NB Chapter48

I have never had much interest in **. Zhang Mingsheng looked after me well enough; amidst my occasional muffled groans, he patiently **, and when the **** sounded, I seemed to hear his light chuckle.

What was he laughing at?

Every touch made me weak and hollow; thus, the moment he pressed down on my legs, I unexpectedly felt satisfied through the pain.

He wrapped his arms around me. With my eyes closed, a sudden sense of sorrow washed over me. Even if the fleeting pleasure of the flesh could temporarily plunder the mind and reason, after the long, seemingly endless ////, *// afterward, there was an inevitable emptiness that could not be escaped.

Zhang Mingsheng released with a low gasp, his brows drawn tightly together.

I did not know if he was happy. I only knew that he collapsed heavily onto me while holding me tight.

When I opened my eyes again, the ceiling was already bright. This was my sky.

I didn’t even have the strength to sigh.

For reasons I could never quite explain, whenever depression took hold, the ache in my body always seemed to begin in my stomach. It was a diffuse, lingering kind of pain like a bowl of thick porridge, consistent from top to bottom, every spoonful the same dull heaviness. It spread with that exact uniformity, slowly draining the strength from my limbs and leaving me exhausted.

I could have thought of nothing at all, but as soon as I looked up, I saw Zhang Mingsheng sitting by the edge of the bed. As always, he sat with an apple in hand, peeling it with practiced care. The red skin unfurled in an unbroken spiral, curling down layer by layer.

In an instant, I suddenly wanted to ask Zhang Mingsheng what our relationship was now. If he hated me, he could very well cut me into a thousand pieces. His hands were always steady, comparable to a surgeon’s; I trusted his precision.

LThat was true indeed, even I felt that he had shown me mercy. Every police officer who had handled his parents’ disappearance case had been hanged and suspended high above in their uniforms with their legs swaying. They died amid the stench of uncontrolled bowels and bladder, disgraced even in death while still bearing the identity of police officers. His hatred ran that deep, to such an extreme, which was why killing alone had never been enough for him, he needed to humiliate them too.

But I did not die; he won’t allow me to. Perhaps it was because I had still been young when my careless words brought her calamity, or perhaps because I had once been held in his mother’s embrace. As someone who had borne witness to her kindness, I was allowed and ordered, even to remain alive in this world.

Is this more painful than death? Yes, because death is but a momentary thing, while living is so long and agonizing.

I wonder, then, what was on his mind when he sent those people to their deaths.

“Why?” I asked, my lips dry and cracked, my voice so faint it was scarcely more than a breath.

“Why what?” Zhang Mingsheng had known I was awake for a long time; so he wasn’t startled by my sudden voice at all.

“Why kill those frontline officers?”

“Officer Yu, are you still thinking about the case? You still want to go back to being a cop?”

“Just tell me why.”

I had no time to banter with him.

This is the only time I can speak with him calmly.

Zhang Mingsheng is not someone whose mouth can be easily pried open; one only ever learns what he chooses to reveal. He never revisits the scene, never flaunts his own cleverness, and unlike those psychopathic killers desperate for recognition or validation, he has no need to prove his existence through violence. His purpose is straightforward; to him, killing is like cleaning a fish. The unwanted scraps are discarded into the sink and washed away with his hands scrubbed clean, and life continues on as if nothing had happened.

I first learned that the killings of police officers had begun with him while I was still confined in the basement. At that time, I still held the naive belief that escape was possible, so I tested and questioned him in subtle ways, trying to determine whether he might be a suspect.

Unexpectedly, he told me directly, “Officer Yu, do you believe that those who kill someone’s parents should pay with their lives?”

“You needn’t pity them.”

It was so blunt, yet unfortunately I had no time to press him for details. The next second, I broke out in a cold sweat and collapsed into the corner. Ah Hai’s skill at twisting arms was truly superb; I didn’t even know when he discovered I had broken free from my ropes.

In the eight years that followed, my own safety became such a concern that I actually forgot to keep asking.

“Was it really you or not?”

“I thought Officer Yu had already made up your mind and concluded that I killed them all.”

“So, you didn’t kill them?”

“I had no reason to kill them, Officer Yu.” The sound of the apple being peeled rasped between his fingers. I don’t know if I misheard, but he sounded somewhat helpless.

“Who is imitating you?”

“If I end up both killing people and solving cases, wouldn’t the entire performance record of the Hong Kong Police Force be attributed to me?” He suddenly seemed to find some amusement in this.

“Whether you kill more or kill fewer, you’re facing the death penalty regardless.” I said as I closed my eyes, unwilling to entertain him any longer.

This case was far more complicated than I thought. Unfortunately, I no longer had the chance to seek the truth. And Zhang Mingsheng didn’t seem to care much about being framed either.

Having already committed crimes, there truly is no difference between killing one more or one fewer.

I thought of his mother.

Did she foresee her own fate long ago?

During those days of escape, with someone by my side and others worrying about, the memories of my childhood grew more distant. There was no space left to turn things over and over in my mind, to keep imagining different “what ifs.” But the moment I returned to this house, to Zhang Mingsheng, I inevitably began to recall everything from the past.

I guessed that the old director had never known his mother’s identity. For a woman to travel alone and deliberately avoid those who searched for her, she could only have been someone who had escaped. So, in those years, he simply observed in silence. Seeing that she meant no harm, he tacitly took her in and allowed her to stay and work there.

Over time, the nature of a person’s heart is always reflected in their daily life. What she was called or where she came from became less important.

It was only that my younger self didn’t understand, always in such a hurry to possess someone.

I tried to be understanding toward my younger self, but I couldn’t manage it; I simply wasn’t forgiving enough toward him. And as I thought this, I felt my hands begin to tremble.

“Where did you get that photo?”

Zhang Mingsheng did not answer the question directly. He took a long, roundabout way, perhaps because he so seldom laid his heart bare, so the beginning came out a little stiff, “…When I was very young, Zhang Yaonian gave me a storage box… That box was very worn, sky blue, and filled with various trinkets. There were hairpins, a sewing kit, a button, and a photograph… Zhang Yaonian told me that he still hadn’t found my parents’ whereabouts, but he discovered this box in the last place she had stayed.”

“That day, I picked up the photo and looked at it over and over again, and I realized I no longer remembered what she looked like; so when I saw that face, I didn’t feel sad,” Zhang Mingsheng said, his voice steady and unhurried, like a blade hanging above my head. “One day, because of you, I went to the orphanage. On the wall, I saw a photograph of you as a child.”

He could not recognize his mother, yet he recognized me.

The photograph had preserved it; the human ear and eye had also recorded it.

Finally, I asked the question I wanted to know the most, “Did you let me see that photo on purpose?”

The rasping sound stopped.

Zhang Mingsheng had likely broken the apple peel.

After a long, long time; as if a whole lifetime had passed, Zhang Mingsheng spoke coldly, “But I wasn’t as happy as I imagined I would be.”

That was the answer.

I lay in bed feeling as if my body had fallen into water before slowly sinking.

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