His father had been scolded for most of his life, and Deng Yao had been scolded for over twenty years. His parents would still occasionally be intimate – in that small courtyard, they had no concept of privacy, making noise in their room.

Sometimes Deng Yao would be in the slaughterhouse, cutting meat from pigs larger than himself, while hearing the sounds from their room. He couldn’t remember how old he was – very, very young – when his body first started responding. Those feelings were chaotic and dirty, frightening the young boy, yet somehow tempting him to explore them.

His father was what the police would call a sex offender. When Deng Yao was in his teens, he caught his father hiding behind public toilets, peeping, even with his pants down, doing what any man might do. Once his father saw him and, after fastening his pants, slapped him.

By then Deng Yao was already taller than his father, and something snapped that day – perhaps he too had become excited while watching from the side. He slapped back, knocking his father to the ground. For the first time, Deng Yao saw terror in his father’s eyes. Somehow, Deng Yao felt a kind of freedom, a comfort he’d never known before.

He asked, “Dad, was it good to watch?”

…

Later, he started doing the same things his father did. Sometimes when they encountered each other, they didn’t avoid each other – father and son would crouch together at the wall, watching the same strange woman.

As Deng Yao grew older, his mother suffered an unexpected stroke one winter. The doctors said it was due to excessive fat consumption, obesity, and lack of exercise – she collapsed suddenly. Strangely, while his father now had to watch Deng Yao’s mood, Deng Yao still couldn’t disobey his mother, even though she was partially paralyzed. If she wanted meat, Deng Yao would cut it; if she wanted to beat and scold him, he would lie by her bedside and take it. For all these years, in Deng Yao’s mind, his mother was the ruler of this house, the tormentor – she was the only one he couldn’t defy.

However, by the time Deng Yao reached his thirties, he had never been with a woman. No one was interested in him – his family background held no appeal, he was ugly, always standing like an iron tower, looking strange and somewhat frightening. At home, there was also his paralyzed mother with her difficult personality. No girl would willingly jump into such a fire pit.

It wasn’t that people hadn’t tried to arrange matches. Deng Yao had seen one girl from afar – she wasn’t much to look at either, too fat with small eyes and a big mouth. Deng Yao thought that if he had to be intimate with her, he’d have to close his eyes. But after the introduction, nothing came of it. In the end, she didn’t even want to give him a chance. Year after year, Deng Yao waited, peeping at countless people from public toilet walls, standing at his dirty butcher shop entrance, watching countless women pass by without sparing him a glance.

His hands grew heavier at work; his face hung lower and lower; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled. He also couldn’t remember when it started, but when he saw those thin, pale girls on the street who looked like they would break if he squeezed their waists, hatred would well up in his heart. In his mind, he had rehearsed thousands of times – torturing them, making them scream, making them submit. Making them kneel and worship him like a ruler.

These thoughts grew stronger and stronger. Several times when he saw girls alone at night, he almost acted on them.

…

Do you think my soul was born as pure as yours? Do you think I had to endure hardships, suffer torment, even face injustice, and have my soul torn apart before becoming a sinner?

No, from the moment I was born.

In the daily silence of my soul, in the numb and boring life.

I was already a sinner.

…

Meeting Zhao Feier was a coincidence.

That deep night, as usual, he was wandering on the streets when he saw Zhao Feier walking out of the Fenjinbao Company.

Deng Yao knew about that company – girls would often enter late at night and leave in the early hours or even the next morning. Once, when Deng Yao brushed past one of the girls, he caught a scent that made his heart tremble.

In a daze, Deng Yao understood what happened inside Fenjinbao Company. This excited him and made him yearn. So he often waited outside this company, watching the girls pass by, as if this way, he too was participating in their humiliation.

But Zhao Feier was different. When other girls came out, their faces were numb, seemingly devoid of any warmth. Only she was alive – she was crying, covering her face, and sobbing deeply. When he deliberately brushed past her, he was stunned – he didn’t catch that familiar scent.

Deng Yao didn’t know that Zhao Feier wasn’t chosen as a target by the snakes at Fenjinbao Company, so she didn’t even have the chance to repay with her body. She had filmed a compromising video for a loan a few days ago, and now they were threatening to send it to her family and friends. She was crying over her rashness and being trapped in this quagmire.

She should have that scent, Deng Yao thought.

She shouldn’t cry. She looked down on men like him, she should be lying under men being ravaged, why was she crying?

Suddenly Deng Yao was angry, uncontrollably angry. Because of this strange girl’s tears, because she wasn’t as fallen as he had thought. Before he realized it, he had followed her and grabbed her shoulder.

Zhao Feier turned around to see a strange, twisted face.

…

After Zhao Feier’s body was discovered, Deng Yao was so frightened he didn’t leave the house for two whole weeks. He hadn’t thought much when disposing of the body, completely dominated by a state of excitement, everything driven by desire. Only afterward did he feel fear. Especially when he saw more police on the streets during that time, with everyone talking about what happened to that woman. Deng Yao knew he couldn’t do it that way again – bodies had to be disposed of, they couldn’t be found.

After bringing home the second girl from the street, father and son smoked cigarettes while contemplating for a long time. They were butchers – dealing with a person was something they could do with their eyes closed. The bones were buried in the courtyard, walked over daily. As for flesh and blood… that was even easier to handle.

In that area, there were many poor people, migrant workers, and women working in the shadows. Deng Yao couldn’t even distinguish who the women he brought back were. The police have now matched those skeletal remains with missing person cases from recent years. But the fact that the father and son could successfully commit crimes in broad daylight without attracting police attention was still shocking. Thus, the disappearance process of those unidentified women needed further police investigation.

…

At this point, this series of shocking criminal cases that had rocked Sanxiang seemed to have been resolved with the capture of the true culprits.

A year ago, the father-son killers emerged, attacking, imprisoning, assaulting, killing, mutilating, and disposing of Liu Feier’s body.

Afterward, the father and son vanished, committing crimes in secret, repeatedly evading police detection.

A year later, Liu Yisha’s body appeared similarly. The police followed the trail, uncovering Fenjinbao Company’s years of illegal lending, sexual coercion, and their murder, mutilation, and disposal of Liu Yisha’s body. This toxic criminal group was finally taken down.

One accomplice fled while holding Officer Fan Jia hostage. Under Fan Jia’s persuasion, he decided to surrender. On the way, they encountered Deng Yao, who often prowled the area at night. Both were severely injured in the attack, Fan Jia was kidnapped, and the accomplice escaped.

Fan Jia sacrificed her life.

The father-son killers were finally captured, and the buried remains could see daylight again.