You had a Nightmare.
Xie Qiaoqiao replied “okay” to the last message Zhang Xueji sent her, then started searching for nearby milk tea shops.
After confirming there was a milk tea shop selling Yangzhi Nectar near the Fengyi Community, Xie Qiaoqiao turned off her phone, slipped it into the pocket inside her raincoat, and continued packing the corpse into the cardboard box.
To avoid scaring passersby, Xie Qiaoqiao carefully sealed the box with tape, leaving not a single gap.
Hua Lingyue stood nearby, looking the box up and down.
“Looks alright. Probably because most of the blood has already drained out, after you seal it with tape, the bloody smell isn’t that strong. As long as you don’t open the box, no one will know there’s a body inside.”
She continued, “I’ll go borrow a car in a bit, bring it over so we can put the box in the trunk and take you back to the community. That’s much more convenient.”
Hua Lingyue took a walk outside and soon returned with a car.
She opened the trunk, and Xie Qiaoqiao stuffed both the box and the handcart inside.
Since outside vehicles aren’t allowed into the community, Hua Lingyue could only drop her off at the gate, so the handcart was still necessary.
Luckily, Hua Lingyue had borrowed a large car, and the trunk could hold all their things.
After Xie Qiaoqiao settled into the passenger seat and buckled her seatbelt, Hua Lingyue turned on the indicator and drove out.
A lot had just happened, but Xie Qiaoqiao was as silent as ever, neither asking what would happen next nor caring whether the colleague carried off in the ambulance was dead or alive.
She sat upright in the passenger seat, raincoat still on, her face turned toward the window, those pitch-black pupils calmly watching the scenery roll by at a steady pace.
The smell of blood on Xie Qiaoqiao was much heavier than on the box.
Hua Lingyue was used to Xie Qiaoqiao’s indifference. She turned on some music. Amid the upbeat lyrics, “On my heart, freely soaring—”, she moved on to the next topic.
“Those two from the Second Group were badly injured. They’ll probably get three months of paid leave. Qi Chen lost a tooth and has a mild concussion, but the implant fees are reimbursable—this time’s losses were bigger than expected. Once we get back, there’ll be a meeting to re-evaluate the incident.”
“Good thing we called you in, or next year today I’d be a year older.”
Xie Qiaoqiao quietly listened, calm as a dead sea—or maybe a black hole—without responding to any of Hua Lingyue’s words. Even the self-deprecating joke at the end didn’t stir a ripple in that dead sea.
The car’s music changed to “Lotus Pond at Night,” the gentle sound of flowing water combining with Xie Qiaoqiao’s excessive calm, helping Hua Lingyue relax her taut nerves.
After dealing with all sorts of strange monsters and ghosts, Hua Lingyue always ended up spacing out, staring at Xie Qiaoqiao’s emotionless face.
There was something reassuring about that unshakable calm.
Staring, Hua Lingyue suddenly noticed something different. “Did you get a new hair tie? The charm… is pretty unique.”
The girl’s twin tails were tied with red hairbands, the ends dangling several beads engraved with scripture—like those overpriced charms sold at temples.
Xie Qiaoqiao replied, “A friend gave it to me.”
Hua Lingyue was quite pleased. “A friend? That’s great. At your age, you should have more friends your own age. Don’t forget to return the favor—give them something like a hairclip or a bracelet, that way people will want to hang out with you.”
Xie Qiaoqiao gave an “Mm,” lightly tapping the car window. “Pull over up ahead, I want to buy milk tea.”
“One Iced Americano, two Butter Pineapple Buns, and… a Red Bean Ice Snowball. All to go.”
Zhang Xueji waited by the counter for a while and soon got his order. He stabbed a straw into his Iced Americano and took a big gulp; the icy shock cleared his slightly dizzy head.
Anyone would know that drinking Iced Americano at night after a fever in the morning isn’t exactly healthy.
But Zhang Xueji had just gotten new data this afternoon and needed to revise his paper tonight—he couldn’t make it without coffee.
Besides, he’d arranged to have a late-night snack with Xie Qiaoqiao.
The elevator quickly rose to the 27th floor. Zhang Xueji’s coffee was nearly gone when the elevator doors opened.
The straight corridor revealed the doors of three apartments.
Xie Qiaoqiao stood at her door, head lowered as she searched her bag for her keys.
To her left sat a handcart, with a giant cardboard box tightly sealed with black tape resting on top.
The corridor’s sensor light only illuminated the upper half of the box; the lower half was shrouded in darkness.
The closed corridor had no windows. A faint, indescribably sour odor drifted through the air.
The elevator’s sound made Xie Qiaoqiao pause, turn her head, and look at Zhang Xueji.
He held his nearly empty Iced Americano in his right hand, and a thermal bag in his left.
The sweet, steaming aroma of freshly made food wafted from the bag, briefly overpowering the faint, stale scent of death in the air.
Zhang Xueji stepped out of the elevator, greeted Xie Qiaoqiao, and asked, “Did you forget your key?”
Xie Qiaoqiao shook her head and waved the key she’d just found in her bag.
Though she’d found the key, she didn’t unlock the door.
Instead, she stared at Zhang Xueji with those dark, unblinking eyes.
His face looked terrible under the corridor light—drawn and pale, his eyes tinged with vivid red, hair sticking out in every direction like a pitiful Drunken Dog.
The “Drunken Dog” gave Xie Qiaoqiao a smile, slumped against the wall, and lifted the thermal bag. “Just happened to buy some supper. Want to eat together? Bolo Bun and Red Bean Ice Snowball—if you like flaky egg tarts, you’ll probably love these buns.”
Xie Qiaoqiao hesitated for a moment—the warmth and aroma of the food was too tempting.
She slotted the key into the lock and quickly made up her mind. “I bought Yangzhi Nectar.”
The living room light came on as Xie Qiaoqiao changed her shoes in the entryway.
Zhang Xueji bit the coffee cup so his hands would be free to help with the handcart. He was so efficient that Xie Qiaoqiao didn’t even have time to stop him—he pushed the box containing the corpse into the living room.
Even with the handcart, the box was heavy. Zhang Xueji shook out his wrist after letting go. “Did you order a big package? The packaging’s pretty tight…”
His gaze traveled from the upper half of the box to the bottom, where the living room light was much brighter than in the corridor, making it easy to see the dark, damp stains seeping from the base of the box.
Some patches were deep, others light—like the box had a skin disease.
At the same time, that faint, unpleasant odor from the corridor began to spread through the living room.
It wasn’t coming from the corridor, but from inside the box.
Xie Qiaoqiao walked past Zhang Xueji, pushed the cart into the kitchen, and shut the door.
Her original intention was to hide the box somewhere.
Xie Qiaoqiao might be poorly socialized, but even she knew what a corpse meant to ordinary people. She didn’t want to scare Zhang Xueji.
But she had no experience with such things, so she hadn’t realized that in this warm weather, blood would keep seeping through the cardboard. The wheels left two clear tracks of blood on the floor.
Too obvious—even someone who wasn’t blind like Zhang Xueji couldn’t pretend not to notice. When Xie Qiaoqiao turned after shutting the kitchen door, she saw the sickly Zhang Xueji staring at the bloody tracks.
For a moment, neither spoke.
In that strange silence, Xie Qiaoqiao extended her foot, using her slipper to try to wipe away the blood. It barely helped; the more she wiped, the more obvious it became.
The four blood tracks stretched from the doorway to the kitchen. Even alternating feet, Xie Qiaoqiao couldn’t clean them up immediately.
Out of ideas, Xie Qiaoqiao looked up at Zhang Xueji, just as he looked back at her.
Zhang Xueji asked tentatively, “Is there… a really big fish in that box?”
He’d wanted to guess wild game at first.
But the box was too large for regular game, and anything that size was usually illegal to eat.
So maybe it was a fish—a really big one.
Xie Qiaoqiao nodded. “Mm. Big fish.”