THE EXECUTIONER
Part Two
3
Aaron was tired.
He had prominent cheekbones and a lean frame—not much taller than his younger sister. But he was fiercely driven. Between classes, he worked three part-time jobs, determined to earn next year's tuition before the semester ended. Every time he dragged himself back to the dorm, he was spent to the bone.
This particular evening he was especially drained. He'd barely set foot inside the room, hadn't even touched the bed, when a voice called out: "Aaron, come here."
He turned. Zack Hart was hunched over his desk, scribbling something, head down. He pulled a bill from his pocket without looking up. "Go downstairs and buy me a pack of Chunhua cigarettes and a freshly poured Coke. Make it quick." After a pause, he added, "Keep the change—your running fee."
A little while later, Aaron returned with the cigarettes and Coke. As he set them down in front of Zack Hart, his hand slipped—Coke splashed from the cup and spilled across the scratch paper on the desk.
Zack Hart recoiled instinctively, then exploded. "Aaron, are you fucking blind?"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Aaron dabbed at the soda with his sleeve. He caught a glimpse of the sketch beneath—a rough outline that looked like a mask—but before he could make it out clearly, Zack Hart snatched the paper away.
Even so, Aaron understood what Zack Hart was working on.
Ever since the campus murder, Zack Hart had plunged into a feverish obsession with the Executioner—bordering on possession. Everyone in the department knew he was acting like a man possessed by Sherlock Holmes himself, skipping classes entirely to chase leads. But reality delivered a stinging slap: after the murder, the police issued a statement clarifying that relevant leads had been found, and they did not rule out the possibility of an acquaintance committing the crime. The case had nothing to do with the Executioner legend.
Aaron couldn't fathom Zack Hart's obsession. Rich people's hobbies were strange—they could afford to focus on things that didn't pay, unlike him, grinding through three jobs a day.
Exhausted beyond measure, Aaron didn't even wash his face before collapsing into bed. Sometime in the middle of the night, he vaguely sensed someone sitting beside his bed. He cracked open his sleep-blurred eyes—then a jolt of pure terror shot through him, and he jackknifed upright. In the pale moonlight, Zack Hart was sitting at his bedside, staring at him with the eyes of a butcher sizing up a lamb at the block.
"Zack Hart, you—"
"Shh." Zack Hart gestured at the other roommates, fast asleep. "Keep it down."
"What the hell are you doing? You nearly scared me to death!" Aaron hissed.
"The Executioner."
"What?"
"I said—you're the Executioner."
"Me?"
"Yes." Zack Hart ran his gaze over Aaron again. "If the Executioner really existed, I think he'd look exactly like you. Neither handsome nor ugly, thin and quiet, maybe even a little insecure—the kind of person most easily overlooked. More importantly, because you don't have a girlfriend, you're full of furtive, resentful desire toward women. That fits the profile of a psychopathic killer perfectly." He spoke with the casual certainty of someone accustomed to saying whatever crossed his mind.
"You're insane!" Aaron hissed. "You've gone completely over the edge—everyone looks like a killer to you! Give it a rest already. There is no Executioner—it's just a legend!"
"Legend? Heh. Nothing comes from nothing in this world."
"Enough, Haotian. I'm telling you to calm down. You can't keep spiraling like this. You don't even go to class anymore—everyone's waiting to see you make a fool of yourself."
Zack Hart's head drooped. He scratched his hair in frustration. "Those idiots—I'll make them see that the Executioner is real. Then they'll regret laughing at me. Everyone will look at me with new eyes." He paused, then suddenly looked up. "Aaron, do me a favor, will you?"
"What kind of favor?" Aaron leaned back—he saw an strange, fevered light flickering in Zack Hart's eyes.
"I need everyone to acknowledge the Executioner's existence first. Only then will they believe me, only then will they cooperate with my work... So—can you imitate the Executioner? Don't panic—I'm not asking you to kill anyone. I just mean, put in a brief appearance. A guest role. Show yourself at night, just once, so people know the Executioner isn't some baseless rumor."
"You're out of your mind! Don't drag me into this. I can't do it."
"I won't let you do it for nothing." Zack Hart pulled out a bank card and flashed it in front of him. "There's fifty thousand yuan on this card. If you agree, it's yours."
Fifty thousand yuan. The number shattered Aaron's psychological defenses in an instant. It covered nearly all the expenses he and his sister would incur over their entire college careers—equivalent to years of part-time labor. Aaron hesitated for a long moment under Zack Hart's relentless stare, and finally, in the darkness, nodded his head.
4
Lucy had also fallen in love.
Since arriving at the university, she had been regarded by her peers as a transcendent beauty, holding undisputed claim to the title of department flower. But Lucy herself couldn't have cared less. She was a true child of heaven—beautiful and brilliant, trailing halos at every stage of her life. Every day when she opened her mailbox in the dormitory lobby, it was stuffed with love letters falling like snow.
She hadn't spared a second glance for any of her suitors. Whether rich or poor, handsome or plain, they were all, in her eyes, men chasing after her skin—pedestrian, vulgar, beneath her notice. The one person in the entire university who could move her heart was the chemistry department's newly appointed counselor: Jared Yates.
Unlike those shallow pretty boys, Jared Yates was tall and broad-shouldered, with deep-set eyes that seemed to hold stars and oceans within them. Their first encounter had been during a proctored exam—Jared Yates was distributing test papers, and when his fingers accidentally brushed hers, he gave an apologetic smile. That smile carved itself into Lucy's heart like a blade. She was so dizzied by it that she failed the exam for the first and only time in her life.
When she later learned that Jared Yates had clawed his way out of rural poverty in northern Jiangsu through sheer determination, her admiration only deepened. But she also discovered that he had a girlfriend—an art instructor in the modeling department—and that the two were already engaged.
Love-addled, Lucy didn't care. For the first time in her life, she initiated a pursuit of a man—relentless, impassioned, and strategic. Under her assault, Jared Yates's defenses crumbled swiftly. They began secret dates, movies, trysts. Their underground affair blazed like wildfire.
Lucy reveled in this life. With Jared Yates, she tasted a thrilling rush of youth. After one particularly intoxicating encounter, breathless and flushed, she lay tracing the contours of his broad shoulders and taut waist, suffused with a glowing contentment. Then, without warning, Jared Yates sat up, turned his back to her, and lit a cigarette on the edge of the bed.
"What's wrong, darling?" Lucy shifted around and rested her head on his knee.
"Lulu, you and I..." He hesitated.
"What are you trying to say?" A bad feeling crept over her.
"You know I have a girlfriend. And we're already engaged."
"I know. I don't mind."
"But I do." He inhaled sharply. "If we keep this up, she's bound to find out. We're about to get married—I don't want everything turning into a disaster. So..." He took a fierce drag of his cigarette, fell silent for a long while, then said, "Lulu, we need to end this."
Lucy said nothing at all. The contentment that had been blooming inside her was hollowed out, piece by piece.
She had lived her whole life doing the rejecting—never once being rejected. Since childhood, she had never wanted anything she couldn't have. And so this time, she decided she would keep Jared Yates in the palm of her hand.
By whatever means necessary.
When they met again, Lucy had already achieved her aim.
"Did you kill her?" Those were the first words out of Jared Yates's mouth. He was flustered, agitated—desperate for her to say no.
"Yes." Lucy nodded. She answered lightly, almost breezily.
"You—" Jared Yates seized her by the collar, his whole body trembling with rage and bewilderment, but he couldn't find the words.