The Silent Listener

Night had fallen. The city was shrouded in a thick, daytime-like silence, with only the occasional car headlights flashing by on the distant elevated highway, casting fleeting streaks of light through the gaps in the curtains, like silent shooting stars. The main light in the study was off, with only the antique desk lamp in the corner casting a warm, dim glow, barely illuminating the few documents spread out in front of Lin Feng and the cup of tea that had long since gone cold beside him.

The air carried the faint, astringent scents of paper, old wood, and cooled tea leaves. It was very quiet, the kind of quiet Lin Feng was accustomed to and used for contemplation.

Then, a familiar, slight "fluctuation" came from that space that was unique to his consciousness connection with that specific assassin. It was Kong Xiang. At this time, it should be afternoon in Seattle. Lin Feng put down his pen, leaned back in the large leather chair, closed his eyes, and focused his attention on the connection.

"Boss? Are you there? Is it convenient... to talk to me?" Kong Xiang's voice came through, unlike his usual tone of suppressed excitement or cold observation when sharing his "experiences." Today, it sounded unusually calm. So calm that it was almost unnatural, like the sullen surface of the sea before a storm.

"Hmm. Go ahead," Lin Feng replied, his mind calm and undisturbed. He was used to Kong Xiang's occasional "confessions," which seemed to be a way for this young assassin to maintain his mental stability when facing those dark scenes in a foreign land.

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the line, then Kong Xiang's voice rang out again, his speech steady, even somewhat slow, as if he were carefully choosing his words, or as if he were recalling a documentary he had watched many times and which no longer stirred any emotion.

"This afternoon, I had no classes, so I went to the edge of that old industrial area in the south of the city with a foreman named Carlos from my uncle's company to 'visit' a temporary worker they often hire," Kong Xiang began, his tone like that of someone giving an academic presentation. "He's Latino, illegally arrived, named Miguel. He's about thirty-five or thirty-six, but looks like he's fifty. He does the heaviest manual labor at a private residential expansion construction site, carrying bricks, mixing cement, and cleaning up construction debris."

Lin Feng listened quietly.

" In United States construction sites, there's a very 'mature' chain of exploitation for undocumented immigrants," Kong Xiang continued, his voice devoid of anger, only possessing an almost cold, analytical quality. "Theoretically, a skilled laborer like Miguel, working ten hours a day, could earn around one hundred to one hundred and twenty dollars. Sounds pretty good, right?"

"But that hundred dollars, from leaving the employer's pocket to finally ending up in Miguel's well-worn overalls pocket, goes through several hands. The smuggler who introduced him takes a 'management fee,' the actual contractor (often not a legitimate company) takes a 'commission,' a member of a small gang responsible for security in the area (or collecting protection money) takes a 'security fee,' and finally, his foreman Carlos, who directly supervises him, deducts a 'tool usage and coordination fee.'"

Kong Xiang paused, as if calculating. "After all the layers of skimming, boss, guess how much Miguel will actually get in a day?"

Lin Feng did not answer.

"Five dollars," Kong Xiang said, his voice still steady. "If you're lucky, the foreman might be 'merciful,' or you might move a lot of bricks that day, and maybe you'll get an extra dollar or two. But most of the time, it's just five dollars. A crisp new green bill, or a few crumpled smaller bills."

"These five dollars have to support his entire family back in Mexico: his sick wife, two children in elementary school, and an elderly mother. They have to pay the meager but still existing rent for their dilapidated house back home, buy the cheapest food, and deal with the children's occasional headaches and fevers... all depending on these five dollars."

He dared not complain, dared not ask for more, dared not even take a day off. Because he was an "illegal worker," without status, without a contract, without legal protection. If he showed any "non-cooperation," the foreman Carlos could make a phone call, and the immigration police might appear in the next second, or even more "conveniently," the local gang would make him "disappear." If he was reported and deported, or simply vanished, it would mean a complete and instantaneous loss of food for his family far away in Mexico. So he could only bow his head, remain silent, like a tireless mule, day after day, exchanging his health, dignity, and the ever-present danger for those five dollars.

Kong Xiang's narration stopped, and the only sound in the line was his steady breathing, as if he had just described a trivial statistic.

After a moment, just when Lin Feng thought he had finished speaking, Kong Xiang's voice rang out again, seamlessly switching to another "case".

"There's another family, also Latino, living in a slum here known as the ' Trailer Graveyard.' The father broke his leg at another construction site, a comminuted fracture. But he has no health insurance, no compensation, and doesn't even dare to go to a proper hospital because the bill would immediately bankrupt his already shaky credit and might expose his equally undocumented family members."

"He could only go to an underground clinic, where the doctor gave him the strongest painkillers and some kind of hormone 'enhancing injection,' allowing him to barely stand and endure the excruciating pain. Then, the next day, he gritted his teeth, using the makeshift crutches the foreman 'lent' him, and returned to the construction site. His whole family was waiting for his meager wages, which were also being exploited at every level, to buy food. If he stopped, his family would immediately run out of food."

Kong Xiang's voice remained flat. "And his seventeen-year-old daughter, seeing her father like this, seeing the empty refrigerator and the rent payment notice, quietly went out into the streets one rainy night. She used the most primitive method, her body, to earn money. Later, she became pregnant. She dared not tell anyone, and had no money to go to the hospital. She stayed at home alone, using a clothes hanger..."

That's enough.

Lin Feng's voice suddenly rang out in the consciousness connection, interrupting Kong Xiang's cold and cruel narration.

The voice wasn't loud, but it was like a piece of cold iron, shattering the narrative field filled with desperate details that Kong Xiang had unilaterally constructed.

Upon connecting to the other end, Kong Xiang seemed to pause for a moment, then stopped.

Lin Feng leaned back in his leather chair, the neon lights outside the window flickering on his face. His eyes were closed, but his brows were furrowed tightly, and his jawline was taut. The open document on his desk had its edges curled slightly under the unconscious pressure of his fingertips.

A silence spread through the connection, even more suffocating than when Kong Xiang had just recounted his story.

A few seconds later, Lin Feng spoke again, his voice lower and deeper than before, as if each word was squeezed out from the depths of his throat, carrying an extreme, almost explosive restlessness and... some deeper, indescribable emotion.

"Kong Xiang." He called his name, his voice devoid of any warmth.

"Could you...?"

He paused, as if struggling to control something, and then, word by word, clearly uttered the sentence:

"Don't talk to me about this kind of thing."

It wasn't a question, nor a discussion; it was a firm, unequivocal statement, tinged with clear annoyance and resistance.

"You think--"

His voice rose slightly, and the suppressed agitation finally began to surface:

"--Do I really like listening to this?"

After the words were spoken, there was a deathly silence in the connection.

Only Lin Feng's slightly heavier breathing echoed in his consciousness and in his own ears.

The images that Kong Xiang described in his emotionless voice still seemed to linger in his mind's eye: a five-dollar bill, the staggering Back View of a man with a broken leg, the fearful yet resolute gaze of a girl in the darkness... These images were cold and cruel, carrying the nauseating despair of another world across the ocean, forcibly crammed into his mental space where he sought a moment of peace and a sense of control.

He doesn't like it. He really doesn't like it.

Outside the window, the city's night sky was silent, swallowing all sound.