Complete Metamorphosis Manual

Chapter 21

Does even she know I'm a slut?

11.

"Master, you're amazing!" Yang Xin excitedly jumped out of the car.

Yes, he was excited. If no one committed suicide, he would truly be a useless person. Although this thought was somewhat shameful, Yang Xin found that he actually hoped someone would commit suicide every day. They would commit suicide, and he would go to save them; this was the ideal state, and this was how he would feel a sense of accomplishment. Otherwise, he would be an unwanted person, and an unwanted person has no reason to live.

Everyone wants to feel needed.

“Benefactor! Can you come down by yourself? You no longer need to die for someone else! Really!” The monk Yingjie shouted from below, rambling on and on like Tang Sanzang.

He believed that Anjia no longer needed to die for the child, because he had killed the child, just moments before, throwing him into a sewer well. If Yama (the King of Hell) decrees your death at midnight, you won't live to see dawn; this tribulation was merely an exercise of power by Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, who governs hell.

An Jia closed her eyes and thought, "Die quickly...die quickly..."

Yang Xin first rushed to the third floor, only to find the door locked from the inside, and then hurriedly went to knock on the door on the second floor.

The old lady on the second floor was watching a soap opera when she heard a knock on the door. Looking through the peephole, she saw a policeman glaring at her angrily. She thought to herself, "All she did was call a slut. Is that really a big deal?"

"Open the door!" Yang Xin shouted, thinking to himself, if Ding Yan were here, her clever and quirky mind would surely come up with a good solution.

The woman on the second floor, feeling uneasy, returned to the sofa, turned off the lights, and pretended not to be home.

"Damn it! Police!" Yang Xin yelled.

The old lady on the second floor hid in the closet again: "I knew you were a policeman, that's why I wouldn't open the door. It was just a insult, why make such a big deal out of it?"

Yang Xin kicked the door angrily, then turned and ran to the fourth floor, knocked on the door, and headed straight for the balcony. Without thinking, he climbed down from the balcony.

The monk below shouted, "Benefactor, be careful! You are in for a bloody disaster!" His shout distracted Yang Xin, and he lost his grip, slipping and falling with a thud, landing right on the air conditioner unit on the second floor. Blood flowed down his arm—that unlucky monk!

The middle-aged woman on the second floor opened the window, spitting everywhere: "I only called her a slut! What are you all doing?"

Yang Xin didn't have time to pay attention to her. He stood on tiptoe, picked An Jia up, and shoved her through the open window, yelling, "Call an ambulance!"

After that night, the woman on the second floor came to a conclusion: never swear at people casually.

An Jia was determined to die. Taking advantage of the nurse's inattention, she took a discarded empty syringe and secretly tucked it under her pillow.

She looked at the roof, and the roof looked back at her. The nurses and doctors weren't friendly; they hated suicidal people—those who either owed medical bills or were mentally ill. They preferred to focus their energy on patients who were willing to pay and longed for life.

"Wow! This is so enlightening!" Ding Yan came out of the hospital's specimen room and grabbed Wang Xiaofeng's hand. "Thank you so much!"

Wang Xiaofeng's palms immediately became sweaty, and his face turned slightly red: "Whatever you want, I will try my best to satisfy you."

Wang Xiaofeng actually wanted to say, "As long as you want it, as long as I have it." But after thinking about it, he swallowed those words, since they were too cheesy.

Two nurses in the hallway whispered among themselves: "Did that idiot who committed suicide pay the deposit for his hospital stay?"

"No, but another foolish monk paid for her..."

"There are so many fools these days..."

Ding Yan watched their retreating figures and asked Wang Xiaofeng, "Did anyone commit suicide?"

Wang Xiaofeng shook his head: "I don't know...maybe..."

It seems like a failed suicide attempt—time for business! Ding Yan immediately perked up: "Let's go check it out!"

12.

Anjia quietly picked up the syringe and aimed it at her wrist. She had seen it on TV; injecting air into a vein meant a quick death.

"Shh..." A cold hand grasped her wrist. Sometime during the night, a girl in shorts and a t-shirt stood by An Jia's bedside, with a mysterious smile on her face.

Ding Yan grasped An Jia's wrist, glanced back at Wang Xiaofeng, and smiled, saying, "This is a tendon; even if it gets stuck, it won't kill you... right, Dr. Wang?"

Wang Xiaofeng nodded.

An Jia angrily threw the syringe on the ground, turned her head away, and closed her eyes.

"So you want to die? Think it through, because once you die, you can't come back to life..." Ding Yan continued. An Jia suddenly opened her eyes; she felt the voice was familiar.

"Yeah, yeah! It'll be too late to regret it when you're dead!" Yang Xin pushed open the door and came in, with a monk standing behind him. Ding Yan glanced at the monk and cursed inwardly, "He's like a persistent ghost."

"Ding Yan, I was just looking for you!" Yang Xin glanced at Wang Xiaofeng unhappily, then continued to Ding Yan, "How come you're together? With him?"

"Do you interrogate me every time we meet?" Ding Yan gave them a disgruntled look. "I should go home!"

"Wait!" Yang Xin grabbed Ding Yan's arm and led her outside. Wang Xiaofeng followed behind, and while shaking hands with Yang Xin to greet him, he took the opportunity to pull away from Yang Xin's hand that was holding Ding Yan's arm.

"It's really fate," Wang Xiaofeng said.

Yang Xin smiled and continued to Ding Yan, "I was just saying I was looking for you. Another suicide attempt..." Yang Xin pointed inside and lowered his voice, "You're all girls, maybe you can persuade her."

The monk Yingjie interjected, "Excellent, excellent!"

Be kind my foot!

Ding Yan muttered something, and was about to refuse when he suddenly remembered that he was going to infiltrate the enemy's ranks. So he forced a smile and said, "Okay, I'll go in and talk to her... Don't follow me in."

"I knew you were a good person!" Yang Xin smiled, glanced at Wang Xiaofeng, and added, "I knew you would definitely help me!"

Wang Xiaofeng leaned against the wall, sneering. After all these years, Yang Xin was still so naive: "Heh, friends always help each other out. But if it's a girl you like, isn't it much happier to be able to do something for her than to always have her do things for you?"

"Huh?!" Yang Xin scratched his head, his face flushed. "You know I like her?"

Just as Wang Xiaofeng was about to say a few more sarcastic remarks to him, he saw the monk Yingjie suddenly cover his head and squat down on the ground.

Just now, as he was trying to predict the outcome of Ding Yan and An Jia's conversation, a sharp pain shot through his head. It felt as if a thousand tiny needles were running through it.

Recently, this situation has become increasingly serious; whenever he tries to predict the future, his head will inexplicably throb with pain.

13.

The monk Yingjie weakly opened his eyes and smiled slightly.

"The X-ray has already been taken, but the results aren't out yet," Wang Xiaofeng said casually.

“I don’t need to wait for the results. I know… I have blood clots in my brain…” Monk Yingjie struggled to sit up. “I also know that these blood clots can be surgically removed. But I don’t want to do that.”

"Why?"

"That's a superpower bestowed upon me by Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva. It's because of the location of that bruise that I gained the superpower to predict the future—that's what the doctor who examined me recently said. Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, who saves all living beings, and the King of Hell who acts on behalf of Heaven, that's me." He looked at Yang Xin and Wang Xiaofeng with pity. As long as he focused his mind on their pupils, he could predict their future.

“If we don’t get rid of them, they’ll die soon!” Yang Xin said.

“I know. But it doesn’t matter. Every incarnation of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva is like this. For me, death is just becoming a true Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva again.” He had always hoped that he could die like a true reincarnation of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, and he firmly believed that only in this way could he regain his true form.

He gritted his teeth and got out of bed: "Let's go check on that child's ward..."

When Yang Xin, Wang Xiaofeng, and the monk Yingjie pushed open the door, the ward was already empty.

Ding Yan and An Jia are both gone.

Yang Xin hurriedly dialed Ding Yan's number, but Lao You answered. Lao You angrily said that Ding Yan had the wrong phone.

"Could something have happened to Ding Yan?" Yang Xin's forehead was covered in sweat, it was hard to tell whether he was worried about Ding Yan or An Jia.

Ding Yan was fine, but An Jia was in trouble soon.

Anjia bought a knife, a sharp long knife, from an outdoor equipment store. These stores often sell outdoor survival knives, either secretly or openly.

An Jia stood guard outside the radio station, knife in hand. She knew Lang Fei had recently been working on a late-night program and didn't finish until the early hours of the morning.

She planned to stab him and then commit suicide herself. Love stories in books are all like this: to live together, to die together, to be birds flying wing to wing in heaven, and trees with intertwined branches on earth.

Lang Fei came out, a cigarette dangling from his lips, looking smug and triumphant.

An Jia gripped the knife, rushed forward, and plunged it fiercely into Lang Fei's heart.

"You're fucking insane!" Lang Fei gripped the knife and took a few steps back. An Jia froze; she'd forgotten to draw the knife from its sheath. She gave a bitter smile; she knew she'd always been stupid, but she hadn't realized she was this stupid.

Lang Fei clutched his chest: "It's all over between us! Stop clinging to me!" He looked at the knife in An Jia's hand and sneered: "Do you still love me? Or are you just reluctant to kill me? Go ahead and kill me if you dare!" He thought An Jia was just trying to scare him, and continued: "Come on! I swear, I'll stand right here and not move!"

An Jia's lips trembled: "Don't think I wouldn't dare..."

"I know you dare!" Lang Fei continued with a sneer. "Come on!" As he spoke, he helped An Jia remove the scabbard, the sharp blade gleaming in the moonlight, laughing along with him.

14.

An Jia felt that she was the role model for all the world's losers. A failed life, a failed love affair, a failed suicide attempt, and a failed murder.

Things are never as simple as they're portrayed in books. Suicide is not easy, and murder is even harder. Ending a life is, in fact, extremely difficult.

Lang Fei had generously opened his chest, the knife tip already pressed against his skin, but An Jia couldn't pierce it. She realized for the first time just how resilient human skin was.

Watching Lang Fei leave laughing, An Jia covered her face, squatted on the ground, and burst into tears.

“You really are stupid,” Ding Yan, who had been secretly following An Jia, sneered from the side. “Stupider than a pig.”

"I'm stupid! So what!" An Jia stood up and roared, "I'm stupid! Because I'm stupid, I've ended up like this! If you're not stupid, why don't you help me kill him? You help me kill him? Isn't that what you do all the time? If you don't kill him, I'll report you to the police!"

"I have no grudge against him, so why should I kill him? You have no grudge against me either, so why do you want to harm me?" Ding Yan thought, this person is indeed a troublesome person.

"I'll give you money! Will you help me or not?"

"How many?"

"Ten thousand!"

"Too little. Ten thousand yuan is only enough to buy this." Ding Yan sat on the side of the road and yawned.

"What?"

Ding Yan pulled a small brown bottle from her pocket and shook it. "Poison." She had stolen it while "touring" the hospital with Wang Xiaofeng. It contained aconitine.

"5mg, but that's enough to be fatal. Give me the money, and it's up to you whether you take it yourself or try to give it to him."

Ding Yan stood up, patted his bottom, glanced at her, and said, "Think it over carefully!"

"No need to think about it anymore!" An Jia grabbed her hand. "Come on! Let's go get the money right now!"

Ding Yan thought for a moment and then followed behind her.

Since she recognized him at the hospital, it's inevitable that things will be exposed. This is different now; the police have set up a special task force, and trouble could come knocking at any moment.

She hesitated for a moment, then asked, "You trust me that much? What if this bottle doesn't contain poison?"

“I’ve accepted it… I’m practically living blindly now, I’ve lost my ability to discern, I’ve lost my courage, I’ve lost everything. I don’t care about anything.” An Jia gritted her teeth; she had indeed been living blindly all along.

“Since that’s the case, if you trust me, I’ll help you kill that man.” Ding Yan looked at the stunned An Jia and continued, “On the condition that you die now. It’s a win-win situation, don’t you think?”

"How do I die?" An Jia stood in front of the ATM, entered her PIN, and said, "I can only withdraw 5,000."

“Just give me the card and the PIN,” Ding Yan said. “It’s simple.” She pulled a plastic bandage from her pocket. “Put this over your head, and I guarantee you’ll die immediately.”

Suffocation is painful.