How could anyone lump suicide, murder, and homicide into the same linguistic territory?
On that rainy night when he was sixteen, Diao Chan listened to Zhao Meiyou’s answer—”because you kept me company while I ate my dad”—and calmly asked, “Is this some kind of test?”
Zhao Meiyou was busy wolfing down dumplings. “What test?”
“Testing my antisocial tendencies or the like,” Diao Chan said. “To decide if you can take my business.”
“That wouldn’t be it,” Zhao Meiyou replied between mouthfuls. “As long as the money’s right, everything else is negotiable.”
“Is that so.” Diao Chan nodded after hearing this. “I understand.”
With that, the young man walked over to the sink and squatted down.
He puked his guts out, head bowed low.
“Whoa, hold on—you’re retching way too miserably…” Zhao Meiyou sidled closer like he was watching a spectacle. The sight of the vomit didn’t slow his enthusiastic eating one bit. He clicked his tongue as he chewed. “Though the sewer here drains straight to the sea. Lucky break for him.”
As if to clarify things for Diao Chan, Zhao Meiyou helpfully added, “I was planning to head to the public toilet outside after stuffing myself. That one’s sewer pipes down to the composting pits on the teens layers below. My mom always said she wanted to scatter my dad’s ashes in the septic tank.”
Whether it was his imagination or not, the young man in front of him seemed to retch even harder.
Finally, after bringing up stomach acid, Diao Chan stopped. He rinsed his mouth and gazed at Zhao Meiyou through the cold drips from his wet hair. “When should I drop off the deposit?”
“Anytime works,” Zhao Meiyou said with a sincere smile. “Our shop offers packages like early death early reincarnation, hanging on by a thread, or death denied. Master’s handiwork is top-notch—a century-old establishment. Rest easy.”
“You won’t back out, will you?”
“As long as the money’s right, everything’s negotiable.”
“Good enough.” Diao Chan seemed to relax once it was confirmed. Zhao Meiyou was about to inquire about the specifics of the hit when the kid rolled up his sleeves and swung a fist at him.
Zhao Meiyou ducked low. “Looking for a fight? Or do you need some venting service?”
“I’m just fucking trying to punch you,” Diao Chan said, launching a kick. It was a rare curse from him. “Don’t hold back.”
“Easy enough.” Zhao Meiyou nodded and snatched the bone cleaver from the counter. He brought the flat of the blade down hard.
No rich kid trained in a bit of self-defense could stand against a homegrown Lower District thug. In under a minute, Zhao Meiyou turned his would-be client from benefactor to punching bag.
The next day, Diao Chan showed up again. Even when hiring for murder, the young master kept things punctual and handsome—the payment in full. Zhao Meiyou counted the sum, cracked open a fresh pack of smokes for himself, and offered one over. “Care for one?”
Diao Chan’s reply was a thunderous coughing fit.
“Fair enough.” Zhao Meiyou shrugged. “I can wrap this up inside a week. Any requests for the corpse disposal?”
Diao Chan’s voice came out hoarse. “…Just don’t eat it.”
“No problem.” Zhao Meiyou agreed swiftly. “Though, to be fair, when it comes to destroying evidence, it’s actually a pretty economical method…” He caught Diao Chan’s glare, raised his hands in surrender, and mimed zipping his lips shut.
A week later, Diao Chan returned to the Pork Shop. The rolling shutter was halfway up, light spilling onto the tile floor outside the door. He stooped to enter and nearly tripped.
Looking down, he saw a pair of high heels.
“You’re here?” Zhao Meiyou called out around his cigarette, his words muffled. “Just got back—haven’t tidied up. Grab a seat wherever.”
He stood at the chopping block and yanked off a wig. Fake eyelashes peeled away next, followed by a cascade of faux pearls clattering to the floor. Then he undid his chest binder and padded barefoot across the tiles, nearly slipping. Diao Chan instinctively steadied him. “Help out,” Zhao Meiyou said, handing over the binder and nodding toward the freezer nearby. “Stash the clothes in there. My feet hurt.”
“What are you standing around for?” Zhao Meiyou lit another smoke. “It’s my mom’s old getup. Those oxidized pearls are a nightmare to fix—hurry and pop it in the fridge.”
As ash drifted down, Diao Chan watched him squint against the sting of the cigarette’s ember. “…What the hell have you been up to?”
“Taking care of your business, naturally.” Zhao Meiyou spoke as if it were obvious. Then, as if struck by inspiration, he leaned into Diao Chan’s arms and rubbed his fingers together suggestively. “Tip a little extra, and we could do some other ‘business’ too.”
The next instant, he hit the floor face-first with a splat.
“Tch, you…” Undeterred, Zhao Meiyou rolled onto his back and sprawled out right there, tendrils of smoke curling upward. He heard the freezer door open and shut, followed by the sharp click of leather shoe heels striking the tiles. Then came the somewhat muffled sound of footsteps drawing near.
Diao Chan had taken off his shoes. He wore gray cashmere socks as he walked to Zhao Meiyou’s side and sat down hugging his knees. “So, how’d it go?”
“What could go wrong.” Zhao Meiyou wiped at his lips with a finger, his face and hands smeared crimson. “Hey, what about the funeral—got plans?”
Diao Chan met the question with silence. Zhao Meiyou finished his smoke and continued. “How about this: tell me your story. Let the tears spill out like saliva from the tale. It’ll feel better.”
Diao Chan glanced at him. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
“How long have you even known me?” Zhao Meiyou snorted. “We might’ve crossed paths in the Upper District for all you know.” He hooked a distant high heel with his toe. “Hey, did you know one of the department heads at your family firm—the Diao conglomerate—is impotent?”
The topic came out of nowhere, but Zhao Meiyou got fired up, words flying. “One of my big sisters got rented out to him long-term. She had to play arm candy at all his big events. Monthly beauty stipend and all. Sometimes she was the mistress, other times his mom or his daughter… I heard she even went to a doctor once. Kept changing her story every time, so the doc couldn’t tell if she was role-playing split personalities or actually nuts…”
Zhao Meiyou’s network ran wide, and the Lower District’s services truly ran the gamut—saving souls left and right. Pick a decent block with all the signage, and you’d cover unlicensed clinics, fake IDs, dentists, herbalists, coffin shops. Everything from cradle to grave.
By the time Diao Chan had heard the hundred-and-eight postpartum care tips for sows, his gaze finally thawed. The hard lines of his face softened. He’d been clenching his jaw fiercely until then.
“…So at four in the morning that summer, my mom dragged the suitcase out from under the bed, left a note, and vanished. My whole inheritance? A pile of expired makeup and dresses with busts too big for me.”
Zhao Meiyou wrapped up the tale. “She said she was off to die with Li Ming in lovers’ suicide. Still not sure if that was poetic flair or some guy’s name.”
A moment later, Diao Chan’s voice drifted down from above. “Do you miss her?”
“Gotta say, she spared me the hassle on that front.” Zhao Meiyou exhaled a plume of smoke. “She kept nagging me to kill her the minute she spotted her first crow’s-foot. Every birthday, before blowing out the candles, I’d have to shout out that year’s creative method for offing Mom.”
This time, Diao Chan actually laughed. “Sounds like your mom was cracking jokes even from beyond.”
Zhao Meiyou let out a lazy hum, a hint of pride coloring his tone.
The smile lingered on Diao Chan’s face. Zhao Meiyou’s wild, off-kilter stories acted like a mask, draping everything in garish, comical hues. The mask never slipped, creating a safe zone beneath the greasepaint where one could bare the rawest expressions, the truest self.
Slowly, Diao Chan began recounting his own tale. Parents bound by a family-arranged marriage, their affection forever cool and distant. His mother was the epitome of an icy beauty, her health frail and her days filled with convalescence. The house was so vast that Diao Chan seldom saw her. She appeared only occasionally, elegantly dressed for holidays or at the dinner table on chilly evenings when the hearth blazed.
Guests often remarked that he had inherited her Eastern brows and eyes—like jade, that ancient ore once mined from the mountains but now synthesized only through technology.
Diao Chan excelled at his studies. He had a study room absurdly large. Before formally entering the family business, he had secretly dreamed of becoming a scholar, with idle hours now and then to play the piano.
When his mother heard of it, she told him that having his own ideas was good. Being a scholar was a respectable profession.
Of course, there was more: provided he didn’t bear the Diao name.
It was the answer he had expected. Diao Chan felt nothing. Boys of his background were much the same—tamed by a haughty docility. He thought the matter settled, but months later, a servant informed him that Madam wished him to spend an hour each day in her chambers.
His mother’s room was like a sanctum. His parents slept together only rarely in the ancestral master bedroom; otherwise, they kept separate quarters. In this, they showed impeccable manners—no intrusion into each other’s domains, as far as Diao Chan knew.
On another level, in this house where every aspect of life was regimented, his mother’s room meant absolute safety.
He arrived on time and knocked. When the door opened, he froze.
His mother sat at a piano.
They exchanged few words. She demonstrated basic fingerings and how to read sheet music. The hour passed swiftly.
After that, he made the trip to her room daily for an hour.
The change came in the year he turned sixteen.
Struck by a minor cold, his mother passed away.
Diao Chan couldn’t name the feeling. She had always been delicate, her illnesses dragging on intermittently for so long that he had steeled himself for it. Perhaps sensing her end nearing, in her final days, this ever-traditional noblewoman taught Diao Chan his last piece. It was his first venture beyond classical music.
He played it at her funeral. Murmurs rippled through the crowd; his father flew into a rage. After that, the piano was forbidden to him. Like every clichéd tale of teenage rebellion, he tried to run away from home. He encountered strange happenings along the way—strange, perhaps, to someone raised in such cloistered confines. This led him to join a government agency, one of the few places his father’s influence couldn’t reach.
Months later, he returned home for the first time. He had braced for his father’s wrath. Yet the entire Mansion carried on as if nothing had happened. Servants bustled about; the gardener tended the lily of the valley, his mother’s favorite flower in life.
“Young Master,” the butler said upon seeing him, surprise flickering across his face. “When did you leave?”
Then: “You’re going to be late. Hurry along.”
“Late”—in this Mansion, Diao Chan held the prerogative to ignore time for anything. Everyone made excuses for the Diao Family Young Master. He must be tied up with something important; the young master was so busy, after all.
Except for one thing.
Diao Chan abruptly shoved open the door to the room.
His mother sat beside the piano.
She turned her head, her voice carrying a cool, leisurely affection—a tone Diao Chan had heard for many years and knew all too well. “You’re late,” she said.
…
He had visited psychiatrists and the renowned psychotherapy clinics of the Metropolis.
Yet everyone regarded him with the same gentle, probing gaze before telling him the same thing: “Young Master Diao, there’s nothing wrong with your mental state.”
It was as if it had all been nothing more than a dream. A dream that began the moment he scaled the mansion’s courtyard wall and ended when he returned home—those intervening months brutally carved away. The lily of the valley in the courtyard never wilted, blooming with cold indifference and fervent intensity. He had discreetly sounded out many people in secret, probing them about his disappearance, about his mother’s death. The butler had raised a single eyebrow at his questions; a flicker of surprise quickly smoothed into placid composure. “Young Master, you shouldn’t think like that.”
Diao Chan wasn’t sure if his supposedly subtle inquiries had somehow become a hint. He had once told the servants not to leave the birdcage in the hallway—it was too easy for the cats to get at it.
The emphasis in that sentence could fall on “hallway”… or on “get at it.”
After that, he never saw the bird again.
A few months later, his mother caught another cold. The exact same illness. No final words. The exact same death.
The funeral was as grand as ever. The well-preserved ladies of society whispered behind their fans. From dawn until dusk, Diao Chan played that aesthetically jarring piano piece. That night, he packed his bags and scaled the wall to leave once more.
This time, he was gone only a few days. When he stood once again before the mansion’s gates, gazing at the lily of the valley in the courtyard, he realized the gravity of it all.
His mother was still waiting for him in her room.
The living mother. The mother who had died twice.
