Chapter 4 Skilled Movements

“Involving a pathological belief unique to oneself, impervious to correction by facts or reason…” Chu Ning muttered softly, reciting information he’d found online. The glow from his phone illuminated his bloodstained hands, casting a particularly sinister aura in the darkness.

From this perspective, it was clear Chu Ning was deeply unwell. The reason he instinctively switched off the light in the dark remained unclear, but deep down, he felt that hiding in the shadows was the most appropriate choice.

After all, the fresh corpse on the floor had yet to be disposed of, and what he was doing wasn’t fit to be exposed to the light. Darkness was his best cover; the night offered ample time to deal with the body perfectly. Even though the neighborhood was eerily devoid of life, Chu Ning decided to strike while the iron was hot. Any delay might bring about unexpected complications.

He closed the page on his phone, which had been displaying a rather intriguing topic: “How do you prove you’re not insane?” Chu Ning had heard that famously foolish joke before. Now that it was his turn to defend his sanity, he felt helpless—what a dilemma.

Moreover, all evidence seemed to point to him being mentally ill: the drawer contained medication for acute and chronic schizophrenia, as well as anti-anxiety drugs. Normally, it would be difficult for an ordinary person to obtain these, which meant he had ample grounds for legal access to such prescriptions.

The bookshelf was brazenly lined with books on psychiatry, neurology, and the art of deception—a whole array of psychological and medical texts. The identity of the apartment’s owner was plain to see.

Chu Ning couldn’t help but admire himself; proving one’s sanity was no simple feat. It wasn’t some flippant joke from the internet but a challenge requiring extensive expertise—enough for a madman to convincingly impersonate a normal person.

“Delusions, hallucinations, auditory illusions…”

Chu Ning finally abandoned the puzzle before him. Everything could be false, or everything could be true. He needed time to investigate himself thoroughly.

Amnesia, transmigration, schizophrenia—each, on its own, was bizarre; tangled together, they made his thoughts a hopeless snarl, impossible to unravel.

He began to whistle a classic tune. For Chu Ning, handling a corpse required a sense of ceremony to satisfy the emptiness within. Swaying, he rose from the sofa, ready to clean up the mess before him. After all, this was his own home; he couldn’t allow it to be drenched in blood.

Suddenly, Chu Ning seemed to realize something important. He turned to stare at the blood-soaked sofa. The dark red had seeped into the fabric’s black-and-crimson weave, slowly coagulating into blackness.

He forced himself to abandon the maddening thought—how many wronged souls could be hidden in a sofa dyed pure black by blood?

His heart beat uncontrollably. The most unlikely things were often the truth. Even as he wrestled with these tangled thoughts, his hands did not falter in disposing of the corpse.

Chu Ning’s movements were deft, almost unconsciously so. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed how specialized and practiced his skills were.

It was as if this routine had been repeated thousands of times. The standard motions were etched into his very bones—how to move a body with minimal effort, how to reduce the spread of blood. These procedures had become as formulaic as mathematical equations, imprinted on his body.

Without much care, Chu Ning dragged the corpse, letting it trace a faint, bloody line across the floor.

Ding-dong, ding-dong…

The doorbell rang at midnight. Chu Ning froze mid-drag, like a PowerPoint slide stuck on a grisly scene. He remained motionless for a long while, convincing himself that the visitor would leave upon finding no one home.

After all, common sense dictated that a caller would return another day if no one answered.

But the doorbell outside did not fall silent according to Chu Ning’s wishes. Instead, it rang all the more brazenly. With a grimace, he cursed under his breath, “Are they insane, knocking at this hour?” With that, he hurried into the kitchen and pulled out a long, slender knife from among the utensils.

He gave it a few experimental swings, dissatisfied, and replaced it. Then he drew out a hefty boning knife, weighing it in his hand and nodding with satisfaction.

There was, in fact, an even more suitable knife among the kitchen tools—a blade with obvious signs of wear, its wooden handle faintly stained with dark red.

Without hesitation, Chu Ning rejected the well-worn knife and chose the brand-new boning knife instead. It was as if he had an obsession with ceremony; a new beginning always required fresh tools, even if, to him, the “beginning” was but a repetition of the same tedious work.

Thunk, thunk, crack…

The sound of the kitchen knife stabbing into flesh was amplified in the stillness of the night. The crunching of bone beneath the blade was impossible to muffle.

Thankfully, there were no neighbors nearby to be startled without cause, and no strangers around to witness such a chilling scene.