chapter 4

“Smack!” Jiang Yuwei slammed her book down on the desk and snapped at the boy sitting in the back row. “Xu Zhao, can you stop bullying your classmates?”

“Tch. None of your business, you fat pig!” The boy in the back kicked his desk forward hard. The edge of it slammed right into Jiang Yuwei’s stomach.

She doubled over with a scream, her face going paper-white. Clutching her belly, she collapsed to the floor.

Qiu Rongrong’s heart lurched. She hurried to help Jiang Yuwei up, then looked up with a deep frown, her gaze turning icy as it landed on Xu Zhao. “This is school. How can you hit someone? I’m telling the teacher.”

Jiang Yuwei gently tugged on her, gritting her teeth as she shook her head. “Forget it.”

Xu Zhao snorted, stood up from his seat, and casually brushed dust off his uniform, his eyes full of contempt. “Serves you right.”

He strode out of the classroom. The boys who’d been egging him on earlier followed, laughing as they left.

The class bell rang.

They passed the teacher in the doorway without even slowing down.

The teacher acted like he hadn’t seen a thing, expression blank as he walked up to the podium and opened the textbook.

Qiu Rongrong helped Jiang Yuwei back to her seat and asked in a low voice, “Why won’t you let me tell the teacher?”

“Their family has connections. Teachers can’t touch them.”

“Then we should call the police.”

Jiang Yuwei rubbed her stomach and said seriously, “Don’t. I was too impulsive just now. Don’t provoke him.”

A boy in the front row wearing a basketball jersey also warned her, “Don’t get targeted by Xu Zhao’s little clique. If they set their sights on you, your days at school won’t be easy.”

After school, the setting sun bled across the horizon like an ill omen.

Qiu Rongrong couldn’t settle down after what happened at school today.

The last few periods were in a different classroom.

When the teacher did a random roll call and called Xu Zhao’s name, another boy answered “Here” for him.

He never came back to class at all.

As soon as the dismissal bell rang, Qiu Rongrong packed up and rushed home.

The moment she stepped out of campus-

A sack was yanked over her head.

An abandoned factory.

The sack was ripped off roughly. The coarse fabric scraped her cheeks, leaving a burning sting.

A harsh flashlight beam made it impossible for Qiu Rongrong to open her eyes.

She turned her head away and waited a few seconds before she could finally make out what was around her.

On the ground beside her lay a boy. His face was covered in bruises, dried blood at the corner of his mouth. His school uniform was rumpled, his chest heaving violently-like a dying dog.

He’d just been beaten.

Not far ahead, Xu Zhao leaned against a rusted iron door, a half-burned cigarette pinched between his fingers.

“The murderer’s son and the victim’s daughter-so you finally meet.” He flicked ash off his cigarette and exhaled smoke. “Honestly, you two are a perfect match. Both of you are like rats from a filthy gutter.”

This place again.

Hands bound again.

Fear seeped slowly up Qiu Rongrong’s spine, flooding through her limbs, soaking into her bones until she couldn’t move.

For a moment, reality overlapped with memory.

It was as if she’d been dragged back into that white room-the ceiling light creaking as it swayed, the camera shoved right up to her face as it recorded.

“Hey. The question I asked you at school this morning-why didn’t you answer?” Xu Zhao’s cruel voice snapped her back to the present. “With a body like yours, after he kept you locked up for a year, did he ever fuck you?”

Qiu Rongrong buried her face in her knees. Her fingers clenched tight, and she didn’t make a sound.

The boy next to her rasped hoarsely, “My dad isn’t the real culprit.”

He tried to push himself up, but someone beside Xu Zhao stomped down hard on his face, forcing him back to the ground.

“For a son to think that way-normal enough.” Xu Zhao let out a whistle, then squatted in front of Qiu Rongrong and patted her cheek. “What do you think? Classmate Qiu.”

Qiu Rongrong lowered her eyes. “The case has already been decided.”

Back then, after being held captive, Qiu Rongrong escaped and called the police immediately. The officers arrested the perpetrator on the spot and seized the weapon, along with several recording devices.

The perpetrator confessed to the entire process of the assault without resistance.
“So do you want to get revenge?” Xu Zhao pulled a folding knife from his pocket. The blade flashed coldly as he flipped it in his hand and held it out in front of Qiu Rongrong, smiling like he didn’t care about anything. “Stab Tan Song once, and I’ll let you go. Deal?”

Tan Song was the killer’s son.

Qiu Rongrong had her own line she wouldn’t cross. She shook her head. “Debts have their owners. The killer has already been executed.”

“But the killer’s son is still here-going to school like normal, breathing the same air as you.”

He looked down at her from above, spreading his hands wide, like a kindergarten kid holding a scepter and pretending to be king.

“You’re really fine with that? You don’t want revenge? You suffered for so long, and the killer died easy. Is that fair? Is it?”

Qiu Rongrong’s voice was very soft. “It’s over.”

She wasn’t like them.

What she’d endured back then couldn’t be the cloud hanging over her head forever.

She had to step out of it.

She had to look forward.

She didn’t want her hands stained with blood, living in hate for the rest of her life.

She wanted a life in the sunlight.

“Tch. You’re really boring.” Xu Zhao bent down and stared at her face. The smile on his lips slowly faded. “If you can’t bear to lay a hand on that pretty boy, then I’ll lay a hand on you.”

As he spoke, he yanked Qiu Rongrong by the wrist.

Pain shot through her wrist where his fingers crushed down.

A nasty grin lifted at the corners of his mouth.

He took a deep drag from his cigarette, the tip glowing bright.

He shoved up her sleeve.

Then he froze.

Knife scars crisscrossed her arm in dense, tangled lines-some long and thin, some gouged deep-like countless earthworms crawling over her skin.

She was someone who’d been shattered and glued back together, still bearing the marks of the seams.

“Tsk-disgusting.”

Xu Zhao’s expression darkened.

He wanted to put out his cigarette on Qiu Rongrong’s arm.

Just like before, listening to the weak wail and cry right next to his ear.

But compared to the wounds on her body, the evil he wanted to do suddenly felt pathetic.

Qiu Rongrong yanked her hand back. Her trembling voice reached his ears. “If you think it’s disgusting, then let go of me.”

“Like I’d ever want to touch you, you ugly freak.”

Xu Zhao beat them up and dumped them in the abandoned factory.

Qiu Rongrong picked up the folding knife Xu Zhao had left behind, cut through the rope, then walked over to the injured male classmate and untied him.

“It’s okay now.” She said it to him, and she said it to herself.

Tan Song stared at her with a gloomy look. “You’re saving me?”

“A blood debt has already been repaid in blood.” Qiu Rongrong tossed the cut hemp rope aside, trying to steady herself.

But Tan Song suddenly grabbed her arm. His grip was brutal, like he meant to crush her wrist.

“My dad isn’t the killer!”

That touch made the old wounds that had long since scabbed over flare with pain.

He shouldn’t touch her-because the blood in their veins would only tear at each other.

The seams that had been glued shut would split open again.

Qiu Rongrong shoved him away. “Don’t say that to me. Take your evidence and tell the sheriff!”

She didn’t want to provoke another violent lunatic.

Three years.

She wanted to escape the shadow of the past.

But shadows never really went away.

“You don’t understand anything. I’ll prove my dad isn’t the killer.” Tan Song stood where he was and shouted after Qiu Rongrong as she left. “That case isn’t over. The killer will come back for you.”

Qiu Rongrong hurried away.

Get home. Get home.

Once she was home, she’d be safe.

On the way back,

she felt like someone was following her.

She’d wasted too much time at the abandoned factory near the school.

It was already dark.

Qiu Rongrong kept looking back, jumpy and suspicious.

There was no one else on the street.

Under the streetlights, one shadow after another toppled toward the middle of the road.

In her mind, Tan Song’s words-“the killer will come back for you”-refused to fade.