chapter 10

“Sir… I’m sorry…” Qiu Rongrong whispered weakly. A strand of long hair hung over her shoulder, the ends smeared with vomit. She looked utterly miserable.

She apologized often, hoping to calm the other person’s anger.

Even when she hadn’t done anything wrong.

Her expression was dull and numb.

She didn’t look like someone alive.

He only watched her with indifference.

One cold glance was enough to frighten her so badly her pupils trembled.

Qiu Rongrong knew well that the peace from yesterday to today was only an illusion.

He was playing his game.

And she was a pleasing doll, carefully wrapped up.

For him to toy with, to admire.

Until the moment he grew bored-and disposed of her.

But Qiu Rongrong didn’t want to die.

After surviving by sheer luck back then, she’d come to value her life above everything.

Being alive was wonderful.

You could taste all the flavors of the world, step outside and see its bustle, watch the seasons turn, flowers bloom and wither-every bit of it was good.

No one comes to this world twice.

Once it ends, it’s over.

Qiu Rongrong believed neither in gods nor in Buddha, and she didn’t believe in a next life either.

She was someone who had truly suffered.

That year, she’d prayed to everything there was to pray to.

No one had been more devout than she was in despair.

Back then, beaten until her head split and bled, a blade carving into her inch by inch, so much blood spilled-no god, no Buddha ever answered her.

Now that she’d managed to run out on her own, she would never believe in any of it again.

The man carried Qiu Rongrong into the bathroom, his long legs striding forward.

“Take a shower first.”

Her face pressed against his chest.

Even someone this vile had a heartbeat.

In the bathroom, he stripped off the clothes he’d so carefully chosen for her, like peeling candy wrappers.

Water rose over Qiu Rongrong’s shoulders. She held onto the edge of the tub, letting clean water wash the filth from her body.

The man cupped water in his hands. The warm stream dampened Qiu Rongrong’s rounded shoulders, slid along her collarbones, and returned to the tub.

Ripples spread across the surface.

He watched her timidity, then stroked the back of her neck with his fingers, tracing down along her spine, and came to a conclusion. “Spineless.”

He seemed rather pleased.

His tone even lifted at the end.

He liked spineless people.

Qiu Rongrong had no intention of arguing.

Was being spineless such a bad thing?

Spineless people lived longer.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re very pretty?” He seemed to enjoy talking to Qiu Rongrong, even if she hardly responded.

Qiu Rongrong pressed her lips together and shook her head.

“Your scars are beautiful.” He meant it-he even sighed. “You’re practically a work of art!”

Those were the hardships she’d endured.

He was praising her suffering.

Qiu Rongrong looked up. “Sir, are you the murderer who killed my entire family back then?”

How polite. Even asking something like that, she still addressed him properly.

Qiu Rongrong had always been a good girl.

Hardworking. Well-mannered.

Just unlucky.

Unlucky…

There was hatred in her heart.

The hatred she’d once carried had ended when the killer was executed.

But she knew that if the man in front of her was the murderer-and still walking free-then the hatred she’d put out would flare back to life.

A killer should pay with his life.

Her dad and mom, her grandparents, her aunt who’d come to celebrate her birthday, and her little cousin-they were all dead.

The murderer had really picked a day.

Her miserable fourteenth year had been spent soaking in blood.

That poor Hello Kitty cake-half the head had been smashed off. Such a good cake, made with imported animal cream, wasted for nothing.

From then on, she never celebrated her birthday again.

No one bought her cake.

She never dared to eat cake again!

The man seemed not to understand why Qiu Rongrong had suddenly grown bolder, daring to ask him so directly.

And he wouldn’t admit it, either.

Who admits to doing evil?

Some people are animals.

But they aren’t stupid.
“If you want to prove someone is a murderer, you need evidence.” He ran his fingers through Qiu Rongrong’s dripping long hair, reluctant to let go. “You can’t just ask me. Ask me straight, and I won’t tell you.”

Older men really loved to lecture.

A universal disease.

Villains were no exception.

“You could have a crisis of conscience and tell me the truth,” Qiu Rongrong said innocently.

She actually wasn’t that old.

She’d just been through more than most people. That didn’t mean she had to act like some old soul.

“I don’t have a conscience.” The man said it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

But after a moment, he straightened his face and added with complete seriousness, “I’m a good person.”

Qiu Rongrong really wanted to remind him that nothing he was doing now had anything to do with being a good person.

In the end, she swallowed the words.

He lifted her out of the water and wiped her dry with a bath towel.

Qiu Rongrong thought the mistake she’d just made had been gently glossed over.

They’d taken a bath.

Had a relatively friendly conversation.

Turned that page.

She was wrong.

Utterly wrong.

The man carried her, wrapped tightly in a towel, out of the room where she’d been imprisoned.

Qiu Rongrong nervously scanned their surroundings.

She was looking for an escape route.

But she discovered in despair that beyond one room was just another room.

Thick iron doors, each one with a fingerprint lock.

Qiu Rongrong didn’t have it in her to chop off this man’s finger to open them.

The place was like a maze.

A maze that had her trapped.

Holding her in his arms, he turned corner after corner with practiced ease and walked into an operating room.

He was tall, with long legs, and even the way he walked carried a gust of wind.

The air-conditioning was turned down low. This didn’t feel like an operating room at all; it felt more like a morgue.

The man in front of her really should have gone into being a mad scientist.

In the operating room, there were all kinds of bottles and jars lined up, each containing preserved human organs.

Hands, feet, eyeballs-those weren’t even surprising anymore.

He even had genitals floating in jars.

This was not a normal person.

Qiu Rongrong very quickly realized she might end up as one of those parts.

“What are you going to do!”

“You pervert! Murderer!”

“You can’t do this to me! Evil gets its own reward-if I die, you’ll die too! They’ll fill you full of bullets!”

Qiu Rongrong started shoving him, scratching him, biting him.

She really did look like some hysterical little lunatic.

She couldn’t help it.

Qiu Rongrong was afraid of dying.

Her bottom line was her own life.

That was already the lowest bottom line.

No one was lower than her.

So why? Why did these monsters still have to stomp all over it?

She’d already had her share of bad luck once.

It couldn’t be her every time.

The man’s face was raked open by her nails. He frowned down at her.

One of his hands was enough to clamp both of her wrists.

The difference in strength between them was ridiculous.

“Quit it.” He warned her, fingers digging viciously into her bones.

The bones of her wrist jutted out.

His grip closed right over them.

They felt like they were about to shatter.

How was this her “making a fuss”?

She was struggling for her life. It was just that she was too weak, so in his eyes it looked like she was play-fighting.

A mayfly trying to shake a tree.

He strapped her down onto the operating table.

He tied her hands, her feet, her neck.

She lay there rigid and straight, unable to move at all.

He touched her and even praised her: “The first time I saw you, I thought you were really pale, like a rabbit. I wanted to bring you home and keep you.”

Qiu Rongrong’s eyes were wide open, but the tears just wouldn’t come.

She felt like she was going to die.

She ought to leave some last words.

But the more she thought, the more she realized there was too much she wanted to say. It should really be a whole book.

If only someone could give her some time, and before she finished writing it, hand her a get-out-of-death-free card.

No such luck.

No one could stop the butcher’s knife from coming down on her.

She stared up at the glaringly white ceiling, opened her mouth, and all the thousands of words in her head condensed into a single question: “Have you ever heard a rabbit scream?”