I started smoking after Jackman.
Compared to Xu Tuo, he was a frighteningly heavy smoker, never leaving his cigarette even while driving. Xu Tuo had gotten me some sleeping pills so I could at least sleep peacefully. Every time I woke from the effects of the drugs, I'd be covered in a cold sweat, like being dragged out of deep icy water. The thick smell of cigarette smoke in the car actually made it feel better.
Later I asked him for a cigarette, and by the third day, I even learned how to blow smoke rings.
"You're leaning against the car window smoking like a child blowing bubbles." He laughed at me. "What's so good about the smoke you blow out?"
He was now free of those exaggerated decorations, and walking on the street was no different from a male student. When Ajie drove, he held the steering wheel with one hand and a cigarette with the other hand, which was placed outside the window. The wind blew across his white wrist, which had old cut scars on it.
After Class L was established, he and Xu Tuo moved out of Xia Mo's apartment and lived together for about two or three years. Xu Tuo secretly installed pinhole cameras in every corner of the room to prevent him from committing suicide at home. Unlike me, who enjoyed the feeling of near-death, he really wanted to die.
Later, he learned to play the ukulele from a nearby street performer, and the music made him feel a little better. Xu Tuo said, "Don't disbelieve me, this guy used to be afraid of killing a fish."
There wasn't much entertainment on the run. He turned on the radio, and every music-related segment was devoted to Jackman. Ajie opened the car's sunroof, leaned out, and laughed: "I'm going down in history!"
"Don't use idioms carelessly, it will make you infamous forever." Xu Tuo turned his head and smiled softly.
I opened the backseat window and said mutteredly, "This car stinks like a can of herrings now."
He looked at me, kept looking at me, without saying a word.
"Why are you looking at me?"
"I was thinking, you're lucky."
What Xia Mo did to me is enough to drive an ordinary person completely crazy.
In a sense, my love for near-death and despair saved me. Being driven mad by imprisonment is also a kind of near-death experience, and at least I can barely draw some positive feedback from it, so that my personality will not be completely destroyed.
On the seventh day of my escape, I finally managed to sleep for more than three hours without medication. Xu Tuo was always by my side, wrapping me in layers of blankets and holding me. This cuddling feeling calmed all my anxieties.
"When I was a kid, he comforted me like this." Ajie often pulled over to the side of the road and took me out for a smoke. "No, he's definitely not my cup of tea. Being with someone like him makes me feel too guilty."
"Guilt?"
"When he comforts and protects me, I always feel like a piece of trash. What's even more terrifying is that you'll gradually start to think that being protected by him and being a piece of trash is pretty good."
However, the vast majority of normal people are what Jackman calls "waste." Waste cannot fight, cannot protect themselves, and waits for protection from other forces.
But this is very happy. Living in a bright world all your life, from birth to death, the worst thing you may encounter is just calling the police to complain about a neighbor disturbing the neighbors, or receiving a call notifying you that your parents are in hospital.
Car accident? Illness? Debt? Fraud?
In short, just wait for fate to randomly arrange misfortune and luck to fall on your head.
"I still don't like lighters. When I was a kid, lighters weren't as cheap as they are now. You could buy one for a dollar at a convenience store." He played with the matchbox between his fingers. "I remember that man had a big red lighter. The man who adopted me and Brother Yan—let's call him our adoptive father—adopted many children. He had a very old courtyard and townhouse somewhere between the city and the countryside. People in a certain circle knew how to find him, how to exchange signals, and how to get him to choose the child he liked. 'Red Lighter' liked to pick me. If he flicked the lighter twice before doing something, it meant he was in a good mood. If he flicked it three times, it meant I was going to be unlucky."
Back then, he relied on Xu Tuo's protection. Later, he relied on Xia Mo's protection. Later, he thought a new life had been built, and he would be that glamorous singer from then on.
"...I can only run away with him." He smiled bitterly, "I feel like a loser...I was actually thinking about the teacher last night, wondering if it would be better to let him go."
"No," I said.
He didn't say anything more about Xia Mo. He put out his cigarette, hummed a song, and walked towards the car. I heard him mutter, "How about releasing a new song while running away?"
Our destination was a small county town, separated from the big city by a twenty-year gap. The shops were blaring passionate love songs, and children after school were like flocks of birds, skimming across the road on their bicycles.
The luxury car doesn't fit in here. Xu Tuo has said more than once that he wants to change the car, but Ajie has a mysterious obsession with cars.
Even though it's impossible to maintain the car daily like I used to, the Tiffany Blue car's body was covered in dirt and scratches. This seemed even more suspicious to me. So they went to find someone, and I borrowed a hose from a nearby shop to wash the car.
This city doesn't really care about strangers. Lying on the roof of the car, looking at the gray sky, I even had a thought: don't go north, just hiding here is not bad either.
But when I got off the roof, this thought disappeared.
One day, they left for a long time. I stayed in the car alone for a long time but they didn't show up.
I couldn't help but think of that outcome—we were eating on the street, and the TV in the small shop was showing news about them. Judging from their appearance alone, there wasn't much risk. They had used braces and nasal braces to change the shape of their mouths and faces.
But if we don't head north, the search net in the south will become tighter and tighter.
Just when I thought they were caught, Xu Tuo came back. But it was only Xu Tuo who came back.
"What's wrong? Did you find the man?" I asked, because he didn't say a word.
He smoked a cigarette in the car, as if he was in great desperation about something.
"Where's Ajie?"
I didn't see Ajie.
After a while, Xu Tuo put out his cigarette. He drove out of the city, his expression dazed. In the past, I might have thought it was funny and taken a photo to document the past. But seeing his expression now, it was clear something was wrong.
As they were about to get on the highway, Xu Tuo stopped the car again.
"What happened? Are we leaving him alone?"
"...He...may not be able to go with us anymore."
——This afternoon, Xu Tuo and his team found that person.
Over the years, the man has been changing his residence and now lives on the edge of the county town, next to a farm.
When they walked in, the old man was taking a nap in the yard. Like any other old farmer, no one would have thought of what he had done before. He was lying in a rattan chair, sleeping so soundly that Ajie hesitated for a long time before rushing over.
Half a minute later, Ajie walked over and kicked the rattan chair to wake him up.
Xu Tuo was on guard. He was not very concerned about how Ajie dealt with this man. At first, he heard the old man's confused voice from inside, and he could no longer recognize them.
"But he quickly realized we were his adopted children. Even a fool could tell we were up to no good," Xu Tuo said. "So he kept begging for mercy, but Ajie still beat him up... He was about to kill us and leave, but then a little girl rushed out from the back room."
"...who is she?"
"His granddaughter." Xu Tuo smiled bitterly. "His wife died, and his son and daughter-in-law also died of illness. Now the two of them live together. The child hugged him and cried. The old man said that now this child is all he has... If it were me, I would have killed them all, but Ajie didn't do it."
Ajie turned and walked out of the yard. That was the only time they relaxed their vigilance - when his back was turned, the child suddenly rushed towards him and stabbed a small injection capsule in his pocket into his back.
Once the pressure in that disposable syringe changes, the injection liquid in the container will be immediately injected into the human body. When Ajie pushed the child away, it was too late. The empty syringe fell to the ground and he quickly felt suffocated.
Xia Mo sent someone to hand over the syringe to the old man, but the old man gave it to his granddaughter and asked the child to do it for him.
Xu Tuo killed them both and pushed their bodies into the well. The child didn't know what she had done when she was killed. She was just doing what her grandfather taught her.
"...I couldn't bring Ajie back, so I left him in the bushes nearby." He leaned his head on the steering wheel and took a deep breath. For Xu Tuo, this could be considered a sign of emotional breakdown, but he regained his composure in just a few seconds. He smiled and said to me, "Let's go. Let's go north."
"—was he still alive when you left him?"
"Do you want to go to Harbin to eat ice cream? There's an old Russian milk ice cream shop there that's delicious..."
I held his hand, quietly for a moment. Occasionally, cars entering the highway would pass by us, their headlights illuminating the side of his face.
Xu Tuo said, he is still alive.
—That should be some kind of nerve poison. I know his considerations. If Ajie is on the verge of death, we really can't continue to carry him.
It was he who asked Xu Tuo to keep him.
We turned the car around and headed back to where A-Jie was. On the dark, unlit country road, we could hear the local music station. It wasn't talking about Jackman, but instead, disconnected from the outside world, it played an old song from ages ago. A muffled female voice sang familiar lyrics. I knew the melody and the first verse, but I couldn't remember how to sing the rest.
"——Come with me, we'll set off at dawn..."
When we found Ajie, he was still breathing lightly, but his whole body was burning like a fire. Nerve poisons can cause body temperature disturbances, so I bought some iced drinks along the way and wrapped him in a blanket.
He was unconscious. His temperature would rise, his breathing would become increasingly labored, and he would eventually die of respiratory depression. This poison should theoretically kill quickly, but perhaps due to individual differences, Ajie was still struggling to survive.
I thought Xu Tuo would offer to end his suffering, but he didn't. We all had a glimmer of hope in our hearts, that a miracle would happen to Ajie.
Three days later, a miracle happened.
As I wrapped the bottle of ice water in his blanket, Ajay responded—he shuddered and slowly opened his eyes.
"...How long have I slept..." His pale lips trembled, "I heard someone singing...it was very unpleasant..."
He made it through, but his lucidity lasted only a few minutes. For the next half day, Ajie's state of consciousness alternated between lucidity and deterioration.
Xu Tuo was having dangerous thoughts, but we were all thinking the same thing—finding a hospital to save him. As long as there was a possibility of treatment, we would try.
But his condition was unlikely to be cured by an underground clinic, and it was unlikely that a black clinic could resist the temptation of a reward of hundreds of thousands of yuan. I thought of a nearly crazy helper. If Xu Tuo could find a safe way for me to contact him, I could contact him and test his attitude.
After a brief discussion, I used the method Xu Tuo taught me, dialed the relay machine from a public telephone booth, and then connected to Qi Mengzhu's mobile phone.
What if he hangs up? What if he calls the police?
Just as I was feeling anxious, the call came through. Qi Mengzhu's voice was silent for a few seconds, then he asked, "Dai Xueming?"
What we're going to do next sounds crazy.
We drove back on the highway, back to the city we came from. Qi Mengzhu had people waiting outside the toll booth into the city. They were lawyers and operatives who kept his family business secret. They wouldn't ask who we were, wouldn't remember our faces, and wouldn't mention what happened today to anyone.
The police determined that Xu Tuo and Jackman had fled to other places. No one thought they would dare to come back. In fact, theoretically they had no reason to come back.
We contacted Qi Mengzhu's people and headed to the private hospital controlled by the Qi Group. The race begins when we enter the hospital. Once we enter a hospital with frequent medical care, secrecy can only be maintained for a maximum of 72 hours.
Ajie was lying on the hospital bed, soundly asleep. Xu Tuo said, "Actually, this isn't bad. He hasn't had a good sleep like this in a long time."
"How did you end up like this?" Qi Mengzhu asked.
"It should be said that no matter what, it will end up like this."
Qi Mengzhu shrugged, then turned to look at me, frowning, "What about you? How did you end up like this?"
"I?"
"You've changed, don't you realize?" he said. "You have the look of a dead man."
I couldn't argue. I felt even more strange than Ajie, who was sleeping soundly over there. In an environment where the police might arrive at any moment, I couldn't sleep. I used to think that wanted criminals just had to escape, buy food from roadside stalls when hungry, sleep in the car at night, and spend decades in the remote countryside... But now I'm not wanted at all, just a "runner-up." The pressure is almost crushing me into powder.
When Qi Mengzhu received Ajie's test report, he was talking to me about my family. After I disappeared, my mother and Uncle Zhou thought I was killed by Xu Tuo. Everyone around me was checked, including him.
"What are your plans for the future? Follow him on the run?"
"...I'll go back when he's safe."
"He can't be safe. Have you seen Jackman's test report? He's beyond saving. He's still alive, but he can't die. He won't wake up again." Qi Mengzhu handed me the report. "Xu Tuo and he are the same. Different paths lead to the same destination. Those who enter that world and completely break away from this world will not have a good ending."
We finally went to see Ajie. His face was so pale it was almost transparent. It was the first time I had ever observed this man's facial features so closely. They were profound, yet not overpowering. When he slept soundly, he seemed a very gentle person.
Xu Tuo took the pillow and gently covered his face with it. After a long time, he did not press it down.
Then he handed the pillow to Qi Mengzhu.
"I've never liked you before, and I won't in the future," he said with a smile. But I saw him cry. It was the first time I'd ever seen Xu Tuo cry, a scene I'd never imagined before. "I've always envied, even envied you, Qi Mengzhu. I wonder what kind of pampered and smooth life must have led to a self-important idiot like you."
The pillow was taken away, and Qi Mengzhu rarely refuted it, but laughed at himself.
"But if everyone destined to be born and raised at the top of the pyramid were like you, perhaps this world would be a better place." He hugged Qi Mengzhu and patted him on the back. "You should send Ajie away. Send him to a better place."
We left the ward, and through the glass window of the ward door, I saw Qi Mengzhu pressing the pillow on Ajie's face.
He tried many times but couldn't bring himself to do it.
Xu Tuo didn't look back. He asked me to check on his behalf to make sure Ajie would be relieved from the pain.
Qi Mengzhu's movements were gentle, his hands trembling with nervousness, and he finally had to press his body against the pillow. I watched for a long time, until the electrocardiogram on the monitor beside the bed stopped fluctuating.
"Okay." I tugged at Xu Tuo's hand. It took him a few minutes to come to his senses, then he put on that masked, calm smile and left the hospital with me.