“Now, as for you…” He Xinlan was woken up from her terror when she heard Bei Tian’s voice. “They told me not to kill you. Yet.” He gave her a smile. “But I can do everything that I see fit.” Bei Tian then rose from his seat and turned towards the door. As if on cue, a man entered the room with a weird looking instrument in his hand.
“Are you familiar with this?” Bei Tian asked as he turned to look at the wide-eyed He Xinlan. Who wouldn’t be familiar with a Di Lao device? This was a famous instrument used in Chinese prisons!
The device had a pair of cuffs and shackles connected by a criss cross iron chain that was only a foot long. This device restricted movement by leaving the prisoner on a flat surface with their arms and legs spread for a week or longer. Sometimes the victims are stripped naked so it’s easier to hose them off after they urinate and empty their bowels.Often a window is left open during winter. Muscle atrophy sets in and the person can be left paralysed from the waist down or can become unable to move their arms to care for themselves.. Of course, in He Xinlan’s mind she was still the victim.
A Di Lao torture device is also known as Hell Confinement. It’s popular in Chinese prisons for its long-term effect on its victim, as it was designed to leave them unable to eat, walk or even use the toilet. As a doctor, He Xinlan had read about this type of torture that became famous in the nineties. Based on those articles, this torture would damage the person’s limbs but did not result in fatalities..
Unless…. She refuses to eat in an attempt to kill herself. But how could Bei Tian miss this information? Seeing He Xinlan’s expression, Bei Tian instantly scoffed. “They told me to keep you alive, so if you refuse to eat… I would have to force-feed you feces,” he chuckled. “Alright…” He turned towards the man and instructed, “Do it fast. I still need to sleep.” He then left the room without sparing He Xinlan another glance.
In less than a minute, He Xinlan’s screams once again echoed inside the room. If they wanted to kill her, why not just do it now? Why make her suffer like this? They’d already made her witness her daughter’s torture, so why do they have to make her experience pain again?
Until now, He Xinlan did not understand the mental torture that Lily had suffered over the years. The thought of being her own mother’s killer had haunted her for years, preventing her from sleeping. This was something that He Xinlan never understood. After all, Lily did not inform her of any of this. In He Xinlan’s mind, she did not deserve this kind of agony.
What He Xinlan didn’t know was that Lily deliberately did not tell her anything about her own demons. She wanted He Xinlan to feel pain, the pain of not knowing what she did to deserve to suffer like this. The pain of being hopeful that someday she would survive and get her revenge. The pain of thinking that she can’t do anything about it. Lily wanted He Xinlan to doubt the heavens. She wanted He Xinlan to question herself over and over again, asking the universe ‘Why?’ Why does she have to suffer like this?
To Lily, there was no point in explaining things to someone if they were convinced that they’d done nothing wrong. Lily knew that it would be hard to change He Xinlan’s perception of Zhang Yifei. Lily knew that she could not change He Xinlan’s perception since He Xinlan had never seen anything wrong or criminal in her actions in the first place.
So, until He Xinlan dies, she would think and wonder what had gone wrong. She would continue to wonder if Zhang Yifei was indeed someone who had used her, and there is nothing more agonizing than dying without knowing the truth.
….
September 10, Friday
On this day, Lily was supposed to see Yang Lina in China, however, she was forced to change her schedule when someone called her using Li Shanshan’s number.
It was five in the morning and Lily woke up with a very sour expression on her face. Who would dare to call on her personal phone at this hour? However, when she saw that it was Li Shanshan, she instantly answered the call.
As a director who was based in London, it was normal for Li Shanshan to disappear from Hong Kong for weeks, even months. After all, her livelihood was located on the other side of the world. Moreover, she was working on various international films right now, and Lily totally understood this fact. She and Li Shanshan were not the type of friends who needed to update each other all the time.
When she was still in London, they would be lucky if they could saw or spoke to each other once a month. This was because both of them were very busy with their own lives. However, this did not mean that the mutual respect they shared was lacking compared to those ‘#bff aka hashtag best friends forever’ seen on Instagram and other social media platforms.
Moreover, Lily understood that Li Shanshan was deliberately not talking to her for two reasons. First was because she wanted Lily to enjoy her marriage to the fullest without Li Shanshan’s constant nagging, and second, because of her situation with Fernando.
So when Lily received a call from Li Shanshan, she could not hide the excitement in her eyes, but contrary to her expectations the person who called her was not Li Shanshan but a guy who told her that he found Li Shanshan sleeping in the men’s bathroom. She was so drunk she must have mistaken the men’s bathroom for the ladies’ room, then she just fell asleep while hugging the bowl.
What was this situation? Even Lily was… flabbergasted. She instantly changed her clothes and asked her husband to drive her to the club where Li Shanshan had been found.
“Your friend is very reckless,” Zhuo Jingren commented, his brows furrowed. How could a woman fall asleep in the men’s bathroom while drunk? “I already called Fernando but I can’t reach him either. These two are so troublesome.”
“Hmmm…” Lily only nodded. Li Shanshan does not have the habit of drinking unless she has a problem that she can’t handle. Before Li Shanshan met Lily six years ago, Lily used to drink a lot. However, this all changed when they went to therapy together. Of course, Li Shanshan failed to get rid of this habit completely.
Li Shanshan was always travelling and her only outlet when she encountered something difficult to handle was the artificial relief that alcohol provides. While Lily told her friend over and over again to stop, Li Shanshan never listened to her. She would justify her drinking by saying that her life was lonely and sometimes the stress from the people around her was so overwhelming that she needed something to numb her senses so she could cope with it all.
In the end, Lily could only shake her head and keep her thoughts to herself. Li Shanshan was even more stubborn than Lily.
…
It was still early in the morning and there was no traffic so Lily was able to reach the club in less than an hour. She instantly ran towards the men’s bathroom with Zhuo Jingren in tow and immediately found the guy who was crouching beside one of the cubicles.
“Hey… Are you…” However, Lily was unable to finish her sentence when she saw the man who turned to face her. The man’s tall stature was as familiar as his face. “It’s you?”
The man’s eyes also widened when he saw Lily. “Hey… I… uh are you Lily, her friend?” he asked as he stared at the woman’s face that was almost identical to his.
His questions instantly brought Lily back to her senses. She did not answer the man. Instead, she turned towards Li Shanshan who was sound asleep inside the cubicle. She then let out a sigh before looking at Zhuo Jingren. “Help me carry her.”
