“I just asked my nephew, who’s in high school right now. He said the number six means ‘smooth’ or ‘awesome.’ If you’re praising someone for being really good at a game, you say six-six-six. It’s super popular these days.”
The cramped, smoky room of less than forty square meters was thick with haze.
A Flower Arm man sprawled on a peeling sofa, ground out his cigarette butt on the floor, then waved his tattooed, little green dragon arm through the smoke-filled air.
He turned to the buzz-cut man beside him, who was wearing a black jacket, and said, “He said his girlfriend’s nickname is Shanshan, like eel, the yellow eel. So the phrase means, six-six, Shanshan is awesome, basically praising her for being amazing at math.”
The buzz-cut man had one empty sleeve, currently biting open a bottle of beer with his teeth.
At these words, he turned his head, the empty sleeve of his leather jacket swinging a little, and replied, half-convinced, “Yeah, right. Anyway, when Tao Ge gets back, you tell him yourself. Who knows what tricks that kid’s up to.”
“What tricks can a middle schooler pull? Anyway, with just these few numbers, what could you possibly see?”
Flower Arm scoffed, lighting another cigarette. The smoke that had just cleared started to gather again.
He spoke with the cigarette still in his mouth, the tip bobbing up and down as he slung an arm around the buzz-cut man’s shoulder, acting like it was nothing.
“Weren’t you always bragging about being top of your class in math? And now you’re scared of a middle school kid?”
“Better safe than sorry.”
Flower Arm was getting impatient.
“Cut the crap! What else am I supposed to do? He said his girlfriend is even harder to deal with than his dad. If we can’t reach him, he’ll definitely call the cops. His dad might still care about his safety and hesitate, but that little girlfriend of his won’t give a damn if he lives or dies. She doesn’t care about the kidnapping—she just worries he might be flirting with other girls outside. That’s why I agreed to give him a chance to prove his loyalty. At least we won’t have any extra trouble.”
“How do you know Yu Renjie hasn’t called the cops already? Tao Ge’s been gone a long time. Maybe he’s been arrested.”
“Wish your brother well, will you?”
Flower Arm took a deep drag, the ember almost reaching his lips.
He sneered, “The client said the same thing—if worst comes to worst, just get rid of him. If that kid really tries anything funny, we’ll just take him out. Besides, it’s been days since we sent out the messages and there’s been no response. Clearly, no one cares. And my math-whiz nephew said there’s nothing suspicious about those two sets of numbers. So the kid probably isn’t up to anything.”
“Seriously?”
Buzz-cut man was doubtful.
“You have someone good at studying in your family? What’s his score?”
“Seventy or eighty, I think.”
“…High school math is out of one-fifty. Seventy or eighty is well below passing.”
“Is that so?”
Buzz-cut man fell silent, still uneasy.
He took a swig of beer and pulled out his phone to check the latitude and longitude for the numbers, but they were way off. He tried inputting them with the nine-key keypad, but that was just as confusing.
“See?”
Flower Arm flicked his cigarette into the half-eaten instant noodle cup, making a loud hiss.
“What kind of genius could Yu Renjie’s idiot son produce? He’s just as much a hopeless romantic as his dad.”
“Enough already. If you just ignored him, none of this would’ve happened. Why bother? I don’t care if those two are lovesick idiots, but you—don’t tell me you’re still thinking about my sister. I’m telling you, it’s impossible.”
“Are you kidding me? Is it a crime to think about her? Haven’t I done enough illegal stuff already?”
He spat on the ground.
“Besides, if you’re so against me and your sister, what about yourself? Is this your first time in a kidnapping, or did you not take your share of the loot? Every time I went in, I left the money for your sister!”
As he spoke, Flower Arm grabbed the mechanical arm off the coffee table and jabbed buzz-cut man with his own fingers.
“Back when I paid for your prosthetic with my hard-earned cash, I didn’t see you object to me and your sister being together. Now you’re acting all high and mighty. Now that your sister’s flown up the ranks, she acts like sleeping with me made her dirty—”
Bang!
Buzz-cut man kicked the coffee table, flipping instant noodle soup everywhere.
The two of them instantly tangled up on the sofa like a meat grinder.
“Screw you! If you bring up my sister again, I’ll send you straight to prison!”
***
Yu Jinyang had been tied to a chair for two full days.
The kidnappers were afraid he’d try something while going to the bathroom, so they hadn’t given him a drop of water.
At this point, his stomach felt like a crushed soda can, throbbing with pain.
His throat was as dry as a flypaper strip, tinged with the metallic taste of blood and corpses.
He felt like his insides were starting to rot.
His skin wasn’t much better—even if he couldn’t see it, he could imagine he looked like a zombie, enough to make a movie director worry about parental complaints.
He’d struggled a lot, so the rough hemp ropes had left countless bloody marks all over him; there probably wasn’t a patch of good skin left.
Only a few fingers could still move—enough to flip off these thugs if he wanted to.
Of course, he wouldn’t stoop to such tasteless behavior.
What worried Yu Jinyang most now was his eyes.
On the first day, afraid he’d spot clues, they’d covered his head with a black cloth and sprayed pepper spray in his eyes.
His eyelids burned, searing with pain until he couldn’t tell hot from cold. His eyes were useless now, like two holes leaking air, hurting so much he could barely catch his breath.
The next second, someone had tied a cloth tightly over his eyes, trapping all the heat inside, roasting his eyeballs.
Even so, he endured in silence, only passing out from the pain after a while.
When he woke up, he was tied to a chair, bound hand and foot.
The unseen world was terrifying.
He felt like his retinas had detached.
Worst of all, with his life hanging by a thread, he was still thinking about the high school entrance exam.
Even if he was rescued and started learning Braille, he wouldn’t make it in time.
Wait, do blind students get to take the exam?
Over the past few days, he’d used his ears to figure out the scale of the kidnapping: three men, one in a jacket with a disabled arm.
The squeak of his leather sleeve was especially noticeable in this season.
The arm was missing because his companions kept taking off his prosthetic to scratch themselves, and the two fought over it every now and then.
The other two: one called Tao Ge, the jacket man’s brother; the third was the one who sent messages for him, a bit slow, and the easiest to fool.
He often heard them whispering.
The brain is amazing—when the eyes are blind, the ears become sharp.
They thought he couldn’t hear, but he caught every word.
When Tao Ge went out for food, the other two stayed behind, never leaving his side.
When they chatted, they held nothing back, or just ignored him.
The slow one openly said he’d get a back tattoo with his share.
Jacket Man stayed silent for a long time before saying he’d get a haircut after this job.
He rarely spoke; it was usually Flower Arm who started conversations.
Hearing about the haircut, Flower Arm immediately warned him not to go to the new place—it was dodgy, ran a shady business.
Yu Jinyang couldn’t help chiming in, “Uncle, is kidnapping considered legit?”
Flower Arm immediately grabbed a sock to stuff in his mouth.
Yu Jinyang, hearing the shoes come off, quickly declared, “If you dare shove that in my mouth, I’ll die right here.”
He figured they wouldn’t really kill him unless they had no choice—otherwise, they wouldn’t have gone to such lengths with his eyes.
Sure enough, Flower Arm slammed his shoe on the floor a couple of times, then put it back on, and sneered to Jacket Man, “Rich kids are so particular, always acting like neat freaks.”
Jacket Man said nothing.
Flower Arm muttered to himself, “Yeah, yeah, rich kids definitely think country folk like us have stinky feet.”
Yu Jinyang was speechless.
“If you’re not bothered by the smell, why don’t you put it in your own mouth?”
Flower Arm was quick to anger, and sure enough, he exploded, “Shut up! Say one more word and I’ll beat you! Why do you talk so much? The other rich kids aren’t half as mouthy as you!”
In this stuffy space of less than forty square meters, they didn’t dare turn on the air conditioner.
The air was hot and sticky, like a pot of burnt hot pot base, boiling over and over.
Yu Jinyang felt like a fish waiting to be cooked alive, knowing his time was almost up. He shifted his neck, letting the back of his head hang on the chair, blindfolded face turned upward.
Blood and sweat trickled down his collarbones into his filthy T-shirt.
He put on a tone of feigned despair.
“She… didn’t reply to my message?”
“She did. Told you to go to hell,” Flower Arm said.
Yu Jinyang froze, turning his head away.
“I don’t believe it.”
“If you don’t believe it, don’t ask!”
Flower Arm kicked over the beer bottle in front of him, sending them clattering like dominoes.
“Didn’t you say she’s your girlfriend? Then why don’t you have her name saved? If you’re lying to me, I really will get rid of you.”
“Can’t couples fight?”
Yu Jinyang stayed calm—not that he could look any worse, his face was grayer than a burnt pot.
He lifted his chin in Flower Arm’s direction.
If he were clean and his eyes were visible, he’d look downright annoying.
“Didn’t you see she’s looking for an excuse to make up with me?”
Flower Arm hated five kinds of people most: the rich, the handsome, the smart, the popular with women, and those who looked down on others.
Yu Jinyang hit every one of Flower Arm’s sore spots.
Yu Jinyang seized every chance to jab at Flower Arm.
“Uncle, how far have you gotten with your plan? Haven’t you called my dad yet? Have you decided how much money to ask for? My entrance exam is tomorrow!”
“…Shut up. Say that one more time and see what happens.”
Flower Arm pointed at Yu Jinyang with Jacket Man’s prosthetic arm.
Jacket Man yanked his arm back, glaring with a ferocity he’d never shown before.
“Shut the hell up! If you talk to him again, you really are brainless! Bring me his phone and the jammer! I want to see what tricks this kid is pulling.”
Yu Jinyang turned his face forward, outwardly calm as water, though his heart was pounding wildly in his empty chest.
He didn’t dare breathe, afraid that even the movement of his chest would give him away.
He could only grit his teeth, suppressing every breath until his ribs ached.
He tried to hold back, but couldn’t—he clenched his jaw, face taut, Adam’s apple bobbing uncontrollably.
If he really died here, he hoped his parents wouldn’t see him looking so twisted and pitiful.
He regretted sending that message.
Remembering her mention of the Fibonacci Sequence, he’d impulsively tried to fool Flower Arm.
If she couldn’t solve it, he really, really wouldn’t blame her.
But with her heroic streak, she’d probably wrestle with those numbers to the bitter end.
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