chapter 9
There was an age gap between them.
Qiu Rongrong had just started college, brimming with youth.
The man in front of her was obviously someone from the real world-steady, but also stifled, carrying a kind of oppressive calm. He didn’t look like a normal person, more like a poisonous mushroom that had sprouted in the clammy gloom of the rainy season.
He was probably close to thirty.
Nothing like Zhou Jingxing.
Zhou Jingxing had a boyish air about him. This man was mature-and dangerous.
He’d been through society. He wasn’t pure anymore.
He’d groomed himself meticulously. His clothes were pressed flat without a single crease; the cufflinks were distinctive and looked expensive.
He’d shaved before coming, and probably showered, too.
His cheeks were clean, and his nails neatly trimmed.
And he undressed a woman as naturally as breathing…
Qiu Rongrong wanted to curl up into a tiny ball, but the man wouldn’t allow it.
Humiliation and terror twisted together, scorching her dulled nerves like a wildfire.
Her collar was yanked open. He still didn’t speak. A hand came down on her shoulder to pin her in place, cold as ice.
She shrank back on instinct, not daring to look at his face-nor wanting to know where those hands would end up.
Would he violate her?
The clasp on her strap was undone.
Qiu Rongrong let him move her around like a doll. Her eyes locked onto the floor as she imagined herself becoming a stone on the ground, or the crack in the wall.
She thought again of the hand that had fallen out of the sack.
Compared to being chopped into pieces and dumped into different sewers…
She could accept being violated.
Three years ago, before Qiu Rongrong’s parents had been tortured to death in front of her, she’d always believed dignity mattered.
Her father said, “A person has to have dignity. Better to die standing than live kneeling.”
Her mother said, “A person has to have dignity. You must rely on yourself, and never take what doesn’t belong to you.”
They had dignity.
They died before Qiu Rongrong’s eyes.
Pain could dismantle a person’s dignity.
Someone who couldn’t even succeed at losing weight would never be able to face a knife-and still have the will to hold on to self-respect.
Qiu Rongrong had seen the process of death with her own eyes.
In excruciating detail.
Her parents’ eyes had been wide open, the corners of their mouths twisted, their bodies convulsing. The searing pain made them lose control of their bladder and bowels…
A corpse’s temperature drops fast.
Half an hour later, purplish-red blotches appeared in the lower parts of the skin-livor mortis.
After that, the body stiffened. Parts of the liver and brain began to liquefy, the skin changed color, the abdomen ballooned. If it wasn’t preserved properly, it could even burst open from the belly, liquefied organs spraying out.
How terrifying.
To Qiu Rongrong, death was the most terrifying thing in the world.
The man still didn’t speak. There was only the sound of fabric rasping as he stripped her.
Qiu Rongrong’s body felt sealed shut. Her reason told her that struggling would only bring something worse, so she could only wait-only endure.
“Lift your leg.”
She complied.
“Turn around.”
She complied.
Until there was nothing left on her, and the chill seeped into her bare skin.
He examined her as if she were a piece of art.
“Don’t kill me.” Qiu Rongrong forced herself to lift her head, tugging her stiff face into a fawning smile. “I’ll cooperate. I’ll do anything.”
Her hands hung at her sides, her fists clenching and unclenching.
Nothing was hidden.
It was a pity the scars ruined the beauty.
When the man still didn’t speak, she scrambled to add, “I’ve never dated anyone. It’s my first time.”
It was the kind of thing men everywhere liked to hear.
But coming from Qiu Rongrong, most people wouldn’t believe it.
She’d once been imprisoned and abused for a year.
The perpetrator had been a man.
What happened during that year-she couldn’t explain it, no matter what she said.
The man gave a detached “Mm,” as if he had no interest in that kind of thing at all.
Qiu Rongrong tried to comfort herself.
Maybe this man was frigid.
Maybe he had no interest in her that way.
She just needed to hang on.
If she skipped required classes for several days in a row, the professors would notice sooner or later.
Once her counselor started asking around and realized no one could find her, the school would take it seriously.
And Zhou Jingxing would start searching the moment she went missing.
Was he okay?
Qiu Rongrong couldn’t help worrying about him.
She silently cheered herself on.
Hold on.
Stay alive until the day someone came.
The man stood up, turned around, and left the room.
About five minutes later, he returned.
Qiu Rongrong heard him coming closer-his dress shoes struck the floorboards with dull, heavy thuds.
This time, she stayed right where she was on the blanket, not daring to move.
The man seemed satisfied, letting out a pleased chuckle from deep in his throat.
“The clothes you’re wearing are made of synthetic fibers. They’ll damage your skin.”
Qiu Rongrong lifted her head blankly.
She saw that the man was holding a soft blue dress made of real silk, its fine sheen rippling under the light like gentle water.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of you-dress you in beautiful clothes and feed you healthy, nutritious meals.” Feeling the girl trembling beneath his palm, he traced the shocking scars on her body with his fingertips, his expression filled with a sick, obsessive fascination. “I’ll raise you well.”
He was a freak.
Meticulous. Spotless.
When it was time to eat, he would hold Qiu Rongrong in his arms and feed her one bite at a time. Qiu Rongrong couldn’t eat anything red; if the food was red, he would mash it up, blindfold her, and make her drink it.
He provided her clothes too-three changes a day. He measured every part of her with a tape measure, and everything fit her perfectly.
She wasn’t allowed to leave the room.
Apart from trips to the bathroom, she wasn’t allowed to move around.
He was an extreme control freak.
Qiu Rongrong didn’t know his name. She could only address him as “sir.”
Whatever he said, she did.
If she could cooperate, she would.
Locked in that room, Qiu Rongrong couldn’t tell day from night.
She ate, then slept. Slept, then ate.
Even so, overnight she seemed to grow haggard-worn down and terrified.
There was a string in her mind that stayed stretched tight.
And on the second day, she finally made a mistake.
It was the usual feeding-tomatoes, red as ever.
But Qiu Rongrong was in terrible shape. She really couldn’t force down red tomatoes.
“Sir, can we switch to something else?”
“No.” The man refused her coldly.
“I can’t eat it. I really can’t…”
He brought the spoon to her lips, and his hand gripping her waist tightened.
His eyes turned dangerous.
He would not allow her to refuse him. To resist him.
Qiu Rongrong understood the darkness in his gaze. If she cried and begged again, something even more horrible might happen.
So she forced herself to chew.
But the moment she thought about how the color in her mouth looked exactly like blood, nausea surged up uncontrollably.
Her stomach felt as if an invisible hand were stirring it over and over, turning everything upside down.
Her throat tightened. Bitterness flooded her mouth. The food he’d forced her to swallow churned in her stomach, and a sour, burning wave rose from deep within.
“Ugh-!”
She clapped a hand over her mouth, but she couldn’t hold it back.
In the end, she threw up all over him.
The mess stained his shirt.
The tomatoes she’d swallowed without properly chewing hadn’t even been digested by stomach acid; when they came back up, they were still in whole, chunky pieces.
In that instant,
Qiu Rongrong felt like she was dead.
Because this man disinfected with alcohol every single time before he fed her. The clothes he gave her were always spotless and perfectly in place. From the details alone, it was obvious how much he cared about cleanliness.
And now she’d vomited all over him.
He was going to kill her.