“Massacre” was a word that was truly too easy to associate with historical events. Ordinarily speaking, apart from super villains in movies and TV shows, if ordinary people wanted to commit this crime, it actually wouldn’t be so easy. This label falling on him out of the sky immediately struck the little boy dumb. He stared blankly at Kou Tong for a long time, then made a single sound like a feeble-minded child: “Ah?” 

Kou Tong decided to add to the flames. He turned his head and yelled, “Da Huang!” 

While the teenager who had failed to kill himself stared blankly, Da Huang, who had been hidden behind the scenes the whole time, obediently ran over. “Here!” 

Kou Tong extended a hand. “Binoculars!” 

Huang Jinchen clutched his chest in deep alarm. “What? I don’t have binoculars! I’m not a perverted peeping Tom!” 

That’s right, you boldly climb right through the window to peep—Kou Tong looked at him critically—Is now the time? Don’t talk nonsense, hurry up and cooperate! 

Huang Jinchen pursed his lips. “OK…” He felt around in his pants pocket and turned up a thumb-sized pair of binoculars.

Kou Tong picked up the binoculars and took a look, then gave them to the teenager He Xiaozhi. He pointed to a taxi in the street that had been crushed by a tree and said, “Look at that.” 

The teenager’s lips were turning pale. His hand shook a little as he held the binoculars. 

An ambulance quickly arrived by the side of the road. There were many people gathered in the street seeking refuge from the strange earthquake. They were stopped by the road. Some were on their phones, calling their friends and family to confirm their safety; some were slowly crowding around, going to help out. 

The crane couldn’t get through at first. An elderly person who must have been somewhat renowned voluntarily stood up to serve as conductor. Some men dressed in pajamas worked together to move the tree lying on the car. He Xiaozhi saw a person lifted out of the car, probably the taxi driver who had stopped the car by the road to wait for passengers or perhaps only to rest for a moment. In the end, he had unluckily encountered this big tree falling out of the sky.

It was unclear whether he was alive or dead. At any rate, until he had been lifted, covered in blood, into the ambulance by the medical personnel, he hadn’t moved a muscle. The ambulance barged away, wailing. The binoculars in He Xiaozhi’s hand dropped and were snatched up by Huang Jinchen, who, recovering from the shock, said, “These are the only ones I brought in, be careful!” 

He Xiaozhi pointed into the distance and asked Kou Tong, “That’s…because of me?” 

Kou Tong carefully observed his expression and reactions while he unfeelingly said, “What do you think?” 

He Xiaozhi hesitated for a moment, then shook his head forcefully. “It can’t be? How could it be? This can’t happen in the world, I don’t believe it!” 

Kou Tong’s answer was to rudely push him off the railing. He Xiaozhi hung suspended in the air. The intense feeling of weightlessness made his heart skip a beat. Though he had just decided to jump, he had been prepared then and had known what he was going to do ahead of time. Now that he had simply been pushed off, like all living beings, he automatically screamed and struggled—he even kicked off his shoes. 

Huang Jinchen watched and worried, afraid that Dr. Kou would become a murderer. He had to help hold He Xiaozhi. During the teenager’s fierce terror and screams, the previously unstable space once again began a new round of collapse. The cars stopped in the street began to honk in chorus again, and the road once more began to tremble. 

Deathly pale, He Xiaozhi looked down. His feet suddenly touched solid ground. He raised his head and found that the scumbag doctor Kou Tong had pulled him back. 

“Did you see that?” Kou Tong said. 

Concerning what was happening before his eyes, He Xiaozhi felt that his own intellect was short-circuiting a little. 

Kou Tong patted him on the head. “Come with me, and we’ll think of a way to get out together. When we get out, you can jump off a building or slit your wrists, just as you please.” 

He Xiaozhi hesitated for half a minute, then at last decided that he was at his wit’s end. So he silently followed them downstairs. 

This was how the stray child was abducted.  

Walking down the dim, narrow stairs, He Xiaozhi went in front in a trance, and Huang Jinchen and Kou Tong walked behind. Suddenly, Huang Jinchen suddenly turned his head, all his muscles tensing, giving off the air of a big carnivore. Then a clatter came from a corner of the roof. There was a small rat there that he had startled into bumping into a wall. 

“A rat?” Huang Jinchen raised his eyebrows. Then he cautiously looked around, withdrew the hostility he had released, and caught up with Kou Tong in two quick steps. 

He hesitated a moment, then tapped Kou Tong on the forearm and asked, “This… How did it happen?” 

In the dark stairwell, Kou Tong turned his head to look at him. There was only weak light reflected in his eyes. The car lights shining through the windows flashed, and Huang Jinchen suddenly had the impression that his eyes were full of a rich display of light and color. 

Kou Tong said, “Some hotheaded patients aren’t very easy to deal with.”

Imitating He Xiaozhi’s tone, Huang Jinchen said, “Liar.” 

Kou Tong didn’t answer, tacitly acknowledging the word “liar.” 

Huang Jinchen went two steps forward, walking shoulder to shoulder with him in the narrow space. His movements unusually gentle, he took Kou Tong by the arm and slowly rolled up his sleeve. This time, Kou Tong didn’t dodge. He had clearly already prepared himself psychologically. 

Huang Jinchen’s palms and fingertips were both quite rough, covered in calluses. They slipped over Kou Tong’s bare skin, the movements extremely careful, as if he wasn’t holding a person’s arm but a rare treasure. 

Kou Tong’s heart skipped a beat. He felt that it would be dangerous for this to go on, so he pulled his arm out of his hands. 

Huang Jinchen’s voice was very low. He sighed. There was no need to look at his expression to know how regretful he must look now. 

“Too bad,” Huang Jinchen said. “Old scars, huh? They look like they’ve been there a while. Did you get them when you were little?” 

Kou Tong didn’t answer. Huang Jinchen, nearly glued to his ear, quietly repeated, “Too bad. I didn’t know you back then.” 

He Xiaozhi was standing in the ruined street now, blankly looking at everything that he may have brought about himself. Kou Tong threw Huang Jinchen off and stepped up to pat him on the shoulder. “Come, walk over here.” 

Huang Jinchen stuck a hand into his pocket and followed them at a middle distance. 

When they went around a corner, Kou Tong finally turned his head to look at Huang Jinchen. He saw the man with his head slightly lowered, seeming to be looking at the ground a little absent-mindedly. Compared to the chaotic street, he looked so carefree that he didn’t especially fit his background. He was still wearing wide pants with rolled up cuffs, revealing a pair of gaudy knockoff sneakers under them. 

The words Huang Jinchen had said just now seemed to give his listener the feeling of being a cherished treasure; anyone who was human and not stone would be shaken for a moment by hearing them. 

But Kou Tong knew—each time he saw Huang Jinchen walking down the street like this, he had the feeling—that there was a deep-rooted indifference about this retired sniper. Kou Tong could see it in his eyes. It was as if he was in the habit of “objectifying” everything; in his eyes, all people were like things.

Some were garbage, some were precious stones, and some were beautiful works of art. 

Whether he liked or didn’t like a “thing,” they were after all only “things,” not “human lives.” Or they were only cold strings of numbers, some with parentheses, and some that had already changed to brackets. 

Even he himself didn’t seem to be a person. 

He was this country’s most terrifying gun. 

Kou Tong returned home. Before he could go inside, he ran into his mother and Yao Shuo, who had been affected by the earthquake and were temporarily taking refuge outside. Kou Tong’s mom ran up from a distance and sent Kou Tong rocking back two steps with a fierce bear hug. Then, right out in the open, she firmly raised her hand and hit him on the butt with all her might. Kou Tong’s eyes opened wide. For a moment, he suddenly didn’t know what to do. 

Tearfully, she said, “Where did you go? Don’t you know your mom is worried? Why are you so disobedient? Do you want to worry me to death?” 

Just as if her son wasn’t a grown man but a little boy on vacation from school who had run off to play and not come home. 

…Of course, when she had left the world of the living, her son really had been a little boy of that age. 

Time had come to a standstill for her long, long ago. Kou Tong suddenly felt his heart sting. 

There are people who long desperately to get something, then, after a very long time, so long that they no longer want it, can finally realize their already obsolete wish—for example, when he was four years old, he had very much wanted a little train. Each day on his way home from nursery school, he would press himself to the outside of the shop window for a long time. At night he longed for it so much he couldn’t sleep. It had been very expensive. But over twenty years later, though he was well-off, he no longer stopped outside the toy store.

For example, when he was ten years old, he had very much wanted a warm and fragrant embrace, even if she berated him, even if she cursed him in the street, uncompromisingly poured an unpleasant cup of milk down his throat every night…

These were things that he had once thought he would give everything in exchange for, even his own life and soul, but when they were suddenly forced on him over a decade later, Kou Tong found that he felt awkward. 

It was probably because time had changed things, or for some other reason. 

He slowly raised his arms and hugged the woman who was just slightly taller than his chin… Was she really so short? Then he lowered his head and buried his face in her sweetly fruit-scented soft hair. A little indistinctly, he said, “I’m sorry.” 

I’m sorry. He closed his eyes, thinking, But…you’re already dead. 

Not fifty meters away from them, a rat opened its little eyes and looked on from a distance. It was probably an animal’s instincts that made it fear Huang Jinchen somewhat. It didn’t especially dare to draw closer. It looked for a while, then made a very human gesture—it extended its front paw, scratched an incomprehensible sign on the wall, then ran away. 

It ran past the ordinary houses, ran past the trash cans in the alley, and came to another street—this street was like another world; it was the one in front of the coffee shop—with a road as colorful and soft as gelatin, lampposts made of chocolate, and streetlights of luminescent candy. 

The rat went along the road and squeezed into a little hole. Another rat was waiting by the door. They drew together as though discussing some information, then simultaneously ran downhill. 

There was a bridge at the end of the street, connecting the coast of the continent to a little island. The island was all lit up, like something out of a fairytale. Looking closely, there was actually a castle on it. 

The two rats crossed the bridge, rushing right towards the castle. 

This was a world where…anything could happen, and rules no longer applied. The whole city was enshrouded by a pair of eyes, and the people being spied on still weren’t on their guard.