Dorian Yun was pinned down on the cold, damp concrete floor. He felt faint, rapid tremors beneath his back, but he couldn’t tell if they were aftershocks from the thunder above or his own body shaking.
“Ugh… mmm…”
The oxygen in his lungs was being squeezed out inch by inch by a steel-like hand, and an intense burning sensation rose within his chest. He tried to force out broken syllables through clenched teeth, clawing at Benson Yang’s hand, but left only a few insignificant white scratches.
As he struggled, his eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at Benson Yang.
Why? Why was this happening?
He had clearly injected the sleeping pills into his own veins himself—and to ensure there was absolutely no chance of failure, he had even doubled the dose!
Benson Yang lowered his head slightly, looking down at the man struggling in his grasp. The fresh cut at the corner of his mouth was still oozing bright red blood, but it did not hinder his speech in the slightest. His voice was deep, reminiscent of an echo rising from the bottom of a deep, ancient well.
“Dr. Yun, I can’t help but feel that sometimes you’re surprisingly… naive.” Benson Yang repeated a comment he’d made not long ago. “The exact same victim, the exact same drug, the exact same dumping site—even with the police investigating at full force, you refuse to change your methods… It’s childishly stubborn.”
Dorian Yun’s brain raced frantically on the brink of oxygen deprivation. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the crook of Benson Yang’s arm—beneath the layered bruises from “drug abuse,” several fresh, tiny needle marks were faintly visible. If he remembered correctly, the moment he’d revealed his hand, Yang had immediately administered another dose.
The answer was obvious—it was an antidote, perfectly counteracting the sleeping pills’ effects.
He’d thought he’d successfully lured Yang Bang deep into his trap, but little did he know that from the moment he first stepped into the clinic, the other man had been on guard, even setting a trap for him to walk right into!
Then what about the “accidental exposure” of the investigative files in his trench coat pocket? What about the “traumatic experiences” he revealed during the consultation? And what about the “chance encounter” at the bar earlier, followed by his “rescue”? Were they all just coincidences?
An unprecedented chill rose from the base of Dorian Yun’s spine, swiftly sweeping through his entire body.
No, it shouldn’t be like this…
“You… cough…” Dorian Yun’s face turned from flushed to deathly pale as he struggled frantically. “The psychological trauma… that’s the truth, isn’t it? Killing me was an act of escape… Only I understand you. I’m helping… you… ugh, cough…”
Yet Benson Yang’s face remained as cold and hard as marble, showing not a hint of wavering. He didn’t even twitch an eyebrow; he merely tightened his grip.
“You’re the one who’s sick, Dorian Yun.”
Benson Yang slowly leaned in, his voice echoing in Dorian Yun’s ear like a final judgment: “I am not like you. True hunting isn’t a game of make-believe, nor is it about comforting a wounded child within. Hunting requires no reason; it is an innate instinct, the natural law of the survival of the fittest.”
With that, he suddenly tightened his grip with both hands.
“Ugh…”
Dorian Yun’s voice was instantly choked off in his throat.
It was an utterly terrifying sensation. He heard a “boom,” as if a thunderclap had exploded inside his head. His vision was instantly flooded with blinding white light, followed by vast swaths of black spots spreading out, coalescing into a twisted specter that stretched and contracted endlessly before his eyes, splitting and overlapping, gradually obscuring the ceiling, walls, and floor, swallowing him whole.
He felt as though he were falling endlessly into darkness, or like a withered sapling uprooted and hurled into the devastating thunderstorm outside, torn to shreds by the turbulent winds.
At the edge of a world that was shaking and crumbling, the only thing he could see were Benson Yang’s eyes.
Dorian Yun could detect no emotion in those pupils, cold as metal, that one might expect during an act of killing.
No anger, no madness, no loathing—nor excitement, greed, lust, or anything else. There was nothing in Benson Yang’s eyes; they were as calm as if watching a speck of dust vanish. He didn’t seem human at all, but rather like a high-level predator from another dimension, gazing at Dorian Yun from the depths of the abyss.
The fear of death was pushed to its absolute limit in that instant, yet after crossing the tipping point, it underwent a bizarre metamorphosis.
In the face of that void-like yet overwhelming power, fear was utterly insignificant, dissolving like a drop of water evaporating in an instant. Dorian Yun felt an unprecedented, strange tranquility envelop him, as if an infant had returned to the womb.
After the brief stillness came ecstasy, sweeping over him like a tidal wave, bringing sudden enlightenment and wild joy. He bit his lip as tears poured forth like a burst dam.
He had long sought solace in slaughter, trying to fill the void of missing peace and order, yet always felt something was missing. But now he had discovered a more chaotic yet more sublime order—one not overshadowed by the gloom of the past, nor swayed by the emotions of the present.
Benson Yang told him, “There is no need for a reason to hunt.” Faced with such an absolute law, he was speechless, willing to bow his head and submit to it.
His breath grew increasingly faint; he stopped struggling. The hands that had been clutching Benson Yang slowly dropped, their slender fingertips resting limply on the concrete floor. His body gradually went limp, like a lamb thoroughly tamed, willingly exposing its vulnerable throat.
“Yang…” Dorian Yun’s consciousness grew hazy. He let out a long, heavy sigh, his lips parting slightly to emit a barely audible whisper. “Your hands… they’re so... warm.”
At that moment, Dorian Yun’s gaze reached the height of pure madness. When Benson Yang met his gaze, it was as if he’d been pricked by a faint static shock, and he froze.
He had killed countless people—those who struggled frantically, begged for mercy, cursed wildly, or broke down in tears—but he had never seen anyone under his hand willingly give up their will to live, their tear-blurred eyes saying that his hands were warm.
“Warm.”
This word pierced his long-corroded heart without warning, tearing open a corner of a long-buried memory.
Long before he reached adulthood, the first signs of his insomnia had already begun to show. On one occasion, while “hunting” on an empty stomach, he nearly failed. He fled the scene, wrapped himself in a long trench coat, and hid in a secluded alley, smoking alone for most of the night—both to stay alert and to mask the scent of blood on his body.
Besides, he was so hungry and cold that sleep was out of the question.
Just then, a scrawny little kitten appeared before him. Unafraid of the intense aura of violence emanating from him, it limped toward him, meowing incessantly. He was ravenous and grabbed the cat with one hand, intending to kill and eat it, but the little creature was unusually docile in his grasp. Its moist eyes stared intently at him, and it let out another soft, pleading meow.
In the end, the kitten was set down. Instead of running away, it scrambled in a few quick movements and burrowed into the teenager’s windbreaker to keep warm and sleep.
The kitten died in its sleep. Benson Yang had no way of knowing what it was thinking, and to this day, he still couldn’t figure it out. Even though he was cold and hungry that night, he had actually fallen into a deep sleep alongside the cat in that back alley—one of the few times in his career he’d ever slept so soundly.
Come to think of it, the first time he came to Dorian Yun Clinic, even though he’d been injected with a high dose of an antagonist, he’d actually dozed off for a moment in the examination chair, having a distant dream he couldn’t even remember himself.
Watching Dorian Yun breathe shallowly in his arms—exhaling more than inhaling—yet neither crying out nor struggling, tears streaming down his face as he clung greedily to the warmth of Benson Yang’s hand, Benson Yang felt another crack appear in the principles he held sacred. It was subtle, yet fatal.
The thunder outside rumbled incessantly, causing the entire basement to tremble slightly. Benson Yang’s fingers, hovering over Dorian Yun’s slender neck, trembled ever so slightly as well.
Kill?
Or not?
It felt as though an eternity had passed, yet it also felt like only a moment.
Just before Dorian Yun drew his last breath, Benson Yang finally let go.
“He’s truly gone mad,” he muttered, using the key to unlock the hand shackled to the iron chair and instead cuffing both of Dorian Yun’s wrists.
He stood up, took the dagger from Dorian Yun, removed the corpse from the rack, and tossed it casually into a corner, leaving only the fiber rope to bind Dorian Yun’s feet as well. Once he had him securely tied up, he picked up his belongings one by one and stowed them back into the pockets of his windbreaker.
When he was done, he pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and took a deep drag, letting the pale white smoke drift slowly from his lips.
He glanced at Dorian Yun, who lay limp on the ground, coughing and gasping for breath, then at the flickering flame between his fingers. Lost in thought, he snorted softly through his nose, yanked open Dorian Yun’s collar, and without hesitation pressed the cigarette butt against his collarbone.
With a sizzle, a searing, excruciating pain shot through him. Dorian Yun winced in agony, letting out a muffled whimper as tears welled up in his eyes once more. He instinctively turned his head to avoid the heat.
Benson Yang warned him, “Shh. Let me make this clear: just because I’m letting you off doesn’t mean I’m a soft-hearted man.”
Dorian Yun’s temples throbbed violently, but he held back, ceasing his struggles and not uttering a single sound.
Satisfied, Benson Yang continued, burning him again and again. When one cigarette burned out, he lit another, until the scorching tip had seared a charred pattern into the center of his collarbone—a shape that resembled a droplet of water, a flame, or a noose.
Fire was Dorian Yun’s greatest fear and loathing. His body trembled slightly as he kept his eyes tightly shut, biting his lip until it bled, cursing Benson Yang a thousand times over in his mind.
This guy was just as psychologically twisted as he was—using a cigarette to burn him. And it wasn’t just a quick, fleeting touch; with every stroke, he pressed the burning tip firmly against the skin for several seconds before letting go. It hurt so much he couldn’t even count how many times he’d been burned.
After Benson Yang stopped, Dorian Yun finally began to recover slightly. He gasped for breath in short, shallow breaths. Seeing Benson Yang frowning with a stern expression, silent and focused solely on puffing away at his cigarette, Dorian Yun’s eyes darted, and he immediately guessed the reason. A mocking smile curled at the corners of his mouth.
“My fellow Detective, you’ve fallen from grace. You should have killed me, yet now you’ve spared my life. You didn’t rush to take me to the station to claim credit, but instead you’re fretting over how to deal with me… I just love seeing you like this.”
Benson Yang’s face remained expressionless, the veins on his temples throbbing as he reached out again.
Dorian Yun flinched like a venomous snake guarding its vital spot, but Benson Yang merely reached out and roughly wiped away the tears and blood from his face, as if indulging a kitten clawing and scratching in his arms.
“Childish little madman,” he remarked, then added, “Let’s go.”
“Wait, Detective Yang, where are we going?”
“I won’t be a detective from now on. And my name isn’t Benson Yang to begin with,” he said coldly.
Dorian Yun was both surprised and delighted. Like a child who’d discovered a new toy, he pressed Benson Yang: “Even your name is fake? Then who are you, exactly?”
Benson Yang—let’s still call him Benson Yang for now—fed up with Dorian Yun’s noise, found some duct tape to gag him, hoisted him onto his back, left the basement, went to the kitchen, turned on the gas, and hurried out of the clinic.
The storm had stopped at some point; the early morning sky was dimly lit, and the streets were completely deserted. Benson Yang glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then shoved Dorian Yun into the trunk of that unremarkable Ford in a few swift motions. He unscrewed the mini bottle of whiskey and poured several rounds over the entrance, tossed down his police badge, and flicked the cigarette butt he was holding into the pool of whiskey by the door—the flame flared up instantly.
He got into the driver’s seat, started the car, and sped off into the distance.
As he approached the highway at the town’s entrance, he remembered something. He pulled over, walked to a phone booth by the roadside, inserted some coins, and dialed a number.
“I found ‘The Nightstalker’ and wiped him out.”
A hoarse, elderly voice answered on the other end: “It’s always like this. Could you be a bit more specific? Who exactly is ‘The Nightstalker’? How did you handle it? Can you send some proof?”
Benson Yang cut him off coldly: “If you don’t trust ‘The Hangman,’ find someone else. And next time, the fee goes up by thirty percent.”
“Thirty percent is no small sum. You’ll have to give me a reason.”
“I’ve got a shrink to pay, and a cat to feed.”
After hanging up, his craving for a cigarette returned. Leaning against the phone booth, he pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his trench coat.
The flame from the lighter touched the tip of the cigarette, sending out a fine, orange-red glow. Benson Yang took a deep drag; the smoke swirled in his chest before he slowly exhaled it, watching it drift and wisp away until it vanished like a thread cut short.
The life of a cigarette is fleeting. In fact, to Benson Yang, everything in the world seemed fleeting. But smoking allowed him to re-recognize, re-feel, and re-remember who he was—a fleeting memory that could be repeated endlessly.
There was just one side effect—his insomnia was getting worse.83Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7cdpsatsmU
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“Forget it, I’ll break my vow just this once. If it means I can get a couple of hours of light sleep tonight… Fuck this insomnia.” Benson Yang muttered his complaint with a cigarette hanging from his lips, opened the car door and slammed it shut, then started the engine again.
Dorian Yun curled up quietly in the trunk. He felt a bit dizzy and a bit feverish, thinking: Maybe the injuries on his face and collarbone were inflamed, or perhaps the high fever he’d gotten from getting caught in the rain had returned. But it didn’t matter; it wouldn’t kill him. He’d once escaped from the most terrifying fiery hell; he wasn’t afraid of these minor ailments.
He fought desperately to stay awake, straining to hear Benson Yang speak. He mulled over the words in his mind, deep in thought, his eyes narrowing and crinkling.
“The Hangman”.
The Hangman is forever nameless and faceless, with no family, no friends, and no desires. He is the grim reaper of the abyss, singling out a target in the dead of night, silently tightening the noose, and snatching away their breath—
Yet he is also a flesh-and-blood mortal, wandering among the masses with his face concealed. He has a nicotine craving, suffers from insomnia, and at times changes his verdict—sparing someone’s life, or even sharing a ride in a car.
Where would the car take them? He didn’t know, but he had to admit, he was looking forward to it.
Dawn after the storm; the sky was not yet fully lit, and a thin mist had risen, the distant horizon tinged with a murky, pale white. Amid this chaotic hue, everything appeared blurred and distorted; the only thing clear was the low growl of the engine starting.
Benson Yang held a cigarette in one hand and gripped the steering wheel firmly with the other. As he pressed the accelerator, the tires rolled over puddles and potholes, sending up splashes of murky water, and the scenery outside the window began to recede rapidly through the mist.
A deafening gas explosion erupted from the direction of the clinic behind them.
“Boom—”
The old Ford, carrying the two of them, left the raging flames behind and sped off toward the vast, dusty highway stretching into the distance.83Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnjodT3TjA2
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