Return: My Hell and Heaven
Chapter 23: The Madman (1)
After a brief five-word exchange, the call ended.
Song Shu stood frozen in place for about five seconds, then snapped back to reality. Her eyes flickered, and she dropped her shoulder bag, turning to run towards the elevator.
“Qin Qing!” Yu Qisheng sounded urgent. “Where are you going?”
Inside the elevator, Song Shu pressed the button for the top floor where the rooftop was located. She repeatedly pressed the close door button with force, glancing towards the closing doors where Yu Qisheng’s figure disappeared. “I’m sorry, General Yu—I have to go up.”
Yu Qisheng didn’t have time to respond; the elevator doors had already closed. A second or two later, it began to ascend slowly.
Inside the elevator, Song Shu dialed the number again on her phone, but each time, all she heard was the electronic voice saying, “The number you have dialed is currently switched off.”
The mere tens of seconds in the elevator felt like agonizing torture for Song Shu.
When the doors finally opened, she dashed out without hesitation.
Vio’s rooftop was designed as an aerial garden, with neatly trimmed shrubs and beautiful garden trees everywhere.
Apart from sporadic lights hidden in the bushes and shrubs, and a blood-red LED clock not far away indicating the time, the entire rooftop was enveloped in dark night and rustling wind. Not a single figure could be seen.
Song Shu panicked. “Qin Lou—!” She quickly turned her body and eyes, running while searching every corner and gap along the way. “Qin Lou!!”
The woman’s voice carried the suppressed edge of near-collapse.
“Qin—”
Song Shu’s voice abruptly stopped.
She abruptly turned her head towards a direction at the end of the rooftop, where faint music carried by the wind brought familiar lyrics:
“Why don’t you lock me up with joy and kisses?”
“Lock me up with love?”
“To your heart’s desire?”
“I don’t want you to stop…”
Song Shu’s pupils suddenly contracted. She recognized it—it was the thundering music she had heard intermittently on her first day at the 23rd floor of Vio.
Song Shu felt her heart tighten sharply. She bolted towards the end of the rooftop.
“Qin Lou!!”
The woman’s voice strained and hoarse in the wind.
When she finally stopped and saw the figure sitting on the low wall of the rooftop, Song Shu’s eyes suddenly reddened.
Thank goodness… Thank goodness. It wasn’t the worst outcome.
Pressing against the stinging coldness in her throat and chest from the icy wind, Song Shu felt like she might be losing her mind, but not yet.
Madness also required abandon and freedom, yet she carried too much burden. She didn’t have that kind of freedom since the moment she woke up nine years ago.
Song Shu steadied her breathing, bracing her knees against the ground before slowly standing up.
“Qin Lou, come down from there first, let’s—”
“You’ve come.”
The person with their back to her suddenly spoke, a hint of laughter in their voice.
Song Shu hesitated. “Yes, I’m here.”
“Do you know what this song is called?”
“When you were abroad, you never heard it?”
“No.”
“Then let me teach you. It’s called ‘Lock me up’ in English, and in Chinese, it’s《锁住我》.”
“…”
Song Shu anxiously clenched her hands. Qin Lou’s current emotional state was too calm, which unsettled her more than if he were going mad. She struggled to speak:
“Okay, I’ll remember that. I’ll listen to it when I get back tonight. But for now, come down from there and come inside the rooftop.”
“What would I do inside there?” Qin Lou suddenly laughed, leaning against the ledge, laughing so hard it seemed he might fall off the edge of the 23rd floor skyscraper.
But his laughter gradually turned hoarse, dark, and when he spoke again, it was as if the words were torn painfully from his chest: “Anyway, my locks are all gone. What else is there for me to do inside? I might as well…”
He pushed himself up slowly from the ledge.
With his back to Song Shu, overlooking the lights flowing beneath his feet, Qin Lou’s lips curved into a silent smile.
“Qin Lou!”
Song Shu’s voice finally cracked into hysteria. Her fingers trembled uncontrollably. She tried several times to approach but feared inadvertently causing him to make a more dangerous move.
“…”
She heard herself, her voice clearly tinged with tears. Qin Lou’s laughter stopped abruptly. After a few seconds, Qin Lou slowly turned around, looking at the woman standing in the rooftop garden.
Behind them, the wind howled around the 23-story building.
Qin Lou slowly crouched down, then extended his arm.
“Come.”
This time, Song Shu dared not hesitate. She ran over quickly, gripping his hand tightly, then forcefully pulling him towards herself.
“Thud.”
After a dull sound, they both tumbled together onto the soft artificial grass.
Song Shu lay underneath, completely pinned down by the man who had fallen on top of her. She had just choked on a few breaths of cold wind, and now, finally relaxing, she couldn’t hold back her coughs. Song Shu turned her head, not caring to push the man off her, already coughing violently.
Qin Lou buried in her neck and long hair on the other side, listening to the heartbeat pulsing in her ear and the sharp breaths of coughing, the vitality of life at that moment was so vivid. Nothing proved her existence better than this.
Qin Lou suddenly propped himself up and then reached out to hold the chin and neck of the woman beneath him, her hair disheveled from coughing so hard.
Song Shu was taken aback, still coughing softly, turning her gaze aside. “Qin—cough—Qin Lou?”
“I want to ‘kill’ you,” Qin Lou said abruptly, his eyes dark and without any warning.
Song Shu’s composure hadn’t quite recovered from the recent shock, so her response was purely instinctual. “No.”
“Why?” Qin Lou lowered his pitch-black eyes.
“That’s illegal.”
Song Shu frowned slightly.
She could feel that Qin Lou’s hand holding her chin and neck exerted no force, not even enough to harm her, yet his gaze and expression didn’t seem like he was joking.
Letting this madman run wild alone for several years, there were some thoughts even she couldn’t fathom at the moment.
As Song Shu struggled to gather her shaken composure and make judgments and considerations, she saw Qin Lou frown disapprovingly above her.
“Ask me how.”
“?”
“Ask me how I would ‘kill’ you.”
“…”
Considering they were near the edge of the rooftop, Song Shu had already decided to be completely compliant with this person before leaving here. “How would you…?”
Before she could finish her sentence, the madman’s lips curved into a triumphant smile.
“This way.”
With those words, a fierce and scorching kiss descended upon her, relentless and all-consuming, as if he wanted to swallow her whole.
In those ink-black eyes that never closed throughout, there was a hidden, suppressed, almost ferocious desire and craving.
Song Shu had no room to struggle, firmly pressed into the artificial grass, shamelessly kissed.
At a certain moment when it finally stopped, Song Shu felt like she had just smelled the scent of death.
Suppressing her anger, she barely turned her head, only to see the shadow looming over her once again.
Song Shu was almost psychologically shadowed, quickly turning her head aside.
Taking advantage of the moment, the man leaned down to her ear, seeming to notice her instinctive avoidance earlier. He laughed wantonly and maliciously into her ear.
“This floor is my private area. Only I have the surveillance footage here. I’m going to edit that segment we just had and send it to your fiancé for him to enjoy—this is my payback for the kick you gave me for his sake.”
“—!”
Song Shu turned her head back, her lips reddened from the kiss, slightly pursed with anger, her dark eyes gleaming with a beautiful watery sheen.
Qin Lou stared for a few seconds, a deep shade of ink returning to his eyes. He grinned widely.
“Forget it, I regret it. I should keep such footage for my own enjoyment.”
Song Shu took a deep breath, trying to keep calm. “If you’re done causing trouble, get up.”
Qin Lou’s eyes flashed with hostility.
“Done? How can I be done? Didn’t I say I wanted to ‘kill’ you?”
“What else do you want?”
“I want…” Qin Lou laughed even more madly, leaning down to her ear and whispering, “Let’s go all the way to death, shall we?”
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