Chapter 9

“I was wrong… I was wrong… Please… Please…”

Zhang Lingzhi was crying again.

But Zhang Jianjun, like a fool himself, still thought I was willing to negotiate.

“Young man! You—you don’t have to go to such extremes… Whatever you want, we can talk… I can give you anything…”

I thought it over and decided to give them a little hope.

“Let’s play rock, scissors, cloth.”

Zhang Lingzhi froze. He even forgot to cry.

Zhang Jianjun visibly frowned. “You—you what? Play what?”

I waved the knife. “Rock, scissors, cloth. You go first.”

Now it was Zhang Jianjun’s turn to stare in disbelief.

And Zhang Lingzhi began sobbing and screaming again.

I wasn’t finished tormenting them.

So I put the knife down and tipped the contents of my backpack onto the floor.

There were three things.

A rock.

A pair of scissors.

A roll of coarse cloth.

“Choose. Rock, scissors, cloth. Which one do you want?”

The screams in the ruined temple slowly became sobs. The sobs became intermittent groans.

After I’d been busy for quite some time, they finally stopped breathing altogether.

I sat on the floor and at last began to feel empty.

Fortunately, just then, my little candy-bar phone finally rang.

The name on the screen was Huang Yue.

The fool.

But I knew the caller wasn’t him. It was Officer Li.

Before coming here, I’d sent a message to that phone of his.

He had kept watch here all last night. He was also the one who had battered the Zhang father and son until their heads were bloody and tied them up.

He wasn’t entirely a fool, really. He had the intelligence of a five- or six-year-old.

He just couldn’t communicate with other people. Except me.

Because when we were little…

It wasn’t only Niannian and me who played together.

There were three of us.

The three of us were the best friends in the world.

The first thing I did after returning to the village was bring him to the ruined temple.

I gave him a basic phone with a SIM card. It had one contact number, and one only: mine.

Pointing to the temple entrance, I traced a crooked Chinese character for “temple” in the dirt.

I said, “Ah Yue, whenever you see this character, go inside there. In the dark, knock the people inside unconscious and tie them up… With a rock. Understand?”

He grinned and pointed at a rock nearby. “Rock… Rock, scissors, cloth… Rock!”

I smiled, too, and nodded.

“And this one. This is the character for ‘fruit.’ When you see it, go to the orchard Niannian’s dad had when we were little. Understand?”

He crouched down and studied those two characters for a long time. Then he traced them with his finger, stroke by stroke.

After tracing them over and over, he grinned again. He’d learned them.

“Good. Now let’s practice once, starting with the rock.”

Patiently, I began teaching him how to read the phone screen, how to hit someone with a rock, and how to tie them up.

I even taught him to tie knots. He worked hard at it. His hands were clumsy, but he tied every knot three times to make sure it held.

He was such a good boy.

I answered the call. Sure enough, Officer Li’s voice came from the other end:

“Where are you? Where are Zhang Jianjun and Zhang Lingzhi?”