Chapter 4: The Return

Bathed in the dim light, he and his girlfriend could only see—

The person wore a tattered coat covered in dust and stains, with several tears visible even in the darkness, yet without a single patch. Their trousers and sneakers, though not torn, were also covered in mud and dust. A mask covered their face, and a baseball cap adorned their head, obscuring their eyes in the shadows beneath the brim. Only their shoulder-length hair and proportions suggested they were a woman. Most surprisingly, they wore something that resembled gloves on their hands—thick, shiny, and seemingly made of some kind of metal.

In the dead of night, the strange figure that appeared out of nowhere resembled a female ghost. She stood between the two people and the alleyway exit, blocking their way.

“Who are you? Looking for trouble?”

Disturbed from being intimate with her boyfriend, the girl put her hands on her hips and started cursing. She strode toward the figure in a loud voice. Just as she stood in front of the figure, before she could say anything, the figure reached out and grabbed her hair. With a quick movement of his feet, he turned his body to the side and then used all his strength to forcefully slam the girl’s head against the wall!

With a muffled thud, the girl’s head was bleeding profusely, and she was instantly unable to utter a single word, only able to scream. Seeing that she was not dead, the person who had grabbed her intended to slam her head against the wall a few more times, but suddenly seemed to remember something: she first looked around, and finally her gaze fell on a sharp step. Then she flipped the girl over, making her head face down, and grabbed her head, slamming it down on the step again and again with all her might.

She kept hitting the girl until she was completely dead before she was released. Then she immediately turned to her boyfriend, who was standing nearby. The boy was terrified; he tried to run away, but his body was frozen in place, and he could only stammer, “You, who, who…you…”

Suddenly, he remembered what he had done with his girlfriend and the rich guy three days ago. He stared in horror at the somewhat familiar figure in front of him:

“It’s…it’s you?! You’re not…”

Under the mask was Shi Yue. Having narrowly escaped death, Shi Yue didn’t bother to waste words with him. Taking advantage of the boy’s shock, she reached out and grabbed his shoulder, while simultaneously throwing a straight punch at his nose!

The punch landed squarely on the boy’s face. It felt like a vise clamping down on his nose, the excruciating pain acting before his brain could process it. He instinctively doubled over, covered his nose, and his eyes filled with tears, unable to open them. He heard a rustling sound nearby… and then a plastic bag, reeking of stench, suddenly suffocated his mouth and nose!

He was dying, dying… The intense feeling of suffocation brought with it the approaching death, and fear pressed down on him like a mountain. At that moment, Shi Yue was standing behind him, tightly covering his head with a rolled-up plastic bag.

As Shi Yue punched him, leaving him dazed, she noticed some discarded plastic bags scattered around a public trash can in the corner. Lacking any tools, Shi Yue had to imitate a scene she’d seen on TV: she picked up a plastic bag, put it over the boy’s head, covered the opening with one hand, and wrapped the other around his arm to prevent him from struggling, attempting to suffocate him with the bag.

However, Shi Yue underestimated the power of a person’s desperate struggle. With his mouth and nose covered, the boy instinctively gasped for breath several times, but only managed to deflate the plastic bag. His face gradually turned red, and with his upper arm firmly held by Shi Yue, he desperately twisted his body, kicking and thrashing his legs wildly, making whimpering noises from his nose, writhing like a dog. Shi Yue was almost pulled down by him and barely managed to steady herself.

The struggle was more intense than expected. Shi Yue’s heart pounded, and her eyes widened. She just wanted to end the fight as quickly as possible, so she grabbed the boy’s head and slammed it against the wall, causing him to bleed profusely. However, the plastic bag covering his head had torn, and Shi Yue, fearing it would rip open, dared not slam him again. After a few attempts, she had no choice but to arch her back, leaning against the wall, holding him tightly in her arms like a shackle.

The boy’s skull was bleeding profusely from the blow, and Shi Yue was tightly holding the plastic bag over his head. No matter how much he twisted his neck, he couldn’t break free. Within seconds, even his last shred of instinct collapsed; snot and mucus streamed from his eyes, nose, and mouth, and a strange odor emanated from his pants. Shi Yue didn’t dare to let up for a moment, desperately suppressing his struggles. After another minute or so, she slowly felt the strength of his struggles in her arms gradually weaken… After quite a while, it finally stopped completely.

Even after he completely stopped struggling, Shi Yue still dared not let go, maintaining the position and pressing hard for a long time. Only when she saw that the person beneath her had completely stopped reacting did she gradually release her strength and slowly let go of the dead man.

Thump! She sat down on the ground with a thud, her limbs almost giving way.

Everything seemed to have returned to that day.

The feeling of that day.

That day, in that classroom, an unintentional incident led to one death and one injury. At that moment, Shi Yue felt neither panic nor any excitement as if she had committed murder.

Only deep exhaustion.

The feeling right now is exactly the same as it was back then.

It felt like finishing a month’s worth of winter break homework in one go, all in one night. “Finally, it’s over,” was the only thought in my mind.

Shi Yue once thought that the version of herself who killed people would never return; that she would never impulsively hurt others again; that version of herself had long since disappeared… But today she realized that perhaps she had never disappeared at all. She discovered that she had never truly vanished.

“No, not yet, it’s not over yet.”

Shi Yue glanced at the two corpses lying on the ground; there was still one person alive.

——

With a splash, the clear sound of running water filled the bathroom. The young master and his friends were gathered there, one of them filling the sink by the door with water and giving his face a good cold wash. He and the young master had just met two girls at the bar, and bursts of laughter could be heard coming from inside the bathroom as they took a dump.

Speaking of that young master, he’s a master at picking up girls. Every time he goes out, he manages to get a date; he never leaves empty-handed. As they were chatting, they suddenly joked about him, saying that he’d had his fill of seafood and wasn’t satisfied with just eating what was left at school. They wondered what would happen when he entered the workforce, leaving his brothers with nothing but his leftovers.

Upon hearing this, the young master immediately laughed and said that what is bland will eventually become salty, and if he didn’t make the appointment, it would only benefit others, so why not make the appointment?

You’ve eaten everything, salty or bland, how can you bear to let your brothers eat your leftovers?

The young master spoke righteously, saying that at least he never hid his pursuit of girls from his brothers. He knew which girls were good and which were bad. At least he couldn’t bear to see his friends being fooled. Those honest, good students who longed for love might one day marry a beautiful wife, just like the ones he had played with before.

“Besides, brother, I have money. Do you think I can’t buy true love? Only the rich deserve to enjoy love. Ordinary people are just living together. Do you really think they care?”

After wiping his bottom clean, the young master pulled up his pants, rinsed himself, and said, “I’m done, let’s go,” before pushing open the door first. He immediately saw a girl standing in the doorway with her back to him.

The young man was quite surprised and hurriedly shouted, “Hey, this is the men’s room, you’ve come to the wrong one, haven’t you?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the guy guarding the door by the sink with his face submerged in water… but his knees were on the ground, his arms were hanging down, and his body was slumped in front of the sink like a towel.

With a clang, Shi Yue locked the door to the men’s restroom, and their eyes met.

Shi Yue stared at him calmly, her amber pupils seemingly filled with a thousand tons of basalt. Her mask and hat covered most of her face, and half of her coat was torn and hanging down, her clothes mostly splattered with water. The dim light cast a cold and eerie shadow, and her hands, wrapped in metal gauntlets, cast shadows that seemed to flow with lava.

With a clatter, the other three brothers pushed open the door and came out. The first thing they saw was the young master staring blankly at someone. Following his gaze, they saw the scene by the sink, and it was obvious what had happened.