He Duoye might be a potential sociopathic freak.
This was something Lin Mian slowly realized after breaking up with him.
He Duoye suddenly moved to the village during the summer vacation after she graduated from middle school.
At that time, Lin Mian had also just moved to the countryside. Because her father was working away from home, she lived alone in an unfamiliar village, feeling bored, restless, and lonely every day.
One day, she suddenly heard from a neighbor’s grandmother that a very handsome young man had moved to the village.
At fifteen, a girl’s hormones were running wild. Hearing that he was handsome, Lin Mian felt an urge to get to know him. Coincidentally, she hadn’t made any friends in the village and was bored out of her mind every day.
The young man who moved in lived across from her, in a very dilapidated old house.
It was the most rundown and oldest house in the village, with cracked windows. Through the gaps in the glass, dust and garbage were scattered everywhere inside. The yard was overgrown with weeds, making it look like a haunted house.
No one expected a young man to move into such a place.
Part of the old house’s wall had collapsed, revealing a yard overgrown with weeds, like a desolate wasteland.
The young man, He Duoye, stood amidst the waist-high weeds. He was tall and thin, with a buzz cut. His features were sharp and distinct—indeed, he was handsome. However, his gaze toward Lin Mian was cold, devoid of any welcome.
There was only rejection, wariness, and annoyance.
Lin Mian instantly gave up the idea of befriending him. She instinctively felt that this young man was dangerous.
The rural summer vacation without companions was dull and long, so much so that even though Lin Mian knew He Duoye was dangerous, she couldn’t help but pay attention to this handsome boy her age.
Every time she passed the rundown house he lived in, she couldn’t resist sneaking a glance inside.
The overgrown yard had been cleared, revealing a flat patch of dirt. The broken wall had been repaired, and the yard gate was tightly shut. The cracked windows remained cracked, but a crude stone wall had been built behind them.
Most of the time, she couldn’t see He Duoye.
One evening, she bought an ice cream from the convenience store and walked home while eating it. As she passed He Duoye’s house again, she habitually glanced at the quiet yard.
Perhaps the ice cream made her too relaxed. Her mind went blank as she stopped by the roadside, standing on tiptoe to look inside.
A moment later, she suddenly felt a cold gaze. Turning her head, she saw He Duoye standing just two meters away—tall and thin, with a buzz cut that made him look like a convict, holding a chicken with drooping wings.
The sky was dim, but Lin Mian clearly saw the blood flowing from the chicken’s body.
It stained the ground and He Duoye’s pale calves.
Holding the bloody chicken, he slowly walked over, towering over Lin Mian by a head and a half. He looked down at her, his gaze sweeping over her face, the ice cream in her mouth, and her body in a spaghetti-strap dress.
The ice cream melted, dripping stickily onto her delicate collarbone.
He Duoye glanced at it, then looked into her wide eyes and asked, “So curious? Why not come in and sit?”
He gave her a dangerous feeling at that moment. She quickly shook her head and ran away.
Back home, Lin Mian’s mind was still filled with the image of He Duoye holding that bloody chicken.
After that, whenever she passed He Duoye’s house, she would still sneak a glance but never dared to linger for long.
Until a little dog in the village was hit by a car.
No one knew which passing vehicle had struck it. The skinny little dog had its belly caved in, lying paralyzed on the road, blood oozing from its nose and mouth as it whimpered and cried in agony.
The dog’s owner was an old man notorious in the village for his stinginess. Seeing the dog’s severe injuries and that it was beyond saving, he picked it up and tossed it into the woods, leaving it to die on its own.
That dog was pitiful—often going hungry, extremely thin, with dry, matted fur—but its eyes were always moist, gazing at people with an innocent, pure look.
Lin Mian would sometimes feed it.
Seeing it thrown into the woods to await death, she felt deeply tormented. She desperately wanted to do something for the little dog, but she was just a fifteen-year-old girl living in a remote countryside village.
She could do nothing except sit in the woods, hugging her knees, watching the whimpering, groaning dog with a heavy heart.
She had to cruelly hope that the dog would die quickly, so it wouldn’t have to suffer through its painful whimpers.
Yet life can sometimes be stubbornly resilient.
The dog clung to a faint, lingering breath, its sunken, deformed chest rising and falling weakly as it struggled to breathe, enduring both tenacity and agony.
Just as Lin Mian began to wonder if the dog might miraculously pull through and recover from its injuries, she suddenly heard footsteps.
Lin Mian turned her head and was surprised to see He Duoye dressed in black.
He walked over slowly, at a leisurely pace.
Sitting on the ground, Lin Mian had to look up at him, so in her field of vision, He Duoye appeared towering, carrying a sharp, intimidating pressure that made her nervous.
He stopped in front of Lin Mian, looked down, and met her wide-eyed gaze.
The light in the woods was already dimmer than outside, and with him backlit, his face took on a dark, gloomy chill. His gaze was direct, almost invasive.
Lin Mian’s heart pounded in her chest, likely from fear.
She immediately averted her eyes and lowered her head.
He Duoye crouched down beside her. In the awkward silence, he drew out a dagger, its gleaming reflection flashing across Lin Mian’s eyes.
She tensed up in fear.
He Duoye turned his head and said to her, “This dog is beyond saving. I’m going to end its suffering now. Do you have any objections?”
Lin Mian looked at the suffering dog, then at He Duoye’s lazy, indifferent expression. She suddenly remembered the bloody chicken and realized what He Duoye was about to do, but emotionally, she couldn’t bring herself to believe it.
Because it was too bloody and cruel.
So she asked a rather pointless question: “What are you going to do?”
He Duoye twirled the dagger, the sharp blade spinning deftly between his fingers. He said, “End its suffering.”
Lin Mian dug her fingers into her knees, pressed her lips together, and said nothing more.
Seeing that she had fallen silent, He Duoye extended his knife-wielding hand toward the dog.
The dog, weak and only capable of whimpering, saw this and its moist eyes shifted slightly, its tail wagging gently. It didn’t know it was a knife—it only saw a human hand reaching toward it.
But the next second, He Duoye pressed its head down and plunged the dagger into the dog’s neck.
That scene haunted Lin Mian’s nightmares for several nights afterward.
Back then, she didn’t know about things like antisocial personality disorder. She only felt that He Duoye was cold, dangerous, and unlike any other boy her age she had ever met.
She felt fear toward He Duoye, yet like a cat with a death wish, she couldn’t help but be curious about him.
Looking back now, this guy had long possessed the potential to become the leader of an Evil Organization.
Cold, cruel, and heartless to the point where he could watch his ex-girlfriend being dangled and fed to tigers without batting an eye.
After He Duoye appeared, the underling controlling the roller skates hurriedly pulled Lin Mian up, preventing the ferocious tigers from biting off her slender legs.
Lin Mian’s legs had already gone weak from fear, completely unable to support her, and she collapsed with a thud at He Duoye’s feet.
Suddenly, the surroundings fell into silence. No one made a sound, only the tigers below let out low growls, as if unwilling to give up.
Lin Mian looked up, and as she met He Duoye’s gaze, tears of fright streamed down her cheeks—utterly pathetic. Before she could even see He Duoye’s face clearly, she immediately lowered her head again.
The pretty boy nervously explained, “Third Young Master, I was just testing her, seeing how tight-lipped she is.”
He Duoye asked lazily, carelessly, “Oh, so is she tight-lipped?”
The pretty boy nodded. “Quite tight-lipped. She didn’t say anything.”
He Duoye hummed in acknowledgment. He leisurely lit a cigarette, and in the seemingly calm next moment, he suddenly lifted his leg and kicked the pretty boy off the three-meter-high platform.
A dull thud echoed from the fall, startling Lin Mian and making her shoulders tremble. Her eyes widened instantly.
The pretty boy landed directly on the grass, clutching his knees and writhing in pain. The ferocious tigers immediately swarmed over, engulfing him in an instant.
Lin Mian stared in shock, even her tears stopping.
“Curious? Want to go down and play too?” He Duoye crouched beside Lin Mian, using his cigarette-holding fingers to pinch her chin and turn her face toward him.
It was a mint cigarette, with a somewhat refreshing scent, but it couldn’t mask the unpleasant smell of tobacco itself.
Lin Mian suddenly, and inappropriately, remembered that He Duoye had once quit smoking for her.
She couldn’t help but lift her gaze to meet the eyes of this terrifying ex-boyfriend.
The sky grew darker, and He Duoye’s eyes were pitch-black and shadowy, carrying a deep, chilling coldness.
Lin Mian couldn’t see through him, but the moment their eyes met, she felt her still-unsteady heartbeat grow even more frantic.