He Became a Hostage

The office door was shut and bolted from within — a reinforced anti-theft, blast-resistant door by design, and one charge wasn't enough to break it. Downstairs, the receptionist sensed something was wrong and came running up with the keys.

'There are sounds inside,' He Yu said.

Xie Qingcheng hammered at the door. In all the time He Yu had known him, he had never seen his face look like that — as though something had gone out of him, as though he'd lost his mind: 'Xie Xue! Xie Xue!! Are you in there! Answer me!! Xie Xue!!'

No one answered.

There was only that soft, tender voice, winding through the silence like smoke: 'Drop the handkerchief, drop the handkerchief...'

'The k-key — the key!! ' The receptionist came rushing up and thrust it into his hands.

Xie Qingcheng took it. His hands were shaking so badly it took two tries to find the lock; then the tumblers turned with a click, and he slammed the door open. The smell hit him first — thick, raw, metallic — and then Xie Xue's bloodied, mangled body slammed into his vision all at once.

Xie Qingcheng's legs nearly gave out. Darkness crashed across his eyes like a blow to the skull; it felt as though the sky itself had collapsed and come down on every bone in his body. His tall frame lurched forward, and if he hadn't caught the doorframe in time he might have gone straight to his knees.

The ceiling fan still turned in the room, its lazy revolutions stirring the thick, rank smell of blood.

Xie Qingcheng had never been squeamish about blood. But in this moment it was as though all that vivid, saturated red were rising to drown him. The instant he saw Xie Xue's body he stopped seeing anything clearly — his soul had already fled before the full weight of the horror arrived. He was losing consciousness, losing hearing, losing sight, losing touch. Everything dissolved into blur.

Someone behind him was screaming — the receptionist who'd come up with them, he thought, though he couldn't be sure. He couldn't make out sound anymore.

Only his sense of smell remained, and with terrible, unbearable clarity.

The stench of blood poured into him from every direction, as though it meant to tear his lungs apart.

He staggered forward into the room. Death and danger meant nothing to him now. If the killer rushed him and cut him down where he stood, he wouldn't have cared.

That was his sister.

He couldn't tell who was murmuring: 'Xie Xue... Xie Xue...'

The voice was shaking in a way that was terrible to hear.

Yet it seemed to leak from his own broken, hoarse throat — a low, resonant drone.

'Xie Xue——!!'

'Don't go any closer!!'

Someone grabbed his arm without warning and hauled him back, throwing both arms around his waist: 'Don't go closer!! Xie Qingcheng!!'

He didn't blink. He didn't try to pull free. He just kept moving forward, with a force that was startling — he was past feeling now. In this whole world there were so few people he cared about at all...

At that moment it was as though rain had begun to fall across his vision — a vast, blinding downpour with the smell of blood in it. He stood motionless in that rain, and it was the first time he had ever seen death up close —

His parents had died in a pool of blood. Their bodies had been crushed, broken apart. His mother's lower half had been ground almost entirely to pulp; one severed hand had rolled far away from the rest. He had walked toward it. That hand had lain just in front of his feet.

He had stared at it with empty eyes...

'Xie Qingcheng! It's not Xie Xue! Snap out of it — look carefully!!'

The words hit him like a fist through a mirror — sudden and shattering, tearing his consciousness back from the depths of that enormous dread.

He turned his head slowly. The focus returned to his eyes, settled on the face of the person who had said it.

It was...

He Yu.

He Yu was the one saying this to him.

It wasn't real.

It wasn't true.

Not dead...

He snapped back all at once, whipped around, and looked —

The uniform was still Xie Xue's — that much seared the eyes. But looking more carefully, the height and build of that bloodied, destroyed corpse were wrong for Xie Xue. Her Huzhou University staff jacket had been forced onto the body; at the chest, the buttons couldn't even close. It was a man's corpse.

Xie Qingcheng's knees buckled. The soul that had left his body was shoved back into his flesh in an instant, with a violence so crude his body could barely withstand it.

He closed his eyes and steadied himself for a moment before he could pull himself free of that drowning, all-consuming terror — but he was soaked through by then, cold sweat covering his skin and gathered at his brow.

No ordinary person could have identified this body, already reduced to ruin, in so short a time.

The smell of blood alone was enough to rob a person of consciousness, enough to make clear thinking impossible.

But He Yu was a singular case in the annals of psychiatric illness — a patient of the disease known as 'psychological Ebola.' More than that, he was Case No. 4: among all recorded cases of psychological Ebola, the one with the highest documented tolerance for blood.

He had no fear of blood. At his worst, he craved it.

That was why he had been able to identify the body so quickly.

He turned to the 'Liang Jicheng' inside and asked, his voice cold and flat: 'Where is the girl?'

'Liang Jicheng' lifted her head —

She was exactly as Xie Xue's last message had described: a strikingly beautiful woman, one who had somehow outlasted time itself. The years had not carved too cruel a mark into her face. She was far more gorgeous and bewitching than women her age had any right to be.

Behind Xie Qingcheng and He Yu, the receptionist who had come up with them had collapsed to the floor, paralyzed with fear — and had wet herself. When she managed to make out 'Liang Jicheng's' face, she let out a sound that was less a scream than a wail, twisted and animal.

'It's her!! It's her!!!'

By then the security guards had come charging up one after another at the commotion. The sight before them drained the life from every face. Only a few managed to force the words out, their voices blown raw —

'Jiang Lanpei!!'

'How did she get out?!'

Jiang Lanpei was a fixture at Chengkang Psychiatric Hospital — what people in such places called an 'elder.' In psychiatric wards and hospital morgues alike, there was an unwritten rule: any patient or body left unclaimed for too long was given that name.

Jiang Lanpei had been here for nearly twenty years.

No one had ever come to visit her.

Even the circumstances of how she had first arrived had been lost — swallowed up in the transition from paper records to digital, the files gone, untraceable.

The staff at Chengkang Psychiatric Hospital knew only that she was a lunatic you didn't cross — because her madness was the least obvious kind. Where other patients were wild-haired and incoherent, she kept herself immaculate every day, and she could hold a conversation well enough to seem perfectly reasonable.

But everyone in the hospital knew that while her speech followed its own logic, its content was entirely invented. To put it plainly: it was madness that sounded like sense.

'Don't engage with her beyond what care requires — finish and leave at once. That woman knows how to get inside your head.'

That rule had been set down by the hospital's founder, Liang Zhongkang, and it had never changed — not after Liang Zhongkang died, not when his younger brother Liang Jicheng and the other partners took over the hospital.

The man lying on the floor was the real Liang Jicheng.

Jiang Lanpei watched the gathering crowd outside with cold, lidded eyes. 'No one calls the police,' she said.

'Someone call —'

'I dare anyone to try.'

Jiang Lanpei snapped the scalpel up, pointing it at them one by one, madness flickering in her eyes.

'I've rotted in this place for nearly twenty years. I've had enough. I'm leaving now — I'm going home. My children are waiting for me.'

'You — you don't have any children, Jiang Lanpei!' The head of security was braver than most; he crouched low and moved forward, shouting at her with barely contained nerves. 'You have no children! You're alone! We've taken care of you for twenty years —'

'Bullshit! You took care of me? You call that taking care of me? Let me go! I'm leaving right now! Get out of my way! All of you, get out of my way — or... or you'll never find out where that girl is!!'

He Yu and Xie Qingcheng both went pale.

'Where is she?!' Xie Qingcheng said.

'You think I'm stupid! Why would I tell you! The moment I do they can take me away!'

Xie Qingcheng's face went iron-grey. Something occurred to him. He stepped forward.

Jiang Lanpei stepped back twice, swinging the blade up to point at his chest — the scalpel was still dripping blood: 'What are you doing? I said don't come closer!'

'You took her as a hostage to give yourself leverage. Is that it?'

'...'

Xie Qingcheng raised his hand, held her gaze, and then — without warning — closed his fingers around the blood-slicked blade. Jiang Lanpei screamed and wrenched at the scalpel to pull it free. His palm split open in an instant, blood running steadily down.

'What are you doing — you don't care if she lives?! You —'

He guided the blade, still in his grip, until it pressed against his own chest.

Everyone around them went rigid.

'Take me instead,' Xie Qingcheng said, without blinking.

Jiang Lanpei went still.

Xie Qingcheng slowly released his hold on the blade, each word measured and separate: 'Take me instead. Tell them where she is right now — have someone bring her to me. I'll stay here and wait. If anything happens to her, I don't care whether you're genuinely mad or just playing at it — I will end your fucking life.'

Jiang Lanpei considered for a moment, but her mind was running ragged; she couldn't think it through.

Xie Qingcheng's eyes were too frightening. She stared at him — a butcher, a killer — and yet somehow his gaze pressed down on her until she could barely breathe. She stopped thinking about it, reached out and yanked him toward her, pressing the blade against the artery in his neck.

'...Xie Qingcheng!' He Yu said.

'The girl is in Room B3009. My room.'

'Already checked! Don't fall for it!' one of the guards shouted. 'Jiang Lanpei — there's no one in your room!!'

Jiang Lanpei gave a cold laugh. 'Move the bed. There's a loose board underneath — pry it up. It opens into a very small hidden room. You'd all better go together. Besides the girl, there are other surprises waiting for you.'

The guards exchanged glances. Three of them moved to go.

Jiang Lanpei said suddenly: 'Wait — all of you. Take out your phones and throw them on the ground.'

'...'

There was nothing to do but comply. One by one the phones hit the floor. Once they'd surrendered their means of communication, the three guards were permitted to go to Room B3009, not far away, while the rest stayed behind.

They were back within minutes.

Whatever those three had seen in the hidden room, it showed — their faces had gone the grey of badly mixed, half-dried cement. They had taken a bedsheet as a makeshift stretcher and were carrying the unconscious Xie Xue between them.

The moment Xie Qingcheng saw her, something in him gave way.

His heart couldn't take it.

Part of him exhaled for the first time — Xie Xue was alive, clearly only drugged into unconsciousness. The other part of him was breaking, because Xie Xue's clothes had been removed. It was the turn of summer into autumn, still sweltering; without her uniform, she had on nothing but a thin white lace slip.

He looked once, then looked away. He was shaking with rage.

He raised his hand —

'What are you doing? Don't move!' Jiang Lanpei said.

'That is my fucking sister.' Xie Qingcheng unbuttoned his shirt. Under Jiang Lanpei's trembling blade, still pressed hard against his throat, he tossed the shirt to He Yu.

His eyes were red. 'Put it on her,' he ordered.

He Yu was already reaching for it before he said a word. He dressed Xie Xue and covered her. Then he gathered her up into his arms — she went limp against his chest, soft and boneless — and turned to look at Xie Qingcheng. 'What about you.'

'What about me!' Xie Qingcheng snapped. 'What else can we do — you're bad luck the moment you show up. Back when we had Cinderella, why didn't you ever rifle through her, eat the poison inside like a piece of candy and do us all a favour?'

He Yu's eyes narrowed slowly.

He understood exactly what Xie Qingcheng's words meant — the words that sounded like complaint.

But he understood. Jiang Lanpei did not.

'Everyone comes with me to the roof,' Jiang Lanpei said.

'Once we're up there, I'll let him go.'

Any murderer making an escape with a hostage would normally demand a car, no police, safe passage out of the gate. But Jiang Lanpei — who looked so sane — was no ordinary lunatic. She wasn't heading down. She was heading for the roof.

Was there a helicopter waiting up there?

But she had given the order, and there was nothing for the others to do but obey.

'Move! All of you go first! Walk ahead of me! Up to the very top! Go!'

She herded them upward one by one, and only once everyone else had filed out did she manoeuvre Xie Qingcheng along behind them, moving with careful, deliberate steps.

Chengkang Psychiatric Hospital stood in a desolate stretch of land far from the city. The rooftop lights were sparse, and the night wind blew hard, cold enough to dry the sweat on a person's skin and raise the hair on their arms.

Jiang Lanpei ordered everyone to sit at a distance from her, then backed herself against the water tower, the scalpel still at Xie Qingcheng's throat.

'Your purpose,' Xie Qingcheng said.

'I told you — my purpose is to escape!'

'That's not your purpose.'

'What would you know?' Jiang Lanpei said. 'Someone from above will come for me...' The blade pressed harder into his skin; blood had already begun to seep. 'When they come, all of you will die.'

She rose onto her toes and whispered into Xie Qingcheng's ear: 'Every last one of you.'

Once he knew Xie Xue was safe, Xie Qingcheng had gone entirely calm. His mind was clear. His own life had never counted for much in his own reckoning.

He said to Jiang Lanpei, his voice cold: 'If that's how it is, why not just kill me now? Either way, by your account, we all die in the end.'

'You —!'

'Can't bring yourself to do it?'

'...'

'What are you waiting for — someone from above? There's no one up there. The smog is too thick. Not even a star.'

'You'll all just wait,' Jiang Lanpei said quietly. 'That's all.'

As she spoke, she must have felt her strength beginning to fade. She was a woman of around fifty, and she had been up on her toes for a long time, holding her body rigid to keep Xie Qingcheng at knifepoint while staying alert to everyone else — it was wearing on her. She let her eyes sweep the area around the water tower and found a length of hemp rope left by a maintenance crew. She hooked it toward herself with her foot, never letting the blade leave Xie Qingcheng's throat.

Then she began to bind him, tying him solidly to the water tower, knot after knot.

Xie Qingcheng gave a cold laugh. 'You're quite practised at that. Is this what you spent twenty years in a madhouse perfecting?'

The woman flinched as though he'd struck something raw — and then her palm cracked across his face, sharp and ringing. 'Shut your mouth,' she spat.

She finished tying him, stepped back a few paces, and at last let out a breath.

The hatred burning in her eyes: 'Every one of you men is an animal.'

Behind them, the guards had begun to whisper among themselves — those who hadn't gone to find Xie Xue asking the three who had: 'Was there really a hidden room in Jiang Lanpei's room?'

Those three guards looked far worse than the rest. Two of them couldn't pull themselves together at all, and the fear in their eyes as they stared at Jiang Lanpei was unguarded and total.

Only one managed to answer: 'There was.'

'What was inside?'

What was inside?

All three guards shuddered at once.

Before they could speak, Jiang Lanpei heard them. She turned around slowly, the blade in her hand.

She smiled. 'What was inside?'

The hatred in that smile rose like fire catching, and the choking, scorched smell of it seemed to take on substance in the air —

'What was inside? Ha... hahaha... Love. Very, very close, tender love...! Isn't that right?' Jiang Lanpei's face twisted as she said it. She was, in the end, a madwoman.

Among the three guards, the only one still capable of speech — an older man with a daughter of his own — pressed his hands over his face and forced out the words, his voice heavy with pain: 'Liang Jicheng raped her.'

'!!'

'For over ten years... every night, no matter what condition she was in... every night Liang Jicheng left a photograph in that room, so that everywhere you looked, in every direction, all you could see was...'

'And that's not even the half of it,' Jiang Lanpei said lightly. 'You saw the skeleton in the corner, didn't you?'

'...'

'That was a little snack Liang Jicheng brought here.' She leaned in as though sharing a secret, but her voice was loud, and hoarse — the ragged, mocking cry of a crow. 'He liked to eat outside, but he was afraid of leaving crumbs, afraid the smell would attract cats! So he brought her here, to the madhouse, to my room — the hidden room had been there from the beginning, known only to him and his brother. They ate their snack there... The girl couldn't bear the humiliation. She bashed her head into the wall and died. You can't just throw a snack in the rubbish bin, too messy to dispose of — so she stayed in the room. They soaked her in acid. The flesh went quickly. Not much bone left either... But they kept some of it. To show me. To frighten me. To make sure I didn't try to die — because they told me dying would bring the same fate.'

With every word she added, the horror on the faces of those who heard her deepened.

Only He Yu's face remained still throughout.

Xie Qingcheng held more fury than fear.

'The snack died on her own — couldn't be thrown in the rubbish, too hard to handle, so she stayed in the room. Acid soak, the flesh goes fast, not much bone left... but they kept a little, for me to see, to scare me. So I wouldn't try to die — dying would be the same fate,' Jiang Lanpei repeated, her mind beginning to fragment under the weight of what she was recalling, her speech breaking into stops and starts — but the madness in her face hadn't dimmed at all.

'I pretended to be afraid. I gave them what they wanted every day... Then he died... and there was just the younger brother... pfft. That younger brother was more revolting than the first — a degenerate, inside and out...'

'Why didn't you tell us! Why didn't you let us call the police?!!'

One of the young nurses had heard enough; her eyes were full of tears. 'If you'd reported it we could have helped you!'

'Who would have believed me?! I'm a lunatic — a lunatic!! They told you not to talk to me! Stay as far away as possible! Every day you gave me my medication — pills, pills, fob me off with pills! Has anyone ever actually listened to me? Has anyone ever believed a word I said?!' Jiang Lanpei's voice rose to a shout. 'I'm mentally ill — so to all of you, I'm a plague! You don't need to truly listen, you don't need to genuinely care. What could I dare tell you? If I told you anything, Liang Jicheng would have killed me the moment he found out.'

Room B3006 was a rusted furnace, and in it, nearly twenty years of desire and crime had simmered.

Because she was sick, in the eyes of normal people a judgement had already been formed before anyone looked closely. Between a madwoman and the director of a psychiatric hospital, everyone would only ever believe the latter. Slowly, the hidden room beneath the woman's bed became a spider's den that no daylight ever reached, and the woman's flesh and blood rotted in the web.

'I am disgusted by all of you.'

'I hate every last one of you!!'

As Jiang Lanpei said it, the light in her eyes grew more frightening still — and then her voice began to drop, and she folded her hands over her head.

'No one can help me... I have long since... I can no longer remember who I am, or where I came from... I can only... I can only go back to where I came from. Back to the sky.'

She snapped her head up and stared at them.

'You're all coming with me.'

As the words left her mouth, she suddenly noticed that one of the guards was looking at her strangely — something in his eyes, a tension that shouldn't have been there. She froze for a split second, and then she understood, and spun around —

At the same moment, a rush of air struck her face. She barely managed to dodge, but was instantly caught by a hard kick from the man's long legs and slammed down onto the rough concrete of the rooftop. She stared up in disbelief at the man standing over her against the clouded night sky — bare-chested, shoulders lean and strong, his expression merciless.

'That knot — how did you possibly...'

'Forgot to mention,' Xie Qingcheng said, his voice ice. 'Both my parents were police officers. That knot? I've been undoing that knot since I was a fucking child.'