It was a knife.
Ji Xun’s nerves tensed in that instant.
The wind whistling through the alley seemed to slow, and time stretched out, long and sluggish. The knife at his back pressed forward forcefully, and the voice of the person holding it became even sterner.
“Drop the phone!”
Ji Xun’s hand went limp, and the phone fell straight to the ground.
The yellow-haired youth broke free from his grasp, raised a hand to rub his cheek, but only managed to make his face even more ferocious.
He took a step towards Ji Xun, then suddenly lifted his foot and kicked hard. “Chase, chase, chase, are you chasing to visit your mother’s grave? Watch me teach you a lesson!”
The shoe touched Ji Xun’s clothes. Ji Xun’s body shifted slightly, and he fell backward with the momentum.
The knife did not pierce him.
The person holding the knife even slightly adjusted its direction, pointing the tip outward.
This was the moment!
Ji Xun grabbed the yellow-haired youth’s leg and pulled hard. The youth immediately lost his balance and was swung like a human pendulum, crashing into the knife-wielder. Caught off guard by this sudden development, the knife-wielder was staggered by the impact. At the same time, Ji Xun elbowed the nerve cluster in the man’s arm, deliberately avoiding looking at the dagger. When the dagger clattered to the ground, he stomped on it and kicked it hard into the darkness!
The alert was over. Ji Xun’s tense spirit relaxed. He stepped forward and delivered a final blow to the knife-wielder, knocking him out cleanly, then pivoted on his foot to face the yellow-haired youth who was now sitting paralyzed on the ground.
One step, two steps.
The closer he got, the more the yellow-haired youth retreated, scooting backward on his hands and feet. But soon, the youth’s head hit a wall. There was no way back.
Just as Ji Xun was about to cross the final bit of distance, with a scraping sound, the knife he had kicked into the darkness slid back, its silver gleam flashing into his eyes.
He immediately closed his eyes.
Knives don’t slide by themselves.
Someone had come.
Right behind him!
Ji Xun elbowed backward, but it was caught. He spun and kicked, and an arm collided with his leg. In a very short time, the two exchanged multiple attacks, the dull thuds of flesh hitting flesh echoing in the darkness.
The yellow-haired youth was dumbfounded.
The faint moonlight from the sky cast a blurry silhouette of the two fighting figures. The youth could no longer tell who was who. He only saw the two in front of him fight for a while, and one of them was thrown hard against the wall. The youth heard his muffled cough, the voice familiar—it was the person who had just been chasing him!
The other one was also hit. He took a punch to the chin, his whole head snapping back, and a necklace hidden in his clothes flew out, with a strange long pendant dangling from it.
That was…
The yellow-haired youth squinted for a long time before he recognized it was a metal boy’s head avatar, with an old peace knot tied below it.
Was this more of a charm than a pendant?
The yellow-haired youth’s gaze was cut off. The man raised his hand, caught the pendant still flying in mid-air, and tucked it back into his clothes. His neck turned halfway, and he looked at the yellow-haired youth. “Still not leaving? Waiting for me to invite you?”
The yellow-haired youth snapped out of his daze, scrambled up from the ground, and stumbled out of the alley.
Ji Xun clutched his chest and stood up straight. He had just taken a step in the direction the yellow-haired youth had fled when, with a whoosh, the man pulled out a Swiss Army knife from somewhere, drew out the main blade, and turned on his phone’s flashlight, shining it on the blade to illuminate it.
“…Fuck.”
Ji Xun squeezed out a sound from between his teeth. The glint of the blade that had blinded him was now draining his strength. Sweat poured from his body, layer upon layer, a mixture of cold and heat.
Numbness began to set in. He started to lose feeling in his fingers.
At that moment, the man chuckled.
He turned off the light and lowered his hand.
“Long time no see, Ji Xun.”
“…Get lost, Meng Fushan.”
They knew each other. Not only did they know each other, but they had been friends for a long time—and had been apart for a long time.
Meng Fushan stood still. He was wearing a dark gray, long, thin windbreaker with a hood. His name, like his appearance, was striking. His features were handsome and chiseled, his figure tall, and he had a spiky hedgehog hairstyle. But this handsomeness was different from Yuan Yue’s. Yuan Yue’s steadfast silence was as steady as a rock, making anyone feel they could rely on him.
Meng Fushan was not like that. One of his feet was planted in darkness. No eye could see through the darkness, so no one knew if what was hidden in the darkness was flesh and blood, or steel blades.
The sound of a match striking came from the darkness.
The flame flared and died, and then the smell of tobacco, along with a faint white mist, began to spread through the alley.
The cigarette was held between Meng Fushan’s teeth, the red tip glowing on and off. Meng Fushan smoked, yet his words were clear and articulate, not at all affected by the cigarette in his mouth. “A useless drug addict. You’re not even a cop anymore, why are you still chasing him?”
“A useless drug addict. Why are you stopping me from chasing him?” Ji Xun retorted coldly.
“He’s of some use to me,” Meng Fushan said.
“Impressive, amazing. In three years, you’ve shot up to the heavens, even starting to build connections with drug addicts,” Ji Xun said impatiently. “Are you moving or not?”
Meng Fushan did not move.
The Swiss Army knife he had just put away appeared again. In the darkness, he played with the knife, its cold silver gleam twinkling like a distant star.
“Ji Xun, there are millions of drug addicts in the world. You can’t manage them all, and there’s no need to. Just pretend you didn’t see him. That shouldn’t be too hard. You did something much harder three years ago,” Meng Fushan said.
The last bit of human warmth in the alley was stirred up by these words.
“What do you mean?” Ji Xun heard his own voice, extremely cold.
The scene was quiet. In the darkness, Meng Fushan was observing his expression. After a moment, the other man said, “I’m not blaming you. But it’s a fact that Xiaoyu died, and it’s also a fact that you’ve been living a debauched life for the past three years. There’s nothing wrong with that. But since you’ve chosen this path, why are you trying so hard now?”
Ji Xun’s breathing became intermittent. The glint of the knife in front of him was pressing on his heart from a distance.
Meng Fushan’s voice did not stop. White cigarette ash, mixed with sparks, fell. The swirling smoke obscured Meng Fushan, his voice low and calm.
“This makes me feel that Xiaoyu is not even as important as a random drug addict you meet on the street… Ji Yu, your own sister, died on February 9, 2013, which was New Year’s Eve. It was just 11 days before her 20th birthday.”
The gleam of the blade was like an arrow, piercing Ji Xun’s heart.
But there was no pain, only a spreading numbness that exploded from the wound.
Darkness surged.
His mind desperately tried to stay in the present, to stand here, to forget the scene he had seen three years ago.
But the more he tried to forget, the more he couldn’t. The more he tried to ignore, the more he was reminded.
Without closing his eyes, everything familiar had already appeared in the darkness:
He saw the door of his home, the warm yellow light illuminating the newly replaced bright red spring couplets next to the security door. The top scroll read “Plum and bamboo bring peace and spring is full,” the bottom scroll read “Parents are healthy and life is long,” and the horizontal scroll had four characters, “Safe travels.” (*1)
Ever since he became a police officer, his family had put up peace-themed spring couplets every year. They would probably only change the wish on the couplets when his sister also started working.
He stepped on the doormat in front of the door. The doormat was from his sister, with cute big and small fish printed on it, not quite matching the older generation’s aesthetic. She had even argued with her mother for a bit when she bought it. Her mother complained that her nearly twenty-year-old daughter still had the aesthetic of a primary school student; his sister was unhappy, her round deer-like eyes widened as much as they could, her pout so pronounced you could hang an oil bottle on it, saying that she was a Pisces and just loved fish.
This was another point of contention between his mother and sister. The “fish” his sister referred to was the zodiac sign Pisces, but his mother didn’t understand these things and only recognized the twelve Chinese zodiac animals.
His father, reading the newspaper, played the peacemaker as usual. He unsurprisingly sided with his mother first, scolding his sister for arguing with her mother, then he sided with his sister, comforting his wife:
“It’s no big deal, just a doormat. It’s already bought, no need to waste it.”
His mother was so angry she poked his sister’s forehead. “Fish, fish, all you think about is fish. I think I gave you the wrong name. I should change the ‘Yu’ (language) in your name to ‘Yu’ (fish). Sooner or later, you’ll end up in a pot.”
And so the fish doormat was placed at the entrance. How could a mother ever win against her daughter?
Ji Xun stood there for a long, long time. All warm memories ended here.
The door in front of him was the lid of Pandora’s box. Whether it was opened or not, evil was already present.
The door was pulled open.
After three years, the memory had not faded at all.
He had voluntarily relived it over and over, and had been passively reminded of it over and over.
He knew of a crack in the wooden floor upon entering, and saw a bottle of medicinal wine for bruises placed in the entryway. He knew that crack was made by his father when he was moving his sister’s new wardrobe, and that bottle of medicinal wine was bought because he had strained his back while moving it. He had even helped his father apply the medicine.
While applying it, he had asked his father why he didn’t call him for manual labor, at his age, still trying to do it himself.
His father, lying on the bed, had grumbled and pounded the bed. “Isn’t it just a wardrobe? Your old man isn’t that old yet!”
He also saw his sister.
His sister had her back to him, her waist-long hair almost completely covering her upper body. She was as thin as a bamboo pole with a thin sail hung on it, standing propped up.
The shock he had felt upon glimpsing her that day had disappeared today, burned away by fire, leaving only a thin layer of ash accumulated at the bottom of his heart.
But the smell of blood pierced through time and space, still choking Ji Xun three years later.
He heard in his ears the conversation between himself and his sister from three years ago.
“Ji Yu, how did you get so thin recently? Are you not eating properly again, trying to lose weight by starving yourself? I told you, it’s fine to lose weight, but don’t do it blindly. If you mess up your stomach, Mom will nag you to death. By the way, is someone killing a chicken at home? Why is the smell of blood so strong?”
“…Brother.”
Ji Yu called him.
His sister, with her back to him, finally turned around, like a piece of cloth flipping over lightly.
He saw his sister’s face. Her round face had lost its luster, her sharp chin protruded, and her lively deer-like eyes no longer had any spirit, only a blank stupor.
Along with the luster, she had also lost her color.
Her face was as pale as a stiff, cold mask. Two clear tear tracks remained on her cheeks, washing away the blood spots on them.
That bone-chilling cold, like falling into an ice cave, also pierced through time and space, reappearing in Ji Xun.
He looked down from her face and saw more blood, splattered blood.
The front of his sister’s white dress was almost completely dyed red. Her hands had the most blood, and a knife, a kitchen cleaver, the knife their mother used for cooking every day.
“Brother…”
Ji Yu walked towards him, step by step.
Ji Xun finally saw clearly the scene behind his sister. Blood was smeared all over the dining room floor. Two elderly bodies lay on it, one face up, one face down.
Their bodies were already mutilated, their faces still holding expressions of fear and confusion. They were his elderly parents.
The memories were replaced in an instant. All the happy images were torn to shreds, leaving only the bloody, fragmented scene before him.
Ji Xun’s heart trembled, dizziness washed over his mind. Ji Yu walked up to him and opened her blood-soaked arms to hug him. He hastily retreated.
Ji Yu stopped. Her dark, hollow eyes stared at him. Her dry, withered eye sockets trembled, and tears flowed down again.
“Brother, it hurts so much…” she cried.
She raised her hand.
The glint of the knife flashed in Ji Xun’s eyes.
“It hurts so much…”
Blood splattered out.
…
The memory ended abruptly here.
The phantom of three years ago disappeared, and the dark alley reappeared. Meng Fushan still stood in front of him. He leaned against the wall, the wall supporting his body.
“Yes,” Ji Xun said. “My own sister killed my parents.”
“…Don’t say that,” Meng Fushan said coldly. “Otherwise, I can’t guarantee that the knife in my hand won’t accidentally fly out.”
As they talked, a figure lying on the ground in a corner stirred quietly, its body touching the dagger on the ground.
Ji Xun pulled at the corner of his mouth with a sense of weariness.
They were too familiar with each other. They had been friends even when Ji Yu was still alive, and knew too many things about each other.
But knowing too much was not always a good thing. While one could casually hurt others, one could also be casually hurt by them.
“It’s been five minutes,” Ji Xun said. “Haven’t you stalled for enough time yet?”
Meng Fushan had stalled for enough time. Five minutes was more than enough for the yellow-haired youth to run to the street outside and escape by car.
He said something else. “This meeting was purely accidental, but there is indeed one thing I need you to help me investigate. Don’t be in a hurry to refuse, this matter is already in your plans—Tang Jinglong.”
Meng Fushan uttered the name.
“You might as well investigate in the direction of his work. Be careful, he’s not as simple as you think now… Alright, get up.”
The last sentence was not directed at Ji Xun.
At some point, Meng Fushan had come to the side of the person lying on the ground and kicked him with his foot.
“Stop playing dead. Give me the dagger.”
The dagger that had been pinned under the scarred man’s body was now in Meng Fushan’s hand, and the Swiss Army knife that Meng Fushan had been repeatedly tossing was now in the scarred man’s hand. Meng Fushan patted the scarred man’s shoulder.
“I helped you save the person you wanted to save. Now it’s your turn to help me block him. An eye for an eye, am I right?”
With that, he exerted force, lifted the middle-aged man, and pushed him towards Ji Xun, while he himself plunged into the darkness in the opposite direction.
“…Don’t come over,” the scarred man, who had been forcefully lifted, staggered for two steps before barely steadying himself. He held the knife, the tip pointed at Ji Xun, but a Swiss Army knife was honestly only slightly larger than a utility knife, not a very effective stabbing weapon. His threatening voice had a bluffing quality. “You better be careful, kid. I have eyes, but this knife doesn’t!”
Ji Xun had his hands in his pockets.
The wall behind him was still his most solid support. He was a little reluctant to leave this place, as the strength that had been floating in the air seemed to be having too much fun and had forgotten to return home.
Ji Xun moved his limbs. The good news was, he was somewhat used to it. The numbness of not being able to feel his limbs had faded a lot. The bad news was, his current state was like having chugged a bottle of baijiu and then running a 40°C fever. Every step felt like walking on cotton.
He walked towards the scarred man.
He took a step forward, and the scarred man took a step back. As they were locked in a stalemate, the scarred man said something else. Ji Xun couldn’t be bothered to distinguish each word, only watching the scarred man’s face become more and more ferocious.
When the malice reached a critical point, the ferocity turned into distortion. The knife held in the scarred man’s hand was raised high, its tip like a flying arrow, speeding towards Ji Xun!
The glint of the blade made Ji Xun nauseous. He squinted, averted his gaze, and relied purely on instinct to raise his hand and grab the person in front of him. This grab caught the right person. Ji Xun slammed the man hard against the wall, but the pile of unnoticed debris at the base of the wall tripped them. They lost their balance and fell to the ground one after another.
The Swiss Army knife in the scarred man’s hand fell to the ground during the collision, but when his hand came up again, it was firmly grasping the knife.
Ji Xun pressed down on the man’s hand with all his might, but it was useless. That hand still got closer and closer, the tip of the knife constantly adjusting its position as it advanced, finally aiming squarely at Ji Xun’s eye.
He plunged it down with force—!
At the last moment, an arm came from behind, blocking the space between Ji Xun’s eye and the knife.
The knife slit a cut in the woolen overcoat covering the arm. This was the scarred man’s last act of resistance. The next moment, the wrist of his knife-wielding hand was caught by the person behind him and shaken. The knife fell to the ground. Then, with a dull thud, the scarred man fell limply.
The weight on Ji Xun’s body lightened. He looked up and saw Huo Ranyin.
Huo Ranyin picked up the knife from the ground.
The man’s eyes, which were always hidden behind a fog and the night, for the first time, put away their layers of suspicion and vigilance, leaving only complete concern. “Are you alright?”
At a critical moment, it was still the people’s police who were reassuring.
The breath Ji Xun had been holding in his chest was released. Every part of his body ached, especially his head, which felt like a hundred awls were being hammered into it at the same time. He was weak and listless, and softly reached out his hand. “Officer brother, do me a favor, give me a hand.”
__
Author’s Note: 1: A peace-themed spring couplet from the internet.
