Chapter 97: Guess Why I Want You Dead

2022-05-20

The day Lin Dafa was released, the Rich Kid was released too.

Lin Dafa waited outside the Rich Kid’s house.

He hid a knife under his clothes. For a full week, he’d staked out the front door, waiting for his chance. During the day, he ate dry, hard buns. At night, he curled up outside shopfronts to sleep. His bloodshot eyes glowed with a hunger that made him look like a predator stalking its prey.

Determination burned in his gaze, sharp as an eagle locked onto its next meal.

He stood like a statue, but one shaped by bloodlust.

After seven days, Lin Dafa finally spotted the Rich Kid. The guy was still living large, parties, women, booze—nothing had changed. His life had frozen at twenty, unable to move forward. He couldn’t tell his parents, couldn’t tell anyone else.

Fumbling for his spare key, the Rich Kid unlocked the door. Lin Dafa sprang like a wild beast, kicking him through the doorway. He spun around and locked the door behind them.

The Rich Kid was drunk, sprawling on the ground, thrashing and kicking. Lin Dafa just watched him squirm, a twisted grin spreading across his face.

How pitiful, he thought. Crawling around, the guy looked like an ugly, fat maggot writhing in the dirt.

Lin Dafa didn’t plan to kill him outright. He wanted to savor it, torture him slowly.

“Hey, let’s talk, okay? Whatever you want, money—you name it! Just don’t hurt me, please! Don’t kill me!” The Rich Kid stammered, trembling all over.

Lin Dafa just studied him, silent. Up close, the Rich Kid barely looked twenty—more like someone in his thirties, already weathered by life, just like himself. The contrast between his terror now and the arrogance he’d once shown couldn’t have been sharper.

“I’m gonna kill you. But I’ll give you a chance.” Lin Dafa’s voice was cold. “Guess why I want you dead. If you get it right, I’ll spare you. But you don’t have many guesses, so think carefully.”

Finding a chair, Lin Dafa sat across from him. Slowly, he pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket, tapped one out, and flicked his lighter.

“Hold on, there’s something way better in the drawer beside you—trust me. Way better than what you’re smoking now,” the Rich Kid blurted out in desperation. “See for yourself, I’m not lying.”

Lin Dafa checked the drawer. Inside was a box of hand-rolled tobacco.

That box of tobacco bought the Rich Kid a bit of time. As Lin Dafa inspected it, his mind raced back through everything he’d ever done.

From then on, Lin Dafa was hooked on the rough kick of that hand-rolled tobacco. He tore open his own cigarettes, packed them with the strong-smelling strands, and smoked. The buzz hit hard, leaving him lightheaded, but it didn’t distract him from why he was really there.

“Speak,” Lin Dafa said, his voice looser now, smoke curling from his mouth. “Start guessing. And if you don’t, you’ll pay for it.”

“You’re—You’re Xiaowan’s father,” the Rich Kid sobbed. “She was pregnant with my kid, but I abandoned her. She didn’t dare tell her parents, wouldn’t go to the hospital, just gave birth under some broken bridge. She died, and so did the baby.”

“But—that’s impossible. No one knew that was my child. How did you…? No, you’re not her father! This can’t be why you’re here!” The Rich Kid talked faster and faster, trembling like a leaf.

Lin Dafa gave him a shy little smile and tightened his grip on the knife.

“I know it! I know!” Blood, sweat and tears mixed on the Rich Kid’s face, stinging the cut on his cheek so badly it felt like a thousand ants biting at once. “You’re not Xiaowan’s father—then you must be Xiao Mei’s dad! What I did to her was monstrous, I admit it!”

Lin Dafa smiled thinly. “Go on.”

Thinking he’d guessed right, the Rich Kid’s face relaxed a little. “You’re Xiao Mei’s father. That time, I tied her up all alone at the construction site. When we came back an hour later, she was lying there, eyes closed—not breathing. We panicked and ran. Later, I heard the police caught the others, but no one ever found out I was the one who tied Xiao Mei up. Is this it? It has to be, right?”

Lin Dafa drove the knife in deeper. “That’s not it. That’s not why I’m here.”

The Rich Kid was losing hope. He could feel his life draining with his blood. Even if the stab wasn’t instantly fatal, he’d bleed out at this rate. The wound was deep. He had only a few guesses left, and a wrong answer could mean death right here.

He panted, chest heaving like he’d just run a mile. His mind spun through all the rotten things he’d done, searching for a reason someone would want revenge.

“Say it out loud,” Lin Dafa murmured, rolling another cigarette. “Don’t keep it in your head, or how am I supposed to know what you’re thinking?”

“Yes, yes!” the Rich Kid replied, frantic. “Th-this—oh, I know! I remember now! It must be this! When I was a teenager living in the countryside, I was playing with fire and set someone’s wooden house on fire by accident.”

“I was so young and so scared, I ran. Later, I heard the fire killed the mother and her young child. You must be the husband—at work away from home, so you survived. Is that it? Is that why you’re here?”

The Rich Kid was hysterical, flailing like a fish on the shore, desperate for one last gasp.

Lin Dafa scratched his head with the handle of the knife. He hadn’t expected the Rich Kid to have caused so much harm, so many deaths. Still, none of it mattered to Lin Dafa. There were too many people in the world; if you mourned every death, you’d never get anything done.

Those people meant nothing to him. He didn’t feel even a flicker of sadness for them. What really angered him was that, after all this, the Rich Kid still hadn’t even remembered what happened to his own daughter. That thought made his blood boil.

“Still wrong?” The Rich Kid shook, struggling in the chair but getting nowhere.

Lin Dafa was a laborer, strong as an ox. The Rich Kid had no hope of breaking free.

“Why are you doing this to me?” sobbed the Rich Kid, looking every bit the clown.

Lin Dafa ignored him and repeated, “Go on. Guess. Come on—guess!”

The Rich Kid choked out a sob, but forced himself to think. “If it’s not any of those, what else could it be? Let me think, let me think. Oh! You’re Sister Hua’s husband, aren’t you? She told me her husband was about your age. I gave her a disease without knowing, and she passed it on to you when she went home.”

“So you got sick too,” the Rich Kid whispered. “You want revenge, right? But that’s not my fault. She came after me for my money, I was just having some fun. Her death was suicide—nothing to do with me! She questioned me, I told her it was all her own fault. She couldn’t take it, so she jumped. That’s it. I’ll give you all my money, whatever you want, okay?”

Lin Dafa’s fury hit its breaking point. He didn’t know any Sister Hua, wasn’t her husband. Instead, a wave of disappointment washed over him—the memory that tore Lin Rong apart didn’t even register for the Rich Kid. Lin Rong, just another forgotten woman whose life he’d ruined and left behind.

Sometimes, fate is just one-sided—love, hate, remembering, forgetting.

“Looks like you’re out of chances,” Lin Dafa hissed. “When you see King Yama down below, make sure to tell him Lin Dafa was the one who killed you.”

Lin Dafa! That surname—Lin! Who did he know with the surname Lin? Which woman named Lin?

Suddenly, one name crashed into the Rich Kid’s mind.

“Lin Rong! Lin Rong!” he screamed. “You’re Lin Rong’s father! You’re killing me because of what happened with her, aren’t you? Right? Right?!”

He was completely broken down now, sobbing and shouting.

Only now did he truly understand that you can’t grasp the true terror of death until it’s staring you in the face.

Lin Dafa paused, grinning.

The Rich Kid saw the knife stop, and, strangely, he smiled too.