chapter 11

Rabbits are gentle little animals.

When they’re grabbed by the ears and lifted up, they’ll kick their legs, but they won’t cry out.

Rabbits are used to enduring.

There’s only one time a rabbit will let out a shriek.

That’s when it thinks it’s about to be eaten.

Even if you only open your mouth and give the rabbit a kiss.

The rabbit will still scream.

The rabbit screams:

Don’t eat me.

Please, please don’t eat me!

Qiu Rongrong wished she were a courageous hero.

Then she could hold her head high and die with grace.

But she was only little Qiu Rongrong.

She was just like a rabbit.

Strapped to the operating table, watching the man walk toward her, all she could do was shriek.

Her eyeballs bulged with fear.

Indecent.

Cowardly and shameful.

Maybe Qiu Rongrong’s screaming was about to rupture the man’s eardrums, or maybe he cared about her throat and didn’t want her to shred her voice.

He took out a black blindfold and put it on her.

“Don’t be afraid.” The man kissed her forehead to encourage her. “I only want to help you eat well.”

Qiu Rongrong thought of Zhou Jingxing’s kiss-clean, pure, his lips soft.

Not like this man, as if he’d been steeped in alcohol.

Where he kissed, it was icy.

A stranger-no matter how cleanly you wipe him down with alcohol-still feels a little dirty.

She was terrified.

Her limbs were restrained by fixation straps.

“What are you going to do? At least tell me what you’re going to do!”

The man’s broad hand pressed down on her jaw.

“Relax. Take a deep breath.” His voice was calm by her ear. “Open your mouth. I’m helping you.”

His fingers slid into her mouth, pressing against her gums and forcing her to open.

She felt a cold, slick liquid spread along the edge of her nostril. Then a thin, soft tube touched the opening of her right nostril.

Once the tube went into her nose, Qiu Rongrong didn’t dare move.

She was afraid the mucosa inside her nose would get scraped raw.

The tip of the tube had already been coated with lubricant, with a bit of anesthetic gel as well.

He really did take care with her.

At least he’d applied anesthetic.

“Breathe in. Swallow gently.” The man’s voice was soft, almost hypnotic.

Qiu Rongrong cooperated.

She had to. If she didn’t, the one who’d suffer would be her.

As the tube advanced, she could feel the foreign object slowly pass through her nasal cavity, press over her throat, and slide all the way into her esophagus.

In that instant, she nearly choked and coughed.

Tears should have fallen.

But her eyes were a dried-up well; not a single drop would come.

Only the pain was real.

Qiu Rongrong held back her gagging.

After confirming the tube had reached her stomach, the man used a syringe to draw a small amount of gastric fluid to verify it, then quickly pushed in a few milliliters of warm water to flush.

“This way, you won’t be picky anymore.”

His fingertip landed on the tip of her nose and traced downward along the path of the feeding tube from the outside of her skin, stopping over her stomach.

He poured warmed tomato juice into the feeding syringe.

Little by little, he pushed it in.

The tomato juice flowed through the tube and into her.

Red filled her up.

Inside her, everything turned bright red.

Qiu Rongrong called the whole feeding-tube process torture.

“Will you behave and eat tomatoes on your own from now on? We can’t use a stomach tube every time. I don’t want you to suffer.”

Qiu Rongrong nodded frantically.

She almost wanted to swear an oath that next time she would swallow it.

Even if she had to mash it down with chopsticks, she’d still force it down.

Anything was better than having a tube shoved into her stomach.

The man released her, pulled out the tube, and gathered her naked body into his arms, almost crying with joy.

“Very good. You cooperated so well-no injuries.” He rested his chin on the top of her head. “I cured your picky eating. You should thank me.”
Qiu Rongrong wore an eye mask.

This time, she didn’t vomit up the tomato juice in her stomach.

A cause for celebration.

The man smiled.

She smiled along with him.

Qiu Rongrong no longer resisted red-colored food.

She felt awful.

But if she forced herself, she could still swallow it down with her eyes closed.

For both of them, that was a good thing.

At night, the man always became especially talkative.

There were no clocks here.

When he held her and slept with her in his arms, that was night.

He held her from behind.

He didn’t touch her inappropriately.

To be honest, the man had no interest in her in that way.

With them pressed so close together, Qiu Rongrong could feel it.

He wasn’t hard at all.

Qiu Rongrong thought the man had fallen asleep, but he hadn’t.

In the dark, his voice seemed soaked in the night-low and slow, carrying a hint of drowsiness.

“I’ve heard a rabbit cry.”

He was recalling the past.

“I used to keep a Rabbit. When I held a knife to it, it didn’t cry. But when I kissed it, it cried so miserably.”

Because that Rabbit thought it was going to be eaten.

Qiu Rongrong didn’t answer him.

Night was the best cover.

She was going to pretend to be asleep.

“My Rabbit was a meat rabbit. It hopped out of a restaurant’s back kitchen. With so many guests there, it just had to hop straight into my arms. So obedient, so obedient. I liked it a lot. I took good care of it the whole time, but it still died.”

The man sounded a little sad. Qiu Rongrong felt her shoulder turn damp as he buried his face against it and started to cry.

That was terrifying.

He was always talking to himself.

He asked Qiu Rongrong again, “Guess how it died?”

“…”

From behind, the man tightened his arm around her, holding her tighter and tighter-so tight she could barely breathe.

He breathed against her ear.

And asked again.

“Guess how it died?”

“I don’t know…” Her ribs hurt from the pressure. Qiu Rongrong could hear her own heartbeat.

She didn’t want to know at all.

But she was afraid that if she stayed silent, the man would squeeze until her organs came out.

“Burned to death.” From behind, he kissed the top of her hair, then nuzzled against her, murmuring with a lover’s tenderness. “But it’s okay. My Rabbit was reincarnated into your body and came back to my side.”

He treated her as if she were his Rabbit.

He helped her bathe, fed her, and held her as he slept.

Qiu Rongrong loathed this man.

Her therapist had died by his hands too.

He had cut the people important to her into pieces.

Those who commit countless evils will bring about their own destruction.

Hurry up and die.

The man didn’t like Qiu Rongrong walking.

He demanded that every time she needed the toilet, she call for him, and he would carry her there.

He watched her relieve herself.

And even thought it was cute.

Of course Qiu Rongrong refused.

She hoped someone would gouge out his eyeballs one day.

Only when the man wasn’t around would Qiu Rongrong hurry to the bathroom.

If the man rushed back and discovered she’d already gone, he would look disappointed, staring at her with those pleading eyes.

She suspected the man had a regular job.

Because he went out twice a day, like someone working normal office hours.

At noon, he would come back to feed her.

Take a short nap.

Go back out to work in the afternoon.

Then come back at night and stay with her all night.

Qiu Rongrong was trying to gather information about this stranger. She wanted to hide one of his hairs and take it out as evidence.

But the man loved being clean.

To a downright outrageous degree.

She couldn’t find a single strand of his hair anywhere in the room.

She’d have to find a chance to pull one out.