Chapter 118

Chapter 118

Hu Heng had a three-bedroom apartment in Mingdu. He said that if Qin Song didn’t mind, he could stay there for the time being.

Qin Song thought it over and said, “I’m a little tired today. I’ll find a hotel for tonight, then go over tomorrow and tidy up your place.”

Hu Heng said, “Fair enough. I haven’t been there in ages, so the furniture and floors are probably covered in dust. I’ll send you the door lock code. Tomorrow, call a cleaning service to come by and clean it up, then move in tomorrow night.”

Qin Song said, “Okay.”

Hu Heng said, “I’ll book you a hotel. Somewhere close to my place, so it’ll be convenient for you to go over tomorrow.”

Qin Song smiled. “Sure.”

Hu Heng said, “Hurry up and find somewhere to eat!”

By the time Qin Song finished dinner and arrived at the hotel, it was already nine at night.

He hadn’t spoken to anyone else the entire way. Even at the restaurant, he’d ordered by scanning the QR code, refusing all human interaction.

If someone opened their mouth and started telling him again-“Did you know? There was a murder in Mingdu once. A man killed a woman…”-then he really would go completely insane.

He took a shower and lay in bed, drifting in and out of sleep.

Fragments of his old life scurried through his mind like mice.

He remembered playing dodgeball with the neighborhood kids back in his rural hometown when he was little. Two people threw, five people dodged, and whoever got hit by the sandbag was out of the dodging group and had to throw instead.

Back then, the other kids’ assessment of him was: “Qin Song almost never hits anyone, but he’s really good at dodging!”

…

He remembered the first time he went to an amusement park with He Qian. He Qian wanted to ride the carousel. He rode a little white horse, He Qian rode a little black horse, and in front of them was a little yellow horse.

The little black horse chased the little white horse, the little yellow horse chased the little black horse, and the little white horse chased the little yellow horse.

…

He remembered the girl he’d liked in middle school, Sun Xiaoke. They loved talking about movies together. Sun Xiaoke was a devoted fan of Tomb Raider, and she would go on and on to him about how captivating Angelina Jolie was, while Qin Song at the time preferred Fast & Furious.

…

He remembered one summer vacation, when the dirt road back home was about to be repaved. There was a tall pile of gravel by the roadside, filled with countless little stones.

He would pick up stones that were just the right size and throw them at the trees. The trees bore pale yellow fruits of all sizes, but he never hit one.

He had tasted those fruits before. They were sour and astringent. God knew why they had grown to look edible.

Every time he picked up a stone, he would first silently judge whether there might be piss on it, because when he was little, he had loved peeing into piles of sand and gravel.

Later, a worker started stopping him from taking the stones. He remembered that the worker was a bit old, basically an old man. His skin was dark, his teeth were yellow, and he loved to smile. In his mind, Qin Song mockingly called him “Old Corn Tooth.”

Old Corn Tooth always wore a hard hat, an old sweat-stained undershirt, and a pair of filthy camouflage pants.

A white towel hung around his neck, and he held a shovel in his hand.

Qin Song squatted by the roadside, eating a popsicle while staring at that shovel.

Sometimes it dug into the sand pile, sometimes into the gravel pile, again and again, with a steady rhythm.

The sound went like this: sha, sha, sha, sha…

Or maybe more like – shua, shua, shua, shua…

Qin Song’s head filled with that sound.

He began to feel that something was off.

Old Corn Tooth was a slippery one. After shoveling a few times, he would always chat with someone or take a break to smoke one of his thick cigarettes.

So why was he working so hard today? Why had the sound of the shovel never stopped?

By then, Qin Song had already fallen asleep on the hotel bed.

In his dream, he called out to Old Corn Tooth, “Hey, why are you working so hard today? Aren’t you going home to eat?”
Old Corn Tooth didn’t stop what he was doing. He kept shoveling while looking up at Qin Song with a smile. “There’s always more to do. I have to bury it!”

When he smiled, he showed that mouthful of yellow teeth stained by cigarette smoke again. Qin Song could see he was so exhausted that sweat was running down from his hair.

Qin Song put down his popsicle and asked in confusion, “What are you burying?”

Old Corn Tooth smiled mysteriously and made an inviting gesture. “Want to come over and take a look?”

Qin Song hesitated, then waved him off. “I was just asking. You keep going!”

Qin Song remembered something his mother had told him: never enter a temple alone, never look into a well with just one other person, and never hug a tree with three people.

He wasn’t familiar with Old Corn Tooth. He was afraid that if he went over to look, Old Corn Tooth might suddenly lose his mind and shove him into the pit, burying him together with the sand.

Old Corn Tooth went back to swinging his shovel. Panting, he said, “Hurry up and go home!”

Qin Song shook his head sadly. “I don’t think I have a home anymore.”

Old Corn Tooth said, “Nonsense. I ran into your dad just yesterday.”

Qin Song asked, “How do you know which one is my dad?”

Old Corn Tooth stopped talking and kept his head down, working.

Swish, swish, swish, swish…

Qin Song asked again, “What exactly are you burying? Did you secretly kill someone’s dog? Granny Wang’s dog went missing recently!”

Old Corn Tooth froze for a moment, then waved his hands in panic. “Not a dog… I didn’t. I didn’t!”

Seeing his reaction, Qin Song became even more certain that he had done something bad. He shouted, “I’m telling you, don’t deny it. I saw everything! Whose dog did you kill?!”

Old Corn Tooth looked at Qin Song, then suddenly dropped onto the sand pile and burst into loud sobs.

“I killed her-!”

A chill ran down Qin Song’s back. He hurried over and looked into the pit.

The pit was empty. There was only a shriveled woven sack inside.

Qin Song shuddered and woke up in bed.

He heard the sound again: swish, swish, swish…

Strictly speaking, that sound had run through his entire dream, and in the end it had woken him up.

He lay in bed, trying to figure out where it was coming from. It seemed to be coming from the hallway.

It sounded like a sanitation worker sweeping fallen leaves in the corridor with a broom, but why would there be a sanitation worker in the hallway?

Qin Song’s head suddenly buzzed – he thought of that woven sack.

Yes. That sound was just like the noise from that night, when he had stuffed Huang Yuanrui into a woven sack and dragged it across the floor.

Swish, swish, swish… The sound grew closer and closer, until finally it stopped outside Qin Song’s door.

Cold sweat broke out across Qin Song’s forehead. Trembling, he clutched the blanket tight, afraid that someone would knock on his door in the very next second.

He waited for a full minute, but there was no movement outside.

Qin Song thought perhaps he had heard wrong. It was probably just the hotel’s cleaning staff tidying things up.

Still uneasy, he climbed out of bed and walked to the door. He wanted to look through the peephole and see what was really happening outside.

Qin Song opened the peephole cover. He had only leaned in for one glance when he suddenly let out a scream, staggered back, and fell to the floor.

What had he seen?

Through the peephole, he had seen Huang Yuanrui standing in the hallway.

She was wearing the same pajamas she had worn on the day she died, and in her hand she carried a woven sack covered in dirt.

Her face was deathly pale, there were dark circles around her eyes, and on her forehead was a patch of blood so red it was nearly black.

Qin Song suddenly remembered: today was the seventh day after Huang Yuanrui’s death.