A Suggestion to Livestream

The silence in the connection lasted for about three or four seconds.

In those few seconds, Lin Feng could clearly feel the lingering suffocating feeling in his chest, a mixture of restlessness, resistance, and a trace of something he himself didn't want to delve into. The city lights outside the window flowed silently, and the documents on the desk remained open, but the handwriting on them had lost its meaning in his eyes. The cold scenes described by Kong Xiang, like uninvited Ghost, stubbornly lingered on the edge of his thoughts, bringing a sticky discomfort.

Then, on the other end of the line, Kong Xiang's voice rang out again.

There was no grievance, no explanation, and no direct response to Lin Feng's almost rebuking words.

The voice was initially low, with a self-deprecating, suppressed, short breath, as if trying to laugh but holding it back. Then, the voice suddenly rose in pitch, the pace quickened, like a dam that had been holding back for a long time suddenly bursting open, emotions mixed with words, gushing out all at once.

"Boss..."

His voice trembled, not from fear, but from an overwhelming, almost collapsing excitement.

"I had no choice!"

"Do you think I want to see this every day?! Do you think I want to remember the numb look in Miguel's eyes when he took the five dollars, to remember José with his broken leg, his face covered in sweat from the pain, yet forcing a smile and saying 'I can do it,' to remember that girl... I don't even know her name, all I know is that she bled so much, huddled on the moldy sheets of a cheap motel, like a discarded kitten?!"

Kong Xiang's breathing became heavy during the connection, each word sounding as if squeezed out from between his teeth:

"I see, hear, and smell every day! The smell of the morgue can't be washed away! The scenes of those neighborhoods are right before my eyes when I close them! When I talk to my classmates about experimental data, I'm thinking about the corpse we collected last week whose stomach was full of tree bark and dirt! When I'm counting 'goods' with my uncle, I'm calculating how much this person is 'worth' after he's dead, and how much he was worth when he was alive!"

His voice was filled with an unvented pressure that seemed to tear him apart.

"If I don't speak up, if I don't talk to someone... what can I do?! I'm going crazy, boss! I don't know who to talk to! My classmates? They'd think I'm weird, a monster! My uncle? He only cares about business and risk! My parents... they're in China, what's the point of telling them this except making them worry and lose sleep?!"

"Every day when I return to my apartment and close the door, I feel like all four walls are pressing down on me! Those images, those sounds, those smells... they're right here!" Kong Xiang's voice was choked with despair. "If I don't speak out, if I don't pour some of it out, if I don't regain my sanity, I'm going to break down, I'm going to really go insane!"

The last sentence was almost a scream, an outburst of the immense mental burden that had been borne alone for so long with nowhere to confide in, finally finding an outlet.

Then, all that remained in the connection was his heavy, unsteady breathing, and an even deeper silence on Lin Feng's side.

Lin Feng remained leaning back in his chair, his eyes still closed. Kong Xiang's outburst was like a chaotic, scorching wind, dispelling his previous annoyance and resistance, replacing it with a deeper silence. He could understand, even empathize. He himself had endured immense psychological pressure after the events in Northern Myanmar, teetering on the brink of death amidst countless schemes, only he was used to processing or diverting it with more restrained, absolute control. But Kong Xiang was different. He was still young, at the forefront of that environment, undergoing daily, unanesthetized dissections, dealing with one of the cruelest realities in the world.

His earlier statement, "I don't like to hear it," was less an accusation against Kong Xiang and more an instinctive escape and frustration at his own powerlessness to change those distant sufferings, yet being forced to "witness" them. But now, Kong Xiang has laid bare his own predicament, making Lin Feng realize that this young assassin he summoned is not only his eyes for observing the world, but is himself being eroded and burned by the darkness of that world.

He needed to give Kong Xiang an outlet—a channel that would allow him to continue "observing" and "recording" (which was Kong Xiang's value and an important window for him to understand that world), while also protecting his spirit from collapse.

A deathly silence was spreading, but it was no longer a stalemate of conflict; rather, it was a silence of reflection.

After a while, just as Kong Xiang's breathing gradually calmed down and he seemed to begin to feel a little uneasy and bewildered about his loss of control, Lin Feng's voice rang out again in the connection.

This time, the previous agitation and coldness were gone, replaced by the usual composure, even carrying a barely perceptible trace of the decision-maker's calm consideration.

"I see."

Those three words made Kong Xiang on the other end of the line tremble slightly.

"You need an outlet, a place where you don't need a specific audience, but where you can 'pour out' what you've seen," Lin Feng said calmly. "At the same time, perhaps these things... shouldn't just rot in your own stomach, or be heard only by me."

Kong Xiang looked somewhat bewildered. "Boss, you mean...?"

"Why don't you do a live stream online?" Lin Feng offered a straightforward solution, his tone as casual as if he were saying, "Go to the supermarket to buy some things."

"Live broadcast?" Kong Xiang was stunned, almost thinking he had misheard. "Me? Live broadcast? Talking... talking about these things?" He couldn't imagine how those dark and cruel things that he considered a mental burden could be put online.

"Speak in the same tone you just used," Lin Feng added, seemingly having already considered the details. "Don't show your face, and you can process the sound. Blur the background, or use pure black. Don't mention specific names or locations, and blur out any details that might lead to your being tracked. Just tell the story itself, what you saw, heard, and felt. No sentimentality, no judgment, just like... how you just told me."

Kong Xiang remained silent, processing the suggestion. A live stream? An anonymous live stream telling stories of the darkest corners of United States society? Would anyone listen? And what would happen if they did?

"You need an outlet to release pressure, and this might be a solution," Lin Feng continued, his reasoning practical. "At the same time, it won't hurt for some people to see and hear these things. The world needs different voices, and it needs people to remember those forgotten corners."

This last sentence seemed to touch Kong Xiang. He may have initially done these "part-time jobs" out of utilitarianism and curiosity, but the more he saw, the stronger an indescribable urge to "record" and "leave a trace" became. Those who died silently, those lives that were crushed, should not disappear as if they had never existed.

"Then... what should I call you? What should I say?" Kong Xiang's voice held a hint of uncertainty, but also a faint, glimmering light.

"The name can be anything, as long as it's easy to spread. The content..." Lin Feng paused, "... start with those three stories you just mentioned. Don't rush, tell a little at a time. See their reaction."

Kong Xiang took a deep breath on the other end of the connection, then slowly exhaled. His chaotic emotions seemed to be guided in a feasible direction by this specific and unexpected suggestion. Live streaming... a confessional space facing the virtual world, yet potentially connecting countless strangers? A place where one could confide, and perhaps even have some impact... an experiment?

"Okay," he finally said, his voice more composed, "I'll give it a try."

"Be careful and take care of yourself. K can help you with any technical issues," Lin Feng said, then ended the call. "That's all for now."

The connection has been lost.

The study returned to silence. Lin Feng opened his eyes, looking at the dim yellow light from the desk lamp. His suggestion to Kong Xiang to do a live stream was partly for his own good, and partly... perhaps also an unconscious act of sowing seeds. He didn't know what flowers or fruits these seeds would bloom, but letting light shine into the darkness in some form was always better than letting the darkness completely engulf the storyteller.

He picked up his pen again, his gaze returning to the document, but in his mind, he had already begun to sketch an anonymous live broadcast room from across the ocean, a room destined to be anything but peaceful.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in Seattle, in a small apartment, Kong Xiang sat in front of his computer and opened the backend of his live-streaming software. He looked at the blank nickname field, thought for a moment, and typed in two letters:

Prisoner A

He stared at the name for a few seconds, then began adjusting the voice changer that could alter his voice.