"If you'd grown up in this village, getting up before dawn every day to chop wood and fetch water, looking after your paralyzed grandfather, paying for your little brother's schooling, and having the whole village avoid you like the plague," Jiang Xun said, curling his lip.
"...and you could still smile, I'd call you Dad."
Duan Qizhao: "..."
"But he doesn't have to go around with that grim face all day, does he? He doesn't even look up when I talk to him. I'm a person too, you know!"
"What have you said to him?"
Duan Qizhao opened his mouth, then closed it again.
He quickly reviewed his social performance over the past few days-"Hey, what's for dinner?" "Hey, is there any hot water?" "Hey, why do your chickens sound so awful?"
Fine. None of that really deserved so much as a glance.
"But don't you think he looks scary?" Duan Qizhao persisted. "Especially at night, when he sits on the doorstep wiping down that hoe. When the moonlight hits him, that look in his eyes-"
"You stay up in the middle of the night staring at him?" Jiang Xun raised an eyebrow.
Duan Qizhao was driven completely mad. "Who was staring at him?! I just happened to catch a glimpse when I got up to pee! By accident, do you understand?! Peripheral vision! It was my peripheral vision!"
Just as dusk fell, Shen Wangjing returned from the fields with his hoe over his shoulder.
At dinner, the three of them each occupied a separate corner.
Duan Qizhao squatted on the doorstep, cradling his bowl, his eyes flicking into it, then toward Shen Wangjing's face, then toward Jiang Xun's.
Jiang Xun was wholly absorbed in gnawing on his corn. He always ate as earnestly as a little hamster, his cheeks bulging.
Duan Qizhao's gaze lingered for a second on the greasy corner of his mouth, then quickly shifted away.
As usual, Shen Wangjing fed his grandfather first. The old man was doing a little better today; after finishing a bowl of vegetable porridge, he even reached for the corn. Shen Wangjing picked the kernels off one by one and mixed them into the porridge, crushing them with a spoon before feeding him.
As he drank his vegetable mush, Duan Qizhao calculated inwardly: Shen Wangjing really was quite attentive when he fed his grandfather. The corn kernels he picked off were all evenly sized, and he even blew on each spoonful before bringing it to the old man's mouth.
But murderers could be attentive too!
Didn't all those interviews about serial killers include people saying, "He always seemed pretty normal"?
Maybe murderers were scary precisely because they were so attentive. They planned more meticulously and were better at evading investigation!
Night deepened.
The moon in the mountains was big and round. Silver light leaked through the holes in the window paper, spreading a layer of cold light across the floor.
Jiang Xun was curled up on the bed, wrapped in his quilt and dead to the world.
Every so often, he rolled over, buried his face in the pillow and nuzzled it a couple of times, mumbled something unintelligible in his sleep, then sank back into slumber.
Duan Qizhao lay on the three-legged bench, his eyes wide as saucers.
The things he had heard at school that day kept playing over and over in his head.
"Shen Yuxing's brother is a murderer!"
"His mom ran away because she was scared!"
"Those two Shen brothers are bad seeds, each worse than the other!"
Duan Qizhao rolled over beneath his covers, then rolled over again. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, he craned his neck to look toward Shen Wangjing.
Shen Wangjing lay on the bench, which was only wide enough for one person to lie flat, with an arm beneath his head, breathing steadily.
Moonlight leaked through the holes in the window paper and fell on his profile, his brow casting shadows over his tightly shut eyes.
Those eyes that sent chills down people's spines were closed now, and he actually didn't look quite so frightening.
He could even be called a little handsome.
Duan Qizhao stared at that jawline for several seconds before suddenly realizing a very serious problem-Shen Wangjing's face really was outrageously handsome.
What normal person could develop bone structure like that while living on thin porridge and coarse steamed buns in some impoverished mountain backwater?
His jawline was sharper than that of the idol trainee his dad had spent three million to sign, and his nose was so straight it looked as though it had been sculpted in modeling software.
Duan Qizhao jolted and hurriedly snuffed out that thought.
He was looking at a murderer, not a male model!
When Jiang Xun had argued back at him during the day, he had been persuaded for a while. But now it was late, and the moonlight had washed away all reason, leaving only the most primal, instinctive fear creeping up his spine.
That person was less than three meters away.
That person could drive a whole group of debt collectors out of the village with a single hoe.
That person had dared to take on a gang of thugs head-on at fifteen, beating one of them so badly that he spent three months in the hospital.
He, Duan Qizhao, only dared shove people a couple of times when he fought. Being sent flying by Jiang Xun's kick last time was the worst beating he had taken in his life.
If Shen Wangjing really attacked-
Duan Qizhao's Adam's apple bobbed, and he quietly rolled over to face the bed.
Jiang Xun was curled up beneath his quilt, sleeping like a little hibernating bear. The quilt covered most of his head, leaving only a little tuft of sticking-up hair and half an ear exposed.
Why?
Why was he scared out of his wits sharing a roof with a murderer, while this guy slept sprawled out without a care in the world, a suspicious trace of moisture even glistening at the corner of his mouth?
Wasn't he afraid at all?
Duan Qizhao pulled the military coat over his head, lamenting that he had truly fallen right into a wolves' den.
One carefree little lunatic and one cold-faced, coldhearted suspected murderer.
What on earth had he, Duan Qizhao, done to deserve being sent to a place like this?
Meanwhile, in Capital City, Jiang Yanchu had already battled through three consecutive all-nighters.
The blue light of the computer screen fell on his face, illuminating the dark circles around his eyes.
He sat cross-legged on the study carpet, surrounded by three phones, two tablets, and a laptop, all logged into different social media accounts.
All dozen or so accounts had been newly registered over the past few days.
Although the production team's statement had suppressed the negative trending topic about Jiang Xun, the Weibo comments were still a cesspool.
The paid trolls Liu Wanying had hired had withdrawn, but the narrative she had pushed had already spread among real users. The number of people attacking Jiang Xun had increased rather than decreased.
[A violent psycho is a violent psycho. No whitewashing that.]
[Of course someone from an orphanage would be twisted.]
[I feel so bad for his stepmom. Who wouldn't have a breakdown dealing with a stepson like that every day?]
[Jiang Xun, get out of Metamorphosis.]
Jiang Yanchu hammered away at his keyboard, single-handedly fighting the haters. Yet within thirty seconds of posting a comment, his reply notifications were already chiming one after another.
[Here comes another bootlicker to clean up his mess.]
[Paid troll hired by Jiang Xun? How much per post? Let me in on it.]
[You're just as uncivilized as your fave.]
Jiang Yanchu took a deep breath and kept fighting. "I'm just a passerby discussing the facts. Jiang Xun grew up in an orphanage, and no one taught him how to deal with provocation. Yes, resorting to violence was wrong, but does that make all of you hurling abuse innocent?"
[A passerby? What passerby has time to type all that?]
[Find a new line, bootlicker. We're sick of this one.]
[I suggest you get off the planet along with Jiang Xun.]
Before you continue