Xu Fangfei did not think deeply about that hand marked with an old bullet scar.
She went upstairs, took the key out of the pocket of her school uniform pants, and opened the door lock in the dark.
Hearing the sound of the door opening, Qiao Huilan, who had been pacing back and forth in the kitchen, finally let out a sigh of relief. Wearing an apron, she hurried out in a few quick steps and asked, “Why are you back so late today? I was just about to call Teacher Yang.”
It was a three-bedroom apartment from the 1970s, and the interior layout was not very reasonable. Speaking of it, it was a bit ridiculous. In an eighty-square-meter apartment, the area that took up the most space in the entire home was actually the kitchen. Outside the kitchen was a narrow passageway that connected to a bathroom whose floor space was only a few ceramic tiles.
Old houses had a lot of clutter. The living room was cramped, and Qiao Huilan was walking quickly. Without paying attention, she tripped over the paper house stacked beside the sofa.
“The teacher dragged the class and explained the monthly exam papers,” Xu Fangfei replied as she bent down, reached out, and set the paper house upright. She blinked and found it a little novel. “I haven’t seen this style in the shop. Mom, did you make this one new?”
“I saw it on TV. A three-story little Western-style house. It looked quite nice. Business hasn’t been good at the shop these days, so I’ve been pasting this the whole time,” Qiao Huilan said. She paused, then added, “How were your monthly exam results?”
Xu Fangfei replied, “The total score was 624. Ranked tenth in the grade.”
“Good, good, good.” A smile surfaced on Qiao Huilan’s face, and she immediately turned back, bustling off to heat food for her daughter.
Xu Fangfei carried her backpack to her grandfather’s bedroom door, raised her hand, and knocked twice, bang bang. “Grandpa.”
Her grandfather had been bedridden for many years, and his eyes were already somewhat cloudy. But the moment he saw Xu Fangfei’s figure, a trace of light still appeared in the old man’s dull eyes. He smiled and nodded at her. “Go eat quickly.”
Xu Fangfei put her backpack back in her room, then returned to the dining table to eat her dinner.
“You’re in senior high now. It’s the time when you use your brain the most. Eat more,” Qiao Huilan said as she picked up the plate and directly moved the chopped braised fish into Xu Fangfei’s rice bowl. “Tomorrow, Mom will go buy some shrimp.”
The light bulb in the living room flickered twice and suddenly went dark.
Qiao Huilan stood up, grabbed the clothes-drying pole, and skillfully poked the light bulb twice, shaking it left and right. The whole house instantly returned to brightness.
“In a couple of days, I still need to buy a light bulb…” Qiao Huilan muttered to herself. She sat down on the sofa and took out a pen to keep accounts. As she wrote and calculated, the tip of her pen stopped. She looked up at Xu Fangfei. “Feifei, do you want a mobile phone?”
Xu Fangfei had just quietly picked the fish back into the plate. She shook her head. “I don’t need one for now.”
Qiao Huilan stopped talking and continued calculating and writing in the notebook.
Xu Fangfei looked at Qiao Huilan. Under the old light, her mother’s small figure seemed even smaller. That face, once delicate, now showed traces of weariness and haggardness from years of hardship. At her temples, a few faint white patches could be seen, interlaced among the black hair, like a scattering of snow.
Xu Fangfei knew clearly how hard her mother’s life had been these past years.
Those slender shoulders had carried the entire family. What was even more precious was that the frost and storms of life had not worn away the optimism and resilience in her mother’s bones, nor had they stripped her mother of her ability to love. On the contrary, after her father passed away, her mother gave her double the encouragement and affection.
Xu Fangfei withdrew her gaze, shoveled a big mouthful of rice into her mouth, and swallowed it seriously.
In her heart, she silently prayed:
Time, oh time, please run a little faster.
When I get into university and start working and earning money, my mom won’t have to work so hard anymore.
*
That night passed as usual, including wave after wave of blazing entanglement between the man and woman downstairs.
Early the next morning, before the sky had even brightened, Xu Fangfei woke up from her sleep. She turned over under the quilt and glanced at the alarm clock on the table. It was only 6:20.
Xu Fangfei’s home was very close to the school. It only took about fifteen minutes to walk, so her alarm clock rang on time at 6:50 every day.
Too early.
Xu Fangfei mumbled something indistinctly, closed her eyes, and prepared to go back to sleep for a bit.
Tick, tick, the minute hand inside the alarm clock casing slipped around one full circle.
Alright.
She couldn’t fall asleep.
Xu Fangfei resigned herself to sitting up from the bed. She scratched her hair, which had turned into a chicken’s nest from sleeping, put on her shoes, got out of bed, and went straight to the bathroom to wash up.
She stuffed the toothbrush into her mouth and drowsily raised her eyes.
Outside the window, heaven and earth were hazy, as if draped in a layer of black gauze. The sky was a deep shade of blue, between light and dark, so clean it held no impurities. That misty fog kept stretching into the distance, stretching on, connecting to the easternmost edge where the morning sun had not yet shown its face.
Xu Fangfei stared at the sky outside for a while, then lowered her head to rinse her mouth.
Just as she spat out the foamy water, suddenly, a sound of a door opening and then closing tore apart the quiet, peaceful morning. Creak, bang.
Immediately after came the sound of footsteps. Casual and unhurried, stepping down the stairwell built in the 1980s. The pace was neither fast nor slow, yet it did not sound unsteady at all.
Every resident of Unit Two, Building Three could be counted by Xu Fangfei even with her eyes closed. She had lived here for more than ten years and had never seen anyone leave the house this early.
Could it be…
As if guided by some unseen force, a close-up flashed rapidly through Xu Fangfei’s mind. A hand gripping a door handle. Pale skin. Long knuckles. A bullet wound scar on the back of the hand, like a sharp blade painting elegance, refined yet unrestrained, the mark of the hand’s owner’s bloodthirsty edge.
In the deathly silent morning, those footsteps sounded especially real and distinct.
Xu Fangfei raised her gaze again. In the faint dawn light, a figure walked out of the entrance of her unit building.
It was the back of a man.
His clothes were the simplest, a short-sleeved shirt and long pants. Tall and long-limbed, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, the two long legs crossing forward were straight without being scrawny, strikingly eye-catching.
Was this the new neighbor who had moved into 3206?
Thinking this, she recalled the nightly revelry from 3206 over these past days and could not help but look at that back view a couple more times.
Suddenly,
“Why are you up so early?”
Qiao Huilan’s voice rang out behind her. Xu Fangfei came back to her senses, withdrew her gaze, wiped the foam clinging to the corner of her mouth with a towel, and replied, “I woke up a bit earlier today.”
Qiao Huilan thumped her waist as she walked into the bathroom, saying, “Go change into your school uniform. Yesterday, I passed by the cake shop downstairs and bought a few egg tarts. I’ll heat them up for you later.”
“Mm, okay.”
*
Like most young girls, Xu Fangfei also liked sweet food. Those two sweet egg tarts in the morning put her in a good mood for the entire day.
That day was chemistry evening self-study. After the dismissal bell rang, the teacher finished assigning homework and left the classroom. As usual, Xu Fangfei walked home together with Yang Lu.
Everything seemed no different from usual.
The same night, the same moon, the same Xiwang Street, the same sound-activated light that would not turn on.
Xu Fangfei carried her backpack and climbed the stairs. Tonight, the bright moon was kind. In the pool of darkness, a trace of cool light spread out. She went up quietly, and when she reached the third floor, her keen hearing caught something different.
A hoarse yet deep singing voice. Vague and indistinct, dreamlike and illusory, like a gorgeous soul lingering in the mortal world, drifting through the air.
Someone was playing music. It was a song.
Xu Fangfei felt surprised. She realized that the closer she got to the third floor, the clearer the singing became. Finally, her small white mesh shoes stopped side by side, and Xu Fangfei halted in front of 3206.
In the stillness of a calm night, the male singer’s voice echoed endlessly.
“An unruly eagle… a wild goose flying south… when will there be a journey home…”
Separated by a security door, Xu Fangfei could not hear the exact lyrics clearly. She only felt that the melody was low and lingering, full of an indescribable sense of story, and very pleasant to listen to. It sounded like a folk song.
She silently memorized the few words she managed to catch, then turned and left.
The next morning.
In the classrooms of Lingcheng Middle School’s senior grades, some students were catching up on homework at their desks, writing furiously. Others were chasing each other down the corridors with brooms, making the entire floor noisy and clamorous.
Class 1, Grade 11.
After handing in her homework, Xu Fangfei sat at her seat for a while, then took a food bag out of her backpack, stood up, and walked toward the front row of the neighboring group.
She stopped in front of a girl, raised her hand, and lightly knocked on the desk twice, bang bang, calling out, “Yang Lu.”
Yang Lu looked up at her, puzzled. “What’s wrong?”
Xu Fangfei placed the food bag on Yang Lu’s desk and said with a smile, “These are two egg tarts. They’re for you.”
Yang Lu looked surprised and thanked her repeatedly as she accepted them. Seeing that Xu Fangfei was still standing there and had not left, she could not help but ask suspiciously, “Is there something else?”
Xu Fangfei hesitated for a moment, then said softly, “I want to ask you to help me with something.”
“Sure, sure. We’re all friends. You’re being too polite.” Yang Lu was straightforward and cheerful by nature. She patted her chest and said, “Go on, what do you need me to do?”
After some questioning, Yang Lu finally learned that the “help” Xu Fangfei mentioned was extremely small. She only wanted her help checking a few lines of song lyrics.
Yang Lu immediately agreed, took out her smartphone, and opened a webpage to search.
After several class breaks of effort that morning, during the lunch break, Yang Lu slapped her phone down in front of Xu Fangfei and handed over a pair of earphones, saying, “Here! I found it. Male singer, folk song, and those lyrics. Everything matches. Listen and see if it’s this one.”
Xu Fangfei glanced at the phone screen.
Song title: Ideal City
Singer: Anonymous
Xu Fangfei put on the earphones and tapped the play button on the screen. After listening to just two lines, she confirmed it and smiled at Yang Lu. “Yes, it’s this song! Thank you so much.”
“Oh, that’s nothing to thank me for. Just a small favor.” Yang Lu waved her hand generously, then paused and added, “But this kind of niche folk song, and a new one at that. Where did you hear it?”
Xu Fangfei replied, “I heard a neighbor play it.”
Yang Lu rubbed her chin. “Then your neighbor is pretty trendy.”
Xu Fangfei curved her lips into a smile. “Maybe.”
After finding that folk song, Xu Fangfei was very happy. She deliberately took out a brand-new notebook and copied down the lyrics of the song, stroke by stroke, neat and orderly.
***
[Ideal City.
An unruly eagle, cloaked in the dust of years and a body full of twilight,
When will it grow weary, when will it rest,
When will there be a journey home?
A wild goose flying south, covered by a thousand miles of yellow clouds and swirling snow,
When will it settle? When will it dock?
When will there be a journey home?
I want to board that train returning home,
To quietly look back at the city that holds my youth.
I want the wind to carry my longing to distant places,
To gently deliver it to the girl I cannot forget…]
***
High school life was tense and dull, day after day, as if there were never an end in sight.
That folk song that drifted out of 3206 by chance became one of the few touches of color in Xu Fangfei’s monotonous life.
She took time every day to practice that song. After a few days, she could already sing it in full.
Time passed just like that, plain and unremarkable, for six days.
That night, evening self-study ended late, and it was already after nine when school was dismissed. Xu Fangfei returned to No. 9 Courtyard on Xiwang Street as usual.
She hummed as she walked forward, when suddenly she saw a small black dog squatting on the road ahead.
From time to time, a few stray cats and dogs would wander into the old residential compound. At first, Xu Fangfei did not pay it any attention. But when she got closer, she noticed the little dog had its head lowered, carefully sniffing something on the ground.
Hearing footsteps, the dog seemed startled. With a yelp, it ran away.
By the moonlight, Xu Fangfei lowered her gaze to look. She saw that beside where the dog had been squatting, there were several drop-like traces on the ground.
She felt puzzled and took out the flashlight Qiao Huilan had given her earlier, turning it on to shine at them.
Those traces were dark red, in the shape of droplets. Like…
Bloodstains.
Xu Fangfei frowned slightly and unconsciously lowered her head to look around the surrounding ground. Only then did she realize that the bloodstains were not limited to just the few drops in front of her.
Drop by drop, the bloodstains came from the direction of the residential compound’s main gate, leading straight toward the pitch-dark entrance ahead.
Suddenly, an old crow on a tree let out a harsh caw, shrill and terrifying, nearly jolting Xu Fangfei’s three souls and seven spirits out of her body.
She lifted her eyes.
Unit Two, Building Three.
It was the building where her home was.
Someone was injured? Judging from these bloodstains, the injury did not seem light.
But if the injury was so serious, why did they not go to the hospital?
In an instant, Xu Fangfei’s mind filled with unease and doubt. She pressed her lips together, forcibly steadied her nerves, put away the flashlight, and entered the entrance.
The bloodstains stretched all the way.
Xu Fangfei’s heartbeat quickened. Holding her breath and focusing her mind, she forced herself to remain calm as she climbed the stairs. When she reached the third floor, the droplet-shaped bloodstains disappeared without a trace.
Thump, thump.
In the darkness, Xu Fangfei heard her own heart beating faster and faster.
She swallowed lightly, took a deep breath, and, as if summoning courage, cast her gaze toward 3206. Sure enough, sparse moonlight streamed in through the stairwell window. The bloodstains vanished right in front of the door to 3206, and faint dark red marks could be seen on the door handle.
In just a few short seconds, Xu Fangfei’s heart lurched. Countless guesses and thoughts flashed through her mind. In the end, she decided to pretend she had seen nothing.
Lingcheng was a place that could not tolerate too much curiosity.
The elders all said that not looking, not speaking, not listening, and not asking were the best ways to protect oneself.
Thinking this, Xu Fangfei turned and headed upstairs. In her panic, she subconsciously took the key out of her pants pocket, clenched it tightly in her hand, hurried upstairs, opened the door, and went inside.
With a soft, muffled sound, Xu Fangfei closed the door, her heart still pounding with fear.
*
Everything inside the building returned to deathly silence.
Moments later, with a creak, the door of 3206 opened, and a black figure stepped out silently.
The man bit down on a cigarette and quietly wiped the blood off the door handle with a rag. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something on the ground, faintly reflecting in the moonlight.
He casually picked it up. It was a small rectangular card, not even the size of a palm.
[Lingcheng Middle School Campus Card]
The fingers holding the cigarette were long and cool white. The ember at the tip flickered, like a red eye.
In the darkness, the man’s indifferent gaze casually swept over the few words at the top of the card and fell on the photo on the left.
Within that small frame was a fair, clean little face smiling at him. Her cheeks still carried a trace of youthful baby fat. Her hair was tied in a simple ponytail. Her eyes brimmed with clear moisture, pure, beautiful, and softly alluring, untouched by adornment, surpassing even the clearest jade of northern Myanmar.
Then his brow lifted slightly, and he looked with interest at the name column on the right:
Class 1, Grade 11, Xu Fangfei.