Chapter 147

Chapter 147

When Huang Yuanrui woke up, everything around her was pitch-black. For one terrifying instant, almost all of her senses seemed to have failed her.

She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again with effort. She strained her ears and listened for a while before finally realizing she was lying inside a moving car.

She tried to sit up, but the moment she struggled, she discovered something even stranger – she had been stuffed into a bag.

Yes. At that very moment, she was inside a woven sack, lying sideways in a jolting car.

She tugged the mouth of the sack open and poked her head out. Qin Song was in the driver’s seat, focused intently on the road. Her confusion deepened. She lifted her eyes toward the window and saw that Qin Song had driven the car to the back of a construction site.

Before Huang Yuanrui could make sense of what was happening, Qin Song slammed his foot down on the brake.

He first looked around, then got out of the car with practiced efficiency and pulled open the back door. Grabbing the sack with Huang Yuanrui inside, he dragged it out and hoisted it over his shoulder.

Huang Yuanrui thrashed inside the sack. “Qin Song, what are you doing? Put me down!”

Qin Song suddenly let out a scream. His shoulder lurched to the side, and Huang Yuanrui crashed to the ground.

Huang Yuanrui cried out in pain. Without even bothering to crawl out of the sack, she lifted her head in panic and looked at Qin Song. “What are you trying to do?!”

Qin Song was actually crying. Trembling, he reached out a hand and pointed at Huang Yuanrui. “How can you talk? How can you move…?”

Then he scrambled up from the ground, grabbed one end of the woven sack with one hand and dragged it hard, while with the other he fumbled around in the car and pulled out a roll of tape.

Huang Yuanrui began struggling violently, trying to wriggle out of the sack. Qin Song punched her hard in the face.

Qin Song was too strong. Huang Yuanrui’s vision went black in an instant. Her mind dissolved into chaos, and she lost all sense of direction. The next second, Qin Song shoved her back into the sack.

Only after Huang Yuanrui fell silent did Qin Song slowly open the mouth of the sack.

From somewhere, he produced a filthy rag and stuffed it straight into Huang Yuanrui’s mouth. Then he took a roll of tape from the car and wound it around her wrists and ankles.

Qin Song sealed the mouth of the sack with tape, tossed the sack carelessly to one side, and continued rummaging through the car.

He searched the glove compartment, then the compartment on the passenger side. After finding nothing, he circled to the back of the car and opened the trunk.

He wanted to find a wrench.

He had made a mistake just now. Huang Yuanrui hadn’t died. It didn’t matter. He would just make her die again.

Unfortunately, Qin Song searched everywhere and couldn’t find a wrench or any other hard object. In the end, he finally gave up. Drenched in sweat, he lifted the sack onto his shoulder and began running toward a large pit not far away.

Just then, a drunken worker came walking over from the construction site.

During the day, he had gotten into an argument with his wife and had a huge fight with her over the phone. So that night, he had invited a few of his coworkers to a roadside food stall and gotten completely drunk.

After returning to the dormitory, his coworkers had all started snoring loudly, but he couldn’t fall asleep no matter what. He staggered outside to take a piss.

The moment he stepped over the threshold, he fell flat on his face. Cursing, he turned on his phone’s flashlight and walked while shining it across the ground.

Several people had already pissed near the entrance, and the pungent stench of urine went straight up his nose, making him nauseous. He decided to walk farther away before relieving himself.

At that moment, Qin Song saw the beam of the flashlight.

He panicked and looked all around. There were only a few sparse trees nearby, nowhere near enough to hide him.

So he crouched down and set Huang Yuanrui on the ground. After unloading that heavy burden, he held his breath and crept quietly toward the woods behind him.

Branches and stones were scattered across the ground. Qin Song’s right big toe struck a stone that was neither large nor small. He endured the piercing pain without making a sound, glanced back once, and continued running into the woods.

The sound of Qin Song’s footsteps fading into the distance finally roused Huang Yuanrui. Her vision gradually began to clear.

Suddenly, she felt a sharp ache where the ground pressed against her thigh. With great effort, she moved her bound hands toward her pocket.
Her fingers brushed against something long and thin. She yanked it out – it was the eyebrow razor!

She slowly rubbed the cap off with her fingers, then carefully felt for the blade. Pinching the razor between her fingers, she began sawing at the tape around her wrists.

The tape was thin. It snapped after only a few strokes. Once her hands were free, she quickly pulled the filthy rag from her mouth, cut through the tape around her ankles, and then started slicing open the sack.

Huang Yuanrui crawled out before long. Her mouth felt grimy, and she spat on the ground.

By then, the worker with the flashlight had already walked past. Neither he nor Huang Yuanrui had seen each other.

Huang Yuanrui glanced in the direction Qin Song’s footsteps had vanished. She could vaguely make out his figure running ahead, but it had already shrunk into a tiny speck – he had gone far.

Limping, she started walking to the side. After a few steps, she suddenly stopped.

She made a decision she would regret for the rest of her life.

She looked again toward the place where Qin Song had disappeared, then bent down and began picking up larger stones from the ground, quickly stuffing them into the sack.

After she had loaded a dozen or so stones, the woven sack lying on the ground bulged out again, as if there were a person inside.

She dragged the sack forward, all the way to the edge of the pit.

After doing all that, she ran behind a few trees not far away. She lay flat on the ground, her thin body nearly blending into the night.

She couldn’t accept it. She couldn’t let it go. She refused to believe Qin Song had truly meant to kill her on purpose. She would rather believe he had been temporarily possessed, that only then could he have done those things to hurt her.

She didn’t know whether he would come back. If he did, if he calmed down, what would he do when he saw the sack?

Human nature should never be tested, but Huang Yuanrui refused to believe that.

She thought that after all the time she and Qin Song had spent together, even if they were only ordinary friends, Qin Song shouldn’t have been so cruel as to want her dead.

And they were not ordinary friends. They had once loved each other passionately. He had once spared no effort in spoiling her.

No matter what, she could not believe he truly wanted her to die.

Qin Song came back very quickly. Hunched over, he kept looking around as he hurried toward the white sack on the ground. In that moment, Huang Yuanrui thought he looked like a stray dog scavenging for food.

He reached the edge of the pit and glanced at the sack. After a moment’s hesitation, he turned and headed somewhere else.

Huang Yuanrui finally let out a breath of relief and raised a hand to wipe the cold sweat from her forehead. She knew it. Qin Song couldn’t have steeled himself to kill her.

But two minutes later, Qin Song returned again, carrying a shovel in his hand.

He bent down and shoved the sack into the pit. Almost at the same time, without the slightest hesitation, he swung the shovel and began filling the pit with soil.

At that moment, something inside Huang Yuanrui snapped completely.

Whether she wanted to believe it or not, she had no choice but to believe it – he had not tried to kill her by accident. Even if he had failed to kill her the first time, even if he had failed the second time, as she watched him swing the shovel like a madman, Huang Yuanrui felt, with horrifying certainty, that she had already died twice.

Qin Song moved like a machine, his motions growing faster and more frantic. Soon, two blood blisters had been rubbed into his hands.

Huang Yuanrui took one last, deep look at him, then turned and ran.

She ran faster and faster. Almost every step sent pain stabbing through the wound on her head, and the taste of blood surged up in her throat.

At last, she reached a broad road and ducked into a twenty-four-hour convenience store.

Fine strands of hair, mixed with sweat and blood, clung to her forehead. Facing the convenience store’s glass window, she wiped at them with her sleeve.

She borrowed a phone from the clerk, sat down on the convenience store’s little stool, and dialed Xixi’s number.

The phone rang for a long time before Xixi picked up. Huang Yuanrui heard her drowsy voice.

“Hello? Who is this, calling in the middle of the night…”

Huang Yuanrui clamped a hand tightly over her mouth and began to cry without a sound.