Xie Lin had just finished taking off his shirt when he heard the sound of the door closing at the entrance. He knew Chi Qing had left.
……
After Chi Qing left, he took off the cumbersome plaster cast from his wrist and stared at it for a long time. Finally, he buried his face in his palms. Gone was the “shameless” demeanor he had used to tease Chi Qing just moments before; the tips of his ears were burning red.
Night had deepened.
Wu Zhi had just opened a bottle of champagne in a nightclub with a grand flourish. Before he could even take a few sips with the help of a young lady, he received a message from Xie Lin: Are you there?
Wu Zhi found a quieter spot and called back: “Yeah, I’m at a nightclub. You coming to hang out?”
Xie Lin listened to the deafening DJ beats on the other end, thinking that looking for someone to talk to in the middle of the night and picking Wu Zhi was a mistake: “I’ll pass.”
Wu Zhi: “Don’t be like that. It’s rare for you to actually look for me. What’s up?”
Just as Wu Zhi thought the call had dropped, a sentence came through: “I think I like someone.”
But Wu Zhi didn’t hear it clearly because the DJ hit a heavy drop. A loud “CLANG” exploded through the speakers. He covered his ears and shouted at the top of his lungs: “—WHAT?! Didn’t catch that, what did you just say?”
“…Nothing,” Xie Lin said, his ears hurting from the loud shouting. “I’m hanging up. Get lost and drink your booze.”
Wu Zhi: “Don’t, Dad.”
As Wu Zhi walked toward a private box on the floor above, he continued: “By the way, I saw your little assistant in the gloves online today. Who knew he used to be an actor?!”
Wu Zhi prided himself on being a mover and shaker in the entertainment industry; no wind or grass stirred in the circle without him noticing. He hadn’t expected someone from that world to be right under his nose.
Hearing the word “assistant,” Xie Lin paused in the act of hanging up. He hadn’t been watching the media feeds much today, so he wasn’t clear on the situation: “Online?”
“When the news broadcasted last night, they showed a photo of you two from behind. Someone recognized him. It’s not a big deal, though; he didn’t have many fans to begin with. If he hadn’t been dug up this time, even I wouldn’t have known.”
Wu Zhi pushed open the door to the private box: “Speaking of your assistant, I’ve always felt he’s quite abnormal.”
Of course, Xie Lin was abnormal too, but brothers tend to be biased toward one another. If you asked Ji Mingrui this same question, he would also grit his teeth and lie through his teeth, insisting his brother was a normal person and it was the Xie guy on the other side who was abnormal.
Moreover, Xie Lin hid things deep. Aside from that time at dinner when he made Wu Zhi break into a cold sweat without changing his expression, he didn’t usually expose his true nature.
Xie Lin: “Who are you calling abnormal?”
Wu Zhi: “Well, everyone online knows it. He specializes in playing psychopathic serial killers.”
Chi Qing’s appearance on the news had caused quite a stir—not huge, but not insignificant. The people who knew Chi Qing were the most shocked. Wu Zhi had spent his day surfing the web, watching people’s cuts of Chi Qing’s villainous roles, and felt his scalp go numb.
In real life, he was already a bit odd, but on screen, he was constantly slashing people’s throats with knives, opening fire at the slightest disagreement, standing gloomily in the corner, or delivering death threats in the few lines of dialogue he had.
After hanging up, Xie Lin sat in the living room for a while. Although he knew Chi Qing had acted before and that the roles weren’t very positive—after all, given how he was, he wouldn’t play anything positive—he hadn’t seriously watched his works.
Since he couldn’t sleep anyway, Xie Lin started searching for Chi Qing’s old performances online.
The living room was bathed only in the flickering light of the television.
The screen was pitch black, with only a woman’s choking voice coming through the speakers with crystal clarity:
“N-no, don’t kill me—”
It was a pitch-black well shaft. A mottled, rusty iron mesh stood in the corner, and just a few meters away was the murky sewage of the sewer.
“I beg you… please let me go… I don’t want to die…”
The dried blood on the ground was swallowed by deeper darkness. The only source of light came from the flashlight in the man’s hand. The man himself was hidden in the shadows, his face unclear. One could vaguely distinguish that he was squatting there, bored, his pale hands playing with the flashlight like a toy—click, turning the flashlight switch on; click, turning it off.
“Click.”
When the flashlight shone, the beam hit the woman’s face directly.
The speaker was a disheveled woman. After screaming her first sentence, her volume gradually weakened. She was tied to the wall in a ‘cross’ shape, both hands firmly shackled by iron chains. Her wrists were bloody, evidently having been imprisoned and tortured there for a long time.
“I don’t want to die… let me go.”
The woman’s pupils reflected another color under the bright light. She shook her head continuously, hot tears streaming down her face, her voice choked with sobs.
“Click.”
The flashlight went dark again.
Only then did the squatting man rise and emerge from the shadows.
It wasn’t until he stepped closer that the audience could see his pale hands, his skin so white that the faint blue veins lurking beneath were visible. The man was slender, his black hair contrasting with his skin like thick ink. He seemed perfectly adapted to the darkness.
Chi Qing walked up to the woman and squatted down again. “Click.” He clicked the flashlight back on.
His legs were long, so squatting in such a tight, narrow space was a bit of a struggle.
Chi Qing stared at the woman steadily for a moment. After a while, he reached out to stroke her face, his fingers shifting a few inches until his fingertips brushed against the artery in her neck.
The woman trembled even harder, rambling incoherently.
Chi Qing finally spoke: “Hush… don’t make a sound.”
His voice carried no emotion, which, paired with his actions, made people shudder uncontrollably.
The woman couldn’t stop shivering all over.
In despair, a low, mournful wail escaped her chest: “No…”
At that moment, the hanging lamp swayed, the light shifted, and a flash illuminated Chi Qing’s face—even when magnified on the big screen, there was no flaw to be found. It was an extremely beautiful face, yet his eye sockets were dark, his under-eyes bruised, and his lips were as red as if they had been stained with blood. He looked like a patient.
“Are you thinking,” Chi Qing said, “there were so many people walking through the alley late at night, why was it you?”
But the woman would never get an answer to that question.
A small silver knife deftly sliced her artery. In stark contrast to the warm, spraying blood was the man’s fingertip, still pressed against her artery, possessing the same cold temperature as the death he had delivered.
……
More than half of the video progress bar remained.
Seeing this, Xie Lin paused the video, leaving the image frozen on those articulate, bony fingers and the blood spraying out.
In the video’s bullet comments, the audience was busy reviewing this performance.
The screen was filled with text. At a glance, it was all “psycho”:
[He’s a real psycho.]
[F*ck, I’m so creeped out.]
[Another one dead. That’s the third one he’s killed.]
[I feel like he’s pressing on my carotid artery.]
……
The comments about him being a “psycho” floated by for a long time.
Xie Lin took a photo of this scene and sent it to Wu Zhi: You meant this?
Wu Zhi replied with a sticker of a little figure nodding vigorously.
Yes, this one.
It’s so scary. It’s the kind of level that would make you have nightmares if you watched it at night.
And that lighter; he played with it so creepily that I didn’t even dare to light my cigarette tonight. I just stuck to drinking.
Wu Zhi was venting wildly in his head, yet his “good brother” thought something entirely different.
Xie Lin shared his review, saying over the phone: “Acting is pretty good. Quite cute, actually. He was even thinner back then, looked like a student. He wasn’t very natural in front of the camera, probably because there were too many people around the set. He must have felt uncomfortable. Plus, the well shaft environment was very chaotic. It must have been hard for him to squat there for so long.”
Wu Zhi was stunned: “…C-cute?”
Dad, you call this cute?!
Wu Zhi truly couldn’t understand what was going on in Xie Lin’s head.
Since one topic wasn’t going anywhere, Wu Zhi changed to another, still trying to lure him out of the house: “Ever since you visited two months ago, a lot of people in this bar have been asking about you. Are you really not coming?”
“Not coming.” Although he had looked for him to talk in the middle of the night, it was useless. Xie Lin said, “Go play by yourself.”
Wu Zhi was strangely furious. He was out here night-hunting, putting in so much effort but failing to find a partner, while someone who looked like a male fox didn’t even try: “Think about it carefully—we’ve known each other for so many years, and I’ve never seen you date anyone. Are you secretly dating someone behind my back?”
“Hanging up.”
After Xie Lin hung up, he continued watching the drama Chi Qing had acted in. However, Chi Qing’s screen time was minimal; he only appeared whenever the plot required someone to get their “lunchbox” (die). He would appear with that small knife, finish them off, and exit the scene cleanly and decisively.
Looking at the TV screen, Xie Lin recalled Wu Zhi’s words: We’ve known each other for so many years, and I’ve never seen you date anyone.
Xie Lin thought to himself, It’s because I’m not a good person. But this time… I don’t think I can help it.
Back in his student days, he had the face of someone who would have puppy love, but he had no such thoughts. First, his situation was special; if he really got together with someone, it would be a city-wide scandal. Second, he had been involved in criminal investigations from a young age; solving cases was far more interesting than dating.
Besides, Xie Feng was always warning him back then: “No puppy love, you hear me? Don’t mess with other people’s studies.” After scolding him, looking at his younger brother’s face, Xie Feng would always add, “And dating multiple people at once is even more forbidden!”
After Xie Feng’s accident, the psychologist said he had issues. The Bureau people were wary of him, and he knew he was indeed different from ordinary people.
He had never been afraid of those gruesome cases since he was a child, and he was often drawn into the killer’s perspective. The first time he stood before a corpse covered in whip marks and said, “The killer must have been smiling while whipping the body, he must have felt very exhilarated,” Xie Feng stared at him in a daze for a long time: “Why would you think that?”
Xie Lin didn’t care: “Because I can feel it.”
That kidnapper who was eventually executed—before Xie Feng brought people to rescue him, he had had a chance to design a way to kill the man using the food bowl brought in daily. But he didn’t. He thought more than once: If I had found a way to kill him, the factory wouldn’t have exploded. If that happened, would Xie Feng still be alive?
I should have killed him.
Why is it that those who deserve to die cannot be killed, while those who don’t deserve to leave are forced to depart?
That thought was at its strongest when he had just woken up in the hospital. He became extremely violent, and the psychological evaluation form’s result was: Extremely Dangerous.
Afterward, suppressing his heart and desires became a habit.
He felt as though he had lived his life stripping away the layers of himself, trying to pull out that “potentially criminal” Xie Lin and lock him in a cage that no one could see.
That was why Dr. Wu often said: “I don’t know what you are thinking.”
He was a person locked in darkness, never imagining that one day he would meet a fellow traveler in the dark.
That person had opened an umbrella in the pouring rain of blood and grabbed his hand in the abyss-like elevator shaft.
It was hard for Xie Lin to tell when he had fallen in love with that person.
Perhaps it was the first time in the psychological clinic, when a hand in a black glove pushed open the door.
He had been lazily covering his book, saying “Please come in.”
And so, two “misfits” shrouded in darkness met.
Chi Qing dreamed of butterflies all night—thousands upon thousands of butterflies flying up from the depths of the abyss, their wings like sparkling stars. Chi Qing was woken up by a phone ring and realized he had been sleeping with his hand pressed over his heart: “…”
Ji Mingrui: “Hello? Are you awake? You should be up by now. Here’s the thing: the Bureau has arranged a forum for you and Xie Lin. They want you both to go and listen in. I’ll send you the address and time. You two remember to go.”
Chi Qing had never heard of any forum, and he didn’t plan to go to a place packed with people. However, before he could refuse, Ji Mingrui hung up.
Chi Qing forwarded the time and address Ji Mingrui had sent to Xie Lin, adding six words: If you want to go, go yourself.
Xie Lin was skilled at “touching porcelain” (playing the victim):
—Injured. Not convenient to go alone.
—……
Xie Lin sent another line: Want some breakfast? I made an extra portion.
Chi Qing had lost count of how many times he had entered Xie Lin’s house. When he walked in, Xie Lin was still busy in the kitchen, so he sat in the living room waiting.
Xie Lin: “Is toast and fried egg okay?”
Chi Qing: “Anything is fine. Just remember to wear gloves when you cook. Thanks.”
Xie Lin: “…Fine. Nothing but air will touch your breakfast.”
After Chi Qing sat down, he accidentally pressed the TV remote at his side. The next second, he saw his own face on the screen, holding a knife, while the person underneath was bleeding profusely: “…”
The curtains blocked the sunlight, and the lights in the room weren’t on. Chi Qing sat on the sofa, legs curled up. From Xie Lin’s angle, he could see the fingers resting on the edge of the sofa—the fingers looked just as cold as those clutching the woman’s carotid artery on the screen.
Chi Qing’s voice was slightly different from the one in the drama; it was a bit raspy from just waking up, cold and temperatureless, but his pupils were slightly unfocused, looking a bit dazed: “Why are you watching this?”
Why did this guy have nothing better to do than watch his dark history?
