Colt

April 1, 2021, 6:14

Tuo River

Fenghuang, China

The rough ruffling sound of the outsole of his worn out converse over the brick ground echoed through the dead neighbourhood. A stranger to the neighbourhood would think the place has been abandoned and haunted by how painfully quiet it gets at this hour of dawn. YuNing makes his way up to the Wind bridge and plops his chin over his crossed arms over the railway as he inhales the strong aroma of the river water, mixed along with the fresh smell of dew over the tree leaves. He missed this smell. He missed this place and it's people.

YuNing has been to many mesmerizing places all around the world, from the Fuji mount to the Ma'in in Jordan. Yet for some reason, this humble spot on the Wind bridge of Fenghuang never fails to leave him in awe. It wasn't for the visuals or the overall sight of the water flow and the mist that created a what some people might call fairy-tale like, but it was for the nostalgia and the memories this stream floods his soul with. YuNing likes to believe that his child self is still here, roaming around with the rest of his cousins, foolishly believing that spirits come to life at this hour and hoping to catch one of them.

He attentively takes in the view that he has been longing to lay his eyes on for years. The soft wind twirls around the leaves that have fallen off their branches and made their way to water surface, greenish blue colour reflected off the wide opened sky and high green hills crowded with trees. He can hear a fishing rod from a distance, an old man accompanied with a young elated child, his granddaughter, YuNing guesses, trying their luck with catching a wandering fish at this early hour.

Unconsciously, the side of his lips curl up at them as a memory of his grandfather sneaking him out of the house to go fishing around 5AM, careful not to wake up his parents or grandma, that would be endless nagging of waking the kid too early before the dawn chorus. He lets his eyes linger for a little longer before he darts his attention to another muffled crying voice. A man who looks like he's in the middle of his thirties or early forties, crunching by the river side, arm wrapped around his stiff shaking body while the other over his mouth, holding back the whines and strong exhales from crying. YuNing silently wishes for his soul to find it's peace again and heals soon.

He closes his eyes and let's himself enjoy the tranquillity of the moment, soft blows of the morning crisp wind ruffling his pitch black hair under the navy blue hoodie. There's an uncomfortable grip behind his ribs but he ignores it. YuNing curls his fists around his hoodie cuffs, knuckles turning white from how hard he's gripping it. He can feel a narrow trail of a cold liquid run down over his cheeks. He tries to hold it back, squeezing his eyes shut that he felt something popped behind them. The tears keep flooding out of his eyes, careless much about his effort to stop them.

"Well, shit." He mutters under his breathe with a chuckle, a couple of droplets making their way to his lips and leaving a salty taste on the tip of his tongue.  

Eventually, he let's them out of his system without halting, leaving him with a Tension headache, red wet cheeks and stinging eyes.

'Can you feel my pain like I can feel yours?'

YuNing snivelled with a weak whisper to the white haired girl, like their one-sided conversation is a little secret he isn't willing to share with the world. Another blow of spanking breeze hits his warm face, drying out his tears and making his cheeks uncomfortably stiff. A flock of birds flies around in the open sky, enjoying the little warmth managed to escape through the brumous layer of air covering the old city. YuNing surveys the buildings around him, he has always thought they were beautiful and full of life but now he thinks that they're doured and tenebrific.

He feels another tug in his heart, blue filling his hollow insides of his soul like an overused cigarette set on fire.

He clenches and unclenches his jaw unconsciously, a habit he took on from his father when they try to keep themselves grounded. He glances over the land and water around him, noises rising around him as life starts to bloom back to the sleeping old city just as the sun reaches the tip of the horizon.

YuNing has always been fond of watching others movements around him. He has had that habit, whether he was on the edge during a long car ride, or a boring lecture at school, he would imagine what every walking person around him has on his mind, what a complex story behind their eyes might be riddling up their lives or laminating it.

But not so much anymore. In fact, he has been trying to avoid the busy hours of the day as he noticed that noises have been remarkably spiking up his temper recently.

The phone vibration in his sun-bleached blue jeans pocket pulls him out of the little bubble he framed around himself.

He fishes the phone out to check the caller.

'BaBa '

YuNing stares at it for a while before sighing and picking up.

"Yes?"

His father snorts, "morning to you too."

"Do you need anything?" YuNing asked a little more restlessly than he intended.

"No, I just wanted to tell you I'm leaving for work now, breakfast is in the oven."

"Thanks dad."

"Be careful on you your way back, yeah?"

"Yeah, you too."

The line cuts off and YuNing pushes his upper body off the railway lazily. He sets off to walk back to his grandparents house, shuffling through his phone to delete all the notifications of the unread messages and missed calls before shoving it back to his pocket. His friends are undoubtedly worried sick about him but he keeps dragging on his feet on calling them, his mental stability not quite there yet for having this conversation with anyone.

He was never an introvert or someone who fancies solidarity. Per contra, he has always been the mood maker in the room, he was full of life, and so he wants to give himself more time to get back on his feet before contacting anyone or going back to Beijing.

He stumbles upon a street where there were kǒngmíng lanterns hung from wall to wall all through the alley. YuNing, a smile stretching on his face in a trace, does a small light jump and bumps the tips of his fingers with the red rice paper lantern, the same way his father would tip toe, with a five year old YuNing over his shoulders, tracing his tiny palm over the golden fringes of the luminous lanterns swiftly.

In ten minutes he's already in front of the familiar worn out wooden door, the metal of the keys clicking between his fingers as the door lock clicks open.

Without much thinking he heads to the bathroom first to take a quick warm shower to ease the tight knots in his temple.

Stepping out of the bathtub, he eyes himself in the misty mirror, pitch black damp hair falling over his shoulders messily with bangs dangling little droplets of water past his eyes, deep brown orbs circled with dark bags and shot red sclera. He presses his fingers to his cheeks, pulling his pale face skin harshly. Well shit I look like I've been dead for three days, is all he could think of, considering he wasn't naturally careless about his healthy. He sighs heavily and heads to his room, he picks up the first black pairs of sweatpants his eyes meet and the white stripped shirt that fell from the closet when he opened it.

He practically drags his feet to the kitchen and pulls the grey ceramic bowel of shiitake porridge out of the oven, placing it a little too aggressively on the dining table with a loud bang.

He doesn't bother heating it up and devours the bowl while fidgeting around the sunlit kitchen to make himself some tea.

On his way out of the room, he catches a glimpse of the month old long forgotten grocery list that his dad still can't get himself to get rid off and five polaroids of their family.

He gets the sudden urge of snatching two of them off and ripping them apart to pieces.

He doesn't.

YuNing places the cup of green tea on the coaster on his desk before closing the door of his room. He slams himself heavily on his desk chair with a loud squeak and rubs the bridge of his nose furiously like it would take away the sharp pain in his head that was starting to become unbearable.

He looks around the room and takes in the warm area that he grew up in. Every stage of obsession throughout his 24 years has some evidence around the room, whether it's a ball, a poster, an antique, a figure toy or a music instrument. He wasn't the proudest of some of those eras but he thought it was better leaving those little things to always remind him of the something he once loved and possibly had a hand in growing him into who he is today, even if he feels like stripping off those white boy band that he doesn't even remember their name poster every time he eyes it.

He brings out his piano keyboard from where it has been laying inside it's cover bag since he came back from Beijing, specks of dust dance in the sunrays that managed their way through the thick layer of curtains as he opens the cover, revealing the slick black and white keys.

YuNing starts playing random notes without putting much thought into them.

They're sad and full of grief, copying the strings his heart beat has been running through for the past two weeks.

Absentmindedly, his fingers starts playing Moli hua, eventually singing along with the notes in hushed whispers. He can hear his mother's voice at the back of his head rhyming with his. He can remember her tucking him to bed while singing it to him. He can recall the thousand times his father sang her the song because he always thought that she looked like a jasmine flower. They always had a jasmine flower tree in their small yard, blooming with white petals during spring and summer mornings, sending whiffs of aroma all throughout the corners of the house and YuNing has always thought it was the most beautiful smell in the whole world, it was the smell of home and it always made him feel the safest.

But it doesn't anymore. Now it brings him anguish and sorrow instead of rapture and glee. They say what your loved ones leave behind will remind you of the good times you had with them, but the smell of the white flower only revives in YuNing's memory the grand loss he was faced with two weeks ago.

Because as the jasmine tree stands tall and bright like it has always done, the jasmine flower was plucked out and stumbled upon, leaving it rotting under the black dirt of the ground.

And when YuNing lays his head against the cold cover of the pillow, no one sees him as he hugs himself weakly and cries himself to sleep, the jasmine flower lullaby playing on his phone from a video he has of his parents singing and dancing to it happily.

*

Its unusually bright and cool. The breeze hit his face like a whiplash the moment he opens his eyes. He sees her, the same white hair, the same blushed cheeks, the same green and gold eyes.

She's smiling and giggling, embraced in someone's arms. She looks younger than the last time he saw her. Her hair is shorter too, he concludes.

YuNing can't tell who is holding her, but he realises someone else is here, standing tall behind the two. YuNing doesn't dare to move, scared to disturb this perfect picture and make it come crashing down on him. He looks closer at the three people, all white haired and look alike. They look like they could be siblings.

Its a peaceful place to be at, surrounded by fields of white flowers, gardenia is their name, he believes.

YuNing closes his eyes, inhaling the powerful yet soft aroma of the flowers, the freshly cut grass, the water of the lake on his right. He's content and happy, specially with how happy he can see she is today.

*

April 1, 2021, 19:14

Beijing, China

Case 11-5-6-8

Evdokia pulls her pants up for the nth time today as she jumps out of the car. She should have worn her bullets belt.

"Good afternoon, we're federal agents and we're here to inspect the building, please corporate with us and bring all your employees to the main hall while we do our work." Evdokia shows her badge as her team walks in behind her along with paramedics, two detectives and a police dog.

Evdokia takes the leash of the dog and walks around with it, knocking on walls and ground as they go.

They have evidence to prove that the person who kidnaps the kids and hides them is in this building, since he, or she, forgot to shut down the camera with the last kid. The kid was alive in the footage, and Evdokia just hopes he still is, or maybe not, its better for a kid to die than live the rest of his life traumatised by a sick psychopath. She doesn't know what to expect, quite honestly.

"hi, I was told you're here to scrutinize my company. Is there something I can do to help?" the CEO of the company walks up to Evdokia, his hands in his pockets, a smug smile painted on his face but she can see through it. He's nervous.

She has done her research on the directors and the heads of the company. They all have dirtied their hands before for money, nothing new regard a bunch of dudes with power superiority.

It's an entertainment company, and as much as they always deny it, Evdokia knows most of the kids they scout have to give a service back to the ones in charge, and it makes Evdokia sick in the stomach. She shall scan through this later.

Evdokia is walking into the third dance studio when she sees a frazzled look on the CEO.

Bingo.

She walks through the room with the dog, who starts sniffing the moment it enters the room. Evdokia strolls around, her gloved hands feeling the walls and floor for any hollow space behind or under them.

"trust me, you'll find nothing here." The man speaks again, and it only make Evdokia think that this is definitely the room they're looking for.

She is almost about to give up when she sees it. A crack at the very edge of one of the wall mirrors. She moves her fingers across the scratched edge and it rips her glove.

Evdokia pulls out her dagger and pushes it between the wall and the mirror, and she finds it moving to the side.

"Stop! you have no idea how much this co-"

"YingTai hold him down." Evdokia orders and YingTai complies.

She keeps moving the dagger between the two edges until the gap is big enough for the her to slide it by her hand.

And there it is. A chilled room door tucked excellently behind the mirror wall.

Evdokia feels like she knows what to expect when she breaks open the door, but every thought flies out of the window the moment she changes her gloves, mask and walks into the room.

Evdokia feels her heart dropping down to the deepest pits of hell and coming back up when she enters the chilled room.

Kids.

They're all kids. Kids from the age 7 to 9 skinned, scalped, butchered and left hung up in the chilled room like fucking pigs for weeks without anyone knowing. Some have their organs carved out, their eyes popped out of their sockets.

It all started with one file of a missing kid, the one turned to two, the two turned to three, and eventually, they became twenty-four missing kids .

Through her mind ringing white noise, she thinks she hears ShunYuan taking off his mask and throwing up behind her. It's a shuddering crime, one she hasn't yet came across before in her career.

Evdokia swallows back down the acid that rose to the top of her throat, trying to stay as composed as possible.

"JinZhu, refrain the parents from coming near the crime scene." She orders as she walks between the hung corpses.

"Yes captain." JinZhu says.

"And KeLei, try to calm them down, you're good at it." She says as she inspects one of the corpses, moving her fingers over the bare ribs of one of the kids.

She thinks she hears KeLei saying copy that, she isn't quite sure. Because the fear and horror painted over those dead bodies is making her skin crawl and body shiver.

She walks up to them, one by one, rechecking if they're all dead. It constricts her heart that it's real, all those kids seem to have been skinned alive till their death, according to her senses.

"holy fuck..." YingTai inhales sharply when he comes into the room, closing the door behind him.

"We're dealing with a psychopath, great." ShunYuan keeps a napkin over his nose, blocking off the smell of death and fungus in the room.

"Why would anyone do this? Why would he do this?" YingTai asks in a pained voice.

"ShunYuan, hand me the files of the kids." Evdokia asks.

She schemes through the papers and the pictures of the children, trying to put each face with the victim. Who knew you face skin shows so much of your features? It's hard to name the kids at this point.

"get the morgue doctors in, there isn't much to investigate here." With a heavy heart and light head, Evdokia walks out of the chilled room, taking off her gloves, not forgetting to knee the CEO in the crouch on her way out.

*

Evdokia sees a familiar black flock with locks of hair dancing with the rhythm of the wind and she knows instantly that it's KaLei.

"We need to go back to the office to hand in the report." She says as she walks up to the railway, leaning onto it. She has her dress shirt sleeves folded and arm tattoos showing.

KeLei hums, cigarette between his pressed lips.

"You're good?" he asks.

"No, who the fuck would be after what we saw?" she blinks at him.

"good point." He offers her a pack of cigarettes but she shakes her head.

"We should have moved sooner, they would have been less if we were given the case before HuaHua."

"That's true. But we didn't, so there is no point in guilt tripping anyone here." KeLei breathes out a flock of smoke.

Evdokia agrees, and if she wanted to vent about the fact that this whole case reminds her of the death hall, she keeps it to herself.

"anyways, up for hot pot after the report?" she smiles cheekily at him, throwing her coat over her shoulder as they both walk back into the building to the rest of the team.

*

April 1, 2021, 20:14

Fenghuang, China

The sound of pots and silverware clicking wakes YuNing up from his slumber, regretting not taking pain killers before he slept because that one hell of a headache somehow keeps only getting worse by every second. He slowly cracks an eye open and looks over his shoulder at the door of his bedroom, a small opening left casting yellow light from the living room onto his duvet. His head falls back down with a humph onto the pillow, he's not ready to have a human to human interaction right now but he knows that's impossible when you live with another person in the same house. With a loud sigh he peels the covers away from his body, swinging his legs off the mattress onto the floor which creaks loudly under his weight. He cracks his shoulder, neck and upper back before he gets up and makes his way to the bathroom. He passes by his dad, doing whatever in the kitchen, who greets him and probably says dinner is ready but YuNing is way too tired and fed up to even hear it.

When he's out of the bathroom he sees his father already sitting at the diner table, reading report papers regarding his patients, probably. YuNing goes to sit down across his father. LiQin smiles at him warmly and goes back to focusing on the papers and plate before him. YuNing wants to snatch them from his hands and te-

"I booked you a flight back to Beijing this Thursday ." LiQin says calmly, eyes not leaving the paper in his hand.

YuNing hums, not really in the mood to disagree over the fact that he's a grown man and can book his flight for himself. If he wasn't so under the weather he'd almost think his father is trying to get rid of him as quickly as possible. Actually, YuNing knows he does, in fact, want him out of the city already because YuNing knows his father wants to break down so bad but he's keeping it together because someone in the house has to. And maybe under all the gloominess blinding YuNing's rest emotions, he is a little too worried about leaving his father alone in Fenghuang.

"Heard about the explosions in Beijing, are your friends alright?" LiQin starts.

"No, I'll check on them after dinner."

LiQin nods at him, eyes on his plate.

"Have you picked up on any of your work?" LiQin asks.

"I tried coming up with a new rhyme yesterday, nothing productive to save me a face." YuNing chuckles.

"Don't push it, it'll come back to you on it's own."

"I hope so, I can't really waste anymore time." YuNing regrets the choice of word the moment it comes out of his mouth, and he sees the way his father's face falls, lets go of the paper in his hand.

"I'm sorry." LiQin whispers. YuNing sees the tear as it streams down his father's cheek, his eyes burning and fogging his glasses, and oh YuNing wants to cry. He gets up and squeezes his fathers shoulders in an embrace.

"please stop," YuNing chokes on his words, "stop pretending that you're okay, I beg you."

And that's when LiQin breaks, his whole body shaking with misery and rage at his fate, that he lived to see the first and only real person to ever love him unconditionally slip from between his arms. YuNing's mother, AiLin, was all LiQin had, was all LiQin ever wanted in this damned life. He watched her as she faded away in a hospital bed, day by day, not even able to share his tragedy with his son, on his wife's command not to disturb him during his study days unless she's already gone.

YuNing holds his father tightly through his whines and whimpers, his head buried in the back of his father's neck and never lets go. They stay that way for a while, swaying from side to side until the arms clutching his own loosen up and lets go.

"You can go rest up, I'll clean up."

"Thank you, Ningning." LiQin says softly and takes off to his room, his and AiLin's room.

It doesn't take too long to get the kitchen in order, dining table cleared, pots and plates in the dishwasher, and the pictures of the refrigerator organised just how his mother liked them.

YuNing heads to the balcony for some fresh air and a sight of the moon, as always bringing him the peace he doesn't get in his day. The more he looks at the moon, the more he misses that face of hers even more, and he silently curses his destiny for only allowing him to ignite his soul with her beauty for only one time.

*