Lu Mingfei paused, lowering his head to look at his reflection in the silver spoon. Had he changed? Was he more confident now? No longer that dusty, little kid? Eating Italian food and appreciating Dalida’s songs?
Finally, the day had come—his moment of glory!
In the past, Lu Mingfei couldn’t stand the rich kids in class who flaunted their summer family vacations abroad, talked about the new properties their families bought, casually showed off brand logos, and on rainy days, jumped into their fancy cars while waving goodbye to classmates huddling under the eaves, waiting for the rain to stop… How vulgar! Yet the girls never seemed to resist that air of privilege, always dazzled by it, their eyes sparkling. But when it was his turn to show off, he suddenly realized just how wonderful it was—like floating on air!
Lu Mingfei leaned across the table, moving closer to Chen Wenwen’s face, itching to fly.
Chu Zihang reached out a trembling hand and turned off the Panamera’s engine. The headlights went out, and darkness filled the garage.
He took deep, silent breaths, gathering his strength. Once he felt able to move again, he turned on the reading light, took off his sunglasses, and replaced them with black contact lenses. He got out of the car, stripped off the FedEx uniform, and changed into tennis clothes, smearing a bit of dirt on his chest. His head was covered in cold sweat, and his hair was wet; at least that part didn’t need acting. Looking in the mirror, he indeed looked like someone who had just returned from the tennis court, exhausted.
He crossed the lawn, and the concealed sprinkler system rose from the ground, spraying water over him as it rotated. The cold sensation of the water on his body made him feel weak, his vision blurring now and then. His remaining strength could only support a few more hundred meters, and he needed to use it wisely. He hoped his parents weren’t home, so he wouldn’t be stopped in the living room for a chat.
Chu Zihang carefully pushed open the door and froze. His mother was curled up on the sofa, fast asleep. Usually, at this time, she would be out at a bar, drinking whiskey or brandy with her friends, laughing loudly. Today was an exception.
She looked terrible while sleeping. She always got careless when she slept, who knows how many times she’d rolled around, exposing an entire leg, and her silk nightgown was full of wrinkles, looking like a dishrag. She was hugging a thin blanket, like a child who needed a doll to sleep. The air conditioner was blowing cold air, the temperature still set from when Chu Zihang had left in the morning when the sun was blazing. Now, it was a night of sudden heavy rain. Facing his mother in this state, Chu Zihang didn’t know how to react. As he passed by the sofa, he caught a strong smell of alcohol. He casually pulled the blanket over her, turned around, and went upstairs, heading straight to the bathroom.
He locked the door, checked the lock, and made sure no one could suddenly come in. Leaning against the door, Chu Zihang took shallow, silent breaths, one hand tightly pressing against his waist while the other pulled off his tennis shirt. It was soaked with cold sweat, and in just the short distance from the garage to home, the right side of his lower abdomen had been pressed with several layers of tissue. The wound underneath had started to scab, but it reopened when he moved, and fresh blood trickled down his body. He took out the first aid kit from the cabinet, finding tetanus vaccine, iodine, and bandages.
Peeling off the blood-soaked layers of tissue revealed a hastily bandaged wound, so roughly done it looked shocking. Chu Zihang had used clear packing tape, the kind used for sealing cardboard boxes, with the company’s logo printed on it. It was all he could find at the time, so he just sealed himself up like a broken box. The goal was simply to stop the bleeding and not let the school staff see it.
Chu Zihang gritted his teeth as he tore off the tape, blood gushing out. He used tissue paper to absorb the blood, then touched something lodged in the wound.
It was a sharp piece of glass, about an inch long, completely embedded inside. When the suspension bridge fell, his abdomen had hit the shattered glass wall. Thanks to the immediate “blood burst,” his body, controlled by the dragon’s blood, had become exceptionally resilient, and the adrenaline rush had numbed the pain. But when the effect of the blood burst ended, the pain returned with a vengeance. After all, he still had a human body.
Even touching the piece of glass through the tissue paper caused him to convulse. The shard seemed like it had grown into his body, like part of his bones—removing it felt like pulling out one of his own bones. He rolled a towel and bit into it, took a few deep breaths, and pulled hard… tiny drops of blood splattered across half the mirror.
The instant pain nearly knocked him out, his vision going dark for half a minute before gradually returning. He glanced at the bloodstained shard of glass and gently placed it on the sink.
After using tissue paper to absorb the blood, he inserted the disposable syringe into his deltoid muscle and injected the tetanus vaccine, then directly swabbed the wound with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. It was like cutting the wound again, but there wasn’t anything better in the home first aid kit. After the alcohol-soaked cotton balls were dyed red, the wound finally stopped bleeding. He applied some Yunnan Baiyao ointment to a piece of gauze, pressed it to the wound, and wrapped a bandage around his waist. He put on a white shirt, tucking the hem into his jeans, covering the bandage completely.
He examined himself in the mirror; there wasn’t anything unusual except for his face being a bit pale.
He put the blood-stained cotton balls, tissues, syringe, and the glass shard into the tennis bag, wiped away the blood on the floor, and finally checked every corner of the bathroom to make sure he hadn’t left any traces. He never left traces—this Chu Zihang, who lived in this house, was a different person from the one at Cassell College. He was a good student: obedient, loved basketball, enjoyed reading, had no bad habits, and no inclination toward violence. Even his favorite idol was the “quality idol” Wang Leehom. Sometimes, even Chu Zihang himself thought that version of him was pale, like a paper doll, but his parents took pride in having such a “quality offspring,” even if he was like a paper doll.
If they saw these blood-stained things, they wouldn’t feel proud—they’d probably think they were raising a monster.
No one liked monsters, and Chu Zihang didn’t blame them for that. That’s why he portrayed the good, pale side of himself. Chu Zihang wanted his parents to be happy; whether what they saw was the real him or not didn’t matter.
There was always a packed suitcase and a laptop bag ready in his bedroom, so he could leave anytime. Chu Zihang checked the validity of his passport and took the luggage downstairs.
His mother was still asleep on the sofa, tightly hugging the blanket.
Chu Zihang took a cushion, gently pulled out the blanket, and placed the cushion in her arms. His mother held the cushion and continued sleeping, breathing softly. Chu Zihang covered her with the blanket, tucking in the corners, then sat by her side, silently watching her face. It seemed like his mother hadn’t gone out for a whole day, and thus hadn’t put on makeup—she looked a bit older this way, with fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. A woman who had been too beautiful in her youth, showing the signs of age after drunkenness, could seem somewhat desolate.
It wasn’t easy to accept that such a woman was his mother. His most reliable memory of her was that she gave birth to him. According to “that man,” she had wanted to give up back then, saying it would hurt too much to give birth to a son, and that it would be better to abort. Unfortunately, when she had regretted it, she was already eight months pregnant, and the doctor warned her that an abortion at that point would be suicide—so Chu Zihang got to live. Since Chu Zihang could understand words, she’d hold him in her arms and tell him, “Mommy went through a lot of pain to give birth to you, so you need to grow up quickly and take care of Mommy.” “Mommy works hard, so you need to grow up and make money to support Mommy.” “There are many bad people in the world, so you need to grow up quickly and protect Mommy.” “Mommy is fragile, Mommy is tired, Mommy has suffered a lot.” Because Mommy had it so tough, she didn’t attend his parent-teacher meetings, didn’t pack him lunch for school trips, didn’t pick him up on rainy days, and when he had a high fever… she did stay with him, but she had no idea how to take care of a feverish child, so she neither gave him medicine nor water. She only touched his little forehead and said, “Feeling dizzy? Mommy will sing you a nice song.”