Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Aftermath

Page (1/3)

“I’ll teach you to be vicious! I’ll teach you to kill people! You bastard! I’ll beat you to death! Beat you to death, you bastard! Beat you to death!”

One punch, then another…

I kept swinging my fists at him without pause, as though I had forgotten that he was no longer fighting back.

At that moment, I believed the powerful beam of my flashlight had dazzled his eyes. Taking advantage of that, I continued striking his face and head. I only wanted to beat him savagely—until he was afraid, until he could no longer resist.

Although I knew that was probably impossible, I had no other choice. Faced with such a ruthless man, I could only repay him properly while I still had the chance to strike. Even though my head, face, and body were all throbbing with pain, I could not afford to care about any of it.

“Stop! All right, that’s enough!”

A low cry tinged with fear came from Fragrant Xiang, who approached anxiously. Her frightened voice rang out sharply through the rainforest, yet it seemed unable to awaken me from my outburst.

Then a thick, bloody stench suddenly filled my mouth and nose, making me feel as though I might vomit, but I still did not stop. After all, the terror this man had brought us moments ago had clearly been far greater than the threat posed by Brother Wen and the others when they began surrounding us.

At last, however, I heard Fragrant Xiang calling me. As my blows continued to fall, she seemed to realize that the man had finally stopped resisting, and she let out a long breath of relief. By then, I felt as though my right arm was barely strong enough to continue.

Yet the thought I clung to in my heart made me keep wanting my fists to strike his face. It seemed that only when I touched him could I feel safe.

“A Jing, that’s enough. A Jing, stop. Don’t hit him anymore. Don’t… A Jing…”

There was unmistakable fear and unease in Fragrant Xiang’s voice. She seemed to have come right to my side, and that gradually brought me back to my senses.

After all, the fact that Fragrant Xiang could approach me meant that, in her eyes at least, this man no longer posed much of a threat.

Looking down at the man beneath me with a trace of bewilderment, I shone the flashlight at him. At first I was stunned; then even I was frightened by what I saw.

Although the beam had swept across him only briefly, his left cheek had been beaten almost completely out of shape. The sight was so horrifying that I quickly moved the light away.

Even so, I could imagine the blood covering his mouth and nose. Under the flashlight’s beam, the area around his left eye was swollen beyond recognition, so badly that it was almost impossible to tell where the eye had been.

Page (1/3)

Page (2/3)

“Ah!”

I instinctively jerked upright, terrified and wanting to stand. But my legs were numb, and my entire body had suddenly gone weak.

“Are you all right?”

Seeing how disheveled I looked, Fragrant Xiang hurried over and supported me.

After struggling for several seconds, I slowly rose to my feet with her help.

“A Jing, don’t scare me. Are you all right?”

Although I was somewhat surprised, the concern in Fragrant Xiang’s voice made me look at her mechanically, and a little warmth spread through my heart.

In the darkness, faint light filtering through the gaps between the trees illuminated her eyes. They were filled with terror. I still felt dazed and stiff, but she clung tightly to my arm, her whole body trembling faintly, and I could not help feeling moved.

“Xiangxiang, don’t come any closer. Get away from here!”

It was almost an instinctive reaction. Although I had not seen the man get up, I remembered his savagery and the merciless way he had attacked Huang Jianfen. I hurriedly tried to push Fragrant Xiang away, afraid he might attack at any moment.

“No, no, there’s no need. No need, A Jing—ah! No need…”

Her voice trembling, Fragrant Xiang pulled me back a little. She had no intention of leaving; she simply did not dare look at the man lying on the ground.

Still dazed and bewildered, I was wondering what had frightened her so badly when she continued in a shaking voice, “You beat him… You beat his face until it’s deformed. He probably… probably can’t anymore, can he? Is he… is he dead?”

“Ah!”

I could not help responding under my breath, utterly stunned.

“No way. He’s pretending to be dead! He must be…”

The thought that I might actually have beaten someone to death made my entire body go numb with terror, even in such a remote wilderness.

I instinctively held Fragrant Xiang’s trembling body tighter. I did not even dare shine the flashlight at the man again, yet from the corner of my eye I saw that he was indeed lying motionless on the ground.

What horrified me most was that the strange shirt he wore seemed to have been torn open by me. It had fallen completely apart, like a bodice that had been unlaced. Even more nauseating was the sight of his chest and abdomen. It seemed that the short blade had truly sliced his skin open, leaving the muscles exposed and turned outward.

Page (2/3)

Page (3/3)

In the darkness, I could not see clearly after that hurried glimpse. But the brief flash of the light had left an impression in my mind, and it instantly made every hair on my body stand on end again.

I remembered sitting on his legs at the beginning and failing to notice how terrible he looked. I desperately did not want to recall what I had just seen, yet the image kept circling through my mind. It seemed that his abdomen had been cut open so deeply that even his intestines had spilled out.

“Don’t look, A Jing. Don’t look anymore. He really… really can’t move…”

I did not know whether Fragrant Xiang had seen it too, but when she sensed my head turning, she let out a terrified scream. She was clearly completely overwhelmed with fear.

I had nearly been killed by him, and now that I saw him lying there in such a miserable state, knowing that I had done it, I could not help panicking as well. I had killed chickens and gutted fish before, of course, but this was something entirely different.

He was not a particularly large man, and only moments ago he had been acting with such viciousness. Yet realizing that I had knocked him down, perhaps even torn him open so badly that he no longer moved, filled me with a sudden, overwhelming dread.

“Is he… is he really dead?”

Fragrant Xiang asked in a trembling voice. Feeling my rapid breathing and seeing that the man on the ground remained motionless, she seemed to come fully to her senses and was immediately consumed by terror.

“Xiangxiang, don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid yet. I’ll take another look in a moment, all right? And don’t turn around. Hurry to the river and help Fen up. She may not be able to hold on much longer!”

I was almost certain that the man on the ground could not be saved. But seeing how frightened Fragrant Xiang was, I could only force myself to change the subject.

I pushed Fragrant Xiang toward the river and switched off the flashlight. I was afraid she would see the man illuminated by its beam.

Even I had been horrified by the sight; how much worse would it be for a young woman? The thought was not entirely logical, but that was what I instinctively believed.

If I had not been carrying the flashlight in my pocket, and if, at that critical moment, I had not somehow thought to blind the man with its powerful beam, then the one lying there now might very well have been me.

Page (3/3)