draw the stage number and come up to the stage. We will give you all your orders for tonight for free."
I had a bad feeling in my heart. Then our table number was announced.
Xu Tuo's sighs became heavier and heavier.
"...is this what he asked for in the text message?" I gritted my teeth as I spoke each word. "I don't want to play anymore. I want to go home."
"Be good, this is really the last time."
"I don't believe it. Is there nothing you can do to him?"
Judging from Xu Tuo's expression, I guessed right. Whoever that friend was, Xu Tuo was now at a disadvantage.
He dragged me up there. I don't know why, but after we went up, the host came down to the stage and asked us, "Is this your first time in our store?"
I had no expression on my face.
"It seems that since this is the first time for the guests to participate in our stage activities, they are inevitably nervous. So we specially prepared a little exciting segment——"
Suddenly, Xu Tuo hugged me tightly; before I realized what was happening, the feeling of falling had already dragged me underground -
The stage cracked and we fell into the black space below the stage, falling into a heap.
From above, I could hear the roar of laughter. I couldn't stand it any longer and tried to climb back up, but the cracked stage above me rumbled shut again, trapping us in darkness.
"Okay," I heard Xu Tuo laugh, "He agreed to meet us."
In the darkness, we crawled along the secret passage for a long time, and finally a small door appeared in front of us, which could only be entered by crawling.
Xu Tuo pushed it open, and bright light spilled out from behind. I also smelled a distinct scent of tobacco. When I was studying abroad, I often smelled the scent of tobacco leaves. It had been so long since I returned to China that I didn't react at first.
As we climbed out of the flat exit, the scene before us was as magical as if we'd been high on drugs—a bright pink room, its walls covered in pink sequins, with piercing fluorescent green stripes arranged into a unicorn pattern. All the furniture was a highly saturated color, including a massive vanity mirror against the wall, flanked by exaggerated pink heart-shaped lights.
The crystal chandelier overhead was also pink and heart-shaped, rotating automatically, reflecting shimmering light. A sofa was piled high with wigs of various colors. A tall, gaunt figure sat among them, wielding leaves and puffing away, seeming to enjoy himself. His hair, dyed silver, was close to his scalp. He was shirtless, wearing only black fishnet stockings with eyelets and a pair of odd-shaped red high heels, at least ten centimeters long.
He pointed his cell phone towards us and captured the moment we crawled out in a mess.
"Your posture is terrible," he said.
Before he could finish his words, Xu Tuo unexpectedly did a somersault from a prone position, landing in front of him in an instant, and delivered a merciless spinning kick to the man's face. The crystal chandelier shattered with a crash, showering pink glass fragments like rain. He dodged Xu Tuo's attack, flipping up to the ceiling at an incredibly flexible angle, clinging to the crystal chandelier. Xu Tuo then kicked over the ashtray on the table, knocking over the chandelier stand.
The man fell to the ground along with the lamp stand. He saw Xu Tuo stop attacking and raised his eyebrows: "He's seriously injured."
"Stop fighting." I stood up and walked towards them. "He's seriously injured."
"We weren't really fighting, were we, Brother Yan?" He smiled and continued to puff his cigarette. "No, what's your name now? Wang Chong?"
"That's what I used before." Xu Tuo covered the wound on his side and sat on the sofa. "My name is Xu Tuo now. He is Dai Xueming."
There was silence for a few seconds. The man nodded. "Well, 'He's Dai Xueming,' and then what? What did you miss?"
"Nothing, just a passerby who got caught up in this mess of ours."
"He really was a passerby. He is lying in the morgue now."
The man put out his cigarette and stretched. His snow-white body was soft and slender like a snake, firm and well-proportioned, every muscle beautifully defined.
He lit a cigarette for Xu Tuo and used a match to ignite it. Xu Tuo relaxed a little: "You still hate lighters."
"Every time I use a lighter, nothing good happens," he said. "I used it last week, and now you're coming to me like a lost dog."
"I killed a 'classmate' and one of his 'students'."
"Because they're too controlling?"
"Um."
"I understand. Before every concert, I have to clean up a few of someone's 'students'." He laughed shrilly, and suddenly returned to the deep voice of an ordinary man. "--So, do you want to join forces?"
Xu Tuo nodded.
Suddenly, I felt that this man looked familiar. He had heavy makeup on his face, but if he toned it down and put on a normal suit... short silver hair, deep mixed-race bones, and a suit...
"Are you Jackman?" I asked. "The singer?"
He smiled at me. This time, I was sure of my judgment.
He's the singer whose stage name is Jackman. He's also the man who owns the restaurant.
The next second, he approached me as quickly and silently as a snake, and his hand stroked my neck - between his fingers, a razor blade flashed with cold light.
"Please don't disturb my love affair with Brother Yan, Wang Chong, or Xu Tuo." He leaned close to my ear, his voice low and hoarse, with a kind of magnetic quality, "—I have to take you back to the morgue."
The razor was pressed against the side of my neck, and with just downward pressure, it would precisely cut the carotid artery.
Xu Tuo's voice rang out.
"Leave him alone, Ajie," he said. "He's mine."