Lou Xiaoguo stuffed the two bodies into bags and drove to Lanwanba. He was already very familiar with the vendors in that area and knew no one would be around at about four in the morning. As for surveillance, Du Guangbao used only the most basic equipment, and a signal jammer could knock it out in minutes.
He climbed onto the roof of the vehicle, used the height to throw the bodies into the courtyard, then climbed over himself. His nerves were stretched so tight that he did not even notice the faint sting in his leg.
The courtyard was utterly silent. He quickly hid the bodies among the clutter. Once they began to rot and smell, someone would naturally find them. After finishing, he left directly through the back door. That door could not be unlocked from outside, or he could have saved himself the trouble of climbing over the wall in the first place.
He erased the traces of his climb, then drew a cicada. Insects carried life on without end. This was his “signature,” and also a blessing to himself: no one could catch him. Like an insect, he would live on forever.
But when he returned home, he suddenly noticed a shallow cut on his leg and a tear in his pants. Cold sweat broke out all over him. His first thought was that one of the glass shards on the wall had cut him while he was climbing over.
It was over! If blood had been left on the glass, the police could identify him through DNA!
He was sick with unease, but by then it was already daytime. He could not go back and inspect every shard of glass for blood. All he could do was reassure himself that the people at Time Alley would not discover the bodies anytime soon. He still had a chance to find the shard.
After nightfall, he returned to Lanwanba. Yet he could not see anything resembling blood on any of the glass shards. Some of them looked incomplete, but that was normal. It was not as though someone could have broken off the exact shard stained with his blood.
He relaxed slightly and guessed that perhaps he had scraped his skin somewhere else without noticing.
Later, the bodies began to rot, and news of corpses found at the stationery factory quickly became a major story. Lou Xiaoguo followed the police investigation closely. If the police had recovered his DNA, they would act immediately. He had already prepared to leave the country and lie low. But the police never found any connection between him and the case. Instead, they investigated Du Guangbao from top to bottom. That suited Lou Xiaoguo perfectly.
Voices condemning Du Guangbao appeared online, and Ika’s sex was exposed as well. Time Alley was on the brink of collapse, but Lou Xiaoguo no longer had the energy to think about what Ren Jie would do next. He had discovered that Li Wan seemed completely unaffected by Kong Chunxiang’s death and continued going to work every day as usual.
What was Li Wan planning? Lou Xiaoguo watched him closely. The moment Li Wan made a move, he would make one too. From beginning to end, what obsessed him most was how Li Wan had discovered his connection to Li Shuxing’s death. As long as that question remained unanswered, he could not rest.
The stalemate dragged on until February of the following year, when Lou Xiaoguo received an anonymous letter. It said: I know you killed Kong Chunxiang and Zhong Lishan.
He did not need to think about who had sent it.
The letter also said that if he wanted to settle the matter, he should come to Nianbei City. If he refused, the police would soon learn his secret.
Nianbei City was remote and its people had a reputation for being tough. On the Nianbei Plateau in particular, a person could die and their body remain undiscovered for decades. Lou Xiaoguo understood that Li Wan wanted to kill him there. He began to laugh, the sound growing wilder and wilder. What a coincidence. He wanted Li Wan dead too. Anyone who knew his secret had to die.
Lou Xiaoguo arrived in Nianbei City and was surprised to find that Li Wan had brought Shi Bo along. He did not mind killing both of them.
The rented SUV raced across the plateau beneath a howling cold wind. Death seemed to permeate the wilderness. To die there was almost to return oneself to nature.
Somehow, Li Wan had managed to get hold of a gun. In a country where firearms were tightly controlled, a person holding one seemed to hold other people’s lives in his hands. But Lou Xiaoguo had come prepared. On the first night he never let Li Wan find him at all, and instead set traps across the wilderness.
Li Wan came again at night carrying the gun. Lou Xiaoguo deliberately switched on his headlights to lure him over. Li Wan drove straight toward him, but his tires were shredded by the trap and the vehicle overturned into a deep pit. Lou Xiaoguo walked to the edge. Li Wan was struggling below, the scent of blood drifting through the air.
Li Wan could not reach the gun that had fallen away, while Lou Xiaoguo had already raised a steel spike as long as a forearm. The spike drove through Li Wan’s eye socket. Before long, a living man had become a corpse.
Lou Xiaoguo had desperately wanted to ask Li Wan how he had traced everything back to him, but he did not dare give Li Wan the opportunity to turn things around. If anything went wrong, Lou Xiaoguo would be the one who died. Had Li Wan really been determined to avenge Li Shuxing? Lou Xiaoguo could not understand where such inexplicable family devotion came from. With life and death on the line, he had no choice but to abandon the search for an answer.
Using the knife he had prepared, he dismembered Li Wan. The smell of blood drew wild animals, and they soon shared the remains among themselves. On the way back, Lou Xiaoguo ran into Shi Bo and nearly let him see his face.
A murder committed in the wilderness was difficult to investigate, and the local police force was severely understaffed. Lou Xiaoguo saw no local reports even after he returned safely to Nanshan City. It was only later, when the Li family reported Li Wan missing, that Nanshan City police began investigating. In the end, all they could establish was that Li Wan had disappeared.
Ming Han asked, “So even now, you still don’t know how Li Wan traced it back to you?”
Lou Xiaoguo sighed. “No one knows the reason anymore.”
Ming Han said, “Fine. We’ll set that aside for now. You killed Li Wan, Zhong Lishan, and Kong Chunxiang to hide what happened back then. What about Luo Yingqiang and He Yunchao? Did killing just become a habit?”
Lou Xiaoguo opened his mouth, then laughed. “You got me.”
After disposing of Li Wan, Lou Xiaoguo felt his life become peaceful again. It resembled the calm he had felt after killing Li Shuxing and Ping Yiyi, yet it was not quite the same. Back then he had been young, and the peace had been purchased for him by Xue Chenwen. This time, he had secured it himself.
How Li Wan had learned that Lou Xiaoguo was the real killer was something he would never know. But it did not matter. No one else would know either. At this point, he was truly safe. The only thing that still faintly troubled him was the cut on his leg. The shallow wound had long since healed, yet he still had no answer as to whether it had come from the glass shards on the courtyard wall. If it had, the police should have found him long ago. If it had not, then where had he been cut?
He tried his best not to think about it and stopped paying attention to Ren Jie as well. That subconscious urge to escape made him desperately want to enter an entirely new life. He began looking for younger faces. Boys not yet out of university had youthful bodies and simple minds. They were the easiest to control. Give them a little sweetness, and they would turn into obedient dogs.
At Nanshan University he noticed “Zhang Yinan.” At first glance, the young man did not match his tastes at all. He looked too straight. But Lou Xiaoguo thought that perhaps at his age it was time to try something different. He could not keep choosing men in the Ika mold forever.
As he had confessed earlier, “Zhang Yinan” quickly became his prey. Zhang Yinan studied hard, earned excellent grades, and like many model students had never been in a relationship. Lou Xiaoguo found him almost effortless to handle.
Before long, however, Lou Xiaoguo realized Zhang Yinan was not as innocent as he had assumed. He resisted physical contact, secretly watched Lou Xiaoguo, and behaved strangely in many little ways.
Zhang Yinan had a convincing excuse. He said he had been straight before, and Lou Xiaoguo had turned him gay after they met. Lou Xiaoguo believed him at first. After all, when he first saw Zhang Yinan, he too had thought the young man looked like a straight guy who would be difficult to get. But Lou Xiaoguo had experienced far more than people his age, and he was nowhere near as naive inside as he looked. He began secretly following Zhang Yinan and went to Zhang Yinan’s hometown to investigate his background.
Before long, he discovered that Zhang Mu, the father Zhang Yinan had spoken of, had vanished years ago, while the way the villagers of Huaizi Village described Zhang Yinan was completely different from the person standing in front of him. Lou Xiaoguo immediately became wary and began wondering why this man of unknown background had approached him. Was he another Li Wan?
But from the limited clues Lou Xiaoguo had, Zhang Yinan appeared to have no connection whatsoever to either the Li family or the Ping family. Then was he a police officer? But if so, that would be absurd. Would the police really sleep with him just to arrest him?
No, that was not it. Lou Xiaoguo forced himself to think calmly. He had been the one who initiated the relationship with Zhang Yinan. He was the one who had taken a liking to him, and everything that followed came from that. No one had lured him in. So had Zhang Yinan simply taken advantage of the opportunity and used him? For what?
He could not figure it out and sank into intense unease. Fortunately, Zhang Yinan did not live with him. They generally met only once or twice a week, which gave Lou Xiaoguo plenty of time to investigate without Zhang Yinan knowing. Meanwhile, Zhang Yinan’s own observation of Lou Xiaoguo continued.
Two people sharing the same bed while secretly observing each other was bizarre in the extreme.
That summer, Lou Xiaoguo discovered something that shocked him: Zhang Yinan had been appearing at Luo Yingqiang’s private club.
Who was Luo Yingqiang? The head of Yingqiang Group, a public figure known throughout Nanshan City. What was a university student like Zhang Yinan doing there? Lou Xiaoguo searched through Yingqiang Group’s information and found no business connection between the group and the Li family, yet he still could not put his mind at ease.
He had thought before that if Zhang Yinan turned out to be a problem, he would quietly get rid of him just as he had Li Wan and Kong Chunxiang. But if Zhang Yinan was connected to Yingqiang Group, Lou Xiaoguo could not act rashly.
That period was torment. Lou Xiaoguo went back and forth endlessly over whether to make a move. What he never expected was that Zhang Yinan would be the one to tear through the thin layer of pretense between them.
“Bro Xiaoguo, did you find something out?” Zhang Yinan looked at him seriously.
Lou Xiaoguo pretended nothing was wrong. “What?”
The manufactured sunshine and innocence disappeared from Zhang Yinan’s face. “I actually realized a long time ago that something was off with you. It felt like… like you knew about me.”
With things already said this plainly, Lou Xiaoguo’s expression turned cold. “Who are you?”
Zhang Yinan sighed. “So you really do know.”
“What are you trying to do?” Lou Xiaoguo asked.
After a long silence, Zhang Yinan said, “Bro Xiaoguo, tell me first what you already know.”
Lou Xiaoguo probed, “Are you working for Luo Yingqiang? Why did you get close to me?”
Zhang Yinan’s eyes widened, looking genuinely startled. “You even know that?”
Lou Xiaoguo sneered. “What else is there?”
Zhang Yinan suddenly dropped to his knees. “Bro Xiaoguo, I lied to you. I took advantage of the fact that you liked me. Actually… actually, there’s something I absolutely have to do.”
Caught completely off guard by the kneeling, Lou Xiaoguo stepped back several paces until his back met the wall, reassessing Zhang Yinan from head to toe.
Zhang Yinan began telling his story, and Lou Xiaoguo heard a completely unfamiliar name: He Yunchao.
No wonder the Zhang Yinan he had heard about during his investigation was nothing like the man he knew. From the very beginning, Zhang Yinan had been deceiving him.
He Yunchao’s hometown was not Huaili Town but Yanshui Town, and his father was not Zhang Mu but He Youqun. Huaili Town was famous throughout the province for its vegetable trade. To earn money, He Youqun went there as a hired hand and worked for Zhang Mu’s family for several years. Whenever He Yunchao was on school break, he would stay at Zhang Mu’s home for a while and help out in the fields.
In He Yunchao’s eyes, Zhang Mu was a very good uncle. He might have been the employer, but he never dumped the hardest work on them and paid generously. He Yunchao had watched his father cycle through job after job before finally settling down with Zhang Mu. Villagers said Zhang Mu was difficult to get along with, but He Yunchao never felt that way.
Being good at saying nice things did not make someone a good person. Zhang Mu was quiet and poor with words, but he treated father and son very well and occasionally asked how He Yunchao was getting along with classmates at school. He Yunchao thought Zhang Mu was pitiful for having neither wife nor children, and privately decided that when the time came, he would support his father in old age and look after Zhang Mu too.
He never imagined that He Youqun would not live long enough to need him to do it.
He Yunchao would remember that afternoon forever. Zhang Mu staggered toward him, disheveled, one leg broken, his eyes so red they looked ready to bleed.
“Uncle Zhang, what happened?” He Yunchao hurried forward to support him.
Zhang Mu threw back his head and cried out, “Yunchao, I’m sorry! Your dad, your dad is gone!”
He Yunchao’s head buzzed. He could not process the words. “What?”
Zhang Mu sat on the ground, looking countless years older than the last time He Yunchao had seen him. “Your dad was beaten to death by that man surnamed Luo!”
A man surnamed Luo? What man surnamed Luo? He Yunchao had no idea who he meant.
Zhang Mu said they were both in danger and had to leave immediately. He had hidden He Youqun and needed He Yunchao to go with him so they could lay He Youqun to rest. He Yunchao was completely dazed and could only follow. Late that night, they reached a barren mountain outside Yanshui Town, where Zhang Mu dug up He Youqun’s body.
Seeing his father already lifeless, He Yunchao broke down sobbing and demanded to know what had happened. Zhang Mu repeatedly slapped himself, saying He Youqun had been dragged into it because of him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Youqun!”
In the dense woods, Zhang Mu told He Yunchao that Luo Yingqiang, now the richest man in Nanshan City, had first built his fortune in Huaili Town. Most of the vegetable farmers there had signed cooperation agreements with Luo Yingqiang, but Zhang Mu was stubborn. He only wanted to honestly work his own little patch of land and did not want anyone ordering him around. The land surrounding Zhang Mu’s plot had all fallen under Luo Yingqiang’s control, but Zhang Mu’s was the one piece Luo could not obtain. That was how the grudge began.
After all these years, Luo Yingqiang no longer had any need for that vegetable plot, but he still resented Zhang Mu for having refused him. Over the past half year, Luo Yingqiang had sent people several times to make trouble for Zhang Mu, and Zhang Mu and He Youqun had driven them away each time.
At this point He Yunchao cried, “Why didn’t either of you tell me? You didn’t say anything, and Dad didn’t either!”
Zhang Mu said bitterly, “What good would telling you have done? You’re only a student. At least we were lucky enough not to drag you into it too!”
Zhang Mu went on to say that Luo Yingqiang had been determined to settle that old grudge. The day before, someone had come to take Zhang Mu somewhere, and he had no choice but to go. He Youqun had been worried and insisted on accompanying him. Only when they arrived did they discover the place was a warehouse on the outskirts of Nanshan City.
Luo Yingqiang looked He Youqun up and down and mocked him. “I asked for him. Why did you come along?”
He Youqun had always been loyal. “Brother Zhang is my boss. What’s wrong with me coming with him?”
Luo Yingqiang burst out laughing and suddenly ordered his men to tie both of them up. The two struggled desperately. Zhang Mu demanded, “What exactly do you want? You’re already the richest man in the city. Do you still care about that little patch of land?”
Luo Yingqiang said darkly, “I don’t care about the land. I care about face. All these years, you’re the only person who ever refused to show me respect.”
They were beaten with no one to answer their cries for help. Zhang Mu lost consciousness. When pain woke him, He Youqun was lying beside him with his head bloodied, no longer breathing and without a pulse. Zhang Mu was terrified. Bracing himself on his injured leg, he hoisted He Youqun onto his back and struggled out of the warehouse. Luo Yingqiang was not there at the time, and the men guarding them had assumed they would not wake anytime soon and were playing cards.
Zhang Mu put He Youqun’s body into a woven sack, stole a handcart before dawn, fled into the mountains near Yanshui Town, and temporarily hid the body there.
“I shouldn’t have come to find you, but I had to make this trip!” Zhang Mu’s filthy hands gripped He Yunchao’s shoulders. “Kid, I’m a bachelor. It doesn’t matter where I run. A little while ago, your dad went with me to see a doctor, and they found a tumor. I don’t have much time left. But you have to live. You have to avenge… avenge your father!”
He Yunchao was completely overwhelmed and asked through tears, “Uncle Zhang, what am I supposed to do?”
Zhang Mu said Luo Yingqiang must already know that he and He Youqun had escaped, but might not know He Youqun was dead. Zhang Mu had no other family, but He Youqun had a son. Luo Yingqiang would surely assume they would come looking for He Yunchao and would eliminate him to prevent future trouble. He Yunchao could not go back to the He family, and even the identity of He Yunchao had to be abandoned.
Zhang Mu said his late wife, Yin Xiaoyang, had once brought a child with her who later took his surname. The boy was named Zhang Yinan and had long since left the country, but that name would still work in Yin Xiaoyang’s hometown. He Yunchao could temporarily live under Zhang Yinan’s identity and wait for a chance to avenge He Youqun.
He Yunchao was in complete disarray, and Zhang Mu became his only support. The two carried He Youqun to the He family’s ancestral graveyard and secretly buried him there, but did not dare erect a marker. Although cremation had become common in Yanshui Town, the area was still relatively traditional and many families retained earth-burial graves. He Youqun was buried among them without any other member of the He family knowing. During holidays, relatives even came to sweep the graves.
After all that, He Yunchao became somewhat calmer. Fortunately, Luo Yingqiang never found them. The two hid for a while longer, and once they felt the danger had passed, Zhang Mu dragged his sick body to Ganwei County, the hometown of his late wife, taking He Yunchao with him.
He Yunchao remembered that by then Zhang Mu was already in terrible condition. The tumor tormented him constantly, and going to a hospital was impossible. He always said treatment or no treatment made no difference because he did not have long to live anyway. Better to use what little time remained to arrange He Yunchao’s future.
Zhang Mu took him to meet Principal Yin of Ganwei County No. 1 Middle School and arranged for him to transfer in under Zhang Yinan’s identity. Principal Yin had not seen the real Zhang Yinan in many years and did not know the boy before him was an impostor. Afterward, Zhang Mu helped him replace his identity documents. From that point on, he was no longer He Yunchao.
By the time Lou Xiaoguo heard this much, he was a little moved beneath his surprise, but far more suspicious. Perhaps it was something in He Yunchao’s retelling, but Zhang Mu’s story seemed full of holes. Most suspicious of all, if Luo Yingqiang truly hated Zhang Mu enough to insist on killing him, then after discovering Zhang Mu and He Youqun had escaped, why had he not immediately pursued them? How could Zhang Mu and He Yunchao have been given enough time to properly bury He Youqun? With Luo Yingqiang’s reach, He Yunchao should certainly have been silenced. Changing names would have accomplished nothing.
But Lou Xiaoguo said none of this. He watched He Yunchao immersed in thoughts of revenge and put on a false expression of sympathy.
He Yunchao thought Lou Xiaoguo was empathizing with him and continued. After he became “Zhang Yinan,” Zhang Mu prepared to leave. Before departing, Zhang Mu gripped his hand with tears streaming down his aged face and told him that no matter what it took, he had to avenge He Youqun.
“Your dad died because of me. I’m the one who should avenge him more than anyone, but this body of mine won’t last until then.”
He Yunchao began crying too. “Uncle Zhang, don’t say that. You didn’t do anything wrong. The one who killed my dad was that bastard Luo Yingqiang!”
Dragging his sick body, Zhang Mu staggered away, perhaps to find somewhere he could die in peace. He Yunchao never saw him again. Living as Zhang Yinan, he studied day and night at Ganwei County No. 1 Middle School, his heart filled with hatred. He had to get into a school in Nanshan City and find some path that would let him get close to Luo Yingqiang.
He succeeded in entering Nanshan University, but Luo Yingqiang was still far beyond his reach. People in Nanshan City liked Luo Yingqiang and called him a great philanthropist. Every time He Yunchao heard that, hatred drove him nearly mad. Yingqiang Group opened a new private club catering to wealthy clients. Perhaps to support his own business, Luo Yingqiang visited frequently as well. He Yunchao saw an opportunity and applied for a job as a server.
At first, He Yunchao only delivered drinks. He saw Luo Yingqiang from a distance but had no opportunity to approach him. Before long, however, the manager noticed his height and looks and promoted him to dedicated service for the VIP rooms. He still could not get close to Luo Yingqiang, but at least he could learn more about him.
Luo Yingqiang was very skilled at crafting a public image and handling the media. The longer He Yunchao worked at the club, the more alarmed he became. Luo Yingqiang was domineering and brutal, yet the overwhelming majority of ordinary people in Nanshan City genuinely believed he was a good man.
He Yunchao asked classmates who had grown up in Nanshan City. They said that when they were children there had been rumors that Luo Yingqiang’s rise had not been clean, but they had heard little about it in recent years. Good man or rotten man, who cared? At least he wasn’t getting in ordinary people’s way.
He Yunchao racked his brains but could not imagine how a penniless student like him could ever avenge his father. Then one day he saw Luo Yingqiang laughing and talking with a distinguished guest while both wore bathrobes. Their conversation was crude. He Yunchao knew the guest, a man notorious for playing around with men. Luo Yingqiang seemed extremely close to him and clearly shared the same interests. Could Luo Yingqiang also…
His heart thundered. A plan took shape. Someone in his position would have to sacrifice himself if he wanted revenge. If Luo Yingqiang was interested in young men, then He Yunchao had a chance.
But the plan caused him enormous pain. He was not gay, and even learning about homosexuality made him feel sick. Yet when he thought of his father’s unjust death and Zhang Mu entrusting everything to him, he made up his mind that no matter what price he had to pay, he would get close to Luo Yingqiang.
That was exactly when Lou Xiaoguo appeared. Because He Yunchao had already spent time observing and imitating gay men, he quickly realized Lou Xiaoguo was interested in him. Alongside his shock, he sensed the possibility of success. Lou Xiaoguo seemed experienced and looked like the sort of man who was very popular among gay men. Why not take advantage of the situation, pretend to date Lou Xiaoguo, and use him to learn how to seduce Luo Yingqiang?
He Yunchao broke down crying in front of Lou Xiaoguo. “Bro Xiaoguo, I know what I did was immoral, but I really had no other choice!”
Elio’s Notes: Earlier chapters identify He Yunchao’s father as He Shuyou. From this chapter onward, the supplied raw repeatedly calls him He Youqun. The translation follows the current raw rather than silently merging the two names.