Slow diarrhea
Then, he mentioned the name that dragged everything into the abyss—Tan Zhong.
The father's junior high school classmate, the heir of the Tan family, a demon bred by money and power, with greed and twisted desires.
He described how Tan Zhong used despicable means to force his most beautiful female classmate to marry him, how he used violence against his newlywed wife when she refused to submit, forcing her to give birth to their child, and how he quickly abandoned her after succeeding.
Tan Huaiyu, the child who was never expected from birth, became a toy for his father to vent his violence, and also became the earliest and silent sacrifice in this tragedy.
Tan Zhong's clutches did not stop at the family. Relying on his power, he set his sights on a wider and more vulnerable area, from married women to underage female students. Once he set his sights on someone, they could not escape their fate.
When the desperate father knelt at Tan Zhong's feet begging for a loan, the devil smelled the scent of a new prey.
He had long coveted Qi's mother's beauty, and now, a sinful "loan" agreement became his legal warrant for abduction. That cowardly and pathetic man actually offered up his wife, along with the last shred of human dignity, in exchange for a few stacks of filthy banknotes.
In the following narration, Qi Shuo's voice became unusually flat, without any ups and downs or sobs, yet every word was like a knife, cutting into the listener's nerves.
Imprisoned, humiliated, and subjected to inhuman torture... until that gentle and resilient woman's will to live was completely destroyed, and in a moment when no one was watching, she ended all her humiliation and suffering in the most resolute way.
When he arrived at the Tan family home, he witnessed his mother's final moments, falling like a kite with a broken string.
Warm blood splattered onto his young face, and also completely stained the sky when he was eighteen.
He wanted to rush in and fight to the death, to tear that beast to pieces, but he was easily kicked to the ground by the Tan family's henchmen and thrown out the door like trash.
He could only hold his mother's still-warm but rapidly cooling body, and step by step, like a broken puppet, he moved back to that "home" that had long been gambled away and drained by his father, leaving only an empty shell of hell.
What awaited him was another devastating piece of news that could freeze one's soul—his younger sister, Qi Shan, was also missing.
The drunken father counted the blood-stained banknotes he had obtained in exchange for his wife and daughter. Facing his son's bloodshot eyes and devastated questioning, he could only mutter numbly, even with a hint of relief, "If your Uncle Tan wanted it, I gave it to him."
That seemingly casual remark severed the last fragile connection between Qi Shuo and the world, igniting the pent-up anger within him for eighteen years—anger stemming from poverty, humiliation, violence, and loss. That flame consumed his fear, his reason, and destroyed the future he should have had.
He did not describe the madness of that moment in detail.
But Ning Wan could glimpse the terrifying image of that boy, completely consumed by despair and hatred, in the depths of his eyes that had suddenly lost all light, and in his profile that was as taut as a rock and seemed about to shatter at any moment.
He raised his knife and ended the life of the man who had given him life but also plunged him into hell. Then, covered in the blood of his kind, he charged once again into the cannibalistic den of the Tan family.
“I failed to kill him.” A faint, cold sneer finally escaped Qi Shuo’s voice, like frost freezing in a winter night, “because Tan Huaiyu stood in his way.”
The eight-year-old boy, trembling with fear, grabbed his clothes and used his frail body to stand between the blade of revenge and his beastly father.
That momentary stagnation may have altered the course of many things.
In the end, Tan Zhong was seriously injured but managed to survive. Qi Shuo, on the other hand, earned eight years in prison for his bloodied hands.
"Later I heard inside that he died a few years later." Qi Shuo tugged at the corner of his mouth, but it wasn't a smile; it was an extremely tired and empty arc. "Sometimes I think, those punches back then were too light, too light. I shouldn't have put down the knife; I should have continued. That beast's worthless life should have been ended by my own hands."
But he didn't.
That overwhelming, unquenchable hatred, during the years of imprisonment, was partly and unfairly transferred to that equally innocent child, Tan Huaiyu, who had the blood of a demon flowing through his veins.
Isn't this act of taking one's anger out on others another form of despair?
“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” he asked, his voice as soft as a soliloquy, yet as heavy as a blow to the heart.
"He went in at eighteen and came out at twenty-six." With the simplest of numbers, he branded his youth, dreams, and all possible futures with the indelible mark of "murderer."
The long, bloody confession had finally come to an end. The park was deathly silent, with only the howling wind, like the whispers of countless dead souls. Qi Shuo slowly, extremely slowly, turned his head and, for the first time, truly looked at Ning Wan's face, which was already covered in tears and trembling uncontrollably.
His eyes were empty and deep, like a dry well that had swallowed all light and was covered with cracks.
"Are you scared?" he asked, his voice as soft as a sigh about to dissipate in the wind.
Ning Wan opened her mouth wide, overwhelmed by grief, horror, and heartbreak, which choked her and rendered her speechless. She didn't speak, nor did she move; only tears flowed like a burst dam.
Qi Shuo looked at her and smiled very lightly and faintly. There was no warmth in that smile, only endless desolation, self-loathing, and a numbness after everything had settled.
“Ning Wan, look,” he said, each word as if pulled from an ice cellar or rolled through ashes, “I am just this kind of person. My past was rotten, and my future… probably won’t be much better.”
He paused, his gaze shifting from her tear-streaked face back to the all-consuming darkness before him. His voice was so low it was almost carried away by the wind, yet it carried a resolute determination:
"In short, I'm a lousy person."
"If you're scared, stay away from me."
He spoke the last sentence slowly and clearly, no longer a confession, but a declaration, carrying a kind of exhaustion-induced, almost cruel clarity, or rather, the last, fragile line of defense:
"Ning Wan, I can't take any more of this."
After he finished speaking, he stopped looking at her, as if he had used up all his strength, leaving only a silent, stiff profile that seemed to blend into the boundless night behind him, quietly awaiting a judgment that may have been predetermined.
The words froze and dissipated in the cold air.
Qi Shuo waited for a long time, long enough to feel the chill of the evening breeze brushing against his skin and taking away the last bit of warmth, long enough to count the heavy pounding of his own heart, but he still didn't receive any response.
There were no words, no movements, only Ning Wan's suppressed, faint sobs, mingling with the sound of the wind, like the trembling wings of a dying butterfly.
He lowered his eyelids and very, very gently raised his hand to pat Ning Wan's violently heaving back.
The gesture was soothing, yet carried a restrained sense of distance, as if touching an extremely fragile piece of porcelain, separated from him by a transparent barrier.
“It’s late,” he finally spoke again, his voice lower and hoarser than before, calmer, like a beach after the tide has gone out, empty and weary. “Going back to school… or going somewhere else?”
Ning Wan's body stiffened slightly, her sobs pausing for a moment. She still didn't look up, only managing to squeeze out two broken, barely audible words from her throat, like dandelion seeds scattered by the wind:
"……School."
"……good."
Without further ado, without asking any more questions, Qi Shuo took out his phone and quickly hailed a car.
For several minutes, the two stood side by side, and silence descended once more, heavier and more suffocating than before. The car headlights approached from afar and stopped at the roadside. Qi Shuo opened the car door for her, waited for her to get in, and then gently closed the door.
Through the tinted car window, he couldn't see her face or her expression.
"Be careful on the road," he said, his voice muffled through the car window.
Inside the car, Ning Wan didn't respond, but instead clutched the "gift" wrapped in brown paper, which carried too many heavy sentiments, tightly in her arms, like a drowning person clinging to a piece of driftwood.
She turned her head slightly, resting her forehead against the cold car window, her gaze unfocused as she watched the street scene rushing past. Neon lights flashed, cars and people thronged, the city night was still bustling and vibrant, yet it felt as if an entire universe separated her from it.
In fact, she knew that Qi Shuo had a bad past.
From his occasional silences, from the gloom deep in his eyes, from his occasional evasiveness about certain topics, and from those hesitant words about "having been inside," she could more or less guess some things.
But she never imagined that behind this “badness” lay a ruin soaked in blood, gnawed by despair, and utterly destroyed by evil.
The cruel details hidden beneath the calm narration, every word and phrase, were like a red-hot branding iron, searing her heart and leaving a hideous, indelible mark.
She lowered her eyes, and tears silently streamed down her face again, dripping onto the parchment and spreading into a small dark patch.
Qi Shuo was willing to tear open his deepest and most painful scars for her to see, bloodily and without reservation.
With his almost completely drained strength, he painstakingly laid bare his agonizing past before her, word by word. This was an immense trust, and also an immense…despair.
He laid bare his most vulnerable, most fragile, and darkest side, without any defenses, awaiting her judgment, or rather, awaiting a result—to come closer or to go away.
But what about herself?
She couldn't even give a decent response.
What else could she do besides cry, tremble, feel unspeakable fear and heartache?
Should I say "I'm not afraid"? "I understand"? Or "It's okay, it's all in the past"?
These words seem so pale and powerless, so... hypocritical, in the face of such truth.
She knew how difficult it would be to tell others about her past, especially those stories filled with blood, tears, shame, and inescapable shackles.
How much courage did Qi Shuo need to confess tonight? Was it a desperate gamble after running out of options, or an olive branch tentatively offered in the darkness that might be broken?
She dared not even think about it. All she knew was that she couldn't do it.
At least for now, she doesn't have the courage to touch that equally dark corner of her heart, to lay bare her equally heavy and unspeakable past before him.
It contained the shadows of her family that she couldn't face, her mother's cold gaze, the rotten and stinking secrets beneath the glamorous facade, the shackles she carried as a "tool for arranged marriage," and the suffocating marriage contract between her parents and a stranger.
Compared to Qi Shuo, the pain she experienced may not have been as severe or as directly bloody, but it still trapped her in an invisible cage, making her feel suffocated and fearful of "honesty" and "the future."
Compared to Qi Shuo's bravery... she was the complete coward. A coward who only dared to hide behind other people's wounds, trembling, but who didn't even dare to face her own truth.
Tears blurred my vision, and the dazzling lights outside the window turned into colorful, distorted, and deformed patches.
I'm sorry, Brother Qi Shuo.
She silently said in her heart that every word carried the weight of blood and tears.
I'm sorry, please forgive my cowardice.
I'm sorry, I... can't do it.
The car drove smoothly through the night, taking her away from the park filled with heavy truths, away from the man who was covered in wounds but still tried to straighten his back.
She could only clutch the belated gift tightly, like an abandoned child, huddled in a corner of the carriage, letting despair and self-blame slowly consume her.
The car stopped at the imposing gate of Beicheng University. Ning Wan got out of the car with a blank expression.
As the evening breeze blew by, she subconsciously pulled her thin clothes tighter around herself, only to find that they still seemed to carry the faint, clean scent of soap from Qi Shuo's trench coat, and the fleeting, faint warmth from his embrace.
She turned around abruptly, looking in the direction the car had driven away. The area was deserted, with only the dim, lonely light of the streetlights casting its glow.
Meanwhile, Qi Shuo had already returned to the library building. He silently put on his helmet and started the somewhat old electric scooter.
The roar of the engine sounded somewhat abrupt in the quiet night. He didn't immediately twist the accelerator; he simply sat quietly in the car, gazing in the direction Ning Wan had left, for a long time.
Then he turned his head and looked at the empty street ahead, illuminated by streetlights. The night wind rushed into his helmet, bringing a cold touch. He slowly, deeply inhaled, and then exhaled a long breath.
That aura seemed to carry all the weight that had been poured out during the confession, as well as a kind of empty weariness after the dust had settled.
He twisted the accelerator, and the car drove into the night, heading home alone.
The streetlights cast his shadow long, long, until it disappeared at the end of the road.
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