The centrifuge of chaos that had ripped through the holding building earlier put a cold end to Da-Li's dreams of fresh mutton. No one—not even the boss—had the stomach to wade back into that void of logic to slaughter a beast just yet. Lao Zhang—that fifty-year-old piece of human wreckage—dug into his pocket and tossed a wad of dirty bills at Da-Li and Xiao Fei like he was throwing scraps to mangy dogs. "Get to town. Buy the hooch and some real meat. We'll deal with that fat goat after the merchandise has cleared out," he barked, his voice like grinding glass.
Ah-Ling offered a quick, tight nod of agreement. A clammy sliver of guilt made her want to keep the small-fry calm; the last thing they needed was a high-voltage shriek from the twins when the buyers arrived—it would strip the gears of the whole profit margin.
The afternoon crawled by in a purgatory of neglect, the air so thick and stagnant it felt like breathing through wet wool. A cold lead of certainty settled in everyone's gut; they all knew something was fundamentally wrong with the world, yet they wore their silence like a washed blackboard. It was a silence that felt like a heavy blanket, a choking emptiness where the things left unsaid were more terrifying than any scream.
Once the booze and the slop were prepped for the evening's festivities, Zhang turned the gears of the machine toward the back. He ordered Ah-Ling to join Aunt Lian in the monolith of doom to bathe and dress the cargo. Ah-Ling felt her heart perform its own fantastic rubber acrobatics of dread. She wanted to be there for the small-fry, to offer a nursery-rhyme sweetness instead of Lian's switch or the jagged jolt of Aiguo's electric baton. The man with the cleft lip was a sadist who loved to see the sparks fly and hear the children wail in a world of pain.
But as she looked toward that heavy iron door, a memory clawed its way out of the dark galleries of her mind. She could still hear that unholy choir from a few hours ago—the way those porcelain nightmares had circled and danced while singing their chemical curse of a poem. The hair on her neck stood up like frozen soldiers.
Ah-Ling felt a soul-freezing cold despite the afternoon heat. That brittle laughter and the way the twins had smiled as if they were in a childhood daydream instead of a slaughterhouse made her pulse start to red-line. As she prepared to enter the cage, a single thought haunted her: they weren't just hauling children anymore; they were carrying something that defied every instructional manual of logic.
In the end, Ah-Ling had no choice but to follow the machine's gears. She walked back to the storage building—that "sarcophagus-like monolith of doom"—as the afternoon light began to bleed away. She rang the bell at the front repeatedly, refusing to call Aiguo on his phone; she had no desire to speak with that "piece of human wreckage" if she could help it. When the door finally rumbled open, the man with the "cleft lip" stood there, but something had changed. He was "lost in some private, faraway static," his eyes vacant and "staring as a washed blackboard." There was no "shivering rattle" of a greeting, and he didn't even offer his usual "grotesque effigy" of a lewd stare. Ah-Ling hurried past him, her pulse starting to "red-line" with a new kind of unease.
Inside the building, the "choking emptiness" was even worse than the man's silence. There was no high-voltage shriek from the children, and no raspy commands from Aunt Lian. The silence was a "heavy blanket," broken only by the "raspy static" of a TV that had lost its picture but was still left on—a cosmic joke in the middle of a nightmare. The decoy felt a clammy sliver of guilt crawl up her spine as she pressed forward toward the cages.
When she reached the iron bars, she found the merchandise had been "processed" already. All the children were bathed and dressed in new clothes, sitting in a rigid line on the floor like "porcelain nightmares." Only the twins, Ying and Huo, remained in their original red finery, looking as "clean as a dark mint." They sat in a circle with Bo, the "blind beast," who lay crouched in the shadows like a silent cushion of fur. Nearby, Aunt Lian stood perfectly still in front of the washing machine, her face a mask of cold knowledge.
"You were quick with the bathing and dressing today, Auntie," Ah-Ling chirped, her voice painted with a nursery-rhyme sweetness that sounded thin as a sliver of ice in the quiet. Aunt Lian offered no words of static. She only moved her head up and down in a slow, rhythmic bobbing, like a grotesque effigy caught in a draft.
Overhead, the long LED tubes were blinking on and off like a bad heart. The murky, stuttering light combined with that void of logic was more than Ah-Ling could stand. She turned and bolted from the "slaughterhouse" in a "blind, rat-like scramble," the heavy iron door slamming behind her—CHUNNK!—sealing the nightmare in.
"What the hell kind of spooks are we dealing with?" she whispered to the wind. But when she stepped back into the front office, she kept her "trap shut" about the strangeness. She simply told Lao Zhang that the merchandise was processed and ready to move. Zhang, his heart a "pouting balloon of greed, beamed with pure satisfaction. He struck a match and took a lung-stabbing drag of a cigarette, sinking into a rust-caked shell of an old chair. He checked his watch and watched the smoke plume into the air.
"Excellent," he rasped, his voice like grinding glass. "Another two or three hours... and the buyers will be here to claim their treasures."
Night at "Happy Home Farmstead" usually meant a total blackout; they pulled the heavy curtains tight to hide from the prying eyes of the restless world—the inquisitive stares that could unravel their grim secrets. They lived in a choking emptiness, ensuring no outsider could sense the machinery of a nightmare turning inside. But tonight, the rules of the monolith of doom had changed. Lao Zhang had ordered the lights around the fountain to be jangled into life, illuminating that grotesque effigy of a stone cow to welcome the vultures coming to browse the living merchandise.
The atmosphere was almost festive, a riot of urgent necessities. The four pieces of human wreckage—Zhang, Ah-Ling, Da-Li, and Xiao Fei—were deep into a feast of roasted meat and beer. They were laughing through a digital fog of vice until Ah-Ling, the decoy with a clammy sliver of guilt, reminded them that the buyers were on their way.
At first, Zhang was a pouting balloon of greed, braying into his phone at the coordinator. But when a third name dropped into the static of the conversation, his mood shifted into a hard scrawl of fury.
"Madam Liu (刘老板:Liú Lǎobǎn)? Is that bitch really coming to eyeball the goods?" Zhang's voice became a thin sliver of ice. "Listen, Jin-Ge (金哥), I'll be straight with you. I don't like her. She treats people like dirt and squeezes every yuan until the profit margin bleeds". He slammed his beer can onto the table with a sound like a liquid whipcrack.
"What's the matter, Zhang? Buyer a bust?" Da-Li, that massive wall of meat, asked while cramming more roasted grease into his mouth.
"She's no buyer," Zhang spat, his eyes like trapped rabbits. "She's a black-market butcher for the beggar gangs and the slaughterhouse factories in Southeast Asia (东南亚 : Dōngnán Yǎ). She's a bad actor, and not the kind of high-stakes clientele we want in our nest".
His face then settled into a mask of cold knowledge. "But Lord Chen (陈爷 : Chén Yé)... he's the real deal. A grey-market magnate from Guangdong with enough dirty cash and casinos to buy a small country". Zhang leaned in, his voice a low, rhythmic cadence. "Business has gone stagnant for him, and he's looking to adopt the Dragon-Phoenix twins to jump-start his luck. He'll pay a king's ransom, as long as Madam Liu doesn't strip the gears of the deal with her haggling".
Xiao Fei, the tech grunt lost in a digital fog, finally pulled his eyes from his phone. With a gut full of beer, he finally found the nerve to let his own voice enter the void of logic: "So, we've got two sets of vultures coming to the coop tonight, Zhang?"
"There are three in total," Lao Zhang rasped, his voice like grinding glass. "The last one is the old Former Magistrate Wang (王老县 : Wáng Lǎo Xiàn)—Wang Deshan (王德山). He's a high-stakes wheel in Diannan County (滇南县 : Diānnán Xiàn), an influential man who's here to pick for a couple of well-heeled families who don't care to get their own hands dirty. He's a prime customer, a real gold mine, but you've got to mind your manners—he's a pompous old bastid who's heavy on the ceremony."
Zhang hadn't even finished his piece when the stagnant night was cut by the high-voltage glare of headlights piercing the dark.
"The vultures are here!" Zhang bellowed, his face a jagged scrawl of a grin. "Move it, boys! Let's go welcome a king's ransom. We'll finish the celebration once Big Brother Jin is in the nest!"
Four vehicles rolled into the circle of light around the grotesque effigy of the fountain. The lead was a Haval SUV, a blackwall of a vehicle with film so dark it looked like a washed blackboard. It was new, but caked in a road-grime that looked like a dirty patchwork of travel. Behind it came a Mercedes-Benz, a massive monolith of glossy black that shimmered under the sickly, flickering lights. Third was a white van, its windows sealed in a void of dark tint. Bringing up the rear was a silver Hongqi sedan that looked as heavy and solemn as a sarcophagus.
Zhang turned to Da-Li, that massive wall of meat, and snarled at the food scraps stuck to his shirt. "Clean yourself up, you hick! Don't you dare show up looking like a piece of human wreckage when the big money's in the yard!"
The doors opened and the gears of the machine began to turn. From the Haval stepped Jin-Ge, Boss Deng's designated coordinator. He offered a wide, radiant smile and waved at Zhang like an old friend; he was part of the inner circle, a ghost in the machine of the Big Boss's network.
From the Mercedes stepped a man who looked like he belonged in a glossy dream of wealth. A driver snapped the door open for him, and an assistant followed close behind. This was Lord Chen, the grey-market magnate from Guangdong, moving with the focused, urgent haste of a man who knows his own power.
Zhang didn't even want to eyeball the woman stepping from the van. Madam Liu was a rat-warren of arrogance, her eyes hidden behind obsidian sunglasses even in the dead of night. She ran the slaughterhouse networks across Southeast Asia, a cold predator with two shadows in black suits trailing her like skeletal talons.
Finally, from the silver sedan stepped the Former Magistrate. He was an obese man of sixty whose hair was a washed blackboard of sleek, jet-black dye. He carried a dignified aura like a heavy blanket and wore a fixed, radiant smile. He still looked as strong as an ox, with one massive wall of meat for a bodyguard trailing him into the monolith of doom.
Lao Zhang and his crew performed a series of oily bows—the kind of professional deference you see in low-stakes gambling dens. They welcomed their "distinguished" guests with a desperate, hungry energy, but Madam Liu—that rat-warren of arrogance—ignored them entirely. She wouldn't even offer a glance toward the sellers, her eyes likely as hard as glass marbles behind her obsidian shades.
"Please, this way, follow me," Zhang rasped, his voice like grinding glass as he gestured toward the back building—the innermost slaughterhouse where the merchandise was kept. He gave Former Magistrate Wang a servile, humble bow and then nudged Xiao Fei to run ahead and ring the bell to summon Aiguo.
Xiao Fei stabbed at the bell three or four times, but the monolith remained silent, its heavy iron door like the lid of a sarcophagus. Zhang snarled, shoved the tech-grunt aside, and mashed his thumb against the button, forcing the chime to ring in a long, sustained electronic curse. Finally, the door groaned open with a screech like a soul in a centrifuge. Aiguo, the man with the cleft lip, stood there as still as a stone, his face a mask of defeat and deep, cold knowledge. Zhang didn't like the vacant look in the man's eyes—they were as empty as a washed blackboard. In a jagged jolt of fury, Zhang shoved Aiguo out of the path, hitting him with enough force to send the man into a stumbling, rat-like scramble.
Zhang felt a cold lead of certainty in his gut that something was fundamentally wrong with the world, but he had a king's ransom waiting at the door. He pushed forward into the choking emptiness of the building. The lighting was murky; the long LED tubes were failing, blinking on and off like a bad heart.
"My apologies, the bulbs are old," Zhang chirped, his voice thin as a sliver of ice. "We're processing a repair." Madam Liu let out a sharp, liquid snort of disgust and pressed a handkerchief to her nose, as if the air itself exhaled a swampy reek of old corruption. Da-Li and Xiao Fei wore expressions of frozen surprise, while Ah-Ling trailed the boss toward the cage with a clammy sliver of guilt.
"Praise the Heavens." Zhang breathed, his voice falling like a stone into a dark lake. He saw the merchandise—all nine souls—sitting in a perfect circle on the floor of the cage. They had been processed and were sitting in a cracked and dirty patchwork of new clothes. Aunt Lian was in there with them, her hair a washed blackboard of jet-black dye, sitting with her back to the bars.
But here was the kicker, the thing that made the hair on their necks stand up like frozen soldiers: the silence was a heavy blanket. No high-voltage shrieks, no whimpering prayers, no sound at all. It was a void of logic that sent a jagged jolt of terror straight into the meat of their souls. Despite the horror, the gears of the machine ground on—the children were ready for the vultures to take their pick.
Lao Zhang barked a few commands at Aunt Lian, but the old woman didn't so much as turn her head; she remained a mask of cold knowledge sitting with her back to the world. He felt a cold lead of certainty in his gut that things were going sideways, faster than a sinking stone. He looked at Ah-Ling, his eyes like trapped rabbits, wordlessly demanding she find a way to salvage this king's ransom of a deal.
Ah-Ling stepped forward, her voice painted with a nursery-rhyme sweetness designed to lure the small-fry into the gears of the machine. "Come now, kiddos," she chirped, though her own heart was performing fantastic rubber acrobatics of dread. "Your new mommies and daddies are here to take you to a glossy dream of a home; let's show them how cute you are and give them a good look at those radiant smiles."
The trick worked—the gears of the children's will began to turn. The matched set of twins, Ying and Huo, stood up with their fixed, porcelain-mask grins, and the other seven followed like silent, obedient shadows. The vultures gathered at the bars of the cage, eyeing the living merchandise with a greed that smelled like a swampy reek. Still, Aunt Lian did not move; she sat as still as a stone effigy in the choking emptiness.
"Lian! Move the goods over here, now!" Zhang bellowed, his pulse starting to red-line. When the old biddy didn't budge, he whirled on Aiguo, the man with the cleft lip. "Open the goddamn door!" The command hit a void of logic; Aiguo stood by the entrance, lost in some private, faraway static, his eyes as empty as a washed blackboard. Da-Li, that massive wall of meat, didn't wait; he yanked the heavy brass key-ring from Aiguo's belt and stomped toward the cage.
CRACK!
The sound of the gate hitting the frame was a liquid whipcrack that made the entire crew jump as if they'd been goosed by a high-voltage probe. Even the Former Magistrate's bodyguard—that other wall of meat—yanked his piece from his waistband, his heart thudding like a muffled drum. It was Bo, the blind beast, leaping out of the shadows to ram his ivory horns against the iron.
Before the grunts could move, the children linked hand-in-hand in a grotesque, boneless dance. Their voices rose in an unholy choir, a chemical curse that echoed through the monolith of doom:
"The sky bleeds red, the Star of Disaster flickers bright. Men sow their own unmaking; there is no hiding from the light..."
"That damn song again!" Lao Zhang hissed, his face a mask of defeat and deep, cold knowledge as his world finally unhinged.
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