Chapter 12

“She must love you very much,” Shao Lan said to the man. “She has only two sets of clothes in the wardrobe, both washed pale and patched. But yours are all new and presentable. Seems she saves on herself so she can spend the money on you.”

“If I’m right, she’s been taking those herbs because of you, too,” he went on. “Unless she loved you deeply, I can’t think why she’d want a child so badly.”

“So… does she kill because of you, too?”

At that last question, the man, who’d kept his head bowed as though dead, suddenly shuddered.

Jiang Mingran instinctively tightened his arm, but the man didn’t struggle.

He only looked ahead at the woman in the bathroom.

“Suxia,” he said softly.

Standing there, the woman blinked her gray-white eyes. A blurred syllable came from her mouth. “Yuan.”

Shao Lan asked quietly, “You’re married?”

The man closed his eyes for a moment, then murmured assent.

“This is your home?”

“Yes.”

The rain outside seemed to grow heavier, pattering against the glass.

Suddenly, the man looked at Shao Lan. “You’ve called the task force. Once the police get here, it’s all over. Before that… would you grant me one request?”

“Tell me,” Shao Lan said.

Jiang Mingran grew anxious. “Lan, don’t listen to him. He might be trying to trick us. That woman’s a monster. Even the police might not be any use.”

Shao Lan lowered his eyes. “The police will be able to help.”

“How do you know…?”

“Because it’s the only solution the game has given us so far. If it doesn’t work, the game has no solution. Those four loops would be meaningless. We’d have nothing to do but wait to die.”

He looked at the man. “Of course he might be trying to trick me. But there’s no harm in hearing him out.”

The man had been staring absently at the woman. Only when Shao Lan reminded him to speak did he lower his head and give a faint smile to himself.

“Could I hold her?” he asked. “It’s been so very long since I held her, ever since she became like this.”

“No!” Jiang Mingran blurted. “You’re our hostage. There’s no way we’re letting you go before the police arrive!”

The man bent forward. A pocket watch fell from his jacket pocket.

“I can give you this in exchange.” He looked at Shao Lan. “It’s the most valuable thing we own. I bought it when Suxia and I got married.”

“Please.” He closed his eyes briefly. In the dim light, his expression was almost one of release. “I only want to say goodbye.”

Shao Lan picked up the watch and opened it. Inside was a yellowed wedding photograph.

In it, the man was a few years younger. Wearing glasses, he looked gentle and scholarly.

The woman beside him had ordinary features, but her smile was shy and tender. She looked nothing like the monster standing nearby.

A small inscription on the watch read, “Li Chengyuan. Wu Suxia. A lifetime of happiness together.”

Shao Lan looked at the floor beside the sofa.

The final carving was there. Unlike the long sentences before, this rule consisted of just a few words.

“Rules: Goodbye, Suxia.”

Shao Lan braced a hand on the sofa. For the first time, he felt deeply torn.

A siren sounded. The police had reached the foot of the building.

If they simply maintained this standoff until the police arrived, they’d be safe.

There was no reason to complicate things now. He wasn’t some bleeding heart. Even if he were, he wouldn’t waste his compassion on granting a serial killer’s wishes.

But his instincts told him that no rule in this game was useless.

“Jiang Mingran.” Shao Lan opened his eyes. “Let him go.”

Jiang Mingran thought he’d misheard. “No! Absolutely not!”

How much could a pocket watch be worth, however expensive it was? Enough to buy all three of their lives?

Shao Lan looked at the man.

“Go. Hold her,” he said. “You must know there’s a day in every life when we have to part. It’s time to tell her goodbye.”

He retreated into the corridor with Jiang Mingran and Uncle Bing, then told Jiang Mingran to release the man.

“We really can’t let him go…” Jiang Mingran said.

“There’s no time, Xiao Jiang. Do as I say.”

Jiang Mingran gritted his teeth. He knew he and Uncle Bing were alive only because of Shao Lan.

He shoved the man hard. “I’m warning you. No tricks!”

The shove sent the man stumbling into the apartment.

He raised his head and studied the woman in the dim light.

“I gave them the apartment number. The police will find us soon,” Shao Lan said. “You probably have about a minute.”

The man stood and walked toward the motionless monster. Opening his arms, he called her name softly. “Suxia.”

“Suxia.”

“My Suxia…”

At his soft calls, the monster’s sightless eye blinked through her tangled hair. Her expression slowly softened.

She stepped forward and bent down.

He embraced her and gently stroked her hair.

“Suxia,” he whispered. “Thank you. You’ve suffered so much in this life.”

As he spoke, a sharp knife sank into the monster’s body. Its blade emerged from her back behind the heart, coated in blood.

He’d had another knife hidden in his jacket.

Suxia shrieked. Bloody tears flowed from her pale eyes, but she didn’t struggle.

As the blood poured out, her tall figure slowly shrank, until she was an ordinary-looking woman, gentle and quiet.

She rested in his arms, light as a scrap of paper.

The man pulled out the knife, turned it around, and stabbed himself.

“Wait! What are you doing?”

Jiang Mingran shouted and tried to rush forward.

Suddenly, the rain outside stopped. Dazzling sunlight streamed into the room, turning everything a blinding white.

In that radiance, they all seemed to see everything that had once happened in this apartment.