When Song Xiaoyang pushed open the front door, the rusted iron hinges groaned like a dying animal. The sour stench of cheap liquor wafted through the air, like poison distilled from some rotting fruit. His father, Song Jianguo, slumped on the faded couch, the flickering blue light of the TV casting ghostly shadows across the crevices of his weathered face.
"You still know how to come home?" his father spat, his voice slurred and soaked in alcohol. "The school called. Said you—"
Song Xiaoyang's fingers twitched by the seam of his pants. He stared at the purple-red birthmark on the back of his father's neck—shaped like a crooked dagger. His mother once called it an angel's kiss, back when tenderness still existed in their home. Now, it pulsed with every gulp of liquor his father swallowed, like a parasite drunk on blood.
"Was it you who did that to Wang Lei's leg?" his father suddenly shouted, hurling the bottle at the floor. Glass exploded into jagged shards, as broken as the life they lived.
"Say something!"
Flashes of blood and torn flesh still lingered on Xiaoyang's retinas—Wang Lei's thigh spurting crimson as the rusted spoke pierced muscle, that sickening, muffled crunch like a watermelon being split open. Bai Ye crouched on his father's shoulder, her rotting fingers twirling the neck of the shattered bottle, grinning with pride.
"You knew," Xiaoyang said, his nails digging into his palm until blood seeped out, tracing dark red rivers along his lifeline. "You knew what Tian Mingyuan did to me. And all you said was 'it takes two to tango'?"
His father suddenly crumpled, like someone had pulled the spine from his body. He collapsed back onto the couch, oblivious to the glass cutting into his leg. On the TV, the evening news droned on in a hollow voice: "…New developments in the car accident involving former teacher Tian Mingyuan. Investigators suspect tampering with the brake fluid…"
Bai Ye's body began to melt, thick black sludge dripping onto the top of his father's head. She leaned in, whispering against Xiaoyang's ear:
"Now… kill him."
The knife Xiaoyang pulled from his pocket gleamed coldly in the moonlight. He imagined the blade sliding into his father's throat, the warm gush of arterial blood splattering across the faded wallpaper—a painting more vivid than anything he had ever created.