I ran a private cinema where many young, beautiful girls worked part-time.

All they had to do was watch a movie with a man, and they could earn what an ordinary person made in half a month.

Xiao Lu was the most beautiful girl in the shop, yet she worked for me without pay.

And she obeyed my every command without question.

Because I held something over her.

"The ladies have arrived at the shop — bosses, book your appointments now."

At exactly seven in the evening, I finished composing this post for my WeChat Moments and hit send.

Then the office door swung open, and a dozen or so girls of every shape and charm came trooping in, laughing and chattering.

The scents of their different perfumes mingled, instantly filling the whole room.

These girls were tall and slender, their skin fair, their striking features set off by exquisite makeup.

Bodycon dresses, schoolgirl uniforms, Lolita outfits...

Garments bold, shy, or seductive clung tightly to their wearers, leaving their graceful figures fully on display.

Even I could not help being dazzled for a moment.

The girl at their head wore a cyan floral qipao; beneath its S-curved lines, her fair legs appeared and vanished through the high slits.

She had a pair of bright, spirited almond eyes — exactly like a lively young fawn.

The girl's name was Xiao Lu — "Little Deer" — and the name fit her perfectly. Twenty years old, she was the head hostess of these girls.

She was also my slave.

After roll call, the girls went off to the lounge.

There they would sit, like so many pieces of merchandise, waiting for the customers to make their selections.

Xiao Lu did not leave. She locked the door behind her and walked slowly up to me.

"Kneel."

At my word, Xiao Lu obediently knelt.

Looking down at her from above, I slapped her hard across the face.

A red welt rose on her fair cheek. Xiao Lu looked up at me, her almond eyes brimming with pitiful appeal.

What greeted her were two more blows, harder still.

Still not satisfied, I kicked her over onto the floor.

"Boss Wang says the last time he tried to kiss you, you dodged him?"

Xiao Lu gritted her teeth and spoke in a thin, soft voice.

"Didn't you say that when a customer makes unreasonable demands, we have the right to refuse..."

Before she could finish, I kicked her twice in the side of the waist.

It is the softest part of the body — it hurts terribly without leaving any visible marks.

Looking at Xiao Lu, deathly pale and curled up on the floor, I gave a snort.

"You're so fucking clueless. Boss Wang is our biggest customer. Never mind a kiss — if he wanted to take you, you'd damn well better endure it!"

"Boss Wang will be here soon. Go clean yourself up and receive him properly."

At my words, the color drained from Xiao Lu's face.

"I don't want to receive Boss Wang. His hands wander..."

I narrowed my eyes and looked at her with a cold sneer.

"Or what — you want me to bring up that matter again?"

In an instant, every last trace of color left Xiao Lu's face.

She trembled all over, her wide eyes brimming with terror.

Clapping her hands tightly over her ears, she said in utter despair:

"Don't. I'm begging you."

"I'll go."

She scrambled up from the floor and fled from the room as if for her life.

A faint smile curled the corner of my mouth. I sent Boss Wang a message on WeChat.

"Boss Wang, Xiao Lu is getting ready for you."

"This time, she'll be very good."

In this society, beauty is the easiest wealth to monetize.

Young, pretty girls have far too many ways to make easy money.

1,088 yuan an hour.

That was the lowest rate at my shop.

A movie ran two hours at minimum.

The money I earned was split fifty-fifty with the girls.

In this city, a waitress at a small restaurant made 2,500 yuan a month.

The girls at my shop could earn half that in the time of a single movie.

At this point someone is bound to ask: spending two thousand yuan just to have a girl watch a movie with you — where would you ever find such fools?

I can tell you with certainty: such men not only exist, they exist in droves.

The customers at my shop were all middle-aged men with a little money to spare.

Their hair was thinning, their bodies going to seed, their flesh slowly rotting with age — but the heart that craved young flesh had never changed.

Out on the street, the girls at my shop would never have given these men a second glance.

But in my shop, they could pay to briefly "possess" these young, beautiful girls — for the length of one movie.

In the private room, the movie began, and the lights went out.

Dim lighting, discreetly fragrant air, and a young beauty at your side.

She would nestle tenderly into your arms like a girlfriend, her soft arm around your shoulders, her glittering eyes fixed on you in worship.

No man could keep from sinking into a tenderness like that.

When the film ended and the lights came up,

the girl would piteously tug at your arm.

"Gege, will you come see me again?"

After their first visit, many men, flushed to the ears, would load tens of thousands of yuan onto membership cards.

Here, they found the feeling of being young again.

The customers were satisfied, and the girls and I made money — a win for everyone.

Many girls made real money under my roof.

They bought designer bags and moved into upscale apartments.

Xiao Lu outperformed them all.

To win one smile from her, customers would wave a grand hand and charge tens — even a hundred thousand — onto their membership cards.

Yet to this day, Xiao Lu still wore cheap jewelry and lived in a run-down resettlement block.

Because all along, she had been working for me for free.

Xiao Lu got no commission. The monthly wage I paid her was barely enough to keep body and soul together.

What's more, she had to take the customers no other girl would touch — greasy, lowbred men.

Yet even treated like this, Xiao Lu dared not utter a word of complaint, and never once thought of leaving.

Because I held something over her.

That leverage kept this young, beautiful girl — a girl with limitless prospects — willingly inside my shop.

Whimpering at my feet like a bitch, serving as my tool for raking in money by the bucketful.

Two hours later, I watched Boss Wang waddle out of the private room, his great belly leading the way.

His fleshy face was smug with satisfaction; he chuckled and gave me a thumbs-up.

Then Xiao Lu came out after him.

Her exposed skin was covered in red marks, and there were tears at the corners of her eyes she had not wiped clean.

I frowned and shot her a vicious glare.

"Your next customer will be here soon. Go to the lounge and clean yourself up."

"Stop with the funeral face — if anyone sees you, they'll think I've been bullying you."

After making my rounds, I returned to the office and opened the car-shopping site.

Not long before, I had bought a large luxury flat in a compound full of wealthy residents. I needed a premium car to keep up appearances.

Xiao Lu was my money tree. With her, all my goals would soon be within reach.

At the thought, I got up and opened the safe.

Only after checking again and again that the things inside were still there did I breathe easy.

With those, I could keep Xiao Lu as my slave for life.

I would wring every last drop out of her, until she withered and rotted away.

I had just shut the safe door when there came a knock.

I opened it, and a short man in a flat cap and face mask stepped inside.

His voice was hoarse, like sandpaper scraping glass.

"I want the most beautiful girl you have."

I narrowed my eyes and sized him up and down several times.

A shabby coat, dust-caked leather shoes — a penniless wretch at a glance.

Something must have snapped in him, to make him scrape together a few thousand in savings for a few hours of fun here.

Men like that had never been my target customers.

Rolling my eyes, I said to him rudely:

"Our most beautiful girl takes advance bookings. Pay first, and come back at your appointed time."

The man said nothing. He dropped the old-fashioned leather bag he carried onto my desk with a heavy thud.

As the zipper came open, a blaze of red flashed into my eyes.

He pinched up a stack of notes and slowly pushed them toward me.

"I want her now."

I sized up the thickness of that stack — ten or twenty thousand at least.

Twenty thousand for two hours — more profitable than crime itself.

Eyeing that bulging bag from the corner of my vision, I made up my mind.

A customer this lavish was worth every effort to keep.

I stuffed the money in my pocket and squeezed out a smile.

"Sir, I'll arrange it right away!"

I canceled Xiao Lu's next appointment on WeChat and sent her a message.

Told her to make herself up and come to the office — there was a big customer to receive.

I brewed the man a pot of hot tea and asked him to wait; the girl would be along shortly.

He nodded, settled unhurriedly onto the sofa, and took off his cap and mask.

The moment I saw his face, I began to tremble all over, and nearly screamed.

In all my life, I had never seen such a terrifying face.

It was dark red, covered in twisted scars and sprouting knots of scar tissue.

The nose was gone, leaving only two black holes.

Had I not been braced for it, I would never have believed the thing before me was human.

No girl, however much he paid, would ever agree to receive a man like this.

A timid girl might have nightmares for days from a single glance at him.

Luckily for me, I had Xiao Lu. With anyone else, today's deal would truly have fallen through.

As I expected, Xiao Lu took one look at the man when she came in, and her face went deathly white.

Her knuckles whitened as she clutched the hem of her clothes, her eyes full of pleading.

I ignored her and smiled ingratiatingly at the man.

"Sir, is she to your satisfaction?"

A gleam flickered in the man's eyes, and he nodded.

I smiled along and beckoned a waiter over to lead the man to the innermost private room.

The moment he was gone, Xiao Lu began shaking her head desperately.

"No. Absolutely not this time!"

"I'd rather die than receive him!"

Fucking slut.

I cursed inwardly, went over to shut the door, and turned the music up louder.

Out of habit I pulled out my belt, but after a glance at Xiao Lu I put it away.

She still had customers to receive after this — no leaving marks.

From the cabinet I took a stun baton, weighed it in my hand, and flicked it on.

In its shrill crackle, sparks scattered.

Xiao Lu tried to flee; I seized her by the hair and dragged her to the floor.

Into her thigh, before her despairing eyes, I pressed the stun baton.

Xiao Lu convulsed, screaming — but the thumping music swallowed every sound.

"Filthy bitch — forgetting your place?"

I shocked her again and again, until her eyes rolled back in her head, and only then stopped.

"Still got a hard mouth?"

"A bitch needs a bitch's awareness. Bare your teeth at me again and I'll kill you!"

But to my surprise, Xiao Lu spoke two words — feeble yet firm.

"I won't."

Panting, I glanced at the time.

Gritting my teeth, I opened the safe and took something out.

Clutching it in my hand, I advanced slowly on Xiao Lu.

"Slut — do you see what this is?"

Xiao Lu's eyes flew open and she let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Her legs scrabbled against the floor as she scrambled backward in panic.

I dangled the thing in my hand, feeling like a god who held every fate in his palm.

"Remember now?"

"Want me to help refresh your memory?"

Xiao Lu bit down hard on her lip, the blood welling up unnoticed.

The brightness of her gaze clouded over, and at last she slowly spoke two words.

"I'll go."

Two hours later, the man emerged from the private room.

He had put on his mask and cap. He nodded to me and said he would come again.

Without letting anything show, I glanced at his leather bag and warmly saw him to the door.

As the saying goes, after the stick comes the sweet date. I needed to soothe Xiao Lu properly.

Only a healthy animal yields more profit.

But the Xiao Lu who came out of that room surprised me utterly.

The disgust and pain on her face before she went in had been swept away, replaced by a faint smile.

I had never seen her wear such a smile.

It came from the heart — nothing like the counterfeit smiles she put on for other customers.

She greeted me and walked straight into the lounge.

For a moment, the words of comfort I had prepared stuck in my throat.

The next day, the man came again.

Another thick stack of notes, the same innermost room, the same Xiao Lu.

This time, Xiao Lu did not resist.

She led the man into the private room herself, even took his arm.

Afterward, she would even ask me, unprompted, whether the man would come again tomorrow.

Xiao Lu's behavior unsettled me.

It was true that her conduct made the man throw more money at the shop — but something about it felt off.

With other customers, Xiao Lu could play at flirtation too, but I could see at a glance it was an act.

With this man it was different. With this man, she was sincere.

But I refused to believe she had feelings for a man hideous to the point of terror. There had to be something fishy going on.

As the days passed, the seed of doubt in my heart slowly germinated.

It put out fine, dense roots that dug into me, maddening and unscratchable.

One day, I came upon Xiao Lu just after she had seen the man out.

Her eyes were misty, her cheeks flushed, fine beads of sweat standing out on her fair brow.

Fucking minx!

I swore under my breath. Unable to bear it any longer, I seized her by the throat and pinned her against the wall.

"What were you two doing in there?"

"This is a legitimate establishment — don't forget the rules of the house!"

I wanted fast money, but I never dared break the law.

Before starting work, every girl went through strict training.

When watching movies with customers, they were to keep to the rules, hold to their bottom line, and never, ever cross the law.

The private rooms were fitted with well-hidden alarm buttons. The moment a customer tried to cross the line, the girl would press one, and I would come charging in with my men.

Thanks to my vigilance, the shop had run for a year without a single incident.

I didn't believe Xiao Lu would actually do anything with that man — but the way she looked left me uneasy.

"What could I possibly do with him? Don't let your imagination run wild."

With that, Xiao Lu hurried away.

I had seen it, though: when she said it, her eyes had darted down and to the right.

She was lying.

Fucking slut!

I punched the wall so hard my knuckles bled.

In that moment, I finally made up my mind to do something.

What I could not possibly have imagined was that it would become the decision I would regret most in my life.

The next day, the man arrived as scheduled.

Face mask, flat cap, and a stack of notes tossed my way.

This time, I ventured a probe.

"Sir, how was the girl? To your satisfaction?"

I had expected a look of contentment — but again he surprised me.

His expression didn't change. "Not bad," he said, and let it drop.

Yet I caught it plainly: a flicker of fear at the bottom of his eyes.

Once he and Xiao Lu were in the private room, I crept after them and pressed my ear to the door.

At first there was only silence, as if the two of them had turned to still statues.

Then, slowly, faint sounds began.

The sounds were deeply strange — I had never heard their like, nor could I tell what was making them.

Just as I held my breath to listen harder, the movie's opening score exploded, and I nearly headbutted the door in fright.

Since everything inside was now buried under the film's soundtrack, I got up and returned to the office.

Locking the office door behind me, I sat down at the computer.

I stood up. Sat down. Stood up. Sat down.

Over and over, unable to make up my mind.

The truth is, I had a secret I had never told anyone.

Every private room in my shop was fitted with a hidden camera.

I had paid dearly for those cameras. They were so well concealed that no ordinary person could ever find them.

And yet I had never once turned them on.

Because privacy was my shop's chief attraction.

A sealed room, a film's noise blanketing everything, dim light — nothing gives people a greater sense of safety.

Here, people could unleash the darkest corners of their hearts to their fill.

If the customers ever learned I had installed cameras, they would stop coming.

And the powerful, moneyed bosses among them might well come after me.

So the thought of switching the cameras on had never crossed my mind.

But Xiao Lu and that man were like insects with a hundred claws, scratching at my heart until I could neither eat nor sleep.

Today I had to know what they were doing in there!

At that thought, my resolve hardened. I dropped heavily into the chair and opened a hidden piece of software.

I located their room in the software and, hands trembling, clicked on the camera feed.

The instant I saw the image, I shot up screaming as if electrocuted.

On the monitor, Xiao Lu — eyes scarlet, face contorted with ferocity — was strangling the man's neck with a stocking.

The man's lips had gone purple, his face a ghastly blue-gray, and he lay utterly motionless, as if already dead.

Through the high-definition lens, his wide-staring eyes seemed fixed on me, and my whole body broke out in gooseflesh.

I fumbled the software shut, opened the door, and went out.

I drew a deep breath and steadied myself.

I couldn't rush over in a panic — if anyone noticed something was wrong, I was finished.

When I reached the door of their room, I knocked hard several times.

The soundtrack inside rolled like ocean waves and swallowed the knocking whole.

Left with no choice, I opened the control app on my phone and cut the power to the room.

The sound inside cut off abruptly, and the electronic lock on the door released itself.

Braced as I was, the scene inside still made my head swim.

With a shaking hand, I reached out and held it beneath the man's nose. The icy touch confirmed one thing.

The man was dead beyond any doubt.

By then, Xiao Lu seemed to have come back to her senses.

She stared at the man's corpse in terror, shaking like a sieve.

"Fuck!"

Panting hard, I strode over and kicked Xiao Lu flat to the floor.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?"

"If he tried to force you, you press the alarm button — why in God's name would you kill him?"

"A filthy bitch like you rotting in prison is one thing — but if my shop gets shut down, I won't just kill you, I'll drag that whole affair into the light!"

Xiao Lu scrambled over on hands and knees and clutched my leg, sobbing piteously.

"The times before, he wanted to play these role-playing games with me."

"Private tutor, boss lady from the office, repairman coming to fix the pipes..."

"They seemed harmless enough, and he always kept to the rules, so I agreed."

"Who knew this time he'd want to play a rapist. He tackled me to the ground, and my mind just went blank. I didn't know anything anymore."

"When I came to my senses, it had come to this..."

I flung Xiao Lu off in disgust and gave the man's corpse several heavy kicks.

"You idiot — playing that game with her, you got exactly what you deserved!"

I lit a cigarette and burned it down in two drags.

Exhaling a heavy plume of smoke, thoughts churning and shifting, I finally made up my mind.

I glanced at the innocent look on Xiao Lu's face and swore inwardly.

Because this was not the first time Xiao Lu had killed.

And it was not the first time I had decided to cover for her.

The first time I met Xiao Lu, I was lobby manager at a KTV.

Xiao Lu was eighteen that year, newly hired as a beer girl.

Her job was to carry the beers the customers ordered to their booths.

It was five in the morning. The customers and staff had all gone.

As usual, I was making my final round of inspection.

Passing the most remote storeroom in the building, I heard a faint stirring within.

Ordinarily, I'd have dismissed it as rats.

But that time, as if possessed, I walked toward it.

Just as I reached the door, there came a muffled crack from inside.

Startled, I yanked the door open and rushed in.

The first thing I saw was Xiao Lu — naked, eyes red, face twisted.

In her hand was half a vase. A man lay in a pool of blood on the floor, surrounded by shattered pieces.

In an instant, I understood what had happened.

Just as I was about to pick up my phone and call the police, I saw Xiao Lu's panicked almond eyes.

In the end, I put the phone down and, gritting my teeth, made a decision.

I took off my jacket and draped it over her, gathered her into my arms, and gently patted her back.

"It's all right. I'll deal with the body."

"Go change, go home, and tomorrow it will be as if nothing ever happened."

Xiao Lu, utterly lost, clutched at me like a drowning woman at a straw, nodded, and ran out.

First I fetched a cleaning cart and stuffed the man's corpse into its bin.

Then, using methods of my own, I scrubbed the blood from the floor until no trace remained.

Next I paid a visit to the security room and deleted the night's footage.

Finally, I wheeled the cart out, loaded the body into my trunk, and buried it in a remote spot.

Whether it was luck or clean work, the police never came asking after the man's disappearance.

After that, Xiao Lu worshipped me like a god and never refused me anything.

I took her entire savings, added my own, and opened the private cinema.

Having worked in KTVs so long, I knew well that only by dancing along the edge of the law could one make big money fast.

At first, Xiao Lu had resisted working at the cinema.

She had her own principles, and my saving her changed nothing about that.

What she didn't expect was that, that night, I took two things home with me.

Half a vase bearing Xiao Lu's fingerprints and the man's blood — and the phone from the man's pocket.

Inside the phone was the video the man had recorded: the entire course of his assault on Xiao Lu.

With those two things, I ground away the last of Xiao Lu's edges and broke her into a bitch that obeyed my every word.

This man deserved to die too — he had trespassed into that forbidden corner of Xiao Lu's heart and driven her clean out of her mind.

His death itself was no great loss. But he should not have died in my shop.

Xiao Lu and the shop were my money trees, and I would allow no one to destroy either.

As I racked my brain over the mess, my eye fell on the man's bulging leather bag.

Eagerly, I pulled the bag over — and its contents stopped me cold.

Beneath a top layer of banknotes, it was stuffed with documents and papers of every kind.

"God-damn pauper, playing the big spender!"

Furious, I gave the corpse several more kicks.

Pocketing the notes, I picked up the papers from the floor.

They were medical records and a rental agreement.

The man had been disfigured in a workplace accident abroad, and had returned home with his compensation payout after leaving the hospital.

He had no family or friends; he now lived alone in a remote, aging block of flats.

Reading this, I breathed a sigh of relief.

A social ghost like this — if he vanished without a sound, no one would ever notice, or care.

But just then, the man's phone buzzed.

The message appeared on the screen.

"Bro, I'll come round to your place in a couple of days. You'd better show me a good time!"

Instantly, my brow furrowed.

This was a complication.

The man's phone unlocked by face, and I didn't know his passcode — there was no way to reply.

Nothing for it but to play things by ear.

I switched the phone off and slipped it back into his pocket.

Then I searched him a while longer, and turned up a wallet.

Inside were a few small notes and the man's ID card.

The moment I saw the ID, my whole body shuddered, and my eyelids twitched uncontrollably several times.

Glancing once at Xiao Lu, I slid the ID, without a flicker of expression, into my own pocket.

I told Xiao Lu to stay in the private room and walked out alone.

First I canceled all of Xiao Lu's appointments, saying a big customer had booked her for the whole night.

Then I sat in the office and waited for closing time.

I had to act as if nothing had happened and let no one see anything amiss.

And so I waited, all the way to four in the morning.

When the last customers and girls had gone, I locked up and wheeled an oversized suitcase into the private room.

Lighting a cigarette, I directed Xiao Lu as she stuffed the man into the suitcase.

We wheeled it out of the shop and took the elevator down to the parking garage.

The head of building security called me brother. A little sweetener, and tonight's footage would be as good as erased.

I drove hard through the small-hours streets.

All the way, I followed the route I had planned, dodging every camera on the road, until at last I pulled up on the bank of a river.

Here the reeds and water weeds grew thick; no soul ever came, not even the fishermen.

And the soil near the water was soft, easy to dig.

I kicked Xiao Lu, took a shovel from the trunk, and tossed it to her.

"Don't stand there like a plank — you expect me to dig it for you?"

While Xiao Lu dug the pit, I smoked several more cigarettes.

Running the whole business through my mind, I found no flaw in it.

The only wild card was that text message the man had received.

Someone meant to come see him — someone who knew where he lived.

All I could do was hope that whoever it was would give up and go away.

And if they called the police instead...

I shook my head hard, refusing to follow the thought.

The mortgage on the luxury flat was still being paid, the premium sedan I craved was still unbought — I would not allow my shop a single misstep!

At that thought, I narrowed my eyes and stared at Xiao Lu as she dug.

Every extra mouth was one more risk of exposure.

Only a dead mouth keeps truly quiet.

Gritting my teeth, I resolved it.

I spat the butt to the ground and ground out the last ember under my shoe.

At work the next day, I picked a tall, willowy girl as acting head hostess.

"Xiao Lu has family matters to attend to for a few days. You'll fill in for her."

The girl beamed — the post of head hostess came with a bonus.

After they had gone, I sat on the sofa and sent my apologies to the customers, unhurried.

"Xiao Lu isn't in today — but bosses, you're welcome to come try our other girls."

I knew these customers' means and tastes inside and out.

As long as I kept them happy, my business would thrive with or without Xiao Lu.

Time flew, and closing time came at last.

The head hostess of the day came in to report while I was watching the news.

"Fire in a resettlement housing block leaves one dead."

"The victim's identity is being verified."

She frowned and sighed.

"How terrible."

I snapped the news off with a smug sneer.

"Terrible? Please."

"Everyone's time is fated. Those who are due to die can never outrun it."

Seeing my mood, the girl finished her report and hurried out.

I closed the shop and drove to a run-down old compound.

When the door opened, I looked at the person inside and said flatly:

"It's all taken care of."

"You can come back to work tomorrow."

When Xiao Lu didn't answer, I frowned and stepped into the room.

The lights were off. In the bright moonlight, Xiao Lu sat in a chair, watching me in silence.

Her eyes glistened with a light I had never seen in them before.

Her stare prickled my skin, and my voice carried my anger.

"Are you deaf? If you heard me, say something!"

The corners of Xiao Lu's mouth curved up, and she said something I never expected.

"What if I told you I don't want to come back?"

For a moment I thought I had misheard.

How dare she?

I stepped forward, rage curdling into laughter.

"Who gave you the nerve to speak to me like that?"

"Don't forget who saved you back then!"

As I bore down on her, Xiao Lu's expression stayed calm.

"All these years, you've used that to threaten me, to control me. Haven't you wrung me dry yet?"

I looked down at her and sneered.

"Your life belongs to me. You should be on your knees thanking me."

"If I hadn't cleaned up that body for you, you'd have been sentenced to death long ago."

Xiao Lu gave a self-mocking laugh.

"I was young and ignorant then. I didn't know what self-defense meant."

"He assaulted me and filmed it. Even if I really had beaten him to death, I would have broken no law."

At that, her eyes narrowed, and her voice turned as cold as winter snow.

"And besides — that animal never died at all!"

My whole body jolted, my nails digging hard into my palm.

"You've lost your mind. You're making things up now."

"All that blood — how could he not have died..."

Xiao Lu shot to her feet, cutting me off.

"I not only know he didn't die — I also know you weren't there that day to save me."

"Xia Jie, if you've forgotten, let me help you remember."

An uncanny light played in her eyes as she advanced on me step by step — and I, of all people, gave ground before her.

I could feel it: the Xiao Lu before me now was nothing like the one I had known.

"That day, you got a message from your good brother Zhang Yong."

"He told you he'd got hold of a prime piece of goods that day — same place as always — and told you to hurry over."

"Why do I say 'same place as always'? Because you two animals had done it before."

"You would take girls into that storeroom, violate them, film it — and make sure they never dared call the police."

"That time, you meant to do the same to me."

"But you never imagined I was different from those girls. I fought back."

"I grabbed a vase and smashed it on Zhang Yong's head. He dropped to the floor, his scalp pouring blood."

"And you — the man who came charging in — you must have been stunned."

Xiao Lu's voice was unhurried, yet it carried an invisible force, and my heart kept sinking.

"But I have to admit — you really are clever."

"You knew that if this went wrong, you and Zhang Yong would both go to prison."

"And in almost no time at all, you hit on the perfect countermove."

"You pretended not to know Zhang Yong, draped your jacket over me, and lowered my guard."

"Then, while I panicked, you were the first to speak of disposing of Zhang Yong's body for me — planting it in my mind that I had beaten him to death."

"Finally, you sent me away, cleaned the scene yourself, and took Zhang Yong to the hospital."

"You built that lie, then wove the vase shards and that video into a net, wrapped me in it so I couldn't escape, and had your way with me ever since."

"My youth, my body, my dignity — all of it became your instrument for making money."

"If I hadn't happened to see Zhang Yong on the street that day, you would have devoured me whole and gnawed the marrow from my bones for the rest of my life, wouldn't you?"

"Fuck!"

"Zhang Yong, that piece of shit — didn't I tell him to keep out of sight!"

I cursed a few more times, then turned a vicious glare on Xiao Lu.

"I thought you were something. So you know everything — and then what?"

"It's all water under the bridge. Are you going to report me?"

"And don't you forget, you stinking bitch — killing Zhang Yong back then was fake, but killing that man yesterday was real."

"You're a genuine murderer now, aren't you?"

The more I spoke, the more pleased I grew, until at last I laughed out loud.

"You lost me the old leverage, and then you handed me new leverage. Ha ha ha ha."

"Isn't that fate? Fate has ordained you to be my bitch for life!"

"You stinking whore. Accept it."

But Xiao Lu, to my surprise, still wore that fearless look.

"Even if I killed someone, what can you do to me?"

"Xia Jie, you can't frighten me."

"Because you don't dare call the police."

"The man died in your shop. When the police arrest me, they'll shut your shop down."

"Without the shop, how will you pay the mortgage on that luxury flat of yours?"

The faint curl of her lips made my blood boil.

But I had no rebuttal, because every word of it was true.

I dared not call the police — could not. The shop could survive without her; but if it came out that a man had been killed on the premises, I was finished.

Anger boiling over, I ripped out my belt and lashed it at Xiao Lu.

"You stinking bitch — go three days without a beating and you're tearing tiles off the roof!"

The belt stopped in midair.

Xiao Lu's hand had clamped my wrist in an iron grip.

I hadn't imagined she could be so terrifyingly strong — no matter how I strained, I could not advance a single centimeter.

Was this the submissive slave, the bitch who could only whimper at my feet?

"A person should never fall in the same place twice."

The words barely left her mouth before white-hot agony tore through my abdomen, and my whole body went sailing through the air.

My guts knotted into a ball; even breathing hurt so badly I shook.

Xiao Lu withdrew her leg, walked over slowly, and looked down on me from above.

From this angle I saw that those soft, weak almond eyes of hers were blazing with spirit.

I shrank back toward the door in fear, and my voice went soft.

"Fine. You win."

"Since it's come to this, let's stay out of each other's way and part company here!"

Just as I struggled toward the door, a pair of fair arms reached past me from behind and pressed gently against it.

Xiao Lu's icy voice sounded at my back.

"I've called the police. You're not going anywhere."

My temples throbbing, I could hold back no longer, and jabbed a finger at her, cursing.

"You're a fucking lunatic."

"Bringing yourself down just to take me — is it worth it?"

"Don't forget, I wasn't there when that man died. Hiding a body — a few months at most. You're the one facing a death sentence!"

But the next second, Xiao Lu's voice came rolling with frost, as if to freeze the blood in my veins.

"Sorry — you've got it wrong."

"I called the police about something else."

"About the time you killed Zhang Yong."

In an instant, my heart was seized in a great fist, and my words came apart.

"You — what are you talking about? Lost your mind?"

"You just said Zhang Yong didn't die."

Xiao Lu narrowed her eyes and looked at me, half-smiling.

"Xia Jie, a man as clever and careful as you would never leave himself exposed to the slightest risk."

"Any threat, however small, you would strangle in the bud."

"And your life and your station are on the rise — you would allow no one to jeopardize that."

"Put all that together, and one thing stands out as very wrong."

My Adam's apple bobbed as I swallowed hard.

"Stop with the theatrics. What thing?"

Xiao Lu raised her hand and drew a line across her own throat.

"You knew full well that someone would come looking for the man who died in that room. Yet all you did was bury him. That is not like you at all."

"You didn't know who that someone was to the man, or whether he truly would come, or whether he'd call the police when he couldn't reach him."

"Far too many variables. I don't believe you'd leave your fate to something as thin as luck — or watch a danger sprout and not crush it."

The fire in my gut had not died down. I simply sat down on the floor and sneered up at her.

"So what was I supposed to do? I could hardly go and kill the person who sent the message, could I?"

Xiao Lu shook her head.

"Of course you couldn't kill that person."

"Because that message was from me."

Watching my eyes go wide, Xiao Lu smiled with satisfaction.

"If I hadn't sent that message, how would I have driven you to kill Zhang Yong?"

Utter horror seized me. I pointed at her, unable to speak.

"I suspect that the moment you saw that ID card, you had already worked out the whole plan."

"After all — before the disfigurement, that man looked remarkably like Zhang Yong."

"And they were close enough in height and build. It made your plan all the more convenient."

"Swap one man long since 'dead' for another dead man — no one would ever spot the seam."

"After burying the body that day, you went to find Zhang Yong, got him blind drunk, and dragged him to the dead man's rented flat."

"A blind-drunk sot, aging wiring in a cheap rental — a fire breaking out by accident would seem perfectly natural, wouldn't it?"

"And I'd wager you left the man's ID somewhere the flames couldn't reach — so the police could identify him easily enough."

"A flawless crime. I could almost applaud you for it."

Xiao Lu looked at me in mockery, her eyes brimming with derision.

"You..."

"Why not just drag the body to the rental and burn it there? Why go to all that trouble?"

I had found a rebuttal.

Xiao Lu snorted.

"With your intelligence, how can you ask something so stupid?"

"A drunk burning to death and a strangled corpse burned after the fact — the police can tell them apart at a glance."

"Stop struggling, Xia Jie. The reason I know all this is that I followed you that day. I watched the whole thing."

"And I recorded every bit of it."

Xiao Lu produced a USB drive and waved it at me.

"You filthy bitch — you set me up?"

Throwing all my strength into it, I lunged for the drive.

But she had read the move. A whipping kick sent me crashing into the door.

The blow nearly shook me apart.

She rolled her neck, cracking her knuckles.

"These two years I've thrown everything into training — the gym, fighting — so that what happened back then would never happen again."

As she spoke, tears actually came to her eyes.

A real lunatic. What was there to cry about?

The wail of sirens rose faintly outside, and my panic mounted.

"Just as they say — the dog that doesn't bark bites hardest."

"Now I get it. You brought that man in, and the ID and all those papers were forged."

"You cheap piece of goods — you went to a lot of trouble to ruin me."

"But it was Zhang Yong who violated you. Nothing to do with me."

"Zhang Yong is dead by my hand, and that man died by yours — we each hold the other's leverage. Let me pay you a generous sum, and we let this go."

I looked at her hopefully — and Xiao Lu laughed.

She doubled over laughing, until the tears came.

"Xia Jie — did you ever verify one thing?"

"Did that man really die?"

A shudder ran through me. I closed my eyes and thought back carefully.

The man's leaden face, his purple lips, the breath that was no longer there — all of it affirmed that the man was dead.

At the thought, I steadied a little.

"Don't try to fool me. I checked with my own hand — that man was dead through and through."

"I still remember where the body is buried. When the police come, I'll tell them everything — worst case, we all burn together!"

My face twisted savagely as I tried to bluff her into backing down.

But the way she looked at me — as if she were watching a clown.

"Some specially trained stunt performers can hold their breath for over ten minutes."

"Unfortunately for you, that man was exactly such a professional."

"Xia Jie, your one flaw is your arrogance."

"You brushed your hand under his nose and left it at that. You never went on to check his pulse, or his heartbeat."

"You treated me as your slave and left the hauling and burying of the corpse to me."

"Really, I ought to thank you — you made my plan so very convenient."

"Not long after you drove off, I dug that man out of the earth."

"There's nothing there now but an empty hole in the ground."

It suddenly dawned on me.

"I paid you three thousand a month. Where did you ever get the money to buy a man's life?"

The laughter left Xiao Lu's face. She fixed me with a dark stare.

"Some of that man's papers were genuine."

"He is a stunt performer, disfigured in an accident while filming abroad."

"The first thing he did when he came back was look for his younger sister."

"But his sister had long been dead."

"Violated by you two animals, blackmailed with the video, she broke down and jumped from a building."

"Tell me — a man like that, hunting his revenge on you both. Do you think he'd refuse to give his life for me?"

The sirens stopped below.

Footsteps drew slowly toward the room.

In a daze, Xiao Lu's face slowly merged with the faces of all those girls I had violated.

My heart turned to ash. I closed my eyes in despair.

（The End）