Sha Qing

Chapter 131: The Last Killer (5)

I got up and tried to throw a fist to the bridge of Sha Qing's nose.

Leo curled up in pain, pressing his head tightly with both hands. After a long time, he was finally able to calm his gasping breath. He stood up unsteadily, staggered into the bedroom, then took out the BlackBerry that had been mailed to him by Sha Qing from the bottom of a drawer.

Due to prolonged inactivity, its battery had been depleted. Leo plugged in the charger, turned it on, and carefully browsed through its SMS, email, and files.

Soon, he found what he was looking for-a ten-minute recording, saved alone in the audio folder. He shrank his thumb as if it were burning with fire, and then without hesitation, he pressed the play button.

[Leo Lawrence.]

It was Sha Qing's voice. There was a brief pause, and then he changed the way he spoke to Chinese,

[I hope that the person who's listening to this recording is you, not some homeless man flipping through the trash can or a random kid from a second-hand phone shop. Of course, this is just my wishful thinking. Perhaps you'll really throw away this phone in a fit of anger- in a way, Leo, I have always failed to guess your mind.]

He chuckled softly, as if he was mocking himself.

[Now, I'm thinking about what motivated me to leave this recording for you. You know, I always plan things carefully, even if I have a whim, I have to think first and only then will I act. But this time, I really don't know what drove me to do this. But I guess when you hear this message, I should no longer be in this world.]

Leo winced stiffly and gripped the phone as a chill ran through his body.

[Haha, that gave you a scare, did it? I just wanted to try that distasteful manner of speaking. In fact, there's a good chance that I will backtrack just before our final encounter, kill you directly, and continue to get away scot-free.]

[Are you confused? Yes, I've already planned ahead of time on how we will settle all of these: It's either you die, or I die.]

[I've been thinking about why I've been teasing and provoking you for over a year, keeping your eyes and bullets fixed on me. As I said while we 're on the Luna Islands, it's a very interesting pastime, something where I could spend my leisure time outside of work, right? That was true, at least at first. I found it fun, and at the same time, I was also examining you. It was like carefully selecting a practical and powerful weapon from a room full of cluttered armaments, and out of a bunch of cops and agents, I chose you.You should feel honored by this, don't you think?]

[Especially when you told me with a serious face that 'One should always take responsibility for what they have done, we are all the same, no one can just do whatever they want'- I knew I've found the right person.]

[You know, there's a line you said that was so damn accurate: 'I know you hate them, but you're becoming like them, and believe me, you don't want to look in the mirror and see a self you want to strangle with your own hands.' ]

[Yes, I know that feeling, so clearly.]

[...Because every time I look in the mirror, I see a serial killer who wants to kill himself. Since the first person died in my hands, I became no different from them. The same bloody hands. The same chilling cruelty.]

[But I have never regretted it.]

[Sometimes, I think that when I die, I'll probably be reunited in hell with those serial killers who died in my hands-but of course, I don't mind killing them again. There's nothing more evil a place to go than hell anyway.]