His father had been cursed for most of his life, and Deng Yao had been cursed for over twenty years. His parents still occasionally had sex—in such a small courtyard, with no intention of hiding it, they would mess around chaotically in the room. Sometimes, while Deng Yao was chopping pork larger than himself in the slaughterhouse, he would listen to the noises from the other room. He couldn’t remember how old he was, but at a very early age, his body had already reacted. That feeling was chaotic, dirty, and a little frightening to the young boy, yet there was a faint urge to take risks.
His father was the sex offender the police talked about. When Deng Yao was in his teens, he once caught his father hiding behind a public toilet, peeping, even with his pants down, doing what any man would do. One time, his father saw him, fastened his pants, and slapped him. By then, Deng Yao was already taller than his father. He didn’t know what came over him that day—perhaps he had gotten excited from watching too—but he slapped back, knocking his father to the ground. It was the first time Deng Yao saw fear in his father’s eyes. Somehow, Deng Yao felt a sense of freedom, a comfort he had never known before.
He asked, "Dad, was it good just now?"
...
Later, he did the same things as his father. Sometimes, when they ran into each other, he didn’t avoid it. Father and son would lie side by side on the wall, watching the same unfamiliar woman.
As Deng Yao grew older, his mother unexpectedly suffered a stroke one winter. The doctor said it was due to eating too much grease, being too obese, and lacking exercise—she collapsed all at once. Strangely, while his father now had to follow Deng Yao’s lead, Deng Yao still dared not defy his mother, even though she was half-paralyzed. If she wanted meat, Deng Yao would go and cut it; if she wanted to hit or curse him, Deng Yao would lean over the bed and let her. For so many years, in Deng Yao’s heart, his mother was the ruler and tormentor of the family—the one person he could never disobey.
Yet, by the time Deng Yao reached his thirties, he had never been with a woman. No one was interested in him—his family had no appeal, he was ugly, and he always stood there like an iron tower, looking strange and a bit frightening. On top of that, he had a paralyzed, difficult-tempered mother at home. No girl would willingly jump into such a pit.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried matchmaking. Deng Yao had seen the girl from afar—she wasn’t much to look at, too fat, with small eyes and a big mouth. Deng Yao thought to himself that if he ever had to do that with her, he’d have to close his eyes. But after the introduction, there was no follow-up. In the end, the other party didn’t even have the slightest intention of giving him a chance. Year after year, Deng Yao waited, watching countless people from the walls of public toilets, standing at the door of his grimy butcher shop, watching countless women pass by without even glancing at him.
His hands grew heavier in his work; his face hung lower and lower. He couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled. Nor could he recall when it started, but whenever he saw those slender, pale girls on the street—the kind that looked like their waists would break if he pinched them—a wave of resentment would rise in his heart. In his mind, he simulated countless times how he would torment them, make them scream, make them submit. Make them kneel and lick him, worship him as their master.
This thought grew stronger and stronger. Several times, when he saw a girl walking alone at night, he almost acted.Do you think my soul was born as pure as yours? That I must toil and suffer, endure injustice and have my soul torn apart before I become a sinner?
No. From the moment I was born.
In the daily silence of my soul, in this numb and monotonous existence.
I was already guilty.
...
Deng Yao’s encounter with Zhao Feier was accidental.
Late that night, as he wandered the streets aimlessly as usual, he saw Zhao Feier walking out of the Gold Splitting Treasure Company.
He knew about that company. Girls often entered late at night, leaving in the early hours or even at dawn. Once, when Deng Yao passed by a girl, he caught a whiff of that heart-stirring scent from her.
In a daze, Deng Yao understood what happened inside the Gold Splitting Treasure Company. It excited him, it made him crave. So he often lingered outside the company, watching the girls come and go, as if by doing so, he too was participating in their humiliation.
But Zhao Feier was different. Other girls emerged with numb, expressionless faces, devoid of any warmth. Only she was vivid—she was crying, covering her face as she wept bitterly. When he deliberately brushed past her, he paused, noticing he didn’t smell that familiar scent.
Deng Yao didn’t know that Zhao Feier hadn’t been chosen by the vipers at the Gold Splitting Treasure Company, so she didn’t even have the chance to repay her debts with her body. A few days earlier, she had filmed a nude loan video, and now they were threatening to send it to her family and friends. She was crying over her own recklessness and the deep mire she had sunk into.
She should have had that scent on her, Deng Yao thought.
She shouldn’t be crying. She looked down on men like him—she should be lying beneath them, allowing herself to be trampled. Why was she crying?
Suddenly, Deng Yao was overcome with uncontrollable rage. Rage at this stranger’s tears, rage that she wasn’t as depraved as he had assumed. Before he could even process it, he had already followed her and grabbed her by the shoulders.
Zhao Feier turned around and saw a strange, twisted face.
...
After Zhao Feier’s body was discovered, Deng Yao was so terrified he didn’t leave his home for half a month. When he disposed of the body, he hadn’t thought much—he was completely driven by a frenzied excitement, everything guided by desire. Only afterward did fear set in. Especially when he noticed more police on the streets during that time, everyone talking about that woman. Deng Yao knew he could never do that again—the body had to be disposed of properly, without leaving a trace.
After bringing the second girl back from the streets, he and his father smoked cigarettes and studied her for a long time. They were butchers; disposing of a person was something they could do with their eyes closed. They buried the bones in the yard, walking over them every day. As for the flesh and blood... that was even easier to handle.
That area was full of impoverished residents, ant-like laborers, and women engaged in shady professions. Deng Yao couldn’t even tell who the people he brought back were. The police had begun comparing the recovered remains with missing persons cases from recent years. But the fact that the father and son had managed to commit these crimes repeatedly in broad daylight, without even attracting police attention, sent chills down everyone’s spines. Thus, the circumstances surrounding the disappearances of those unidentified girls remained a subject for further police investigation.
...
With the arrest of the true culprits, this series of shocking, vicious crimes that had rocked the Three Xiang regions seemed to have been fully resolved, the dust finally settled.A year ago, the father-son killers emerged out of nowhere, carrying out attacks, imprisonment, rape, murder, corpse mutilation, and body dumping on Zhao Feier.
Afterward, the father and son vanished without a trace, operating in the shadows and managing to evade police detection repeatedly.
A year later, Liu Yisha's body appeared in an identical manner. Following the clues, the police uncovered Gold Splitting Treasure Company's long-standing illegal lending, seduction and assault, as well as the murder, corpse mutilation, and body dumping of Liu Yisha. This malignant criminal group was dismantled.
An accomplice, who had taken police officer Fan Jia hostage, remained at large. Persuaded by Fan Jia, he decided to turn himself in. On the way to surrender, they encountered Deng Yao, who often wandered nearby late at night. Both were severely injured in an attack, Fan Jia was abducted, and the accomplice fled.
Fan Jia sacrificed her life.
The father-son killers were finally apprehended, allowing long-buried remains to see the light of day once more.
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