At first, Liu Yuyu endured it, but sometimes when his anger got the better of him, he would push back at Xu Jiayuan, and they would grapple with each other. Though Liu Yuyu was small, he was strong and fierce—Xu Jiayuan couldn’t gain much advantage, and both ended up with bruised faces.

This enraged Xu Jiayuan. The other two rushed over, supposedly to break up the fight, but they only restrained Liu Yuyu. Xu Jiayuan struck his face hard, saying, “You must have a death wish. If they weren’t holding you back, I’d kill you right now. Fine, I’m going to HR to expose you as an underage worker. Get lost!”

The other two pretended to mediate: “Little Liu, aren’t you going to apologize? You started it.”

“You want to be sent back?”

Liu Yuyu’s eyes were red with fury, unable to speak.

Xu Jiayuan turned and walked toward the door.

Liu Yuyu’s heart felt like it was being carved by a thousand knives. Through gritted teeth, he shouted, “Don’t go! Please don’t!”

Xu Jiayuan stood still for a moment, then walked back with a cold smile. “I won’t go if you kneel and apologize.”

…

On his days off, Liu Yuyu increasingly found himself drawn to the city center. There were wider roads, taller buildings, countless cars, and beautiful shopping malls. Even the internet cafes were grander than those in the factory town. He’d only been to internet cafes a few times before, lacking both money and interest. Now in the city, too intimidated to enter shopping malls or restaurants, internet cafes became his natural refuge.

His first encounter with Li Biran happened when they randomly teamed up and won a game.

Two equally gloomy youths, both alone, laughing exaggeratedly and freely after their victory.

Li Biran called him “Brother Yu.” He called him “Biran.”

Li Biran asked, “Brother Yu, where do you go to school? Want to meet up tomorrow?”

Liu Yuyu hesitated before answering, “I work now. Surprise, right? I’m already 18. I can only come next week.”

To Li Biran, Liu Yuyu was completely different from anyone else. He was quiet, mature, cool at gaming, and had money—spending hundreds on treating him to meals without batting an eye. Though they were close in age, Liu Yuyu worked and was self-sufficient. How free he seemed.

Their relationship grew closer, and they spent almost every week together. As they talked more deeply, they discovered that Li Biran had lived with his grandparents in the countryside for a while—the same place as Liu Yuyu. The timing matched up; they might have even played together as children. This made them even closer.

For Liu Yuyu, this feeling was also new. He’d always been controlled by others. Now, he had a little brother, a real friend.

This feeling was truly wonderful. Liu Yuyu cherished this hard-won friendship dearly. He also vaguely felt that his life shouldn’t be the way it was. He could do something big, and make everyone look at him differently.

Someday, he would take care of Xu Jiayuan, without anyone knowing. If he wanted to, he had a hundred ways to kill Xu Jiayuan. They had no idea.

…

One day, after another big fight with Xie Huifang, Li Biran came looking for Liu Yuyu near the factory. Liu Yuyu, afraid of showing his weak position at the factory, never let him inside. They only met at the internet cafe in town.

Li Biran said, “Damn, that woman pisses me off. She scolded me in front of everyone. She’s not even human.”

Liu Yuyu didn’t need to ask to imagine someone just like his aunt. He said, “She’s not your real mother, of course, she doesn’t treat you like a person.”

Li Biran’s face darkened. “One day, I’m going to kill her.”

Liu Yuyu glanced at him, and suddenly, that place in his heart that had always been covered in thin ice, too dangerous to tread, cracked open, revealing a strange light.

“Do you want her dead?” Liu Yuyu asked.

Li Biran was silent for a moment, then nodded.

Liu Yuyu’s voice trembled slightly as he took a drag from his cigarette. “I have a way.”

“What way?”

“Exchange murders.”

—

By evening, the preliminary interrogation of the two youths was complete. They had confessed to their crimes without reservation. Liu Yuyu, well-versed in detective novels, had planned both crimes, prepared all the tools, and set the timing and methods. Being cautious and intelligent, he had left almost no traces in the Xie Huifang case. He had even brutally killed the two children.

Li Biran was more reckless, leaving the death scene of Xu Jiayuan in chaos, forgetting shoe covers and leaving bloody footprints. But he had done something unexpectedly cruel—mutilating Xu Jiayuan’s face.

You Mingxu thought about Yin Feng’s theory that this was meant to steal the victim’s appearance or identity. Perhaps at the moment of killing, the youth had projected his relative onto the unrelated Xu Jiayuan, thus destroying the face. He never wanted to see that hated face again.

You Mingxu had handled cases more vicious and unconscionable than this one. The two youths’ murder methods were quite primitive and simple. But now that everything was clear, You Mingxu felt only a profound silence.

A silence that suffocated. Even during today’s interrogation, neither youth showed much remorse. At most, they showed fear and panic. But in their hearts, in their nearly formed worldviews, those two people still deserved to die. They were completely confused about their future. They seemed to have never considered this question. Nor had they thought about the victims’ families, or how their parents and relatives would live from now on…

A falling life keeps falling. Demons and spirits, water dropping through the stone.

And he was still a child, confused and ignorant, already in the abyss.

—

You Mingxu took a taxi home. Dusk had fallen, quiet and dark. She stopped, gazing at the lights in the high-rises, thinking of those two youths, her heart still heavy. Everything had settled, what could be done had been done, and what couldn’t be saved remained unsaved.

Rather than entering the complex, she leaned against the wall, lit a cigarette, and smoked for a while. Her mood gradually settled, like after solving every case—extreme tension and excitement followed by extreme emptiness.

One cigarette quickly finished, and she looked up again. From the complex, she could see her window in the distance, brightly lit. The case’s dark clouds would eventually pass, but she still didn’t want to go up.

Remembering last night, when she kissed Yin Feng, his devoted, enchanted expression and movements made her heart feel like it was being scorched, about to melt…

Silently, she lit another cigarette.

This time she’d smoke slower, she thought.

—

You Mingxu didn’t know that far away at a street corner, in the shadows, a car sat silently.

Two people sat inside. One lowered his binoculars, eyes still fixed on You Mingxu’s direction, and said, “Looks like the police have closed the case.”

The other person laughed softly, saying, “As they should. The police can only go this far.”

The first person also laughed, saying, “They think those two kids are the real culprits, just exchanging murders, haha!”

The other person squinted, looking toward You Mingxu, then up toward the heights, and asked, “Do you still want her?”

That person was silent for a moment before answering, “No, I don’t care anymore. What about you, do you want him?”

The other person drummed their fingers on the car window and answered, “Yes. I dream about it.”