I asked Old Yu, "Did you get a good look? Are you sure?"
Old Yu said, "He got me locked up for three years. I'd recognize him even if he were burned to ashes."
Good people really got no reward, while scourges lived a thousand years! My sister and my father were both gone, yet this gambling, womanizing, lying scumbag was living the good life. I couldn't swallow it.
Old Yu and I drank to drown our sorrows. As the alcohol went to my head, I said bitterly, "If I ever get my hands on him, I'll cut out his kidney!"
Old Yu said, "Do it. Why not? Someone like him doesn't deserve kidneys!"
We began planning how to take that man's kidney.
Old Yu went to the security department to check the surveillance footage and found that the man had visited dermatology and venereology.
I pulled up his medical records on the computer and found that he had no serious illness, just ordinary jock itch. Judging by the treatment records, the guy apparently had a promiscuous private life and suspected he had caught something.
That gave me an opening. Using the mobile number he had registered, I called him from the hospital phone and said he might have contracted a rare sexually transmitted disease, and that without surgery, his fungal skin infection might worsen. I told him to come to the hospital the next day and book a specialist appointment with Dr. Zhao Pengcheng in general surgery to discuss an operation.
The guy arrived early the next morning and booked an appointment with me. When his turn came, he said, "Dr. Zhao, you look familiar."
I was startled, thinking he had recognized me. But then he grew awkward and hesitant as he spoke, and I realized he was embarrassed to discuss his condition with so many people around and was deliberately trying to get friendly with me.
I laughed inwardly, looked through his medical booklet, and put on an act. "Your case is rather complicated. Go have a blood test first, then come back when there are fewer people."
After his blood test, he waited nearby until I was almost off work. Only when there were no other patients left did he bring me the results.
I said it was lucky he had come in early; his blood counts were still normal, so he could have surgery. He asked exactly what the disease was and whether the operation was dangerous. I made up a professional-sounding name, then said, "The surgery is very simple. It'll take about an hour, and you won't even need to be admitted."
That put him at ease.
I pretended to chat casually and asked whether he often went to Dongguan for fun. He perked up at that, saying things were very professionally run in Dongguan, and the girls had regular checkups, so there was no way he could catch anything. Then he asked whether I liked that sort of thing too. He said that now Dongguan was gone, he was hopping around the Wuzhong area, where all the girls had been trained in Dongguan.
I smiled and asked, "Aren't you afraid your wife will find out?"
He said anyone who wanted a wife could go marry one. He was a bachelor, and he could play however he liked, as much as he liked.
There's no justice if someone like you doesn't get uremia, I thought, but outwardly I feigned surprise. "Oh dear, then who's going to sign for your operation? Do any relatives or friends know you came here for treatment?"
"Who would tell anyone about a disease like this?" he asked uneasily. "Can't I sign for myself?"
I pretended to be in a bind. "According to the rules, no. But..."
Seeing an opening, he asked what I meant by "but."
I said, "Your operation isn't major surgery, and there isn't much risk. I could even do it for you privately."
He asked, "How would that work?"
I said, "I wouldn't issue any paperwork. I'd just take you straight to the operating room and get it done. There'd be no record of the operation in the hospital's medical records system, so no one would know you'd ever had this disease. But I'd be taking quite a risk."
He thought I was asking for money on the side and cautiously asked, "How much?"
I said, "Going through the hospital officially would cost about ten thousand. There'd be a hospital record, and a family member would have to sign. If I do it for you, I'll charge three thousand. Not expensive, right?"
He kept saying it wasn't expensive, and we arranged for him to come in at midnight for the operation.
Since we were doing it secretly, I couldn't get the drugs needed for the operation from the hospital, including anesthetics and emergency blood supplies, so I had Old Yu buy them through outside channels. Old Yu also served as my assistant that night. Of course, he knew nothing about medical care; his main job was to keep watch.
The operation went smoothly. I had removed one of the guy's kidneys and was about to suture him when Old Yu said, "Taking one is taking, and taking two is taking. This'll come out sooner or later. We might as well go all the way."
I was startled. "If we take both kidneys, he'll die."
Old Yu said, "If he doesn't die, sooner or later we will."
I said, "Then what do we do with the body?"
Old Yu said, "Dump it in the morgue and deal with it in a few days. No one will know."
I knew Old Yu was well liked in the security department and knew the morgue staff well too, so I didn't ask any more questions. Then I thought of my sister and my father again, and hatred rose from the bottom of my heart. I hardened my resolve and removed the guy's second kidney too.
For the next few days, I was beside myself, until Old Yu came to see me and gave me fifty thousand yuan. I asked him what it meant, and he said, "Two kidneys. Throwing them away would've been a waste. Better to trade them for some spending money."
I donated the money to the Kidney Love Public Welfare Fund, hoping patients like my sister would have a little more chance of recovery.
The floating ice slowly melted. Water overflowed from the bathtub, dripping onto the floor, then turned into vapor that filled the bathroom.
The man still stood in the bathroom doorway. Through the rising steam, he looked like a distorted surrealist painting.
"What happened after that?"
"After that, Old Yu and I worked together a few more times, always the same way. I did the surgery, and Old Yu cleaned up afterward."
"Those people all deserved to die," Zhao Pengcheng stressed.
"Were all the operations done in the hospital?"
"Yes, all in the hospital."
"What about the last two?"
"The last two? Recently... those two didn't deserve to die. I just wanted to give a warning to people who don't cherish their kidneys."
"What about the patient in a vegetative state?"
"Ah... what... vegetative state?"
Zhao Pengcheng's expression became agonized, as though he were resisting something. His resistance was fierce, and his body began to shake.
The crow on the windowsill suddenly cawed and flew through the bathroom windowpane, then flew into the mirror. The lipstick on the mirror slowly melted, running down like blood.
He struggled to stand up in the bathtub, making the water slosh loudly.
Hu Xing saw the suspect, who had been sitting peacefully in the interrogation chair, suddenly become agitated, struggling hard with his eyes closed as though tormented by a nightmare.
Just then, a police officer pushed the door open, saw Hu Xing, and asked, "Where's Captain Shi?"
Hu Xing said, "Conducting an interrogation."
The officer whispered a few words in Hu Xing's ear and set down a document.
Hu Xing nodded, opened the document and glanced at it, then picked up the phone. She saw Qingmu start circling the suspect again on the other side of the glass.
The man in the bathroom doorway walked in and paced back and forth.
Clop, clop.
Zhao Pengcheng heard slippers slapping against the floor tiles and felt an indescribable sense of comfort.
Clop, clop.
He slowly relaxed.
"You're a surgeon?" asked the man in slippers.
"Yes."
"You've performed a lot of operations?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever opened a skull?"
"Yes."
"It was that patient in a vegetative state, wasn't it?"
"Yes, that person was in a vegetative state."
"You removed his brain?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because..."
Just as Zhao Pengcheng was about to speak, a familiar tune sounded:
Dun, dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, dun, dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun...
He instinctively looked at the phone in the soap dish. That marimba tune was the default iPhone ringtone.
But the phone in the soap dish was a basic senior phone that could only make calls, and its screen had not lit up.
The ringtone grew louder and louder, its direction impossible to determine. It seemed to come from the sky and from underground, carrying some inconceivable power that made the entire space shake.
The mirror shattered first. Zhao Pengcheng saw the crow fly away into the distant void, cawing.
Then the bathroom floor tiles curled upward, the ceiling pressed down, and the world plunged into darkness...
With a cry, Zhao Pengcheng opened his eyes. He sat in the interrogation chair, terrified and uncertain, gasping for breath.
Shi Dazhuang's phone was ringing.
He had not wanted to answer a call during an interrogation, especially at such a critical moment. But before he could silence it, the suspect had already woken up.
Frowning, he pressed the answer button and asked, "What is it?"
Hu Xing's voice came over the phone. "Captain Shi, the autopsy report for the male body on Garbage Street is out. Also, the local station found an eyewitness during their door-to-door inquiries."