Intent

A little boy sat at the breakfast table as he dug into a typical bowl of cereal. His parents were out of town, so his grandpa had been called over to take care of him for the short while.

The grandpa sat across from his grandson at the breakfast table while he read the morning newspaper. The small TV on the wall was switched on and was turned to the news channel where a weather forecaster announced the usual scripted words.

"So it's going to be pretty cold today, huh?" the little boy muttered after he had spooned a nice amount of cereal into his mouth.

The grandpa glared at him. "Don't speak with your mouth full, boy."

A few moments of silence later, the weather forecast turned off and a news anchor with an urgent tone in his voice appeared on the screen.

"Greetings, all. We have just received news that the much disreputable Devil has struck again. After his last murder which involved an innocent himeless man that took place almost a week ago, his next target seems to have been a much renowned government official, Mister Han Longwei, who was found not so long ago in his house with four parallel slashes in his neck. There's no doubt this was the work of The Devil, but what of his intent, no one will ever know. Furthermore..."

As the news anchor continued on with the detailed descriptions of Mister Han Longwei's deceased body, disturbing footage of the gashes on his throat was plastered across the screen, at which the grandpa clicked his tongue.

"Tsk! Awful business, really," he muttered bitterly. "First a homeless man, and now the vice chairperson of the CPPCC. Is there no end to the vile man's antics?"

"Who is The Devil, grandpa?" the little boy asked with mild curiosity as he leaned forward in his chair.

The grandpa narrowed his eyes at him and put his newspaper down. "You're too young to know, boy. It's adults' business."

The boy put another spoonful in his mouth, pieces of cereal flying out of his mouth as he talked. "The news man said he killed people. Is he a cereal killer?"

The grandpa frowned. "Where'd you hear that from, boy? Anyways, yes. He's the nation's most dangerous serial killer these days, and he'll chomp up little boys like you if you go out alone at night. So you better listen to your grandpa and adhere to the curfew I've set."

The boy scoffed and put the rim of his bowl to his lips and gulped down the remaining milk. He slipped out of his chair and put his bowl into the sink before picking up his lunch from the table and putting it in his school bag.

"I'm off to school!" he called back to his grandpa before heading off.

The old man leaned back in his chair and sighed, worriedly looking after his grandson from the window as he trotted off to join the rest of his friends on the street.

⧫.⧫.⧫.⧫.⧫

Indeed, The Devil was the nation's most ill-famed serial killer, with 39 victims only in the past two months.

Each body he killed, he left behind four parallel slashes on their throat due to his bagh nakhs, a not so common weapon in China. It had now almost become his signature weapon, the thing he got known for.

Children said he had really long nails with which he made those intimidating injuries, but researchers had already found out the source of the strange marks.

...

It was already the next morning, and The Devil, who's real name was Wang Zihao, walked confidently through the market streets. His black hair was swept back neatly and he donned a plain black shirt over a pair of denim pants. His deep black eyes stared at all the colorful food stalls, oblivious to the starstruck gazes of women around him.

With his handsome face and tall figure, Zihao knew that there was no chance of anyone suspecting him to be the devil, even though underneath his clothes, he was still bandaged and hurting. But he never showed it.

Zihao, at the age of 27, was a menace. Both his parents were dead and he lived alone in a middle-class apartment in a small town in Guangzhou. He never was interested in women, but then again, he wasn't interested in anybody but himself.

If so, how had he come about to killing people? Was it for money? For fun? No, Zihao had plenty of money to go by since he worked a day job at an investigation firm. Since he usually worked on some of his own cases, he knew no one would ever suspect him of such sinful crimes. It took all the strength in him to stifle his laughter at times when his coworkers would make daft assumptions about The Devil, not knowing that he was sitting amidst their company.

The Devil had an interesting life, but why did he kill people time and time again? Because there was too much filth on Earth, and no place for more. What do you do about the garbage in your house when it starts to overflow? You dispose of it, and that's exactly what this man was doing, starting from his own home city.

In his future, he planned to spread out to the entirety of China and then the world. The world was polluted by disgusting people, men and women equal, and he had taken up the job to get rid of them, even if it meant he was risking his own life.