Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“That was the first time I saw someone at the brink of death,” Li Fei said with a numb expression. “Master’s wife kept her eyes wide open and her mouth was full of blood. Her neck was in an even worse condition. She was lying on the floor, which was covered in her blood! But, her body was still twitching! After a while, she finally stopped moving.”
Li Fei shook his head, then continued in a low voice,”It was only then that I saw that Fourth Sis, Du Manting, was standing behind master’s wife, her face as pale as a sheet. She had even peed herself! I never understood where Fourth Sis got her strength that day. She was only child, but she stabbed through the witch’s neck with that pair of fire tongs like a warrior!”
A indescribable look filled his eyes. “Master’s wife didn’t move an inch, neither did the two of us. Fourth Sis didn’t even put on her clothes! At that moment, I felt that the entire world was in darkness! I didn’t know what we had done, as everything was like a dream.”
He shook his head, then said, “But, master’s wife had really died! In the end, things needed to be taken care of!”
Li Fei swallowed his saliva and said in distress, “As I was the eldest, I knew that I couldn’t let Fourth Sis take the blame for the murder! So, I told Fourth Sis to blame everything on me and tell everyone that I killed master’s wife! Then, I ran away, even as my head was still bleeding!”
He shook his head, the memory still fresh in his mind. “I have no idea what happened at home after that. I just kept running and running with all my strength. I kept thinking that I was a murderer and could never return to Bai Ling ever again, nor could I return to Nanjiang! I knew I had to run.”
He then began to detail this new chapter of his life after the trauma. “During the first few years, I relied entirely on what master had taught me and survived by robbing people. But, my skills weren’t great, so I was really living a very tough life. I slept with the hobos, had nothing to eat, and had nowhere to stay. Then, I realized that I urgently needed a real job. But, I knew it would be difficult for someone like myself, who didn’t have an identity, to find a proper job.”
He perked up a bit at this moment in his story. “However, there is always a way out. In the end, just as I wandered into Jin’an, Weiling county, I happened to see that the local funeral parlor was hiring a temporary worker. I thought places like the funeral parlor shouldn’t be too strict in their interviews, so I picked up a random identification card and went for the job interview!”
He chuckled a bit at the memory of his scheme working as he said, “Since places like funeral parlors require one to deal with dead people all the time and the pay for a temporary worker wasn’t very high, there was no one there to fight with over the job. So, I got the job on the very first day! My main task was to do odd jobs. I did almost everything from assisting the embalmer to driving the hearse and so on.”
He sobered up a bit now. “It was then that I apprenticed under one of the senior masters to learn how to embalm the dead bodies and do their make-up. This was the only job that I worked at for any decent amount of time. After several years had passed, I had picked up a lot of knowledge. However, the pay was really too little and it couldn’t fulfill my requirements. I couldn’t even afford my rent sometimes. In order to improve my living standards, I returned to the county town to do what I used to do whenever I had time.”
He shrugged and finally got down to details. “My targets were mostly ordinary people’s houses. Although, I didn’t steal much, which made my thievery comparatively safer than most robbers’. In order to ensure that it was perfectly safe, I would always check out the places ahead of time and would always opt to take action late at night. People would be in deep sleeps by then. Even if I couldn’t manage to steal anything, at least I wouldn’t be captured.”
He blinked hard, clearly remembering a specific memory. “Then, there was a day when I snuck into a house that belonged to a business owner who sold mountain products. I was surprised that they weren’t sleeping yet. In fact, the female owner was burning paper money in the backyard, as if she was making an offering to the dead! By the time I saw her, I had already climbed into the courtyard, so I couldn’t escape. I could only hide behind the water tank in her house.”
His eyes grew wide, as if he could see her before him right then! “Of course, I was quite curious as to why the woman was doing this, as she even set up an altar with offerings when she burned the paper money! As the woman burned the paper money, she spoke. Then, I finally understood what had happened. She was the burning paper money for her daughter, who had died! The woman…”
Li Fei suddenly held his fist tightly, and there was an indescribable anger in his eyes. He clenched his jaw and said, “I could never have imagined that the heartless woman had killed her one-year-old daughter with her own hands! She said it herself that her daughter had congenital disease and they couldn’t afford her medical expenses. If her daughter were to have lived, she would have dragged them down financially! Plus, with the family planning act, they couldn’t get another son!”
Li Fei’s disgust for the woman was clear in his tone. “So, she suffocated her daughter to death while her daughter was sleeping! Tell me, is that even human? Master’s wife abused us, but we were not her own children! Also, we could fight back. But, she killed a one-year-old baby!”
He was really getting emotional now. “It was too unfair! That woman was just like my master’s wife. She didn’t deserve to live in the world. She had to pay a price for what she had done! So, I wanted to kill her to take revenge for the poor baby! I thought about it, and as I was already a murderer then anyway, I didn’t care if I were to kill one more awful woman!”
A sneer appeared on his angry face. “So, I hid there in silence until the woman went to bed after burning the paper money. Then, I snuck into her house, and as it turned out that the woman was home alone, it gave me a great opportunity to take action! I didn’t hesitate at all as I covered her with a pillow, just like how she had killed her daughter! At first, she struggled tremendously and even scratched my arm, but I didn’t dare stop. I suffocated her for ten minutes, until she didn’t move at all!”
A satisfied smile now filled his face. “Honestly, after I killed her, I didn’t regret it at all. I only thought that I had finally gone mad! Ridiculous… Hehe… Don’t you think I am ridiculous? Hehehe…”
Li Fei laughed maliciously, while everyone around him was stunned speechless.
Zhao Yu asked himself in his head, Is he ridiculous?
“When I was learning from master back then, he always told me about how the police solved their cases,” Li Fei continued. “I felt that I would be arrested by the police if I just killed her and left her like that! So, I thought I should move the dead body! I put her in the gunny sack, then dragged her into the wilderness. I knew that the police would bring a police dog and be able to sniff out her body if I just buried her, so I rushed back to the funeral parlor through the night, then drove the hearse over to move her back to the funeral parlor.”
His eyes grew wide again. “At first, I thought I could just cremate the dead body! But, in the end, I realized that wouldn’t work because the stove would produce obvious smoke and make loud noises, which would attract attention! In the end, I remembered how I had once heard from master that the police’s biggest headache was not being able to find the body, as then they couldn’t certify the dead body’s identity!”
His eyes lit up now as he said, “Back then, to certify the dead’s identity, besides their physical appearance and their teeth, the police could only rely upon fingerprints! So, I chopped off her fingers, and then I went ahead and chopped of her head too!”
