The photograph of of Zhang Yong's corpse had disappeared already. The only thing left now was the last bloodred letter.
L.
The last round of the "Drop the Hanky" Game of Death had officially begun.
Inside the bedroom, Xie Qingcheng took a forceful drag on his cigarette. He had one hand braced against the wall and the other's fingertips pressed to his temple. His peach-blossom eyes looked unblinkingly at the smudge of bloody light on the broadcasting tower in the distance as he said to the person on the line, "Give me the list of suspects you've compiled for L."
Captain Zheng said some solemn and sincere-sounding words in reply.
"I'm not going to make small talk with you," said Xie Qingcheng, forcing down his emotions. "Give me the list of names."
There was silence on the other end.
"Not too long ago, I dropped off a guestbook that I found at Huzhou University at the police station," Xie Qingcheng continued. "Someone had written inside its pages that 'WZL' would soon be murdered. The message was signed 'Jiang Lanpei.' I thought it might be useful to the police, so I brought it over. You don't need to hide it from me—that book didn't show up there for no reason, especially when it contained a message that matched the videos from today's murder case."
"Xiao-Xie…"
"That was a message left by your informant, wasn't it?"
Xie Qingcheng went straight for the jugular; the other man was unable to utter even a single word of denial.
Through gritted teeth, Xie Qingcheng said, "So, all of you were well aware that WZL were in danger of being murdered, but perhaps there were some major gaps in the informant's knowledge. He could only write what he knew in the book as a warning for you to decode. If we do the math, you all must have pondered over this message about WZL for a very long time already—long enough to narrow down a list of targets. Zheng Jingfeng, don't you dare tell me that you don't have it."
Captain Zheng let out a long sigh. "I can't hide anything from you, Xiao-Xie. Listen—I understand how you must be feeling. If anyone else were in your place, they wouldn't be able to bear it either. However…"
During this pause, the lit end of Xie Qingcheng's cigarette singed the sides of his fingers, making him shudder slightly.
"However, we must maintain confidentiality…"
Xie Qingcheng suddenly snapped, revealing an uncharacteristic degree of agitation. "Confidentiality? What confidentiality? You couldn't find anything when my mom and dad died. In the end, you concluded it was just a car crash! How much time did I spend speaking with all of you back then? How much have I already sacrificed to search for an answer?! You guys knew everything, but you still couldn't find a shred of evidence! After so many years… I have a little sister, so I gave up in the end—I could only manage so much… But now these people are stirring up trouble right before my eyes, and you still want to talk to me about confidentiality?"
"Xie Qingcheng, ultimately, you're not a police officer. You need to calm down…"
"I'm the son of two fucking victims!"
Zheng Jingfeng said nothing.
"I might be able to find someone today who can tell me who killed my parents." Xie Qingcheng's eyes were red as he pressed his forehead to the ice-cold window frame. "So tell me, how am I supposed to calm down?"
There was still only silence on the other end.
"How am I supposed to trust you guys, Zheng Jingfeng? It's been nineteen years, yet you still haven't given me an answer. Right now, you can't even stop the hackers behind this video from getting into your systems. You don't need to tell me—I already know that their malice will rise to meet the challenge. What are the chances that they'll escape unscathed again this time?
"Zheng Jingfeng, Officer Zheng, do you know what it feels like to be kept in the dark for nineteen years, never to receive an ounce of truth?! I've been enduring and waiting all this time."
"…I know. But…"
"I understand what these past nineteen years have been like for all of you, but can you all understand what this single day has been like for me?"
"…I understand, I understand," Zheng Jingfeng mumbled as if he didn't know what to say.
Xie Qingcheng paused. Blood seemed to seep from every word he spoke. "Captain Zheng. If you truly understand, then give me the list of names for L." After another pause, he added, "Otherwise, I'll think of a way to find it myself."
After several beats of silence, Zheng Jingfeng said at last, "Ah, Xiao Xie, heed your Uncle Zheng's advice…"
He spoke some solemn and earnest words of conciliation, but this was the last straw for Xie Qingcheng. A torrent of fury washed over him. He kicked over the chair beside him.
"Go fuck yourself! What use is that? Stop giving me this bullshit!"
He threw his phone onto the table and pressed his forehead to the wall. He was so upset that he ended up knocking it hard enough for a reddish-purple bruise to begin forming. Not a single person in the world— not even Xie Xue—had ever seen him like this before. His chest heaved violently as his eyes became completely bloodshot.
He stilled for a moment, then looked over at the broadcasting tower once more.
The livestream that was playing on thousands of phones across campus was also projected onto the side of the building. Beneath the L, the hanky-dropping game was slowly underway.
Xie Qingcheng forced himself to calm down. With trembling hands, he picked up his phone again. Once he'd regulated his breathing, he dialed Chen Man's number.
Beep…beep…
"Hey, Xie-ge."
"Chen Man." Xie Qingcheng's voice was hoarse. "I need a favor. Can you see if you can help me?"
Chen Man paused. "Ge, I'll do anything you ask of me. But…" A note of pain strained his words. "But I know what you're trying to do right now."
Xie Qingcheng had reached his limit. He fumbled for a cigarette and held it between his teeth, but it refused to light.
Irritated, he tossed the lighter away and bit down on the cigarette filter. "You know?"
"I know. Every public security worker in Huzhou is monitoring this incident. Every signal tower in Huzhou University was hacked and forced to play this snuff video. We've already intercepted the hacker, but we received an anonymous threat that if we stopped the video, multiple locations throughout Huzhou would be bombed. We can't verify if the threat is real, but we can't afford to make the gamble." Chen Man's voice sounded exhausted. "Xie-ge, I know what you want to do."
Xie Qingcheng said nothing.
"I've seen the same things you have. I know you want to find L, prevent him from getting killed, and ask him about your parents' murderer and the organization they belong to." Chen Man was starting to sound slightly choked up. "I also know… I also know that my dage was trying to find out the truth for your dad, for his shifu, so he…he…"
Chen Man's audible sniffling came from the other end of the call.
Xie Qingcheng's throat bobbed, and bitterness flooded into his mouth.
Chen Man wasn't crying in front of him, just through the phone, but it still felt as though Chen Man's tears were spilling right onto his heart.
"So you can't do this favor for me?" Xie Qingcheng asked quietly.
"I can't… Those are the rules… I-I only have the lowest rank; I can't access such high-clearance information… And I…I'm a police officer… I…"
Xie Qingcheng didn't speak any further. He could curse out Zheng Jingfeng over this case, even though Zheng Jingfeng was his elder. But when it came to Chen Man, it was out of the question.
He just said an infinitely tired "All right, then."
"Xie-ge, I—"
Xie Qingcheng had already hung up the phone.
He lay on the bed as time ticked past, minute by minute. His entire body was ice-cold, from his fingertips to his heart…
"Dad! Mom!"
"Don't go over there! Xie Qingcheng! Don't!"
On that stormy night nineteen years ago, when he finally realized that the two icy-cold bodies collapsed in that pool of blood were his parents, he'd lost it and tried to sprint toward them. His father's colleagues had held him back, with several of them rushing forward to stop him.
"Who's the murderer? Who's the murderer? Who's the driver?!"
No one answered.
"Let go of me… Let me get a better look. Maybe there's been a mistake, maybe you got the wrong people…?!"
All the cops were crying, but the hands around him refused to let go.
"Xiao-Xie, don't be like this."
"The driver fled, but we'll investigate… We'll definitely get to the bottom of this and give you an explanation…"
But what explanation had they given him?
Only later did he find out that no one had fled. When the security footage was retrieved, it showed that the truck was unmanned. It seemed to have been controlled remotely, commanded to charge straight at his parents and then self-destruct. It had quickly gone up in flames, eliminating any evidence that might have been inside the driver's cabin.
Spotlessly clean.
So clean that even after nineteen years, the case remained uncracked.
Xie Qingcheng lay on the bed, feeling colder and colder. His hand was shaking too much to light his cigarette. With difficulty, he unlocked his phone and opened a document to stare at the images inside over and over.
The bedroom door opened with a click.
By now, Xie Qingcheng had already turned off his phone screen and closed his eyes. His phone began to ring, calls coming one after another— his parents' old co-workers, Xie Xue, Chen Man. But he didn't answer any of them. Instead he just lay there, letting the persistent ringtone painfully pierce his eardrums.
Suddenly, the ringing cut off. Then came the sound of the phone being powered down.
Xie Qingcheng was lying with his arm covering his eyes and forehead. Only now did he open his eyes slightly to gaze numbly at the young man who had turned off his phone.
"I heard everything," He Yu said.
Xie Qingcheng only stared at him.
"You never told me your parents passed away like that."
Xie Qingcheng tilted his head. He hadn't cried in the end; his eyes were just extremely bloodshot. He wanted to get up and leave—He Yu couldn't possibly understand these things. Xie Qingcheng certainly didn't want to talk to him about them.
He sat up and raised his cigarette with a still-trembling hand. He tried several times to light it, but he had no strength in his hands, and the cigarette wouldn't catch the lighter's flame.
His lighter was plucked from his fingers. With a crisp click, He Yu lit the Zippo and held the flame up to the cigarette between Xie Qingcheng's lips.
Xie Qingcheng wordlessly accepted his help. As he finally took a drag from the lit cigarette, the tremors shuddering through his entire body slowly settled somewhat.
He Yu sat down next to Xie Qingcheng and watched quietly as he finished his cigarette.
Xie Qingcheng was actually quite impressive, He Yu thought. Even in the face of an ordeal like this, he only forfeited some of his composure; he never lost control or suffered a mental breakdown.
He Yu rarely saw his helpless side. The Xie Qingcheng he was used to was an indomitable figure, but he seemed so weak right now. The frailty he was exhibiting, having gone through everyone he knew but failing to find anyone who would or could help him, gave He Yu an urge that he had never felt before—the urge to offer him his hand.
He Yu suddenly found Xie Qingcheng, in his despairing-yet-silent state, slightly familiar. He stared at him for a long while…before he finally remembered.
It was just like when his illness had flared up when he was eight, nine, or ten years old…after Xie Qingcheng became his personal physician. Whenever his pain was at its worst, He Yu had been just as helpless and silent, unwilling to say anything to anyone.
How had Xie Qingcheng treated him back then?
It was so long ago.
He Yu felt surprised—why did he still remember this incident?
On that day, the villa had been as still as a deserted grave, so silent one could have heard a pin drop. He Yu had been sitting on his own on the stone steps next to some blooming hydrangeas. Without shedding a tear or making a fuss, he took out a sharp silver knife and calmly sliced open his skin as if it were a leather bag with nothing connecting it to his own nervous system.
When He Yu's disease flared, he loved the smell of blood—he even craved it. Although he didn't have the right to hurt anyone else, nothing was off limits when it came to his own body. As he coolly watched the blood trickle down his hand, he felt like moss was twining over his heart, sadism spreading from his inner core out to his limbs…
Suddenly, a calm voice called out from the endless field of summer hydrangeas. "Hey, little devil."
He Yu was startled, but he immediately stowed away the knife without batting an eye. With his hand behind his back, he arranged his still boyish face into an expression of pure innocence, piling on a child's natural naivete. He looked up to see that a young Xie Qingcheng wearing a long, white coat had walked out from the flowers.
Xie Qingcheng raised his brows as he looked down at He Yu. "What are you hiding?"
"…Nothing."
He Yu never bared his heart to anyone. He was hoping that Xie Qingcheng would just leave. With that sharp blade tucked up his sleeve, pressing against his skin, it took a great deal of effort for him to restrain the urge to use it against someone else.
But Xie Qingcheng grabbed He Yu's wrist and forced him to hold out his hand. The bloodstained knife clattered to the ground. Xie Qingcheng spied the wound on his wrist that was still dripping blood.
He Yu's whole body tensed as he waited for Xie Qingcheng to scold him.
But after a long while, the doctor only asked him a single question. "…Doesn't it hurt?"
He Yu was bewildered. His parents knew that he was sick, but they treated his illness as a source of shame, especially his mother.
"You can't hurt anyone else, so you need to learn how to regulate yourself, " she would admonish him. "I can understand your physical discomfort, but how can a kid your age feel so much psychological suffering? It's because you're not strong enough."
The young He Yu would simply listen to her calmly, just as he did with every other lesson he received. He lived according to his parents' demands, molding himself into those endless prizes, trophies, and compliments. He had been smashed into pieces, each broken fragment of his flesh placed under the microscope for someone to examine.
He couldn't make any mistakes.
Every time he had a flare-up, he would carefully cover up his pain and conceal it within his thickly calloused heart.
He needed to be outstanding; he wasn't even allowed to yell when it hurt. Even if he did, it would be pointless; no one would truly pay any attention to him. Gradually, he lost his ability to express pain. From then on, it all ceased to matter.
He was just like a terrifying, evil dragon in a fairytale who had never ventured beyond his lonely island: he tormented his own heart and gnawed at his own limbs, channeling that aberrant illness that only ever disappointed people into scars he couldn't show to anyone.
As long as he didn't harm anyone else, then surely he had done nothing wrong by being ill, right?
Every sickly-sweet stain of blood was a brand that he left on his own body. Only in the name of trying to be a normal person did he choose to confine himself with fetters of his own making. The sole offering he ever made to this fiendish illness was his own blood. He had long since become used to this.
However, this personal physician wanted to free him from the metal shackles he had slipped onto his own hands; he wanted to step into his cold, lightless dragon's lair; he wanted to touch the scars on his body, of all sizes and shapes, and ask him, Hey, little devil, doesn't it hurt?
A fledgling dragon's low roar rumbled through his heart, feeble yet furious. But in the moment when this man reached out to try to touch his wound, he dragged his bloody, injured body away in panic, his spiny dragon tail thumping anxiously against the ground.
He wasn't used to being questioned. And even less accustomed to being cared for.
It doesn't hurt.
It doesn't hurt. Stop looking at me like that! I won't hurt anyone else, so don't bother with me, don't question me, don't get close to me. Leave me alone…
But his hand had been caught. The young doctor peeled his sleeve back to reveal the forearm he had been hiding from view.
The icy blade fell to the ground.
What the doctor saw was that, in order to curb the urge to hurt others during a flare-up of his illness, this young, childish boy had cut gash after gash into himself. Warm blood was still dribbling from the crisscrossing wounds.
It seemed like the fledgling dragon had been so spooked that he dropped the gentle, clever human mask he wore, exposing the ugly, scar covered, unspeakably pathetic little dragon snout beneath. He thumped his spiked dragon tail and bared his sharp fangs as he howled, bringing all his defenses to bear to chase this trespasser out of his lair, "None of your business. Don't touch me."
The young doctor ignored his objections. He picked up the child and hoisted him over one of his shoulders. "Don't fidget."
He Yu began to struggle. He hated the smell of disinfectant that clung to Xie Qingcheng and the faint scent of medicine wafting from his sleeves. He also lost all ability to conceal his own violent urges. The soft hiss from between his clenched teeth was a threat, but also a warning. "Let me go, or I might hurt you…"
"How are you going to hurt me?" the doctor asked indifferently. "Do you have a plan in mind?"
When they reached the villa's specially prepared sickroom, the doctor tossed the young He Yu onto the soft children's sofa and slammed the door shut. Then Xie Qingcheng took a disposable mask from the drawer and put it on. When he turned back around, all He Yu could see were his deep, coldly perceptive eyes.
That was the first time He Yu had been regarded as more than a "model child." Under such an intense gaze, it was as though he had suddenly become a clumsy infant whose mistakes and laughable fumbles could all be overlooked. It was as though he could even reach out and ask for candy, and there wouldn't be anything wrong with that.
So he froze. He even forgot to run away.
Xie Qingcheng washed and disinfected his hands at the sink. "Give me your arm," he said. "I'll bandage it for you."
"…I'm fine. I don't mind." He Yu turned his head and gripped his bleeding arm, refusing to trust this man.
Xie Qingcheng raised an eyebrow. "You've gotten used to the scent of blood and violence, so you don't even care about hurting yourself anymore, is that right?"
He Yu said quietly, "Yes. It can't be changed, so I don't want to waste your time treating me."
"I'm getting paid," Xie Qingcheng replied indifferently.
He Yu stared at him.
"Little devil, do you think hurting yourself is right? That becoming bloodthirsty and twisted inside is the kind of thing that should just be ignored? Why don't you value yourself? If you grow too used to the smell of blood, you'll lose touch with all your human emotions. As time goes by, you'll only become more and more desensitized and mentally unwell and live your whole life like a stalk of grass or a slab of rock. Wouldn't you regret that? Doesn't it hurt?"
It was as if this conversation had happened only yesterday.
Even though Xie Qingcheng had later abandoned him, and their relationship had faded away, He Yu would always remember that day.
It was the first time that someone had ever offered him a hand and then asked him, Doesn't it hurt?
Why don't you value yourself…
He Yu watched as this man finished his cigarette with his head bowed.
"Xie Qingcheng, you want to know who the police believe L is, right?" He Yu asked without preamble.
Xie Qingcheng didn't immediately react.
"Don't be upset. Maybe I can help you."
Xie Qingcheng's head snapped up, his peach-blossom eyes wide as he looked at He Yu.
"Don't forget," He Yu said, "I'm also a hacker."
Xie Qingcheng stared at him.
"They're using the most advanced equipment. I actually looked into this kind of equipment as soon as it came out, just out of habit. I was able to intercept their attack on my phone just now, so I have a general idea of the software they're using. I might be able to beat the technicians these people have hired."
He Yu wasn't joking. His expression was completely serious, almost grave—as if he were facing the unassailable mountain that had always towered so high above him and saying, I'm grown up now; I'm no longer that helpless boy who sat among the endless summer hydrangeas all those years ago.
Xie Qingcheng was momentarily stunned. His mind was empty, his emotions twisted into a messy knot.
Some time later, he heard himself ask, "Why…would you help me?"
He Yu was silent at first. Then, suddenly, he held his hand out to Xie Qingcheng. Just the way that years ago, Xie Qingcheng had the courage to offer his hand to the child who had been suffering a flare-up of his illness, drowning in depression, and cutting himself to relieve his bloodthirsty need for violence.
"Because once you did the same for me."
Silence.
"I've never liked you, Xie Qingcheng. But…"
It was as though the fragrance of the hydrangea fields had drifted over from that flourishing summer, as the person standing offered his hand to the person sitting—
"Doctor Xie…I've never ever forgotten you either."