For his girlfriend, Yang Xiaojuan, Captain Zhao made it his life mission to arrest Zhao Mingkun. Guan Zhenglin chose to be a coroner because of Yang Xiaojuan. If I told them about the note, they would immediately arrest her. Because of me, they had missed this important opportunity.
For some unknown reason, I had this feeling that Zhao Mingkun had some connection with me. Zhao Mingkun was a naturally suspicious person. She would always hide her real thoughts. She would use words to obfuscate her real self. Perhaps the old man in Area A was right, we were the same in our bones, we refused to trust in others but we needed others; like Zhao Mingkun said, perhaps people like us deserve to die. Sometimes, I do hate myself.
On the other hand, curiosity was human nature. Even after 20 years, I still wanted to know who my parents were, I wanted to know the crime my father had committed, whether he was still alive, and I wanted to know if my mother felt any sadness when she abandoned me.
I shook my head to clear my head. Perhaps certain people were born to be lonely.
When I returned to the station, it was already quite late but the place was still bustling. When I walked through the lobby, an officer waved me down. “Team leader Wu, the rest is already in the meeting. They’re waiting for you.” I nodded and walked towards the meeting room. I glanced at my phone, no one called me.
I pushed open the door to a full room. Captain Zhao and Captain Lee were seated at the head of the table. The rest took up the rest of the seat. Everyone was there except Xiao Liu. When I left, Xiao Liu was still at the station, I wondered where he was now.
Captain Zhao waved at me. “Sit. Gu Chen said you have something important to deal with, is everything okay?” I nodded. Captain Zhao continued, “In that case, we’ll carry on without Xiao Liu.”
I cut in to ask, “Where is Xiao Liu anyway?”
“I hear he has gone to investigate the victims’ background.” A fatty officer from Captain Lee’s group answered, “He told me to go on with the meeting without him.”
Mary tapped on the table. After she got our attention, she pushed a file towards me. “The third story.”
It happened after all. This meant that the killer would murder soon after. This was a very helpless feeling. We were reading the killer’s plan but we were unable to stop him. Everyone was silently reading this third story.
I turned over the file and noticed the story had been marked out in red. Looks like someone had read it before I did. The 3rd story went like this:
Technically speaking, I am not a good person. I am just a normal worker, doing the same thing at the assembly line, again and again, day after day, fixing parts to phones. Honestly, at my age, my wage is not little but it’s not a lot either.
This is a very boring job, that is something I understood when I was 19. You only need to fit the phone into the casing. This is a job that a person can do in 5 minutes without training and you’d spend 4 minutes putting on the work uniform. From your first day of work, you can envision your life until your retirement. Assembly, assembly, assembly. The phone’s model might change but the work is the same. Even if I go blind, I can still do this job.
Today, the willow right outside the window facing me has a new young branch, now it has a total of 3251 branches. Today Sister Lee mentioned her useless son for the 32nd time already. Today, the supervisor only came 9 times, 1 time less than the day before.
This is not my first time wanting to murder. Like I said, technically speaking, I’m not a good person.
I often imagine people getting pulled into the machine and ground into meat paste. The blood will pour like rain. As we bathe in the blood rain, people will scream like crazy and they’d run from fear.
I often imagine the woman next door who had been widowed for 5 years, the widow who has different men coming out from her house every day, kicking down my door at midnight. Before I knew what happened, she tore apart my clothes; before I spoke, she kissed me. We would fuck until morning.
I often imagine the child who still doesn’t go to school after he is six, the one who is already so noisy at 5 am, falling down the stairs and dying on the spot. His family must have died to allow their child to make so much noise so early in the morning.
However, nothing really happened, everything is always so peaceful.
My life appears to be longer than everyone else, my life appears to be shorter than everyone else. I like to watch movies. I like to laugh with the characters in comedies; I like to cry with the characters in dramas; I like to shiver with the characters in horror movies.
But still, many things are missing.
Nothing happened, it’s yet another typical day.
When I return home, there will be nothing but emptiness. 5 years ago, I had a divorce from my wife, we had no children. I was married for a long time. It was about the same time I got this job. This is a stable job, I saved enough to own a house. 20 years later, I have nothing but a house.
“Ol’ Wang, you’re home. Something is wrong with my underground pipe, mind checking it out?” A middle-aged woman who was chatting with others hurried towards me when she saw me. I nodded.
An uncle said, “Well, isn’t it Xiao Wang~ Xiao Wang, my relative has mailed me a big bag of their local specialty. I’m too old to carry this on my own. Do you mind hauling it up the stairs for me later?”
The senior was playing chess with his friends. I originally also liked chess but now I couldn’t remember the last time I played.
“Uncle Wang, Uncle Wang.” A few children surrounded me. “We want candy, candy.”
“School is over?” I smiled.
“Candy! Candy!” The children chanted happily. I rummaged through my pocket. I only had a 50 RMB note. A kid jumped up and snatched it away from me. As he ran away, he shouted, “Let’s go buy candy!” The adults laughed seeing them and I walked up the stairs trailed by the laughter.
I so wanted to die.
I cleared the underground pipe for the woman, I pulled out a large ball of hair. When I left, they were having dinner. When I came downstairs, I helped the senior haul the boxes back to his house. He told me to put them at the door, he wanted to finish the game before he went home. The children were playing. I heard one of them say, “Didn’t you say you’d get 100 RMB from him? Why is there only 50 RMB? Sona’s new skin costs around 60 RMB, I still can’t afford it.”
The other child replied, “Don’t be dumb. We’ll ask him tomorrow, he’ll give us again.”
“You sure?” The child said with disbelief. After all, 50 RMB was a lot for children already.
The other child nodded seriously. “Of course, my mother told me this Uncle Wang is a dummy. He will do anything anyone asks him to do. Didn’t you see it earlier? The neighbors are all using this Uncle Wang. They could have hired others to help them but they didn’t want to waste money when dummy Uncle Wang is here to help them for free.”
The other kid nodded. “Oh, so that’s why. But if he’s dumb, why would he have so much money?”
“Don’t know, who cares.” The other child said, “We’ll keep asking for money, that’s all that matters…”
Then the children started to ramble about something else.
The lights in the room were off, everything was dark. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t tell when I lost the ability to sleep.
What is the rope doing in my hand?
I stood on the chair and hung the rope on the drying rack on the balcony.
A thud and the chair fell to the ground.
What sound is that?
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