"Oh, so this is what your little brother looks like! Have you fused?" Qingmu said.
Xia Tian merely glanced at him without responding, then slowly walked out of the elevator, step by step.
Outside the elevator was the building's rooftop. Gusts of wind howled past, and the city's fog obscured the distant, flickering neon lights. Only the moon shone with a furtive brightness through the clouds, like the eyes of a young man peeping at a girl bathing.
Xia Tian walked to the edge of the rooftop, half his face twisted grotesquely, the other half showing a serenity like release.
He saw a crow fly out of the fog below the building and land on the terrace, cawing. It stared at him there as though staring at a pile of flesh about to rot.
Xia Tian stepped out with one foot, lost his balance, and plunged headfirst.
A hideous face broke free of his body and floated in midair, letting out a shrill, chittering laugh:
"Big brother, I caught you."
"Big brother, you're about to die."
"Big brother, you'll go to hell."
Xia Tian felt his body falling.
He saw the light on the thirty-second floor flicker. Two silhouettes appeared on the curtains, a man and a woman arguing.
The light on the thirty-first floor stayed on, and the curtains were open. The woman lay on the bed, crying.
The woman on the thirtieth floor was in the living room, holding a glass of red wine as music played on a gramophone. She drank and swayed gently to the music. With her arms spread and her feet tracing a slow foxtrot, she seemed to be holding someone in an embrace on a dance floor steeped in tender feeling.
On the twenty-ninth floor, the woman's dance steps were a shambles. Red wine spilled from her glass onto the floor like a pool of crimson blood.
On the twenty-eighth floor, the woman flailed her arms and legs in a frenzy, then fell to the floor along with her wineglass. Before she fell, she glanced at Xia Tian as he plummeted past the window, a gentle smile touching her lips.
"Mom..." Xia Tian called softly.
On the twenty-seventh floor, the woman lay on the floor with her eyes tightly shut. Red liquid trickled from the corner of her mouth, whether wine or blood, he could not tell.
"Mom..." Xia Tian wanted to call out, but that floor passed by in an instant.
The windows on the twenty-sixth floor were tightly shut. Inside, two figures were entwined, writhing on a bed.
On the twenty-fifth floor, a pregnant woman was grooming herself at a dressing table while a man gently kneaded his shoulders. Behind the man, a boy's jealous eyes peered through a crack in the door. The man suddenly turned and slammed the door shut.
On the twenty-fourth floor, the woman, her belly bulging, collided with a little boy hurrying upstairs as she came down. Clutching her belly, the woman moaned. A white shadow flew out of her belly, across the living room, out the window, and over to Xia Tian as he plummeted.
The white shadow turned into a deathly pale face, its features contorted as it roared angrily at Xia Tian, "You killed me!"
"It wasn't me!" Xia Tian protested.
"Big brother, big brother, save me!" The face's voice grew gentle again.
Xia Tian reached out to catch the face, but it was falling much faster than he was. His hand had only brushed its edge before it whooshed downward.
"Little brother!" Xia Tian cried. He turned to look for it, only to see a large face smiling at him, with a bird's nest of hair and two thick brows bent into a woebegone expression.
He was falling, but Bird's Nest was flying. He rode an enormous crow, his old gray trench coat streaming behind him and snapping in the wind.
"Want to ride the crow with me?" Bird's Nest asked.
Xia Tian shook his head. "I'm going to die."
"If you get on my crow, you won't die."
Xia Tian said, "I'm going to find my mom."
"Oh, I see! But your mom isn't down there."
"Then where did my mom go?"
"Your mom went somewhere very far away. You'll have to grow up before you can find her. If you die before you grow up, you'll never find her," Bird's Nest said.
Xia Tian said, "Is that true?"
Bird's Nest nodded hard, his hair looking a little comical as the fierce wind blew it about.
"But I have to pay for my little brother's life with mine," Xia Tian said.
"Why?"
"Because I killed him."
"But just now you said you didn't."
"I only meant I didn't do it on purpose."
"How do you know that's your little brother? You've never even seen him."
"My mom told me."
"But didn't you say you couldn't find your mom?"
"It was my second mom. I don't want to call him Mom, but I have to admit he's my dad's wife, my second mom."
"Oh, you bumped into her while you were going upstairs, so you think you killed your little brother?"
"That's what my second mom said. She even drew a picture of what my little brother looked like. Every night before I went to sleep, she made me look at it and said that was my little brother. My name is Tiantian, and his is Haohao. I killed him, so he comes to play with me every night."
"Didn't you tell your dad?"
"He'd hit me."
"Does he hit you often?"
"He didn't before. Ever since my mom left, he's been hitting me a lot."
"Even if your dad hits you, you could still tell..." Bird's Nest thought for a moment. "Your grandparents, or Auntie Hu Xing!"
"It's Sister Xing," Xia Tian corrected him. "But I can't tell them! My second mom will stick needles in my bottom and make me eat mustard. If I tell anyone, my little brother will be unhappy too. When he's unhappy, he turns into something really scary!"
"Does she often stick needles in your bottom?"
"Yes! Whenever I upset her, she does that. I don't even dare bathe with the other children. I think my bottom must look really ugly."
"That must hurt a lot!"
"I'm not afraid of pain! I'm only afraid of my little brother. He's too frightening!"
The wind grew stronger and stronger, and there even seemed to be signs of rain. The smell of earth was already in the air.
"We're nearly at the bottom. If you don't get on now, you really will fall to your death," the man with the bird's-nest hair said. "Look how much fun riding a crow is!"
Xia Tian seemed a little tempted. He hesitated and said, "But if I ride your crow, I won't die. If I don't die, my little brother will still come looking for me every night."
"But what good will dying do?"
"I killed my little brother, and he turned into a ghost. I'm really scared. Once I die, I'll turn into a ghost too, and I won't be afraid of him anymore," Xia Tian said. "When I become a ghost, I'll apologize to him, play with him, and be his good friend."
"But don't you think you should say goodbye to the people you know before you die?" Bird's Nest encouraged him. "There are so many people who love you!"
Xia Tian thought for a moment. "Could you help me say goodbye to my Eldest Grandpa and Grandma Xia? You could tell Third Granduncle and Sister Xing too. Never mind anyone else. Anyway, you don't need to tell my dad. He only likes my second mom. He doesn't care about me at all."
Bird's Nest said, "Get on, and you can see them right away. Once you've said goodbye yourself, if you want to come back here, I'll fly you back! Besides, my crow flies so fast your little brother can't catch up!"
They fell another two floors, with the ground almost upon them.
Xia Tian said, "All right, I'll ride the crow."
He turned over in midair. Bird's Nest caught his arm and hauled him onto the crow's back.
The crow cawed, its wings skimming the ground as it swept past and shot up into the clouds and fog above.
Powerful winds enveloped Xia Tian. Everything shattered into fragments. He could neither open his eyes nor hear a sound.
Then he felt his body sink, and the world returned. He heard dogs barking outside the manor gates, birds singing in the woods on the hill behind it, and someone softly calling his name. "Tiantian! Tiantian!"
He opened his eyes and saw the man with the bird's-nest hair crouching right in front of him, both hands on his shoulders, his thick brows bent into that woebegone expression as he grinned at him.
Three women sat on the sofa nearby. Grandma Xia looked stern, just like the principal at a school assembly; Sister Xing's face was filled with anger, as though someone had stolen her snacks; and his second mom looked restless, as though she had eaten something that upset her stomach.