Pei Cangyu’s head throbbed, and everything in the darkness appeared as a blurred double image. Bai Shi pinned him down without the slightest slackening, obstructing his breathing to the point where he could barely cope. Even so, he could see Tu Ziyun, who had finished a fruitless search upstairs, gradually approaching their position.
He began to struggle again, terrified that Bai Shi’s earlier promise would fall through. Bai Shi glanced down at him and softly called Lu Mingyue’s name. The alert man didn’t take his eyes off Tu Ziyun, merely tilting his head toward Bai Shi.
Bai Shi said, "Go around the outside and lure him away."
The lines of Lu Mingyue’s profile tightened instantly—a sign of his dissatisfaction. His gun’s safety was already off; everything was ready. There was no longer any need for hide-and-seek. Tu Ziyun wasn't some legendary cop; Lu Mingyue could think of a dozen ways to dispose of the body right then and there without a soul knowing.
But he merely frowned, tucked the gun under his arm, engaged the safety, and turned to leave through the basement passage. As he passed Bai Shi, he looked down at Pei Cangyu. Bai Shi, looking outward, didn't notice, but Pei Cangyu collided with the cold, murderous intent in Lu Mingyue’s eyes—a look of pure regret for not having dealt with him moments ago.
Pei Cangyu wasn't afraid. He clawed at the hand covering his mouth. Bai Shi, sounding somewhat helpless, added to Lu Mingyue, "Give me the gun. Don't kill the policeman."
Lu Mingyue’s frustration had almost taken physical form. Was he expected to go out unarmed?
Still, he would not defy Bai Shi, especially not now. He placed the gun on the floor and nimbly vaulted out.
A moment later, they heard the roar of a motorcycle at the entrance—likely the bike Lu Mingyue had hidden earlier. This jarring sound in the dead of night successfully drew Tu Ziyun’s attention, and he quickly gave chase.
Only after several minutes did Bai Shi release him. Pei Cangyu collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air. Bai Shi’s strength was immense, and today he seemed even stranger. Pei Cangyu felt that if he had been held down for ten more minutes, he might have actually died.
Now mostly conscious, Pei Cangyu looked at Bai Shi. The doctor seemed to be following Bai Shi’s orders, which implied Bai Shi was the one who was ill. Yet Bai Shi looked better than ever; his spirits were high, his eyes filled with an unprecedented excitement. Pei Cangyu could even see the veins bulging in Bai Shi’s neck as he moved. Every action Bai Shi took was filled with an infinite, restless vitality, like a leaping flame. His gaze, like falling sparks, landed on Pei Cangyu as he hauled him up. The movement was so rough that Pei Cangyu’s head slammed hard against the wall, but Bai Shi only spared him a glance, offering no reaction.
The doctor was breaking out in a cold sweat. He followed beside Bai Shi as he walked out, urging him to finish the IV drip and take his medicine.
With a casual wave of his hand, Bai Shi told him to wait and go start a fire instead.
The doctor had never done such a thing, but he followed the order nonetheless. Bai Shi hauled Pei Cangyu along like a rabbit caught on a hunt, gripping him, dragging him, ignoring his will entirely.
But Pei Cangyu was awake now. He suddenly had a premonition that his only hope of escape had been Tu Ziyun. Now, Bai Shi had clearly entered a state he had never seen before. Pei Cangyu clenched his fist and, catching Bai Shi off guard, punched him square in the face. The moment Bai Shi let go, he bolted for the exit. He had to get away.
But Bai Shi only froze for a second before spinning around to seize him. Pei Cangyu had only taken one step when a piercing pain shot through his foot. He lunged forward, but Bai Shi grabbed him by the back of the neck and yanked him back, staring into his eyes. "Where do you think you're going?"
Pei Cangyu’s fever was rising again. His head spun, and his face was flushed a burning red. He was miserable. "Home."
"You don't have a home," Bai Shi told him with certainty, his voice carrying a neurotic repetition. "Do you have a home? You don't. You have nothing. You're all alone. From now on, you belong to me."
Pei Cangyu continued to struggle toward the exit. Bai Shi pulled him back with one arm and turned to shout at the doctor, "Where's the fire!"
The doctor flinched. "Right away... right away..."
Bai Shi turned back and pinched Pei Cangyu’s face. "What's the point of going to school? What's there to study? It's meaningless. You can't do anything right anyway."
Pei Cangyu punched him again, but Bai Shi didn't even flinch, as if he’d merely been brushed by a breeze. He blinked and, as if finding it funny, gripped Pei Cangyu’s shoulders and shook him a few times, making Pei Cangyu’s head spin even more.
Bai Shi steadied him, his gaze burning. In the reflection of Bai Shi’s dark pupils, aided by the light of the growing fire, Pei Cangyu could see his own shadow. "You must believe that in this world, no one will ever care about you more than I do."
Pei Cangyu felt a sudden chill, turning cold from head to toe. He had a faint, sinking feeling that Bai Shi might be right. But if the person who cared about him most was a madman who disregarded his every wish, then Pei Cangyu’s life in this world would be left with no room for self-determination at all.
He ran for the exit frantically. Bai Shi finally lost his patience. He said, "Wait a moment. Let me ask you something."
Bai Shi let go. Pei Cangyu crashed into the wall but reacted quickly, pressing his back against it and standing guardedly, watching Bai Shi, who held up his hands to show he had no aggressive intent.
"Do you really want to leave?"
Pei Cangyu gritted his teeth and nodded.
Bai Shi turned around and picked up a golf club from the stairs. "How are you going to walk with that foot? Use this for support."
Pei Cangyu was stunned. Just a moment ago, Bai Shi had looked like he was burning with madness; now he had returned to a state of calm, as if switching between personas at will.
Seeing him not moving, Bai Shi extended it further. "Take it."
Pei Cangyu hesitated before reaching out to take it, trying to lean his weight onto the club. Bai Shi helped him, pressing the club firmly against the front of Pei Cangyu’s left leg, letting Pei Cangyu brace it with his knee.
"Isn't that much better?" Bai Shi asked him.
Pei Cangyu didn't answer. He wanted to leave.
Bai Shi supported his body, checking once more that the leg and the club were pressed together, then patted Pei Cangyu’s shoulder. "Pei Cangyu, listen to me."
Pei Cangyu instinctively paused to hear what he had to say, not forgetting to watch Bai Shi’s arms for any sudden movements.
But in the next second, Bai Shi suddenly raised his foot and kicked out with explosive force. Aiming directly at Pei Cangyu’s leg and the golf club, he snapped the club with a single kick. Pei Cangyu, having absorbed the same impact, stood frozen for two heartbeats before letting out a harrowing scream.
Bai Shi scooped him up and walked straight to the sofa by the fireplace. He laid him down gently and looked down at him with a tender expression, his voice even tinged with a hint of pride. "Don't worry. I used the golf club to ensure the force was distributed. This amount of force won't be a problem."
"To hell with your 'no problem'!" Pei Cangyu’s eyes were full of tears from the pain. His arms flailed wildly. His head began to throb again, and the fever he had managed to suppress surged back all at once, yet he felt freezing cold.
The doctor took one look and quickly turned his head away, saying he was going to get the medical kit. Bai Shi waved him off, his eyes fixed on Pei Cangyu as he tried to pin down the boy's thrashing arms.
Bai Shi frowned, looking genuinely puzzled. "It doesn't matter. Wounds will always heal."
Pei Cangyu screamed at the top of his lungs, "Heal my ass! You try healing one and let me see! Who the hell do you think you are!" This time, his fist slammed into Bai Shi’s eye. Bai Shi didn't dodge. The area reddened instantly, and blood vessels burst in his eye.
Taking advantage of Bai Shi’s loosened grip, Pei Cangyu grabbed him by the throat, squeezing hard with a vicious curse, intent on dragging them both down together. "I'll kill you! You motherfucker..."
Bai Shi also grabbed his arms, tearing them away and pinning him to the sofa. He hovered over him, looking at him with that same uncomprehending expression. "Why are you so angry? Wounds will always heal."
Pei Cangyu spat at him. "Dumbass! You heal one and let me see, you son of a bitch."
Bai Shi said, "So that's how it is."
He reached for the gun on the table. Pei Cangyu immediately shrank back, struggling violently. He tried to move his injured leg, shaking his head frantically, but Bai Shi looked at him seriously. "Watch."
Then, he raised his left hand, held the gun in his right, and fired a shot directly through the center of his left palm.
The gunshot exploded in the silence. The aftershock left a sharp, ringing sound in Pei Cangyu’s ears.
Pei Cangyu froze in place. In his dilated pupils, the trajectory of the gunpowder smoke still drifted. Then, Bai Shi held his left hand in front of him. The hole in the center of his palm was gushing blood. The shredded flesh around the bullet hole hung from the exposed knuckles. Bai Shi didn't make a sound. His face was calm; if not for his pale complexion and bloodless lips, one would have thought the shot had been fired into someone else.
Through that hole, Pei Cangyu saw Bai Shi’s eyes, as calm as ever.
Bai Shi said, "Wounds will always heal."
Pei Cangyu was so shocked by the scene that he didn't move for a long time.
Bai Shi turned around, grabbed a bottle of liquor from the table, bit off the cork, and poured it over his bloody left hand. He winced slightly from the pain, then tilted his head back to take a swig before slamming the bottle back onto the table with a dull thud.
He picked up a bundle of gauze from the floor. Without bothering to unroll it, he soaked the bundle in alcohol and shoved the entire mass directly into the hole in his left hand.
The roll of white gauze passed through the bloody hole, piercing through unbroken veins and knocking aside precarious fragments of bone. When it emerged on the other side, it was dyed a deep, saturated crimson. Pei Cangyu took one look and nearly vomited.
Due to the physiological reaction, Bai Shi’s face was ghostly pale and his lips trembled, but he told Pei Cangyu in an ordinary tone, "You have to believe me. Wounds will always heal."
Pei Cangyu turned his head and leaned over the edge of the sofa, retching repeatedly.
Bai Shi’s left hand spasmed with pain. He cursed under his breath, stood up, and pulled off his shirt. Layers of cold sweat had broken out over his body. With his back bare, he sat down to continue tending to his mangled left hand.
Pei Cangyu retched for a long time but produced nothing. His head was spinning. Watching Bai Shi fiddle with his own hand, he reached out, grabbed the bottle Bai Shi had set down, and tilted his head back to gulp it down. He couldn't think about anything anymore.
In that moment, he finally understood.
Bai Shi was crazy.
He was simply, purely insane.
Pei Cangyu stopped struggling and stopped retching. He sat blankly on the sofa, shivering with alternating waves of cold and heat from the fever. In this silent night, in this empty house, there was only a fire burning chaotically, and beside it sat a madman with a gun who was capable of anything.
Pei Cangyu turned to look at Bai Shi’s messily bandaged hand. Bai Shi stood up nonchalantly to get another bottle of liquor. As he moved now, he had completely lost his refined daytime grace. His hair was pushed back, his eyes held an indescribable mania, and he looked as imposing as a pale beast as he walked back toward Pei Cangyu with the bottle.
Pei Cangyu shook the bottle in his own hand, realizing that even if Bai Shi went to get a new one, he wouldn't snatch the one from Pei's hand. Bai Shi sat down and bit off the cap. Just as he was about to drink, Pei Cangyu snatched it away. He looked at Bai Shi, wanting to see what he would do.
Bai Shi glanced at him and stood up again, seemingly intending to get another.
Pei Cangyu grabbed him. Bai Shi was covered in sweat. Pei gripped his wrist.
Bai Shi stopped and looked down at him. Blood was steadily seeping through his left hand; the bandage was useless.
Pei Cangyu looked up. "I'll bandage it for you. You set my leg back."
Bai Shi stared at him. "I already told you, wounds will heal."
Pei Cangyu’s hand trembled as he let go. He watched Bai Shi sit down and expressionlessly begin to unravel the messy bandages on his left hand.
Their ill-timed testing of each other, their self-righteous secret crushes, their falling out, their arguments, their fights, their mutual inability to understand one another—after all of it, it was still always the two of them, forced to return to a state of calm, forced to lean on each other.
They had no choice but to compromise.
And if they didn't? Pei Cangyu’s anger and disappointment would only act as a boomerang, striking back at himself. Bai Shi was exactly like his name—a white stone. Now that his wicked side had been revealed, he remained as immovable as a mountain.
Pei Cangyu closed his eyes in despair. He had encountered a madman.
He had to escape.
He had to escape the madman’s embrace.
***
