TCOR CH24

Chapter 24: You can’t kill the bad guys

The situation was a little strange.

Shen Wunian and Mr Bodyguard were in the kitchen preparing dinner, leaving Pei Huanchen and me sitting opposite each other.

On the table were ceramic bowls of washed and cut fruit of all colours, and in front of each of us was an exquisite European-style teacup, but the teacups contained neither tea nor coffee, but just pure milk.

Pei Huanchen said that Mr Liang thought he shouldn’t drink too much caffeine, as it was bad for his health, so he could only drink milk.

I had a similar reason for not drinking tea before dinner – Shen Wunian felt that it was bad for digestion and sleep. So he let me drink milk instead.

Even though I was clearly an adult, I always felt like the table was full of two kids still being watched over by their parents.

‘It’s only Monday, and my business has already spread?’I lifted my cup and stared at the white liquid inside for a moment, thinking that honey had been added before I took a sip.

‘Your two roommates are talking about you everywhere,’ Pei Huanchen said, picking a grape and putting it in his mouth. His eyes narrowed slightly as he chewed, looking in a good mood.

The warm milk went down my throat and I could feel the sweetness spreading.

I was right: honey had really been added.

Usually, hearing this kind of news should be annoying, but I don’t know if it’s because of the honey, but at the moment, not only is my heart not annoyed, it’s also unexpectedly calm.

‘It’s not surprising. They were originally on better terms with Wang Xiangyang and will definitely stand by his side.’

“Sometimes I really don’t understand humans. They’re all human, so why do they kill each other?Mr Liang said that this is human nature, like the male lions in a pride who fight to become king.Pei Huanchen picked blueberries from the bowl on the table, one after the other. ‘And the only difference between humans and beasts… is that humans rarely fight alone. They usually look for allies, that is, friends, to become a more powerful force to deal with their enemies.’

“Harming a friend is to weaken the power of the alliance, which is not allowed.”

As the sun set, the sky changed from orange to blue-purple.In the other half of the sky, the moon appeared, and the evening clouds combined with it.In such a beautiful natural light, Pei Huanchen looked more and more unreal.

He pressed his fingertips on the largest blueberry, and kept pressing until the skin cracked and the juice oozed out.

“Do you want me to kill them for you?”He looked innocent and confused, but the words he spoke made me feel scared.

‘Huh?’I put down my teacup, afraid that I had misunderstood the meaning of “kill” in his words.I asked carefully, ‘How…kill?’

Pei Huanchen kept squashing the blueberry, not content to smash it to a pulp, but also grinding it into a pulp.

‘For Mr Liang, squishing a few little insects is no big deal.’He stared at the dark purple fruit purée, and his tone was so casual that it was like discussing the political teacher’s thinning hair. ‘We can start by [beep] them, then [beep] them again, if they don’t behave, [beep] them, and finally [beep] them…’

The more I listened, the more shocked I became.My body couldn’t help but gradually move away from his, until I was leaning back against the chair, with nowhere to hide.

Oh my god! Liangzai, how on earth did you raise your child? You’ve turned a perfectly normal Samoyed into an Arctic wolf!

‘What do you think?’After explaining his plan, Pei Huanchen sucked his juice-stained finger and asked what I thought, looking forward to my opinion.

I thought that if I just nodded, the plan would be put into action straight away.

‘Wait a minute!’ I said, reaching out to stop him, and hurried to the coffee table. I took some paper towels and quickly sat back down again.First, I wiped Pei Huanchen’s fingers clean, and then I wrapped the entire row of blueberries on the table in paper towels and threw them in the trash.

‘I know some people are really annoying, but they don’t deserve the treatment you just described.’The Ten Great Tortures of the Qing Dynasty were nothing compared to this.I couldn’t help but swallow, and continued, ‘The reason our human society has been able to develop steadily is because of the binding force of the law.If everyone just did whatever they wanted and took the law into their own hands, society would fall apart. Today, I can get someone killed for wronging me, but tomorrow, someone else might get me killed just for accidentally stepping on their foot.’

I tried to explain to him how important it is to obey the law and tried to change the way he thinks, but he kept tilting his head like a puppy, looking like he understood but didn’t.

I suddenly regretted not having studied early childhood education, so I didn’t know how to respond.

‘What’s got you so excited?’

At that moment, Shen Wunian came out of the kitchen and put a bowl of ham salad on the table.

Pei Huanchen said, ‘Zhong Ai said that we can’t take the law into our own hands against the bad guys.’

‘Oh.’Shen Wunian agreed with me completely, ‘Of course not, we are civilized people. Violence is not the solution. We must believe that the bad guys will eventually be brought to justice.’He was facing Pei Huanchen when he said this, and then turned to me for approval, ‘Right, little Ai?’

Thank goodness Shen Wunian supports me.

I nodded vigorously: ‘Yes, yes! The law will punish them!’

Pei Huanchen looked upset but after a while nodded: ‘Okay.’

Before Shen Wunian left, he took a few blueberries from the bowl. The blueberries grew on the branch like grapes, and he held up the branch and bit into the fruit, tilting his head back.The purple-red juice ran down his lips, staining them.

He licked his lips and said, ‘It’s quite sweet.’

He took the rest of the blueberries and went back to the kitchen. On his way, he called to the person in the kitchen, “Blackie, do you want some blueberries?”

Pei Huanchen didn’t stay for dinner, saying Mr Liang was still waiting for him to go back and eat together. Before leaving, he also said I should visit his house next time.

His arrival reminded me of something I had always forgotten – to ask Shen Wunian for my phone.

I had not thought about my phone for days, except that it was inconvenient when shopping. I thought that by cutting off contact with others, I would be safe and would not be hurt by those rumours.

But you can’t escape, and I can’t live in isolation forever.

After not charging my phone for a few days, the battery died. I plugged it in before dinner and after dinner, I checked my messages.Wow, there was a lot of information.

There were messages from my photography club seniors, classmates I knew well, my tutor, and… Bai Qixuan’s message.

I skipped Bai Qixuan and replied to the others first.

Peng Dai, one of the seniors, called me loads of times that afternoon and left me a bunch of voice messages.

‘Little Ai, I’ll come and meet you for dinner.Someone told me your roommate is bullying you.What’s going on?’

‘Who is it? Which son of a bitch is bullying you?’

I said I would help him.

I asked how he was, whether he was in hospital and if anyone was taking care of him, and said I would come and see him.

‘Everyone is worried about you. When you feel better, you must contact me!’

At first I planned to reply with a voice message, but I found that my throat was a little blocked, so I had to type instead.

[Sorry, sister, I haven’t checked my phone in the past few days. I’m fine, please tell everyone that I’m doing well now and let them stop worrying about me.]

I replied to the messages one after the other, and in the end there was no avoiding it, and it was just Bai Qixuan left.

He didn’t know what had happened to me, and thought I was still suffering from a cold.He sent two messages in the morning to ask if I was feeling better, and when I didn’t reply, he called me in the afternoon.

I used to like him, and although it was painful, there was always a sweet part to it.Not being able to see him, even if it was just a few words over the internet, was still a joy.Now, just a few days have passed, and the sweet part has disappeared without a trace, leaving only the pain.

[Sorry, Bai, I forgot my phone in the dorm today.My cold has already gone, it was just a minor illness, no big deal.]

Do I really understand Bai Qixuan? Is my feeling for him also just a first-impression effect?

We said a few random things to each other, then I left the bedroom.The living room was quiet, and I couldn’t see Shen Wunian anywhere.

The door to the outside world was slightly ajar, only the outermost old-fashioned iron door was closed.

I thought that Shen Wunian must have gone outside to smoke.

The front door had a French-style design, with the upper part made of transparent glass covered by a white curtain.I gently pushed the curtain aside and saw a tiny spark in the dim hallway.

There were motion sensor lights in the hallway, but perhaps Shen Wunian had been out for a long time, and the lights had all gone out.

He was leaning against the window, dressed lightly, as usual.The neon lights on the street shone through the window and showed half of his body, so that he was not completely hidden in the darkness.A misty smoke enveloped him, hiding his expression.You could just about see his eyebrows and eyes, and they looked tired and annoyed.

I want to take a picture.

Whatever his mood had been before, at that moment, the desire to pick up the camera and take his picture was stronger than any other emotion.

I turned around and hurried into the bedroom, searching the suitcase for the camera.Luckily, the battery hadn’t run out yet.If I turned off the display and only used the viewfinder, it should last for at least ten more minutes.

I took the camera back to the door, and like those paparazzi who wait for their targets, I moved quietly with the camera, opened the curtain with the lens, leaned in to the viewfinder, then aimed the camera at Shen Wunian and pressed the button to take the photo.

The smoke in the photo looked like a prop that had been prepared in advance, which made the image even more mysterious and unpredictable.

I took several shots like this, getting carried away, and I forgot that there was a door in between.When I adjusted the focus, the lens accidentally hit the glass, making a loud noise.

Shen Wunian looked at me, frowning, and in the lens, his face was backlit, looking like a hidden predator, his eyes cold and waiting.

I felt a shiver run down my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Thinking he was angry, I quickly put down the camera and tried to say sorry, but Shen Wunian put out his cigarette and slowly came from the dark to the light.

‘You scared me. I thought there was a mouse. It turned out to be Little Ai taking photos.’

I opened the door and quickly explained, ‘I… I didn’t mean to. I was afraid that if I told you, you wouldn’t look natural. If you don’t like it, I’ll delete it right away!’

He opened the iron gate and leaned over to see it.

I showed him the photo I had just taken.

He looked at it for a while and then suddenly laughed: ‘It really looks like him.’

I was very surprised by this unexpected comment, but before I could ask, he stood up straight.

‘Keep it if you like it,’ he said, and then he went inside and went to his room.

I looked at his disappearing back and then at the photo I had taken, worrying about it.

Was I really angry?