chapter 12

When the man came back at noon, he didn’t touch Qiu Rongrong. He stood far away from her, staring without blinking.

The room’s cold, pale light fell across half his face, making him look harsh and emotionless.

He was the kind of person who, just from his features alone, didn’t look like a good man.

The droop at the corners of his eyes carried a feral menace.

Qiu Rongrong sat on the bed hugging her knees, his gaze making her skin crawl.

“Do you want to come with me?”

As he said it, the man stepped forward eagerly.

Qiu Rongrong lifted her head, looking at him in surprise.

But a moment later, he said, “Forget it. Too much trouble.”

As if she were some heavy burden.

Qiu Rongrong lowered her head again and quietly let out a breath.

From what he’d said, she understood: this place was probably about to be discovered.

The man stood there, torn. Then, like he’d flipped into something twitchy, he blurted, “Actually… I could take you separately.”

“Separately?” Qiu Rongrong’s pupils widened slightly, a chill racing up her spine.

What did he mean by that?

Please don’t let it be what she thought it was.

“Yeah! It’s more convenient that way.” The man let out a long sigh, as if he’d finally made up his mind. He strode over to Qiu Rongrong, pressed both hands on her shoulders, and started pinching at the joints between each section of her bones.

Anyone who’s ever chopped up bones knows.

Chopping at the joints takes less effort.

Qiu Rongrong’s hands and feet turned ice-cold. It took everything she had to find her voice again.

“If you cut me up to take me with you, won’t I be too heavy?”

Her throat was hoarse, but she forced herself to push down the terror and bargain with him.

“Why not keep me alive? I’ll go with you. You won’t have to stuff me into a sack, and I can even carry things for you.”

The man seemed annoyed. His grip on her bones tightened, and he raised his voice as he demanded, “But you’re not as obedient as you look. This morning, you went to the bathroom way more than you did yesterday. And before you went, you even circled around the room a bit. What were you looking for?”

Qiu Rongrong was shocked by how sharp he was.

She’d been looking for a strand of hair he might have left behind.

The man’s hair was easy to recognize.

Short, and a deep black.

Nothing like her own-fine and soft, with split ends from poor health.

She hadn’t found any.

He was too clean, leaving her no chance.

Qiu Rongrong blinked, quickly coming up with an excuse. “I sat too long and wanted to get up and move around a little.

“This room is completely bare. What could I possibly find?”

The man stared into her eyes.

Eyes were windows to the soul.

He wanted to look straight through them-into her heart.

Qiu Rongrong clenched her fists and lifted her chin slightly, meeting his gaze as calmly as she could.

She wasn’t very good at lying.

Luckily, her fear was real, covering up the traces of guilt she couldn’t fully hide.

“It’s not that I don’t want to take you.” The man sat down on the edge of the bed, looking a little dejected as he rubbed the top of her head. “Taking care of you is a real pain. When you’re alive, you can run and jump. If the food isn’t fresh, you get diarrhea. If your clothes aren’t clean, you get allergies.

“If I’m going to keep you, I have to keep you properly. And keeping you properly is exhausting.

“Compared to that, if you’re soaked in Formalin… sure, it’s heavy to carry, but it doesn’t need maintenance.”

The man was reasoning with Qiu Rongrong.

Trying to make her understand his choice.

Qiu Rongrong couldn’t follow his logic.

She believed that if she so much as agreed with him-if she showed even a hint that she understood-he really would take a knife and chop her into pieces, then preserve her.

Murder was the kind of thing that got easier the second time.

And the man in front of her was obviously experienced.

“Didn’t you say your rabbit was reincarnated into my body?” Qiu Rongrong leaned into his arms, hooking both hands around his waist, docile as if boneless. “Can you really bear to make the time we have after reuniting… so short?”

She said it while swallowing down nausea.

If the man were even remotely normal, he would’ve been able to tell how forced and fake her softness was.

She wasn’t a professional actress, after all.
As she said it, she practically wanted to pinch her nose and turn her head away.

But the man was deeply moved.

He hugged her tight. “You’re right. I was thinking about it too simply.

You’re my Rabbit. Now that you’ve come back to me, I should cherish you properly.”

Qiu Rongrong tested the waters. “Then… you’ll take me with you?”

“I’m sorry. You have to stay here.” Guilt surfaced on the man’s face.

Joy flickered through Qiu Rongrong’s chest, but she couldn’t let it show.

“But I can’t bear to part with you.”

She put on a sorrowful act. Luckily, she rested her chin on his shoulder-he couldn’t see her face, and he definitely couldn’t see the smile she couldn’t quite suppress at the corner of her lips.

The man’s way of thinking was abnormal.

Even so, he understood perfectly well that taking Qiu Rongrong with him would make it easy for them to catch him.

He couldn’t let anyone know where he was.

“Be good. When I get the chance, I’ll come back for you.” The man let out a sigh so faint it was almost imperceptible. “Don’t blame me.”

That afternoon, he didn’t go out.

He did a deep clean of the room.

With alcohol, he wiped down every corner until it was spotless.

In the end, he helped Qiu Rongrong bathe.

Wearing rubber gloves, he scrubbed every inch of her-from top to bottom, every hollow, every crease-cleaning her thoroughly.

Inside and out.

As if he wanted to turn her inside out and wash her from within.

It was to make sure she wasn’t hiding anything on her.

After the man left, he never came back.

He ran.

Slippery as an eel, impossible to catch.

When he fled, he packed up a bunch of bottles and jars from the operating room.

And left her here.

Not a bite of food.

He even locked the door from the outside.

Like he was afraid she wouldn’t starve to death.

Only then did Qiu Rongrong understand what he’d meant by “Don’t blame me.”

He knew that if he locked the door, she could very well die of starvation in here.

And he still did it.

Because if he didn’t get far before Qiu Rongrong got out to call for help and brought the police down on him, he’d end up behind bars.

Who the hell keeps a Rabbit like that?

Fuming, Qiu Rongrong thought that last night he’d been spouting nonsense. For all she knew, he’d roasted that Rabbit himself and eaten it-mouth full of grease-then came over to her place to have some kind of breakdown, babbling about the Rabbit being reincarnated.

After the anger came fear.

What if she didn’t get rescued in time? Wouldn’t she really starve to death here?

She couldn’t die.

She had to live-long and well.

To a hundred years.

Long enough to watch the bad people get what they deserved.

Qiu Rongrong tried to make as much noise as she could, pounding on the door nonstop, hoping someone would hear her cries for help.

For hours on end, she tried every method she could think of.

No response.

With no food in the room, she conserved her strength as much as possible. She tore the bedsheet into strips, then used a toothbrush and a basin to make a crude knocking device.

With a tug on the cloth strip, the toothbrush would strike the basin and make a clanging sound.

Her mouth was dry, her stomach empty.

There was no sense of day or night in the room.

With nothing to eat, Qiu Rongrong’s blood sugar dipped. She fell into a foggy sleep, and when she woke, she still had to face the same empty room.

No time.

No hope in sight.

When Zhou Jingxing found Qiu Rongrong, the knocking device had already been torn apart into a mess of pieces.

Covered in dust and grime, she was squatting in a corner, using the toothbrush to scrape at peeling plaster on the wall.

In The Shawshank Redemption, the protagonist can dig his way out of a fortress of a prison with nothing but a small rock hammer.

Qiu Rongrong felt like she had a chance too.

She’d banged that basin for at least ten-plus hours.

She’d pounded until her wrist ached to the bone, and no one had come.

She guessed she was in a basement, so she switched to another way of escaping.

Qiu Rongrong was afraid of death.

Even more afraid of starving to death.

So when she stared blankly as the door opened, she almost thought she was hallucinating from hunger.

Zhou Jingxing rushed in like a savior, yanked off his coat, and wrapped it around her.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m here to save you.”