The little girl turned her head with an air of disdain and ignored me.
I went up, grabbed her face, and pulled it, causing her to cry out in pain.
There were no traces of a human skin mask. It really was a little girl. On the other hand, if a seventy-year-old Seven Fingers was pretending to be a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old little girl, then that was really perverted.
I was a little angry. When people were young, they had little experience. Even Xiao Hua, who had done extraordinary things, wouldn’t have been too sophisticated when he was sixteen or seventeen. Maybe her earlier words about “saving him” and Uncle Three’s basement were all nonsense, but I had no idea where she got the information from.
I didn’t like people who messed around with me about this kind of thing, so my expression must have been quite cold.
Xiao Hua put the teacup on the sofa’s armrest, stood up, and then went behind the desk lamp where I saw a hot water kettle and a bucket of mineral water sitting on top of a table. There was something strange under the table that looked like a lot of boxes and antenna tied to a stick. It must have been the phone’s base station. I had never seen one before, but it looked exactly like how I pictured it. The stick looked like it had been cut off. Shit, it looked like it had been stolen.
A lot of the wires led straight to the stick, while the other ones were thrown into the corner and connected to a laptop. There were all kinds of patch boards beside the laptop.
Xiao Hua made me a cup of tea and my depression eased a little after I drank it.
The atmosphere became very awkward after no one spoke for a long time, and the little girl’s face changed as she slowly realized her cute act wouldn’t work on us.
I coldly finished my tea, picked up her phone, flipped through it, and saw the several texts she had sent me, including the one she had sent to herself. I opened her photo album and skipped through a lot of selfies before I saw a lot of pictures had been taken when we had first entered that inner room. It appeared she had been following us the whole time.
Most of them were focused on me, but they were all mid-range shots, and the few of Xiao Hua were all close-ups.
It looked like the difference between work photos and fan photos.
I opened her contact list, but saw that there weren’t any numbers in it.
“This is an invasion of privacy. Why are you being like this?” The girl shouted at me.
“Why are you holding us to society’s standards?” Xiao Hua asked, “We’re not your classmates or your teachers.” He looked at the table behind him. “If you did all this, although you weren’t very particular about it, you were at least more resourceful than the average person. You’re not someone living in ordinary society. You should know what kind of people we are?”
The girl stared at Xiao Hua angrily and then blushed slowly. I frowned and saw her biting her lower lip.
What’s going on? I wondered
“I’m still a girl, so you could at least be gentlemanly.”
Xiao Hua smiled and his expression suddenly grew cold.
His change in expression was completely different from mine. When Xiao Hua lowered his lids, tilted his chin down, and then looked up again, all his micro-expressions disappeared. There wasn’t an ounce of amicability that could be seen on his body.
“My feelings are few, and whatever is left is enough for my friends. If I have to treat the enemies differently based on their genders, then living that kind of life is too dificult for me.”
Xiao Hua’s previous expression— whether severe or soothing— had a natural friendliness that lowered people’s guard and made them feel relaxed and comfortable. When this friendliness disappeared, it was like he was a completely different person. It wasn’t a fierce expression, per se, just that he stopped smiling and the corners of his eye dropped down, making people feel uncomfortable.
In fact, Xiao Hua was an extremely difficult person to get along with. He put all his good things together and gave them to a few people.
The girl felt the atmosphere change, and her whole body shrank back. Xiao Hua turned his head to me and revealed a playful expression, as if to say, “You see, you have to scare people like this.”
When he turned back, his expression become very cryptic again.
Sure enough, he’s a born actor. He’s so fucking good at this, I said to myself.
I looked at the girl and said, “I’ve found you. According to the agreement, you should tell me. Now, talk.”
The girl retorted, “Alone. Like I said, you have to find me alone.”
“That’s right.” I looked at her and pointed to the rope tied around her body. “You were stupid. I can’t help you.”
The girl was angry and shook her head: “Don’t say that!”
I had a headache. This girl didn’t play according to common sense, and I couldn’t follow her line of thinking at all. This was usually a special stunt that women in love tried to pull, but I didn’t want to hurt her. On the other hand, if I broke her nose first, it would be impossible for her to destroy the atmosphere by trying to act cute.
Just as I was wondering, there suddenly came the sound of empty steel wires twitching on the wall. Then, there were several loud noises that seemed to stretch from near to far.
“Here we go again.” The girl’s face changed.
“What do you mean?”
“That thing is coming again.” The girl hissed a few times, and we heard a muffled wail reverberating through the walls before it slowly disappeared.
I looked at the girl and saw that her face was pale: “So close.”
“What is it?” I grabbed her chin and yanked her face closer.
“I don’t know. It’s in the inner layer, and we’re on the outer layer. It can hear our voices and find us, but it can’t get out.” She said.
“What don’t you know? Didn’t you design this place?”
The girl grinned at us and said, “Who the hell said I designed it? Could I design something like this?” She lowered her voice: “This place was designed by the devil.”
<Extra 3.12> <Table of Contents><Extra 3.14>
*****
Tiffany’s Extras:
MereBear's Translation 