Wanna Eat?

"You lunatic. I admire you— you can still sit here and enjoy BBQ after you’ve seen that body in such a bad shape. It seems good to be a lunatic. Honestly, I really envy you right now."

"Psychopath. Not lunatic."

Su Bai corrected Chu Zhao.

"Well, they’re pretty much the same to me." Chu Zhao picked up a skewer of baked Chinese chives, "I’ve been staying up all night, and I’ll have some Chinese chives to enhance my body. I’m not married yet; it would be a great pity if I got ED because I have to work at night[1]."

"Isn’t that a perfect revenge on your dad? With his own grandsons?"

"Gee, I actually had the same thought when my dad forced me to be a cop. I even thought of putting a knife against my balls, and then I would threaten to be hard on his grandsons if he kept pushing me."

Chu Zhao himself laughed after he said that. Then he picked up the beer and had a long drink. Drinking was not allowed during missions, but he had been busy all night and the senior leaders would not be too harsh; of course, Chu Zhao had always been sticking to his own ways and would never care much about those stupid rules.

Su Bai looked at Chu Zhao. He knew who the murderer was but he could not tell his friend here, because all of this was so unnatural.

"What are you gonna do next?"

"What else can we do except keep looking? Reinforcement will be sent. Two students died a extremely tragic, abnormal deaths- it’s an earthquake. Even the provincial authorities were alerted and special documents were issued; besides, I’m telling you, some old cops who had participated in that mutilation case 20 years ago have been called up to help with the investigation, even though they had retired already."

Chu Zhao finished a Chinese chive and stood up, "I’ll escort you back to the dormitory."

"What, you’re afraid that something might happen to me too?"

"Not really. But you seem to be in a bad mental state and your face is too pale. And what are those black lines under your eyes?"

Hearing this, Su Bai immediately picked up his cell phone and turned the screen toward himself. Soon, he realized that something was wrong. His face was indeed so pale, luckily it was too dark to be seen clearly. There were visible black lines around his lips and eyes, like the patterns of make-up.

Su Bai knew well that it must have something to do with that "Broken Vampire Blood" he had exchanged. That blood had already made some influence on his body; at the same time, Su Bai felt his body seemed to be a little lighter with some feeling that he could not tell clearly or think thoroughly.

Luckily, while observing himself, he found that his skin was gradually coming back to normal, and those lines were fading.

It must have been the maladjustment after that exchange, and now he was recovering.

Su Bai got up, put the money on the table, looked at Chu Zhao and, at last, patted him on his shoulder.

"Good for you, a good cop for the people."

Chu Zhao wasn’t really in the mood of joking or bragging. He just said: "Seriously, how about you stay at my place and go to a hospital tomorrow? Even if nothing is wrong with your health, I’m worried your mentality might… you know, after so much irritation…"

"Won’t happen."

"Those who are drunk will never admit that." Chu Zhao looked at Su Bai, "Among the four of us in this club, the three of us are just into excitement and novelty, only you psychopath have this rigid demand."

"Fine. Will you escort me back to the dormitory? I’ll grab my stuff and start a suspension of schooling from tomorrow."

"That’s my boy. You won’t have any problem even if you stop going to school anyway. Okay, now the senior leaders are waiting for their reinforcement, and I’m free for now. I’ll escort you back to the dormitory first."

Su Bai walked back to school with Chu Zhao. There were many police vehicles parking around the school gate, thus creating an awful repressive atmosphere.

"This case... will it be sealed up?" Su Bai suddenly asked.

"It’s difficult, but we’ll try our best. Nowadays, everyone has a smart phone, and this time, so many students have been asked to help. It must be all over the internet. But we’ll have to wait for the notification from upper authorities; the case seems to be huge, but one simple order from the government and everyone would be silenced."

On their way back to Su Bai’s dormitory, Su Bai and Chu Zhao could still see a lot of students and policemen carrying on their searching.

Obviously, more flesh pieces were found, but no other progress was made.

Chu Zhao lit up a cigarette and handed over another to Su Bai. Su Bai tightened his lips. He had Chu Zhao waiting for him right there in front of the dormitory building.. Chu Zhao didn’t doubt anything; he was happy to save himself from the trouble of going upstairs, so he just smoked there enjoying the fresh air.

But after a while, Chu Zhao realized something and touched his body…

"F**K! It’s gone!"

......

Su Bai walked upstairs. It was not very quiet in the dormitory building; a lot of people were walking around because this case was all over the internet. Even though the authorities had warned those major media and those media, including Weibo, had been deleting words on this topic, as students who actually lived in this very school, this case had caused great panic among them inevitably.

However, no matter how heated the discussion was among the other rooms, Su Bai’s room was still quiet.

Because there wasn’t so many people in this room. At this time, Liu He would be the only one inside.

There used to be four people in this room, but one of them had become a trainee and moved out since the beginning of this semester, and Chen Chu had been living in a rented apartment outside school with his girlfriend. So there were just Liu He and the indifferent Su Bai. Now Liu He was the only one left.

Su Bai pushed the dormitory door and walked in, only to find Liu He curled up in his bed like a startled rabbit.

Liu He saw Su Bai come in and said: "Su Bai, I couldn’t fall asleep."

Su Bai nodded, "Neither could I."

"It’s hard to imagine… Chen Chu just died like that." Tears started to gather in Liu He’s eyes.

Su Bai sat on Chen Chu’s bed; it was a lower bed, same as Liu He’s, and these two beds were sort of opposite.

"It’s hard to imagine."

Su Bai agreed.

"I want a suspension of schooling." Liu He seemed to have made an important decision, "I’ll call my father tomorrow, I’m gonna drop school. If I have to stay in this dormitory, no, in this school, I will lose my mind."

Liu He even began to cry. His mental endurance was far from Su Bai’s.

"A suspension it is. I’m gonna drop school as well, otherwise I will go nuts."

This was indeed Su Bai’s plan. After the encounter with Dreadful Radio, he could hardly continue his schooling restfully; he had lost his mood for studying, so it would be better for him to take a break.

If he died someday without any reason, in a story like Guo Gang did, everything he had been doing till now would be meaningless.

"Well." Liu He got up. "By the way, I’ve got some pears here. Wanna eat?"

"Yeah." Su Bai nodded.

"Okay, I’ll go wash them. We should get some rest as soon as possible tonight and go to apply for suspension together tomorrow. I don’t think the school authorities would obstruct us too much after what had happened."

"Actually, if we do insist, we might even get a postgraduate recommendation."

"You care about being a postgraduate?" Liu He laughed and walked out. Apparently, just as Chen Chu, he also knew that Su Bai had a special family background.

Liu He left the room and went to the washroom to wash those pears.

Su Bai stood up, came to Liu He’s bed and opened his mosquito net. Then he searched the bed with both hands but found nothing but stuff including tissues and floral water[2]. Then he turned over Liu He’s summer sleeping mat… and he stopped in astonishment.

Under that summer sleeping mat…

…there was a flat paper man lying down there…

…about 160 cm long…

…with fresh red color on its cheeks.

And beside the fingers of its hand, there was a knife made of paper.

"Pears are ready. You wanna eat them now?"

All of a sudden, Liu He’s voice came from behind. It was kind of hollow and faint.

———————————

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In traditional Chinese medical theories, it is believed that staying up all night will cause ED (erectile dysfunction) and Chinese chives can help improve men’s virility.

[2] Floral Water: It is a kind of traditional cologne-like perfume made of herbs and is mainly used as perfume or anti-mosquito product.