Chapter 9 – Dog

“Looks like you’re not dead after all,” Zhou Liao said, his words laced with amusement and a hint of added force. “Can you actually feel something when you’re with a guy?”

If someone were to push open the private room door right now, ignoring the surrounding, coerced figures, the scene before them might even be considered picturesque. An uninformed observer might assume a handsome young man was sitting on another boy’s lap, locked in a kiss.

Qin Zhan’s lips were stained with spilled liquor, the liquid mixing with Ollie’s tears to create a salty, malty flavor. His jaw felt like it was about to dislocate under the crushing grip, the pressure from his thumb leaving a white mark on the already bruised skin. Every struggle only deepened the pain.

Ollie tilted his head, trying to continue, but Zhou Liao grabbed his hair, forcing his head to snap back.

“If you cry again, I’m going to throw up.”

Ollie’s eyes were bloodshot, his entire body trembling. He barely dared to meet the gaze of anyone in the room. As for Qin Zhan, the moment their lips parted, he gagged violently, vomiting up all the alcohol that hadn’t yet reached his stomach.

“This is so filthy.”

Ollie paused, his heart pounding.

Zhou Liao narrowed his eyes slightly. “I want my toys clean. What are you going to do about it?”

“Sir…” Ollie’s voice trembled.

Zhou Liao didn’t reply, simply maintaining his gaze with leisurely composure.

Ollie couldn’t fathom the consequences of resisting. He shakily braced himself against Qin Zhan’s shoulders, ignoring the man’s rigid muscles.

“Get the hell off…” Qin Zhan’s eyes burned like a river of blood. Under the pressure of Zhou Liao’s thumb, he could barely manage a coherent sound. His cheek burned with searing pain, and even his scalp tingled with numbness.

“My patience has its limits, little brother.”

Seeing Ollie’s hesitation, Zhou Liao stepped forward and planted his foot squarely on Ollie’s back. He forced Ollie to his knees in an instant. The only sound in the private room was the sickening crunch of bone against the floor—a testament to excruciating pain.

……

“Get out of here. You drank one and a half bottles—I’m not even going to count the sips. Consider tonight’s fee 25,000. I’ll have your manager wire it to you later.”

Ollie lowered his head, shame, remorse, humiliation, and resentment churning within him. The moment he heard “25,000,” it was like pouring hot water onto ice and snow—the heat instantly turned to vapor and dissipated. Twenty-five thousand was the amount he’d earn after months of working without eating or drinking, yet he’d make it all in a single night.

He felt like a despicable yet secretly triumphant perpetrator.

He knew that after leaving this room tonight, he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He’d toss and turn in bed, haunted by guilt for the rest of his life. But when he thought of his grandfather’s cracked, calloused hands—the man who had raised him—and his father, who couldn’t afford treatment for his illness…

Ollie closed his eyes, then opened them after a moment. He wiped the grime from his mouth and face, his voice as faint as a spider’s silk. He didn’t dare glance at Qin Zhan even once.

“Thank you.”

After the private room door closed again, Zhou Liao stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. He stared at Qin Zhan’s bloodshot eyes. Several buttons on Qin Zhan’s uniform had come undone, revealing his collarbones and chest muscles, flushed crimson by alcohol and exposed veins. A fresh, split wound marked the corner of his mouth.

Bathed in the shadows cast by the dim lighting, Qin Zhan resembled a fierce ghost chained in hell.

“Qin Zhan, see this?” Zhou Liao snarled. “Being broke can turn a man into a dog.”

No one entered the private room for the rest of the night. Even when it was nearly 2 a.m. and time to clock out, no one reminded him, as if tacitly condoning everything that had happened within.

Qin Zhan didn’t resist, but his low tolerance for alcohol meant he took every punch and kick. Eventually, Zhou Liao and his friends grew tired of the game, and Qin Zhan couldn’t remember when they left. After everyone was gone, he dragged his exhausted, pain-racked body around, expressionless, cleaning the room until everything was in order. Only then did he turn off the main power switch and leave the bar.

“I’m sorry.”

The night alley was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Just as Qin Zhan rounded the corner, a dark figure dropped to its knees with a thud.

He saw Ollie kneeling before him, his upper body prostrate on the ground, trembling uncontrollably.

“Qin Zhan, I was wrong, I’m so sorry… I was just desperate for money.” Ollie looked up, tears streaming down his face as he clutched Qin Zhan’s right leg. The injuries on Qin Zhan’s face appeared grotesquely distorted in the darkness, but Ollie’s fear went beyond the physical wounds. “You understand, right? You understand…”

Qin Zhan cast a cold, indifferent glance at the person before him.

“…Qin Zhan… I’m sorry.” Ollie’s hands trembled violently as he clutched Qin Zhan’s leg, his face pressed against the fabric as he humbly begged for a place for his conscience to rest.

“Let go.”

“Qin Zhan…”

Qin Zhan, restrained by the man beside him, stared coldly at the dark road ahead, while a dark mist churned endlessly within his chest. Ollie couldn’t see the veins bulging at Qin Zhan’s temples, for in the next moment, he was ruthlessly kicked aside.

Tearfully struggling to rise, Ollie staggered forward a few steps, only to see Qin Zhan take a few steps ahead and lift a dead cat from behind a trash can.

A car suddenly passed by the alleyway, its headlights illuminating the scene for a split second. Ollie saw the dead cat clearly, and nausea surged violently in his stomach. The cat looked like it had been crushed, not a single part of its body intact. Its intestines dangled out, the blood already congealed and matted in its fur, which had stiffened and emitted a nauseating stench. It had clearly been lying dead in that corner for quite some time.

“Qin Zhan…” Ollie barely dared to breathe.

Qin Zhan’s gaze toward the cat held a strange mix of pity and admiration, a chilling sight in the darkness.

“Don’t follow me,” Qin Zhan said, cradling the dead cat in his arms, his voice icy with disgust. “Or I don’t know what I might do.”

Back home, Qin Zhan took a shower. The scalding water poured over his crisscrossing scars, igniting searing pain that spread like wildfire. He braced himself against the wall, every bone in his body feeling crushed, while the scabbed-over wounds began to fester and suppurate anew.

After turning off the water and stepping out of the bathroom, his phone screen lit up on the table. It was a message from Bai Ling, saying Du Li had bought him new clothes and she would bring them tomorrow. Below it, another loan reminder flashed, urging him to repay within the week.

Ignoring these messages, Qin Zhan dressed and put on gloves before turning on the bleak, eerie white light that illuminated the night.

This time, a dead cat lay splayed out on the white cloth spread across the table. After studying it for a moment, he picked up a knife and sliced along its spine, starting at the thoracic vertebrae. The putrid flesh fell open, revealing a pile of decaying tissue.

In the flickering white light, Zhou Liao’s face seemed to overlap with the cat’s.

……

On the table lay neatly arranged, dissected, and washed organs, soft tissues, and bones. The fragmented limbs, illuminated by the stark light, looked disturbingly grotesque. Qin Zhan stared at the scene before him, an unbearable heat surging through his lower abdomen as blood rushed with feverish excitement, making his nerves pulse wildly.

Destroyed, shattered, rotted—utterly destroyed.

Qin Zhan reached downward, wanting to see Zhou Liao similarly ravaged.