In previous summers, he would always take up odd jobs in the community, earning a couple hundred a month as a small stipend.
Most often, he cleaned for the elderly in Chengzhong Village or watched over roadside stores for the shopkeepers.
He walked along the road after school, wondering where he could find work.
Come to think of it, instead of earning that measly stipend through odd jobs, wouldn’t it be better to just borrow money from Qiao Yunxue?
Actually, why even borrow—just asking directly would be even more straightforward.
At that thought, Shen Yao suddenly felt as if life had lost much of its meaning.
While he was lost in such thoughts, a butterfly fluttered before his eyes, followed by a gentle call:
“Shen Yao~” It was a girl’s voice, ethereal and sweet, melting right to the bone.
Shen Yao turned around. At that moment, an untimely gust of wind blew up the girl’s hat—a wide Sun Hat blocked his view.
All he heard was a string of laughter, clear as silver bells:
“Let’s meet again next time~”
When he took off the sky-blue hat, the girl was nowhere to be seen.
But in that brief, dazzling glimpse, he caught a trace of someone from an old, familiar dream.
Shen Yao held the hat and pushed against the crowd, searching, but could not find that familiar figure.
He looked at the Sun Hat in his hand with a sense of loss, unable to let it go for a long time.
Urban Village. The scorching Summer. The whirring fan. And the girl pressing down on him, their lips and tongues intertwined.
Everything that happened that day seemed like a Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Was it her?
He hadn’t seen her in years—was she doing well?
Men always struggle to forget two women: the first woman he ever loved with all his heart, and the first woman who ever loved him with all hers.
A strong wind rose again. Shen Yao failed to hold on, and the Sun Hat in his hand was carried high into the air.
He had no choice but to leave the road and chase after the hat caught by the wind.
The hat fluttered and floated, finally coming to rest atop a box in Chengzhong Village, hooked onto a clothesline outside someone’s home.
From the lone piece of clothing drying on the line, he guessed the resident was an elderly woman living alone.
Shen Yao took the hat down from the clothesline and noticed that, under the sunlight, the line glimmered faintly.
This is…?
He reached out to gently touch the clothesline. To his surprise, it was sturdy—like some sort of high-strength wire twisted together, maybe even taken from an abandoned piano?
Looking around, Shen Yao noticed the Steel Piano Wire stretched perfectly across the narrow alley of Chengzhong Village, tied at both ends to drainage pipes, inconspicuous in the dimly-lit alley.
Judging from the height, the elderly lady must not be very tall, as the line only reached Shen Yao’s collarbone.
The management in Chengzhong Village was always lax. Although this alley was empty, setting up a clothesline here still seemed dangerous.
He knocked on the redwood door, wanting to explain the situation to the old lady.
But after knocking for quite a while, no one answered.
After thinking it over, he decided to borrow some scissors or a pair of wire cutters from the Hardware Store to take down this dangerous thing.
It might be meddling, but he couldn’t just ignore it.
He turned and started walking out of the alley. Halfway down, he suddenly realized the light at the end of the passage was blocked by someone.
Looking carefully, he saw several modified motorcycles belonging to street thugs.
Each Hongse Motuoche somehow squeezed three, four, five, even six people onto a single seat—how did they even fit?
One of the punks seemed to have his eye on this perfect alley and shouted, pointing ahead, “Hey, Blackie, dare to race me here? Whoever lets off the throttle first is the loser’s son! Whoever scrapes their bike is a **! You dare?”
Another, darker-skinned punk spat out his betel nut. “Let’s do it. Loser gives ten bucks!”
“**! Who wants to bet money with you!”
The first punk laughed, revved up his Hongse Motuoche with a load of school-dropout girls, and rode toward the alley where Shen Yao was walking.
The other two motorcycles followed suit, cramming into the narrow passage.
Hearing the engines roar, Shen Yao was hit with a sense of foreboding. He waved, trying to stop them. “Stop! Stop! You can’t drive here!”
“Get lost! Get lost!”
The leading punk switched on his headlights. The modified beams were so blinding Shen Yao couldn’t open his eyes.
The girls on the bikes shrieked, “Move it, damn it, don’t block the way!”
Shen Yao could only cover his eyes and retreat to the side, but he still did his best to shout, “There’s a wire ahead! It’s dangerous!”
But the group was completely lost in the thrill of racing. No one listened to Shen Yao.
He could only watch as three motorcycles, packed with more than ten people, sped down the alley, everyone whooping and shouting, the rush of the race sending adrenaline surging through their veins.
But in the next second, the cheers from the first bike cut off abruptly.
The Hongse Motuoche shot ahead at full speed, racing straight through the Steel Piano Wire.
The only change was the sudden silence from everyone on board.
First one bike, then the second.
It was only then that the first Hongse Motuoche suddenly toppled over, spilling the guys and girls onto the ground in a heap.
Blood flooded the narrow, damp alley.
On closer inspection, their necks, chins, or chests had all been neatly severed by the Steel Piano Wire.
Their inertia had kept their bodies whole, but now as the bike overturned, the severed bodies instantly fell to pieces.
The third motorcycle finally realized something was wrong.
The rider slammed on the brakes in terror.
The tail of the bike shot upward, flinging the five passengers ahead like cannonballs.
They shot straight through the Steel Piano Wire like five blocks of tofu, still intact in the air, but by the time they hit the ground, they broke apart, with the wet, fleshy thud of bodies falling echoing without pause.
In the sunlight, the Steel Piano Wire glistened blood-red, bits of flesh dangling from it.
In just a few seconds, the once-empty alley was piled with corpses.
The stench of blood filled the narrow corridor.
Shen Yao felt something sticky under his feet.
Looking down, he saw blood pooling along the drainage gutter, flowing from beneath his feet, calmly and smoothly out of the alley into the world beyond.
He touched his philtrum and found only warm blood.
Another nosebleed…
Fumbling in a panic, he tried to take out his phone to call the police, but it slipped from his hand and hit the ground.
When he picked it up, he was stunned to find all the blood on the ground had vanished.
No, not just the blood—everything was gone.
He stared blankly down the alley. The pile of bodies from just moments ago had disappeared, with no blood or remains, not even any motorcycles.
Even the Steel Piano Wire had vanished.
It was as if everything had been a hallucination… just like what happened back at school.
The first time could be explained by lack of focus, but how could he explain seeing things a second time?
Shen Yao stood in the chilly alley for a long time, then finally turned on his phone and opened Forum Eye of Berlin.
He tried searching for “Steel Piano Wire” and “ceiling fan” related stories, but a prompt appeared: only members could use the search function.
Members?…
He could only put away his phone.
It looked like he would have to trouble Qiao Yunxue again.