Blood Soup

The numbers on the screen bled away second by second. I had never felt so trapped, so helpless. The time I had left was already down to hours.

I closed my eyes, buried both hands in my hair, and slumped onto my desk. At that moment I felt movement in the drawer — the half-bottle of water, through the wooden panel, rocking at an urgent, insistent rhythm. Hurrying me: make your decision.

Hurt someone else, or wait alone to die? I didn't know. If this truly was my last stretch of time — under forty-eight hours — how should I spend it? Not in this office processing expense reports. I wanted to be with my family.

"Bang!" A sudden slap on my desk. My eyes flew open and I sat bolt upright. Manager Sun had materialised in front of my desk, I had no idea when.

"Taking a nap now? I'll say it again — last two days! If you're not done tonight, don't come home!"

The accumulated frustration that had been sitting in my body with nowhere to go suddenly found an opening. I gritted my teeth. What was the difference — servant of an evil spirit, beast of burden for a corporation — wasn't I livestock either way? My hand went to the drawer handle and yanked it open. The water bottle rolled slowly forward from the depths of the drawer toward the light. And in the very instant that the half-bottle emerged into daylight, I shoved it back hard and slammed the drawer shut. Other people treating me like livestock was one thing. I wouldn't treat myself that way.

The drawer bang startled Manager Sun. "What's your attitude? I told you, don't come home tonight if it's not done. Is that your response — slamming drawers?"

If it's not done, don't come home? I'm going home right now.

I stopped caring about the manager, the work, the expense reports. I stood up and, under the stunned eyes of everyone around me, walked out of the office in long strides.

I was going to pick up Xiaobao from nursery. Take him to buy the toy he'd had his eye on. Get Ruoli the milk tea she loved. Go home and cook the dinner they both liked.

I walked back into the busy commercial area and heard the outdoor speaker looping again, reminding me "last two days." I kept moving. I was almost out of the shopping district when I heard a commotion behind me, followed by screams.

I turned: a man was chasing a crowd of people. The fleeing group included passersby, restaurant servers, market vendors — all of them running for their lives, terror written across their faces.

I looked at who was chasing them and recognised him. The young construction worker from the bun stall at lunchtime. He was swinging a knife, going after everyone around him. His clothes were already soaked with blood. He had actually done it — turned on innocent people.

Those running ahead were saving themselves, no time for anyone else. The one lagging furthest behind was a pregnant woman carrying a bag, lurching forward under the weight of her belly, stumbling toward me. She slipped and went down. Despite the pain she struggled to get up — but getting up is hard when you're that pregnant, and the panic and shock made it worse. She tried repeatedly and kept failing.

I couldn't watch and do nothing. I sprinted toward her. But I was a moment too late. When I was less than a meter away, the attacker was already standing over her. Without any hesitation he raised the knife and brought it down. She threw her bag up as a shield. Of course it didn't hold — several strikes and the bag was shredded. Inside was a thermal flask. By the time I reached them, the flask had just burst open, and the hot soup inside sprayed over me from head to foot. The first time in my life I had ever been hit with that kind of soup. A soup mixed with human blood.

The pregnant woman's major artery was cut. Her blood jetted out and hit me at the same moment as the hot soup from the flask. I froze in front of that scene of carnage, unable to move. Before I could recover, the knife-wielding man was in front of me. He raised the blood-covered blade again and drove it into my throat. I watched my own blood spray out, meters away, and then my sight began to blur, the light darkening, the sounds around me dampening to silence. At last I couldn't see or hear anything — only blackness and a deep quiet. But my sense of smell was still functioning: I could smell the hot soup that had soaked into my clothes. It was a good smell. There must have been black-bone chicken and kidney beans in that flask. It turned out the last thing I would ever experience was tasting that chicken soup.

…

"Tap-tap-tap—" The sound of keyboard keys broke the silence. The soup's aroma evaporated. My vision began to lighten. I could make out a shape in front of me, seemed to be talking to me — but I couldn't hear what it was saying. Then its hand came down hard: "Bang!"

That sudden crash cleared my vision entirely. The person in front of me was the finance department's Manager Sun. She was hitting my desk and shouting: "I'll say it again — last two days! If you're not done tonight, don't come home!"

I was in the office. The wall clock said 2:10 PM.

I wasn't dead? It had all been another dream? But the smell of that chicken soup, splashed on me just a moment ago, was far too real. I could still trace the scent in memory.

While I was debating whether what I'd just experienced was a dream, the computer screen settled the question: the countdown displayed in the lower-right corner now read 46:53:05.

From when the countdown began to when I left the office and was stabbed in the shopping district — barely over an hour. I had snapped back to 2:10 PM, but the countdown had not been reset. Was this the real time — the true measure of what I had left?

I had even less time now. I ignored Manager Sun in front of me, burst out of the office for the second time under everyone's astonished stares, and returned once more to that busy commercial street. The street was as lively as it always was — no one sensing any danger. Among the moving crowd, one person stood motionless on the kerb, right hand inside a black plastic bag, left hand pressing down on the bag. No one was watching him but me — because only I knew what the bag was wrapped around: a knife. A knife that was about to be soaked in blood.