This is part 2 of 3. We plan to do the side stories as well but our editor is on a break so there may be some time gap between the last chapter ( next week) and the side stories. I’ll keep you updated. In the meantime, enjoy!
That night, after sending Yao Meng home, Feng Ye sank into a long period of contemplation. From young, he had always known that he was different from other people.
Other young children always had a rich variety of feelings and sensations. However, from childhood to adulthood, he had experienced none.
He had never felt grieved, never felt hurt, never felt joy nor affection, or any of the soft and sweet emotions. Above all, when it was to do with the moods or emotions of others, he was even more unmoved and indifferent.
His one pleasure was movies featuring violent crimes. It was only when he saw dead bodies and fresh blood, that he felt elated.
However, in the eyes of others, he was always the good kid, the good young man that his deaf-mute parents had raised, with exceptional grades and wonderful manners, reserved and steady.
The first time he killed someone was in his second year of High School; it was a stranger just passing by. He had no particular reason for killing him, it's just that he wanted to try out the strategies he had learned from the movies. It required considerable strength and resourcefulness for a youth to kill a full-grown adult. Moreover, he copied the method of killing used in the movie, and disposed of the corpse thoroughly. Many years after that, he still felt great pride in that first killing and the methodology used.
From that time onwards, he realised that he was a psychopath, a born psychopath.
The budding relationship that he had had with Yao Meng, from his point of view, was just an accident.
In truth, he really did like Yao Meng. He was, after all, a man, and he liked her beautiful appearance and slender legs.
At that time, people liked to pair the two of them, as they were both students with exceptional grades, calling them 'The Golden Boy and the Jade Maiden' (literally, 金童玉女, the attendants of the Taoist immortals i.e. a golden couple).
Matters were brought to a head when they were in the 3rd year of High School. One day, at noon, he was sitting on the school field eating a box of mixed rice. She came along, also carrying a box of mixed rice.
That day, they talked about a great many things, after which, he kissed her.
Her mouth had a faint fragrance, as well as the scent of something clean, pure and fresh, all mixed together, which caused his heart to beat faster. As it turned out, she was even more enchanting than he had originally thought.
During the semester that he was in a relationship with her, he did not kill anyone.
Love. That was a very strange emotion. It was as if some other part of his body had gained satisfaction.
However, their break-up occurred much faster than he had expected. At the same time, it seemed to be something entirely logical/reasonable.
Perhaps it was because other girls' boyfriends had more money than he did, and were able to take them to the movies, buy chocolate for them, or buy clothes, while he could only hold her hand and stroll with her around the garden. Perhaps it was because she was a constant visitor to his home, and encountered his simple and unsophisticated deaf-mute parents, as well as the clear signs of poverty, which led to a slow accumulation of disgust. Or, it could have been due to the earnest admonishment of their class teacher, which became a stern reprimand, that Yao Meng eventually wavered . . .
The day they broke up, she cried bitterly, but he did not do anything to try and persuade her otherwise.
From that time onwards, his life changed completely.
He was bored and listless in Lin City, but he could not kill more people. He might as well take the entrance examination for the university in Hong Kong, and, while he was at it, look for his family – to see what kind of parents would abandon their child.
Once in Hong Kong, he still killed people from time to time.
However/And, the greatest error of his life, was to become ensnared with Lin Qingyan.
This situation was really laughable, a mistake due to a freakish combination of circumstances. Inexplicably, he had become a serial killer. At first/In the beginning, he had even thought the corpses that the coast guard had fortuitously dredged up were of his earliest victims – he had really made an effort to throw them very far away from land.
He could only keep moving, keep fleeing, until at last it finally dawned on him that another killer's work had been laid on him.
After that, he fled home to Lin City, and hid in the deepest mountains for three years.
At the beginning of the third year, he encountered Tan Liang.
Both of them were similarly the lone wolf type and solitary in nature, and thus, quickly became as close as brothers.
Tan Liang was not a man of many words, but, at one glance, Feng Ye was able to discern that they were of the same kind.
One night, he had caught two turtledoves, and was bringing them to Tan Liang. From a distance, he could see that the door to the building was tightly shut. When he peered into a window, he discovered that Tan Liang was enjoying himself with a young lady.
At first, he watched them with an avid interest. However, after a while, he became aware that something was not right – the lady's face was pale, she was unmoving, and her hands were hanging limply off the side of the bed, as if . . .
Tan Liang was insane, he was truly insane.
After that night, he asked Tan Liang where he had obtained the corpse from. On listening to Tan Liang's recount, he could determine – Lin Qingyan had appeared on the scene.
He persuaded Tan Liang to return the corpse untouched, and then gave him all the information on the 'Angel Killer' case, as well as handing over his stash of potassium cyanide and the Japanese-made aphrodisiac.
The degree of Tan Liang's perversity/insanity had exceeded his expectations. He thought that Tan Liang would wrestle with the idea for at least a month. Who knew that he would carry an unconscious girl into the cave after only three days?
He heaved a sigh, Tan Liang was really too stupid. He had seized this girl on the mountain, wasn't that tantamount to drawing a target on himself? The police would inevitably search the mountain. He immediately packed his bags, and headed into the deepest parts of the mountain to hide.
As expected, it did not take long for the entire area to be in an uproar. From his hiding place in his cave, he looked down at the mountains from a distance, and could see the police cars in a never-ending stream on the mountain roads. Tan Liang had run into a dead end road. Without anywhere else to go, he naturally came looking for Feng Ye at his original roosting place in the cave.
That night, he saw Tan Liang driving a BMW like the wind, with someone in the passenger seat next to him. He stopped the car at the foot of the mountain and carried that person out.
In the bright moonlight, he saw the woman's face clearly.
Yao Meng?
How could it be Yao Meng?
He hid in the darkness, watching as Tan Liang gleefully removed Yao Meng's pants.
At the crucial moment, he took up the tranquiliser gun, and fired.
He placed the unconscious Tan Liang to one side, and sat by the side of the bed himself, gazing at Yao Meng with some degree of lament.
She was even more beautiful than before, even more sexy. He gently caressed her face, her neck, her chest . . . the sensations were just as he remembered. He removed her jacket, and saw the purse in her pocket. When he took it out to have a look, he laughed.
A photograph of her with Lin Qingyan.
Lin Qingyan looked so gentle and soft, and her smiling face was even more brilliant than the time when she had been with him.
Lin Qingyan, this madman, even wanted to snatch away his girl?
He replaced the purse in her pocket, switched off the lamp in the cave, and lowered his head to look at her. All the blood in his body seemed to be boiling over.
At that moment, he swore to himself: "My dearest Xiao Meng, since the heavens have once again sent you to me, in this lifetime, I will not let you go."
From that night onwards, the relationship between Feng Ye and Yao Meng developed at a slow and steady pace.
They seemed to attend almost every business activity together. Outwardly, they were inseparable (形影不离 – be inseparable as body and shadow), and the magazines had photographed Feng Ye staying overnight at Yao Meng's apartment many times.
In actual fact, the two of them had indeed determined that they were in a relationship. The only snag was that Yao Meng would not allow Feng Ye to touch her.
"I'm sorry, there's no way that I can stop myself from feeling nauseous," she sobbed. "After Tan Liang violated me, I also could not allow Lin Qingyan to touch me."
Whenever she spoke of this, Feng Ye's eyes radiated gentleness.
"I'm never going to force you," he whispered softly. "That night, did he hurt you deeply?"
Yao Meng looked at his bright and handsome profile, and her heart quivered as she replied: "I'll never forget it in this entire lifetime."