Chapter 1 The Beginning

Hu.

Though it was late summer, the two plumes of breath exhaled from his nostrils were clearly visible under the dim yellow streetlights.

"Did you sense it?"

Li Ang asked softly.

The black umbrella behind him swayed gently, rustling.

Yin energy, thin but clear, filled the narrow, dirty alley, obscuring vision like a hazy veil.

The black umbrella swayed comfortably, greedily absorbing the coldness of the *yinqi* permeating the air. Li Ang adjusted his breathing, allowing the ripple of energy to flow slowly through his body.

The warm current dispelled the chill. Li Ang shivered, passed through the alley, and followed the trail of *yinqi*, turning left and right until he arrived at a two-story bungalow.

The bungalow was generally grayish-brown, and the outer walls were covered with lush ivy. Through the gaps in the branches and leaves, one could see the mottled, peeling cement wall bricks.

The house was probably a round older than Li Ang. The cracked corners and foundations made one wonder if the building would collapse in the next second.

The second-floor room was lit, and standing at the bottom of the building, one could faintly hear childish voices coming from above. Li Ang was stunned for a moment. He looked around to make sure no one was there, then quickly climbed up the wall of the building, like a black cat, silently crouching on the roof of the second floor, listening intently to the movements below.

"At the foot of the mountain, there is a stone cliff with a crack in it. The *hanhaoniao* (a bird which only builds nests in summer) makes that crack its nest."

Several childish voices were reciting a text, the People's Education Edition's second-grade textbook, "The *Hanhaoniao*," about how winter was approaching, but the *hanhaoniao* was content and unwilling to build a nest, and was eventually frozen to death in the cold winter night.

There were five boys and three girls in the children's voices, all very young. They sat in four rows of seats, two to a row. The footsteps of an adult male, wearing cloth shoes and weighing about 140 pounds, could occasionally be heard standing up and walking around at the front of the small room.

Just from the sound, without seeing the picture, Li Ang could roughly guess the scene inside. Was this a shantytown version of a "cram school"?

After the children finished reciting the text, the man standing at the front of the room coughed violently and told the children to do math workbooks.

Li Ang patiently waited on the roof for something to happen. Ten minutes later, the door of the room was knocked on, and a middle-aged woman who sounded like she did heavy physical labor thanked the teacher in a tired voice and took her child away.

As ten o'clock approached, the children in the "cram school" were all picked up by their parents. After the door was closed, the man at the front of the classroom coughed violently and slowly made himself a pot of tea.

Jasmine tea, with its fresh and elegant color, sweet and delicious taste, clears heat and detoxifies. The pale white flowers floated and rotated in the tea soup, and just looking at it could calm people down.

The middle-aged man named Zou Zhengze held the lid of the enamel cup, gently rubbed the rim, took a sip of the tea soup, and said calmly to the window, "Won't you come down and take a look?"

After a moment of silence, Li Ang deftly flipped in through the window, the red-faced Guan Gong on his mask glaring at Zou Zhengze.

"Which organization are you from?" Zou Zhengze blew on the surface of the tea water and asked leisurely, "Special Affairs Bureau? Heterogeneous Society? Or Whale Song?"

Li Ang didn't answer, just examining Zou Zhengze with interest.

He was about forty-five years old, of medium build, neither fat nor thin, with short hair, cloth shoes on his feet, and a wrinkled, curly-haired red short-sleeved t-shirt and black trousers. The parts of his arms not covered by the short sleeves had large patches of old burn scars.

And on his face, the burn scars were even more obvious. Dark red scars covered his entire left face, extending all the way to below his right ear. Whenever he smiled, his slightly swollen lips would pull to the side, making one worry that the corner of his mouth would split along the scar.

"Did you kill Zeng Weiming and Wang Fangni?"

"I did." Zou Zhengze nodded.

"Why?" Li Ang asked, "Revenge?"

"Revenge?" Zou Zhengze shook his head, "Not for hatred, but for love."

Li Ang grinned and complained, "Anyone with a normal mind wouldn't consider murder as an expression of love."

Zou Zhengze shook his head, coughed a few times, stood up from his chair, and knocked on the table, "What do you think of this place?"

"As a cram school, it's not bad."

"Actually, this isn't really a cram school," Zou Zhengze smiled, "The people who live in this area aren't rich. Many couples do physical labor from dawn till dusk, and they simply don't have the time or resources to take care of their children.

"When I was young, I repaired bicycles, carried bags, burned boilers, ran a small shop, worked as a barefoot doctor, and also taught for a while. Fortunately, I can still use my spare energy to help the residents here take care of their children and give them some tutoring."

"A very touching story," Li Ang said calmly, "You can almost participate in the selection of the top ten people who moved Yin City."

Zou Zhengze ignored the sarcasm in Li Ang's words and sighed, "When we were kids, Wang Fangni and I were best friends. We grew up together in the village and went to school together. Unfortunately, my parents' family conditions were too poor, and they didn't have the money to send me to high school, so I had to enter society early and struggle.

"Later, I heard that Fangni's family had an accident and didn't have the money to continue her studies, so I worked two jobs in the city and sent her money so she could continue her high school education.

"When she was in college, we lived together. I drove a taxi to supplement the family income. She went to class during the day and came home to cook for me at night. Those were the happiest moments for us. She told me that as soon as she graduated from college, she would marry me."

A sweet and warm remembrance of the past appeared on Zou Zhengze's dark red face, "But, it didn't last long. In a voluntary fire extinguishing operation, I rushed into the fire and the person I rescued took away my escape mask. By the time the firefighters dragged me out of the fire, I had become this inhuman, ghostly figure."

"Fangni didn't abandon me. She took care of me carefully by the hospital bed, constantly describing the beautiful future we had envisioned.

"But, one was a female college student with a limitless future, and the other was a cripple with a ruined face and broken body. The pointing and whispering of the people around made Fangni more and more silent."

"Do you have that experience? Afraid of being abandoned, afraid of being hated, hating yourself, loathing yourself, and no longer able to trust the person you love,"

Zou Zhengze said blankly, "At that time, I was very bad to her, very bad. I beat her, but she remained silent. I told her to get out, but she wouldn't. So I tore off the bandages and, taking advantage of the night, escaped from the hospital myself, fleeing that city.

"During that time, I couldn't tell whether I hated her or hated myself."