I decided to put up a poster on the notice board around the corner of the stairway on the first floor.
“*Hello everyone, is everything to everyone’s liking? I lost my key chain today which has all of our reserve keys. Unfortunately I don’t have another spare set, so please put it on the table in the drawing room or bring it to my room if you manage to find it. Thank you.*
*PS: In order to prevent someone from getting locked out of their room due to losing their keys, I want everyone to get a duplicate made and give it to me, otherwise you will have to pay for the locksmith yourself when you find yourself locked out – Landlord*”
I smirked. This way, even if Ying Ru suspected someone sneaking into her room earlier, she wouldn’t suspect me.
Instead she would suspect the “infiltrator” who found the set of keys.
As to who that “infiltrator” might be…
Well, it won’t be me, and I won’t be shifting the blame onto someone else.
“Here, it’s yours.”
I put the old key chain inside Old Man Zhang’s shoe in front of his door, purposely exposing a corner of the metal without being too obvious.
You guessed right; I went to the locksmiths straight after I left McDonalds and had another set of keys made.
Why did I choose Old Man Zhang? Well, he is the perfect candidate. I doubt he ever expected to have the same kind of power I have, the highest kind in this apartment building.
But it is the exact kind of superpower a peeping tom like him has always dreamed of.
Peeping Power.
Invasive Ability.
I witnessed the whole thing through the pin-hole camera in the hallway. Old man Zhang was putting on his shoes when he discovered this mysterious gift.
“You won’t return it to me; you won’t return it to me.” I kept murmuring to myself while staring nervously as old man Zhang walked back into his room, frowning at the key chain.
But the way the corner of his mouth twitched was nothing short of evil.
“Accept it, and begin your adventure.” I said.
After old man Zhang put the key chain inside a drawer, he raised an arm and muttered a soft “Yes.”
Very good.
While I was happy for old man Zhang, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for that stranger still tied to the chair.
It was the third day in a row he was stuffed with sleeping-pills. Ying Ru would feed him the pills once every three or four hours, and a larger dose before she went to bed.
Larger, but not lethal, even though I couldn’t tell how she knew the exact dose to give.
“Even if you don’t die in your sleep, you are pretty fucked.” I watched at the screen.
The last time the man lost control of his bladder was 27 hours ago, but other than the little bit of water that was forced down his throat together with the pills, he wasn’t given anything else to drink. If you force liquid down an unconscious man’s throat, most of it will simply enter the windpipe and not the gullet, which means a quicker death, with much less suffering.
Ying Ru was obviously aware of this fact.
As I said before, committing a crime is a very complex state of mind, and also a profession.
When Ying Ru retrieved the big fat syringe from her closet, I thought she was trying to inject a saline solution or glucose into his veins in order to cruelly prolong his suffering. Instead, she took out the small wooden box, and from it, the bottle of long expired milk she had prepared long ago.
“What is that crazy woman up to?” I was taken by surprise.
Ying Ru attached the not so hygienic needle to the syringe and filled it with milk. She then carefully inserted the needle into the veins of the man’s forearm and injected him with the yellow, tainted milk.
I wanted to throw up.
Ying Ru continuously injected roughly five hundred milligrams of milk. As expected, that man had another bout of urinary incontinence that night. It turned my stomach upside down.
Next, Ying Ru took out a manual siphon pump. She slowly pushed the discharge tube into his throat; squeezing the air handle on the other end and pumping the water from a bucket into the man’s stomach.
The water slowly drained from the bucket and, a while later, Ying Ru pulled out the discharge tube. She felt the man’s forehead and placed a thermometer under his tongue.
I couldn’t see the display of the thermometer clearly from my screen, but based on her actions, the man had to be running a fever. I never had much health care education, but I’m guessing it has something to do with the white blood cells inside his body fighting against the bacteria from the expired milk…
Ying Ru started typing on her laptop, lying on the bed. Whenever she got tired, she would read, feed, clean or sleep. Like a full-time nurse taking care of a patient, a patient she created.
I really wouldn’t know why she chose him, a man whom she met for the first time. Perhaps it was just random bad luck.
This made me realize something.
Bad luck. Is it really the result of a random encounter? If God is a crazy pitcher, who decides to pitch a wild ball at a stadium filled with spectators, and whoever gets hit becomes the unlucky one.
Then, even though the chance you will get hit in the head is very slim; if it does, you are pretty much dead, and everyone has a chance to get hit. Just like that guy on the chair who came for a one night stand but now has a fever running.
So what can you do about it?
Do you just let the God pitch the ball at you and hope you are not the unlucky one?
No, perhaps there is something you can do.
What if the God isn’t the pitcher?
What if I can climb out of the bleachers and step onto the field as a pitcher?
I have to take the time to consider this possibility.
On the other hand, I believe it is time for old man Zhang to start paying attention to other tenant's daily schedules; when they come in and when they go out. After all, in order to successfully commit a crime, you need more than just naturally gifted keenness. You also have to put in the hours to do the research, and finally professionalism.
Anyway, old man Zhang began to traverse the stairs more frequently, purposely or otherwise. Every time he went past Miss Chen's room he would always look down and pay attention to the number of shoes sitting on her doorstep, and if there were any men's shoes among them.
Just like me, old man Zhang was very interested in the pretty and seductive Miss. Chen. He had to have discovered the fact that Miss Chen never brought any of her boyfriends on Thursdays.
Though Ying Ru was quite pretty in her own way, she lived above old man Zhang, which made it more challenging to come up with an excuse to go up to the fifth floor or the rooftop in order to spy on her.
I watched in anticipation, waiting for the day old man Zhang would creep into Miss Chen's room, either to steal her undergarments or try out her bed, but old man Zhang turned out to be very patient. His "imaginary consequence of getting caught" had most likely put a halt to his plans, or perhaps he had something else in mind.
It's alright, I don't mind the wait.
Because my mind is still a shambles, afraid of not being able to make it onto the field to become the pitcher.
Ying Ru caught me by surprise; she gave me way too many shocking revelations at the same time.
Back to planning.
My notebook is filled with loosely written thoughts, but I lacked the inspiration to connect them into a good story. Mostly, I lacked the ability to fully control the "flow of time" and the art of "spatial manipulation".
Even so, I'm fully aware that some nut job like Ying Ru whom you couldn't spot the slightest hint of craziness from the outside, is rarer than rare. Therefore, I believe that as long as I can predict the time when this time-bomb will detonate, I can connect every tenant and every turn of event together, in a surprising way and into a good movie.
Right.
"The ability to show the design talent of a good director and screenwriter" has been the hallmark of several good movies aired over recent years. These movies often start with all kinds of unrelated and hard to understand plot lines, but in the few minutes before the climax, all the separate plot lines would merge together through a series of coincidences, and finally come to an end in a sea of applause.
Such movies are: “Snatch”, “Better than Sex” and “Trainspotting”.
But movies are in the end, just movies. The coincidences used to link all the separate plots together are designed entirely by the director; the actors cannot affect the outcome.
What I'm facing is the real world.
First I need to figure out which "Key Scenes" I have to be able to accomplish, and then find a way to make it a reality.
I went and retrieved the chocolate ice-cream Guo Li brought for us from the fridge downstairs. While enjoying it, I turned on all six screens at the same time, hoping to find some sort of inspiration. However, I'm mostly focusing my attention on old man Zhang and Ying Ru.
Basically, every character has their own unique features, and as a director, it's my job to highlight them, strengthen them, or give them some other feature that is even better suited to their character.
Old man Zhang likes to spy on other people having sex, thus I'm giving him the "Peeping power" and "Invasive ability", waiting for him to transform.
Ying Ru is like two people fused together; one quiet as a mouse, the other a crazy nurse.
Hmm, that seems like a good idea.
Guo Li is mature and socially adept. He is also the master of Lin Hu.
I need to think a way to make use of this unique feature that is their homosexual relationship.
Even considering Miss. Chen's lewd appearance, why does she have two boyfriends?
Miss. Chen obviously won't talk about it in the open without a reason so I can overhear it.
But he still has a daughter.
Surely, death can only be his salvation. My job is limited to observe, and lament.
I gave him a high dosage, just to make sure that he will fall asleep.
Because I can see more than she does.