The Finale

Tang Wulin practically crashed through the storage-room door.

The medicine kit was on the top shelf, wedged between the tool bag and a spare mop head. When he rose on tiptoe to reach it, his elbow knocked over a bottle of drain cleaner, which clanged into the mop bucket. He had no time to care. He grabbed the kit and ran for the living room, his slippers sliding across the floor and nearly forcing him into a split. The corner of the kit struck the dining table leg, and a box of iodine swabs popped halfway out.

The living room still held the steam from the spilled hot tea, mixed with the astringent tang of powdered porcelain.

Gu Yue was still standing where she had been.

The puddle on the coffee table was no longer very hot. Several shards of porcelain lay sprawled across the glass like frozen waves. Her left hand hung at her side, palm up. The blood had mostly stopped flowing, but three wounds crossed the edge of her palm, all sliced open by the shattered thin porcelain. The cuts were narrow, their skin flaps neat, as if someone had measured them with a razor blade. Beads of blood had congealed along the wounds, while a few drops slowly crawled toward her wrist through the grooves of her palm, dragging several dark red lines across her pale skin.

She did not look down at her hand. Her silver-violet eyes were still fixed on the crooked door in the entryway where Xie Xie had crashed into it.

The door was half closed. The hallway's motion-sensor light had gone out, leaving a pitch-black slit.

Tang Wulin crouched in front of her, panting. He set the medicine kit down beside his knee with a slap, and even his hand trembled