Zong Hang pushed open the door and came out.

His legs were slightly shaking, his gun-gripping hand sweaty, while he kept encouraging himself internally: don’t be a coward, these people have no connection to you but are risking themselves to help you – you can’t let them down.

He moved step by step, following Ding Xi’s instructions to sit on the platform, legs crossed, keeping as far from the edge as possible.

Rain was still falling from the sky. The lake waters were dark in the night, making the sky appear lighter in contrast. To the right was a pitch-black mass that looked like someone crouching there – when first seeing it, Zong Hang almost cried out, but quickly recognized it was just a treetop showing above the water.

This boat house was like an isolated island surrounded by water, with no sounds or residents around. Where would Su Cai’s people be hiding?

Could they be… underwater?

This thought made Zong Hang’s hair stand on end: Were drug dealers this sophisticated nowadays? Deploying frogmen to catch him? Swimming underwater?

His back went cold, startling at the slightest movement. To be safe, he raised the gun with the barrel pointing at the water’s surface, then lifted his right hand to repeat the gesture Ding Xi had taught him several times.

He felt this was using both soft and hard approaches: I’m willing to be friends, we can talk things over, but don’t act rashly – I’m not someone to mess with, I have a gun.

After a while, there was suddenly a splash at the edge of the boat house.

Zong Hang quickly turned his head, only to see the water surface rippling there.

Before he could process this, another splash sounded.

This time from the left front.

Zong Hang’s nerves were all tensed: though his head-turning speed had been quite fast, all he saw was the undulating water surface.

Even a fool could tell this was not fish playing in the lake.

His heart was pounding wildly as he desperately suppressed the urges to scream, call for help, or scramble back into the house: hadn’t they agreed to “work together”? Right now he wasn’t Zong Hang, he was “Ding Xi” – he needed to be steady, remain calm in the face of change, and make the visitors unable to figure things out. If he couldn’t play Ding Xi well, everything would be exposed and others would be implicated.

So he swallowed and sat still.

After a while, from the corner of his eye, he suddenly glimpsed that treetop moving.

It was moving, not dramatically but enough to catch attention. Sometimes the leaves rubbed against each other, making extremely low rustling sounds.

It wasn’t the wind – the great lake was very still now, no wind.

Zong Hang’s throat went dry, cold sweat sliding down his back as he stared fixedly at that spot.

When he was young, Tong Hong would cook pork ribs in a pressure cooker. He liked to stand on tiptoe by the stove watching: the little chess piece-like pressure valve on the lid was fascinating, constantly spinning while letting out white steam with a hissing sound.

Tong Hong, afraid he would touch it carelessly, scared him: “Hang Hang, you mustn’t mess with it. If something goes wrong with this thing, the pot will explode and blow up our whole house.”

From then on, the pot surpassed his toy-snatching little sister to become his new childhood trauma. When kindergarten teachers asked the children to draw what they feared most, while others drew tigers, spiders, and monsters from Ultraman, he drew a pot.

…

Now, Zong Hang felt his childhood trauma returning.

Under the treetop, some danger was continuously fermenting and expanding, like a pressure cooker with a broken valve – it would inevitably explode, just a matter of time.

The treetop was shaking more and more violently.

Zong Hang gripped the gun handle tightly, so tense he forgot to breathe.

Come on, ducking or sticking your head out, it’s the same fate – better to die sooner than later. Besides, Ding Xi was watching from behind, he wouldn’t just stand by…

Finally-

With a splash, a one to two-meter-high white water spray suddenly burst up from under the treetop. Who knows what shot up from underwater, but Zong Hang could no longer control himself. He shouted, raising the gun, but before he could pull the trigger, a black shadow suddenly erupted from the water diagonally behind him, coming fast and fierce, instantly pinning him to the ground.

In the moment of being slammed down, Zong Hang also realized: that earlier water spray was really just water – there was nothing in it!

But there was no time to reflect on this diversionary tactic, as the life-and-death struggle had begun: that person had incredible strength, one hand choking his neck, the other suddenly pressing down the arm holding his gun, causing the gun to slip from his hand.

Those fingernails were extremely sharp, continuously sinking deep into his neck flesh, while his arm felt welded to the platform by an iron band, unable to lift even slightly.

Zong Hang immediately couldn’t breathe, his eyes bulging, his ears filled with sounds like monks chanting and drums beating at a ceremony – no normal sounds at all. In the darkness he couldn’t make out the face, only vaguely sensed it was a woman with disheveled long hair, and a strange putrid smell coming from her.

He struggled with all his might, one hand desperately reaching out, finally touching the gun barrel.

At this moment, the woman seemed to notice something, suddenly pausing slightly. Zong Hang keenly sensed the change in her force, grabbed the gun, and violently pulled the trigger aiming at her shoulder.

There was a click as the trigger was pulled all the way, but no bullet came out.

At such a crucial moment, every second could change fate. Zong Hang had no time to wonder why the gun wasn’t working, he flipped the gun around and swung it at the woman’s head while simultaneously surging up to pin her to the ground.

In his life, he actually had a moment where he could knock someone down, though it wouldn’t last more than a few seconds – Zong Hang felt if Ding Xi was waiting for the right moment, it should be now…

The woman made one roll, almost throwing Zong Hang off, and at this moment, he heard a bang as the door opened, accompanied by Ding Xi’s shout: “Hold on!”

The backup had finally arrived!

Zong Hang’s morale soared, knowing it was the final moment. No longer caring about anything else, he clung to the woman like an octopus. He just needed to hold her for another second or two, then with Ding Xi’s help, they could subdue this woman…

The woman let out a roar, her arm seeming to twist unnaturally as she reached back to claw at his neck. Zong Hang endured the pain, looking up at Ding Xi full of hope.

He saw the dark barrel of a gun.

The gun barrel was round, its shell gleaming coldly, looking into it was unfathomable, like inscrutable human hearts.

Ding Xi fired.

His wrist was very steady, his face expressionless, not caring which of the entangled people his bullets hit.

The silenced handgun wasn’t truly silent – there was still sound when firing, just much quieter, and it didn’t sound like gunshots but rather like dismantling metal parts: click, click.

When all the bullets were spent, his trigger finger was almost numb.

Not far away, the two people piled together still struggled weakly, then slid apart, no longer moving much.

Ding Xi stood for a while, letting out a long sigh, looked around to confirm there was nothing unusual in the surroundings, and then brought out the kerosene lamp from inside.

After lighting it, he carried the lamp forward a few steps.

Zong Hang lay on the ground, not dead yet, eyes open watching him, his chest rising and falling weakly. He had taken no less than three shots to the chest and abdomen, each breath accompanied by copious blood flow. This blood slid down his side, through the board gaps, dripping into the lake.

Listening carefully, one could hear the dripping sound.

Ding Xi moved the kerosene lamp toward the woman.

The woman was lying on her side, countless scars on her hanging arm.

Ding Xi raised his foot to turn her body face up. She had taken more bullets – of the handgun’s twelve rounds, at least six or seven had hit her, but none of the wounds were bleeding.

After confirming she wasn’t moving, Ding Xi knelt to check her breathing and then tested her chest.

She was completely dead.

He stood up again, moving the kerosene lamp to different positions until the lighting was suitable, then took out his phone and took several photos of the woman.

After finishing this, he happened to glance over and found Zong Hang still watching him.

This landlubber was holding onto his last breath quite long before death, but Ding Xi could understand: after all, dying with eyes open, wanting answers.

Ding Xi squatted down, reaching to close his eyelids, but Zong Hang was stubborn, refusing to close them, his lips moving, wanting to speak but unable to – his lungs were shot.

If he wouldn’t close them, so be it – no need to argue with a dying person.

Ding Xi opened the kerosene lamp cover, lit a cigarette from the flame, and after taking two puffs, looked down at Zong Hang with a smile, saying: “I heard you tell Yi Sa that I was peeping at her, and you said I didn’t look like a good person at first glance. Kid, let me teach you a life lesson…”

He no longer looked at Zong Hang, slightly raising his chin, slowly blowing smoke rings into the no-longer-so-dark night: “Once you feel someone doesn’t look like a good person, you shouldn’t trust them anymore.”

At the first glimpse of dawn, Ding Xi’s boat was just reaching the deep lake. All around was peaceful and quiet, the vast lake waiting to receive the first ray of daylight.

Ding Xi tipped the corpses from the boat’s bow into the lake: for convenience, the two bodies had been tied together, so he had chosen heavier stones to weigh them down – the small boat had been pressed almost to the waterline, but now with this tipping, both people and boat felt extremely light.

Ding Xi sent those photos to Ding Changsheng, with a three-word message –

It’s done.

The signal was still poor, the little circle indicating transmission progress kept spinning, but at this hour, Ding Changsheng probably wasn’t awake yet, so no hurry.

Ding Xi threw his phone onto the boat shelf and lay down in the cabin, left arm cushioning his head.

This boat was really nice, slim, and narrow, lying in it felt very snug, giving a sense of security.

After a night of running around and extreme mental tension, this moment finally brought complete relaxation.

His right hand rested on his lower abdomen, thumb, and index finger habitually rubbing against each other, his mind quickly reviewing everything from last night.

At Chen Tu’s place, he had cleaned up well – luggage, phone, everything that needed to be taken out was taken.

At Yi Sa’s place, the bloodstains were washed clean. He had carefully checked – no bullets had hit the wooden boards, and everything inside was restored to its original state. To prevent that beast Wu Gui from smelling anything unusual, he had even wiped the area where the corpse had lain with alcohol before washing it with water. Later, this boat would need the same thorough cleaning to ensure absolutely nothing was left.

Everything was perfect, done cleanly. Chen Tu’s boat probably wouldn’t burn completely, might be discovered in the future, and the corpses in the water might resurface someday, but it didn’t matter.

Because none of these could become direct evidence pointing to him.

This world was inherently dangerous – who could prove he had done these things?

The sun finally rose.

Ding Xi closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of the morning light, a smile appearing at the corner of his lips: unexpected that today would be sunny – truly a good omen.

Yesterday’s events, like yesterday’s death – what he had done, whose blood stained his hands – best let it be like the night just passed, never to return.

The phone rang, hearing this Umbrella Yin Song ringtone, he knew it was Ding Changsheng – though this song sounded discordant on the sunny Tonle Sap Great Lake.

When Ding Xi was young, he had once seen an Umbrella Yin Song performance, on the Yellow River banks. In the midnight turbid waves, a sheepskin raft was lowered, the singer holding a red umbrella in one hand and an oil lamp in the other, wearing no safety rope, standing on the raft with just his feet, singing at the top of his voice.

That scene was eerily ghostly yet made one’s blood surge.

…

Ding Xi sat up and answered the phone.

There was silence at first, but then Ding Changsheng’s voice came through.

“It’s done?”

“It’s done.”

“Clean job?”

“Clean.”

“How did you handle the bodies?”

“According to the rules, sunk them.”

Ding Changsheng made an affirmative sound, then after deliberating for a while, asked in a lowered voice: “Are you sure she didn’t meet with Yi Sa?”

“She shouldn’t have.”

“What about Yi Sa, did she notice anything?”

Ding Xi answered: “In Yi Sa’s mind, her sister died in 1996…”

At this point, his gaze seemingly casually lowered, sweeping across the lake surface where he had just disposed of the bodies: “Now, it’s the same.”

Ding Changsheng let out a breath but didn’t hang up. Ding Xi knew there was more to come, so waited quietly.

Sure enough, Ding Changsheng chose his words carefully.

“Yi Xiao escaped with all her might, even fled to Cambodia – if it wasn’t to find her sister, then what was it for?”

Ding Xi remained silent.

Don’t know.

Maybe will never know.

After all, dead people don’t talk.