Chapter 124

Chapter 124

The apartment Huahua rented was an ordinary two-bedroom place with a living room.

She kept two plump cats at home, and Qin Song sneezed the moment he stepped through the door.

Huahua pointed at the sofa. Qin Song was just about to sit down when she said, “You can’t sit there. It’s covered in fur.”

Then Huahua pointed at a wide bench. “You can’t sit there either. Also covered in fur.”

Qin Song asked, “Then where can I sit?”

Huahua said, “There’s a plastic stool on the balcony. That one doesn’t have fur on it. You can sit on the plastic stool.”

Qin Song said, “…Do you not clean your place?”

Huahua said, “Just cleaning the floor is exhausting enough. I’ve already given up on the sofa. Don’t lecture me. I’m going to cook.”

With that, she took an apron down from a hook on the wall, tied it around her waist with practiced ease, and went into the kitchen.

Qin Song looked at the two cats. One was golden, the other mottled. They sat on the floor, staring at him warily with wide eyes.

Qin Song remembered that small animals used to like him well enough. He Qian’s best friend had two big dogs at home, and every time they saw Qin Song, they would happily pounce on him, their tails wagging like propellers.

He had heard that animals were spiritual creatures. They especially liked getting close to kind, emotionally rich people.

But these two cats stared straight at him, and it frightened Qin Song.

Qin Song could faintly sense that they did not care who he was, nor could they understand whether he was telling the truth or lying. But through his eyes, they could see straight through to the essence beneath his disguise.

Qin Song avoided the eyes of those two little spirits and pretended to look around naturally.

He felt in his pocket. There was a small, hard object inside: the lighter he had just bought downstairs.

He called toward the kitchen, “Huahua, I’m going downstairs for a walk.”

Huahua slid open the kitchen door, brought out a bag of trash, and handed it to him. “Take this down for me.”

Qin Song went downstairs and threw the trash into the bin. Immediately, an older woman appeared out of nowhere. She walked straight over to the trash can, openly untied the garbage bag, and started rummaging through it.

Qin Song glanced at her, made two laps around the area, and finally found an open patch of ground behind the building.

After confirming no one was around, he carefully tugged the envelope out of his pocket.

He lit the envelope on fire. Suddenly, Qin Song felt as though someone was watching him, so he looked up at the balcony of one of the apartments on the first floor.

The moment he did, Qin Song nearly jumped out of his skin – there was a woman standing motionless on the balcony, silently watching him.

Qin Song took two steps left and right, but the woman did not move at all.

A gust of wind blew over. He rubbed his eyes and looked more closely, only then realizing it was a mannequin.

He cursed, “What the hell is wrong with them, putting that creepy thing on the balcony?”

When he looked back down at the ground, the letter was gone.

Qin Song panicked. He did not know whether the letter had burned completely or been blown somewhere else by the wind.

He bent down and searched the ground twice before discovering that the letter had been half-burned and then blown into the grass.

He pulled it out of the grass and found that the ashtray pattern had already been burned away. The line of words was still there:

I know you killed someone.

Qin Song pinched that line of words between his fingers and lit it on fire again.

Only after confirming that the entire letter had turned to ash did he stand up and head back.

By the time he returned, Huahua had already finished cooking. The whole apartment was filled with the aroma of food.

Qin Song was hungry. He sat down and began eating in huge mouthfuls.

Huahua opened a bottle of Sprite and said as she drank, “You eat faster than a dog. Were you a starving ghost in your past life?”

Qin Song mumbled through his food, “You talk too crudely. Girls should be a little gentler.”

Huahua gave a cold laugh. “You reek of mansplaining dad energy.”

Just then, Qin Song heard a clatter from the bedroom.

He turned to look at Huahua. “Is there someone else in your place?”

Huahua said, “No.”

Qin Song asked, “You didn’t hear that noise just now?”

Huahua said, “In a home with cats, it’s normal for noises to come from anywhere. Don’t be so dramatic.”

Qin Song nodded and continued shoveling food into his mouth.

After the meal, Huahua opened the door to one of the bedrooms.

She said to Qin Song, “Rest here this afternoon. Wash your face and hands. In a bit, I’ll use some essential oil to help you relax.”
Qin Song followed her over and took a look. The bedroom was very plain: white walls, a faint rose fragrance in the air. The furnishings were simple too, just a small shelf and a bed covered with white sheets.

Qin Song had seen beds like this in places that offered acupuncture and ear cleaning. He had also seen one before at the beauty salon when he went to pick up He Qian.

He found it strange. “Why do you have a bed like this at home?”

Huahua said, “I set it up for my ex-boyfriend.”

Qin Song asked, “What do you mean?”

Huahua sighed. “He was under a lot of pressure at work back then. He was always smoking and drinking too much, and he was losing his hair. I studied psychology, and I know a bit about aromatherapy, so I fixed up this room for him. It was specifically for helping him relax.”

Qin Song asked, “Did it work?”

Huahua said, “Of course. I know how to blend essential oils, I know some soothing massage techniques, and I can do hypnosis too. Usually, when he was really anxious or exhausted, I’d give him the full relaxation package in here and then let him sleep. The next day, he’d be in a much better state.”

Qin Song said, “Then he should’ve been unable to live without you. How did you two still end up breaking up?”

Huahua said, “His career kept getting bigger and bigger, and he went to a first-tier city. I didn’t want to go.”

Qin Song did not know whether Huahua was bragging, but lying down and relaxing for a while was better than sitting alone, anxiously scratching his head and ears.

After taking off his shoes and lying down on the bed, thoughts began spilling out like a tangled mess.

Who would have sent him that letter?

Who knew both that he had killed someone and that he had changed his name?

And how did that person know all of this?

He had killed Huang Yuanrui in an empty, sealed-off space, then stuffed her into a woven sack and driven her to the construction site.

Had anyone seen that process? No.

The hallway surveillance footage had been deleted by him and Hu Heng, and on the drive there, there had basically been no people or cars on the road.

Even if there had been cars, who could have looked through two layers of car windows and the thick darkness of night and seen that there was a person inside the woven sack?

Then Qin Song thought of the moment when he had almost dragged the sack to the edge of the pit. Someone at the construction site had been shining a flashlight around.

Could it have been him?

Qin Song had always believed that person was a worker at the construction site doing a patrol in the middle of the night. Besides, if he had discovered anything, why hadn’t he called the police on the spot? Why wait until more than half a year later?

Could it have been someone he came into contact with in Singapore?

Qin Song then thought of that neither-human-nor-ghost Jingjing, and that little boy.

No. They shouldn’t know.

After thinking it over and over, the only person who knew everything was Hu Heng.

But why would Hu Heng write him an anonymous letter?

Hu Heng had helped him change his name, provided him a place to live, introduced him to a wife, and every so often came over to drink and chat with him…

Qin Song simply could not connect Hu Heng to this matter.

While Qin Song was thinking through all of this, Huahua was rummaging through the essential oils on the shelf.

She took out a small brown bottle. “This is citrus essential oil.”

Then she shook another slightly larger bottle. “This is carrier oil.”

After mixing one oil into the other, she poured a little into her palm, rubbed her hands together, and began massaging both sides of Qin Song’s head, centered around his ears.

Qin Song smelled a fresh, clean fragrance. After taking a few deep breaths, he felt his frayed nerves ease a great deal.

But as soon as he thought of that letter, his heart started pounding violently again.

He could not help opening his eyes and asking, “Have you ever been threatened?”

Huahua’s hands paused for a moment. She said softly, “Close your eyes. Don’t distract yourself.”

Qin Song said, “I really want to talk to you about this.”

Huahua sighed. “I have.”

Qin Song asked, “Do you mind telling me about it?”

Huahua said, “When I was young and ignorant, I made a mistake and left someone with leverage over me. Then they threatened me.”

Qin Song asked, “How did you feel at the time?”

Huahua said, “It felt like there was an extra lid over the sky, pressing down on me until I couldn’t breathe.”

That was exactly how Qin Song felt right now. He held his breath and listened as Huahua continued.

Huahua said, “At the time, it felt like I’d been sentenced to death, and someone else got to decide the execution date. It also felt like I’d become a puppet, and someone else was holding the strings tied to my hands and feet. I couldn’t be truly happy. Whenever I started to feel good, I would automatically think of the fact that there was still someone in this world threatening me.”
Qin Song couldn’t help admiring her ability to put things into words. She had described it with perfect precision.

Qin Song asked, “Were you anxious and depressed back then?”

Huahua said, “Back then, I wanted to kill him.”

Qin Song asked, “How did it get resolved in the end?”

Huahua said, “Money.”

Qin Song fell silent. He closed his eyes again.

Huahua stopped talking too and began massaging the front of Qin Song’s head.

Qin Song felt himself relax a little more. He couldn’t tell whether it was the effect of the essential oil massage, or because he finally felt like someone understood what he was going through.

People were always afraid of negative emotions. But when someone shared them with you, when someone truly empathized, that pain lessened by a great deal.

Huahua moved her hands downward and began massaging his shoulders and neck. Qin Song’s head swayed back and forth, and it felt incredibly comfortable.

Huahua began to hypnotize him.

She picked up a delicate little bell from the shelf and gave it a gentle shake. Qin Song heard a crisp ding.

Huahua lowered her voice, making it sound especially soft.

“Now, imagine a small ball resting between your eyebrows…”

“It’s made of metal, shining with a silver light…”

“The ball is about one centimeter in diameter…”

“Now, the ball begins rolling from between your eyebrows toward your forehead at a steady speed, one centimeter per second…”

Qin Song focused, constructing such a ball in his mind.

“Slowly, slowly… the ball rolls from between your eyebrows to your hairline…”

Qin Song’s eyes were tightly shut, and his eyeballs began turning slowly upward of their own accord.

“When it reaches your hairline, the ball continues rolling at the same steady speed toward the top of your head…”

“All right. Now it has reached the crown of your head…”

Qin Song began to feel a clear drowsiness settling over him.

“Now, the ball starts from the crown of your head and moves down along the back of your skull… Don’t rush. Keep it moving at one centimeter per second…”

Qin Song’s breathing began to grow long, slow, and steady.

“The ball is already moving across the back of your head. It slowly rolls to the very center of the back of your skull…”

Qin Song didn’t manage to wait until the ball had traveled all the way down the back of his head. His entire being dropped into sleep.

Before he sank completely into unconsciousness, he vaguely remembered something.

When he had first entered Huahua’s apartment, he had noticed that every door in her home was tightly shut, whether it was the bathroom door or the bedroom door.

Some of the doors were old, their cracks loose, so she had stuffed things into the gaps. Some were coasters, some were gloves.

She had probably done it because she was afraid the cats would cover the whole room in fur. After all, when Qin Song said he wanted to sit down, she’d told him that the only seat without cat hair on it was the plastic stool in the bedroom.

But while Qin Song was eating, he had clearly heard a clatter from inside the bedroom.

Only now did Qin Song realize that those two cats hadn’t been in the bedroom at all. They couldn’t get into the bedroom in the first place.

What was in there?

Qin Song’s nerves began to twitch faintly with sensitivity, but he was no match for the drowsiness brought on by the hypnosis. In an instant, he fell into a dead sleep.

Even though he was already asleep, Qin Song could still smell the faint fragrance in the room.

It was the scent of roses, mixed with a trace of lavender essential oil.

The rose scent grew stronger and stronger. Qin Song heard Huahua’s voice drift up, hazy and indistinct.

“I understand. Threats really are terrifying…”

“But do you know what’s even more terrifying…?”

“Some threats come with a purpose. You can always resolve them with money and favors…”

“But some threats have no purpose at all. Even if you want to resolve them, there’s nothing you can do…”

“That is the real lid over the sky… pressing down so hard a person can never turn over again…”

Huahua’s voice grew lower and slower, until it barely sounded like her at all.

Qin Song felt that voice was very familiar, but he didn’t have the energy to think about it.

He couldn’t tell whether this was reality or a dream, and he didn’t dare think about it.

Later, he really did have a dream. In the dream, the sun was bright and warm, and Huahua walked with him.

She told him joke after joke, and he kept laughing with genuine delight.

At last, in his dream, Qin Song felt completely relaxed and happy.