Antonio Garrido - The Corpse Reader

Cí couldn’t talk. So that was why Lu had taken Cí’s sickle when he hadn’t been able to find his own—Feng had taken Lu’s for the setup.

“Come on, Cí!” Feng suddenly roared. “Did you really think a bolt of lightning came down from heaven and finished your parents? Let me know when you decide to stop dreaming and join us in the real world.”

Cí wished he could believe this was all some terrible nightmare. It was too much to absorb. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Feng was still in front of him with a nearly rapturous look on his face.

“What did your family ever do for you, anyway? Compared with me? You should thank me for having extracted you from that rat hole.” He began pacing the room. “I made you! Ingrate. You’d have been the same as any other canal rat if it weren’t for me…You were the one good thing about the Song family, its saving grace! And I thought, when you showed up, we could all be happy together—you, me, Blue Iris.” He smiled at the thought of his wife before whispering, “You were like the son I never had…”

Cí felt numb watching Feng’s demented display.

“We could still be that! A family!” Feng continued. “Let’s put this all behind us! This is where you belong, with us! Anything you want, you can have. Wealth? To study? You can have it all! A little push from me here, and you’ll be taking the exams like you always dreamed; a little shove there, you’ll have a top spot in the administration. What you’ve always wanted! Don’t you see what I could do for you? Why would I be telling you all this otherwise? I want us to be a family , Cí. Just the three of us!”

Not long before, Cí would have jumped at the chance of joining the judiciary, but now his only desire was to bring honor back to his father—and that meant unmasking this lunatic imposter, this murderer here in the cell with him.

“Get away from me!” Cí shouted.

Feng laughed.

“What? Do you really think you can turn me down? Think I’m going to tell you all this and then let you ruin me?” He laughed again. “Or maybe you think you can beat me!”

“I don’t need you to tell me anything,” muttered Cí. “I’m going to take you down anyway.”

“I see! I wonder, what might you be thinking of saying about me? Hmm. That I killed Kan? That I embezzled money? Gods, boy. You must really have lost it if you think anyone’s going to believe you now.”

“I’ve got proof,” Cí managed to say.

“Really?” said Feng, going to the far end of the cell and taking something from a bag. “You wouldn’t mean this, by any chance, would you?” He walked back over to Cí with the model of the hand cannon. “You weren’t hoping this could save you, were you? Oh, well.” And at this, he threw the plaster to the floor, shattering it in a thousand pieces.

Cí shut his eyes as the fragments hit his body. He couldn’t look at Feng. Not while he was still alive.

“What now?” sneered Feng. “Going to beg for mercy like your miserable parents before they died?”

Cí almost ripped the chains from the wall. Feng stood back and watched with enjoyment as Cí grappled with the shackles.

“Pathetic,” said Feng, laughing. “Did you really think I’d be stupid enough to let you bring me down? I could have you tortured right now, and do you think anyone would hear your cries? Or bother to save you if they did?”

“Well, go on then!” screamed Cí. “Why don’t you? What are you waiting for?”

“Hah! Just so I can get sentenced later? I don’t think so. Clever boy.” Feng shook his head. “Guard!” he called.

The guard came in with a bamboo staff in one hand and an implement resembling pliers in the other.

“Sometimes prisoners lose their tongues. Did you know that? Shame, it does make it awfully difficult for them to defend themselves.”

These were Feng’s final words before he went out, leaving Cí alone with the guard.

Just as Cí doubled over from the first blow to his gut, the next one came down across his back. The guard grinned and rolled his sleeves up as Cí tried to protect himself from someone he knew would deliver as much pain as necessary to get paid. Cí had seen it all before. First the beating, then he’d have to sign the confession. Then his nails would be pulled out, his fingers broken, his tongue cut out. With all this done, no prisoner could write down or speak the truth. He thought about his family and the fact that, no matter how desperately he wanted to, he might not be able to avenge their terrible deaths.

The blows continued to rain down. His vision clouded over and he drifted in and out of consciousness. His parents whispered to him: Fight , they said. Don’t give up . His mouth and throat filled with the iron-like taste of his own blood. What was left of his spirit was draining away. He could let himself die now and bring an end to this useless torment, but his father’s spirit urged him on. Another blow. And another. Through his nose, he inhaled a mix of blood and air, and when he felt it reach his lungs, he exhaled as hard as he could, expelling the cloth that had been stuffed in his mouth. Finally he could say something.

“I’ll confess,” he mumbled.

This didn’t stop the guard from hitting him once more, as though Cí’s sudden decision had interrupted his fun. Satisfied, the guard removed the chains from Cí’s wrists and handed him the confession document. Cí took the brush in his trembling hand and scribbled at the bottom of the page. Then the brush fell from his hand, leaving a trail of blood and ink on the page. The guard looked disgusted but said it would do. He gave it to another guard outside the door, told him to take it to Feng, then came back and stood over Cí with the pliers in hand.

“Now,” he said, “let’s have a look at those fingers of yours.”

Cí was too weak to resist as the guard grabbed his right wrist and clamped the pliers on the edge of his thumbnail. He tightly squeezed the pliers and yanked. Cí barely flinched, which annoyed the guard. He prepared to pull off the next nail, but instead of yanking this one straight out, he ripped upward so the nail stood loose from the finger. Cí let out only a grunt.

Annoyed by this passivity, the guard shook his head.

“Well,” he growled, “since you aren’t using that tongue of yours to complain, maybe we should relieve you of that as well.”

Cí felt his father’s spirit coursing through him, spurring him on.

“Have you ever pulled out a tongue before?” Cí managed to ask.

The guard squinted his small dark eyes.

“Now you talk?”

Cí tried to force a smile, but instead found himself spitting bloody phlegm.

“Pulling out the tongue will bring the neck veins with it. I’ll bleed out like a pig, and there will be no way to stop me from dying.” He paused. “Do you know what happens to someone who kills a prisoner before he’s been sentenced?”

“Save it,” said the guard, but he let go of the pliers, knowing full well that it was a crime punishable by death.

“You really don’t get it,” said Cí. “Why do you think Feng left? So none of this could be blamed on him!”

“I said shut it!” He punched Cí in the stomach. Cí doubled over on the floor.

“Where are the doctors who are supposed to stop me from bleeding out?” he gasped. “If you obey Feng, you know I’ll die, and he’ll deny having given the order. You’ll be signing your own death warrant.”

The guard hesitated, and Cí was sure the guard knew Cí was right. Plus there had been no witnesses, so it would be Feng’s word against the guard’s. Still, he picked up the pliers again and turned on Cí.