27 Slowly Surfacing Truth

 

“I’ve not told anyone about this secret before and it is the biggest mistake I’ve made in my life.” Meng Si unlocked the door and led Han Fei into it. The bedroom was small. There was a single bed and next to it was a giant freezer.

A thick curtain of black cloth was draped over it. The light was dim. The curtain was nailed to the wall so one could not see into the room from outside.

“Remember the story I told you about the woman and her adopted three kids? Well, that woman was me.” Guilt and conscience had been tormenting the old lady. It was not until she survived a brush with death that she decided to tell the truth. “That day, I followed the truck’s trail to the city outskirts and saw them fighting next to a dead body. Listening to their insults and words, I only then realized the peace that they shared was merely a show staged for my sake.” The old lady’s twig-like hand gripped the black cloth. “Something was not right with my youngest son even when he was young. From burning ants, he slowly escalated to torturing stray cats and dogs. It was like he was unable to vent his frustrations like a normal person and he could only release the pent-up tension through these demented actions.

“Both my eldest and middle son knew about his abnormal personality. They had privately chatted with him many times. They hid this from me so that I would not worry about it. My eldest helped my youngest sign up for psychiatry counselling when he was still in university and my middle child helped clean up the dead animal bodies. His older brothers had been covering his tracks but kindness and patience were not going to change him.

“Tragedy eventually struck. That day my youngest killed a drifter squatting at that abandoned bungalow. The first to notice the problem was my middle child. He was used to burying the dead animals on his younger brother’s behalf but when he realized this time it was a dead human, he was stunned. In the heat of the moment, he declared his youngest brother the spawn of the devil and someone like him should not have been born in this world.

“Kneeling before the dead body, my youngest did not show much remorse. He even told his second elder brother excitedly that he could soon prove that he was not sick. He had already found the butterfly hiding deep inside his brain. He’d die to capture that butterfly.”

Retelling this story, the old lady’s voice started to tremble. She silently peeled the black cloth off.

‘Butterfly deep inside his brain? Did Meng Si’s youngest son suffer from some kind of mental illness? Or was it a hallucination?’ Han Fei had a belief that things were not that simple.

“My youngest always claimed that there was a butterfly that resided in his brain. He could feel it but could never locate it. The butterfly would lead his way forward. Whenever the butterfly flapped its wing, he would be taken over by the desire to kill. As the desire grew, the closer he came to that butterfly. According to him, the butterfly had the most beautiful colors he had ever seen.” The woman groaned as she tried to pull the freezer open. When it did, the cool air oozed out.

Han Fei glanced into the freezer. All he saw was a layer of rotten, old books. “Granny, why would you store books inside the freezer?”

The old lady did not answer, instead she reached into the freezer to retrieve one of the books. Underneath it was a frozen human face. “These books belonged to my youngest and the man underneath the book is the drifter from that horrible day.”

Putting the book aside, the old lady knelt beside the freezer. “I watched as my children fought and injured each other. My heart broke, because it was all my fault. I didn’t raise them right.” Guilt, self-blame and pain dwindled the old woman’s voice, “I rushed forward to stop the fight. When they saw me, they were shocked. Even my youngest, who was the feistiest, stopped.

“While my two elder sons argued about whether to call the police, I tried to persuade my youngest to surrender himself. Throughout the process, he did not utter a word. At the last minute, when his brothers decided on phoning the cops, he told us something that had all of us gobsmacked. He said there has been someone else directing his murders. However, he was unable to give us the person’s name. He said once he did, we would all be in mortal danger. He even told us that there would be a series of murders that was to happen soon in the old city. Everything was to search for the butterfly in his brain.

“As his family, we wanted to believe him but this was a murder! In the end, my elder two sons decided to give him one week’s time for him to prove the real culprit’s existence.

“In the meantime, we had to find a place to hide the dead drifter’s body. The abandoned bungalow was a hot spot for squatters and drifters, if the body was left there, my youngest child’s crime would be exposed too soon. Therefore, we used the cold truck to move it into the freezer. I couldn’t remember much of what happened next. There seems to be a loss in part of my memory. I only remember my three children leaving me to guard over this body until my youngest comes back to surrender to his crime.”

The old lady clearly did not remember her death. This was probably caused by the game.

‘The youngest son claimed that he was induced by someone else to kill and the string of murders in the old city he mentioned coincided perfectly with the timing of the human jigsaw case. But how did he manage to predict that?’ Han Fei knew that out of the 3 brothers, 2 of them were still alive. There had to be more to this story. ‘From my perspective, none of the 3 brothers sounds trustworthy.” Han Fei’s eyes moved and they landed on the book that once covered the dead man’s face. The book was called Butterflies of the Soul. It was written by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the pioneer of neuroscience study in the last century. The following quote was embossed on the cover. “Like the entomologist hunting for brightly coloured butterflies, my attention was drawn to the flower garden of the grey matter, which contained cells with delicate and elegant forms, the mysterious butterflies of the soul, the beating of whose wings may some day... clarify the secret of mental life.”

‘Butterflies of the soul? Am I a butterfly soaring through the world of hell reconstructed in this game?’ Han Fei knew nothing about the game. For now, he merely wanted to survive. Han Fei’s most immediate concern was to level up and not to figure out the mysteries of the game.

“Granny, your youngest son has to be punished for his crime. You helping him with the cover up will only make him worse. In fact, more people might have become his victims because of it.” Han Fei slammed the freezer shut. He had decided to apprehend Meng Si’s youngest son. Perhaps that would bring deliverance to the old lady.

“The victim lost his life but his killer has escaped from his due punishment, no matter the reason, I find that incredibly unfair.” Han Fei felt he was close enough to Meng Si to voice his mind. “The freezer has not just frozen a dead body, but it has also frozen a few generations of happiness and bliss. I believe it is time for you to let go.”

Studying the old woman kneeling by the freezer, Han Fei was reminded of his roommates upstairs. His eyes wandered off down the distance. ‘This game is called Perfect Life but no one in it has a life that even comes close to being called one.’