The Engagement Banquet
Lu Jianchuan’s engagement banquet with the Wang family’s only daughter, Wang Fei, was held in the most luxurious five-star hotel in C City , with just the engagement party reaching over a hundred tables, nearly inviting every notable person in City C.
On Friday, Fang Xingzhou’s vacation was over. When he drove past the hotel entrance on his way to work, he saw a huge sign erected at the door, bearing the names of Lu Jianchuan and Wang Fei.
He retracted his gaze emotionlessly, drove to the hospital as usual, and performed complex surgeries all day.
Before leaving work, he stood in the restroom, repeatedly washing his hands, watching the water flow continuously over his fingertips as if he could smell that faint scent of blood again.
Since the drunken night he had that absurd dream, this scent of blood had been faintly and intermittently appearing, suddenly emerging without warning, and disappearing when he tried to concentrate on smelling it.
Mysterious, cold, and elusive.
Like the jellyfish in his memories that had already become blurred.
As the water flowed away, Fang Xingzhou also submerged his face, washed it with cold water, then hurriedly dried it, took off his white coat, changed into formal attire, and picked up his briefcase.
Inside the briefcase were a forged engagement invitation and a complete set of kitchen knives.
During the evening rush hour, C City was bustling, and the roads were as congested as a drain that hadn’t been cleared for over a decade. Fang Xingzhou was stuck on the road to the engagement party, staring at the red taillights in front, feeling as if the taillights were like un-dried bloodstains.
His consciousness drifted farther and farther, as if he was once again in the bloody nightmare that had been haunting him for several days.
In the dream wedding, he and Lu Jianchuan wore the same white suits, his right hand wearing a wedding ring, holding a scalpel, with the blade buried in Lu Jianchuan’s heart, blood staining the suit with dazzling roses. Lu Jianchuan’s light-colored eyes reflected his image with focus and affection, his arms embracing him tightly, speaking of love and loyalty, until a tsunami surged from the horizon, engulfing them together, in a posture of eternal inseparability.
When the car stopped downstairs of the hotel, Fang Xingzhou had yet to snap out of the dream.
He leaned on the steering wheel, slowly inhaling and exhaling, trying to calm the tumultuous emotions inside, waiting until his facial expression completely cooled down before getting out of the car with the bag.
The Lu family had booked the entire hotel, and when Fang Xingzhou entered the lobby, he found that there were not as many guests as he had imagined. Only about a dozen people were standing sparsely at the gift reception, and most of the moving guests were male, with hardly any female guests in sight.
Even… some guests had bulging waists, extraordinary demeanor, and upon closer inspection, resembled plainclothes police officers.
Fang Xingzhou frowned, no longer looking around, and walked discreetly to the front desk.
The ceremony staff warmly welcomed him, and after confirming his invitation, they led him to the elevator. The elevator was cordoned off, requiring every person to undergo strict security checks before entering. An unusual requirement for just a wedding banquet.
A faint sense of anomaly sprouted from the bottom of his heart, and Fang Xingzhou vaguely felt he caught onto something but was unable to calmly ponder it at that moment.
The security staff was already smiling at his bag, “Welcome to tonight’s banquet.”
Fang Xingzhou stopped gracefully, “Sorry, I need to go back to my car to get something.”
He turned around, intending to find a place in the hotel to hide the knives, but before he could take a step, a stranger’s voice called out to him.
“Doctor Fang!”
Fang Xingzhou turned his head.
A tall man in a black trench coat stood not far away, with a square face, thick eyebrows, and big eyes, and a deep scar extending from the corner of his eyebrow to his cheekbone, smiling warmly as he approached to shake hands.
Fang Xingzhou felt the thick calluses of handling guns, subtly glanced at his waist behind him, and caught a glimpse of the cold gleam of metal under the shadow of the trench coat.
“You are?” he asked politely.
The man said, “My surname is Li, single character Xuan, a friend of Lu Jianchuan. I’ve heard him mention you all the time, and today I finally see you in person, Doctor Fang, I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Fang Xingzhou gripped the briefcase tighter.
“Officer Li,” he said, “I don’t remember Lu Jianchuan having friends in the police force.”
Li Xuan, whose identity was exposed, just smiled, his gaze deep and meaningful, jokingly saying, “It seems you don’t know him as well as you think.”
Fang Xingzhou didn’t respond.
Li Xuan casually draped an arm over his shoulder as if he knew his little secret, waved to the security guard, bypassing the security check procedure, and led Fang Xingzhou into the elevator: “Today is a great day; he specifically asked me to take good care of you.”
Fang Xingzhou’s expression paused.
He fell silent for two seconds, then laughed complexly, “Afraid I’ll ruin his big day?”
Li Xuan pressed the top floor button, watching the numbers jump one by one, answering incongruously, “No. Doctor Fang, you will never ruin his big day; you’re very important, the only one who can tie him down. I’ve been hesitating about how to invite you to the wedding. Then I thought—whether there’s an invitation or not, you would definitely come.”
At this, he smiled gently, “I didn’t bet wrong.”
Fang Xingzhou’s gaze shifted towards him, “What do you mean?”
Li Xuan showed a casual smile, a bit absent-minded, and continued, “After today’s event is over, I have to invite you to a meal, to thank you properly.”
Fang Xingzhou frowned.
As they talked, the elevator reached the top floor. The banquet hall was busier than below, finally resembling a wedding banquet, but at a glance, there were still many plainclothes officers among them, even more than in the lobby.
Or perhaps… maybe all here were plainclothes, not a single regular guest in sight.
Li Xuan seemed to hold a high position; walking ahead, no one else came up to mention the security check. Fang Xingzhou, with his knives, was unobstructed all the way, led to a rest room closest to the stage.
Li Xuan turned on the light, “Sit here for a while; Lu Jianchuan will come to find you later.”
Fang Xingzhou quickly scanned the entire room, which had excellent soundproofing, no cameras, and thick carpets on the floor, making it a perfect crime scene even if dozens of adult males fought here, unnoticed from the outside, seemingly chosen specifically for his plan.
The doubts in his heart deepened. Fang Xingzhou turned to ask where Lu Jianchuan was currently, but suddenly heard a “bang” as Li Xuan swiftly closed the door.
He was left alone in the room.
The excellent soundproofing made the room eerily silent. Fang Xingzhou checked the time on his phone; there were less than ten minutes until the start of the engagement banquet.
He had mentally prepared himself, took the knives out of the bag, hid them in the inner pocket of his jacket, and tried to pull the door—
The doorknob was stuck.
Li Xuan indeed locked him in the room.
Fang Xingzhou took a deep breath to calm down, sat back on the sofa, and began to quickly sort through the abnormalities of today’s engagement banquet.
In a system with strict gun control, the sudden appearance of so many armed plainclothes officers, all congregated at a single wedding, was clearly not just for maintaining order.
And the other protagonist of the wedding—the Wang family, who has been in business for generations in City C, wasn’t that prominent, far from comparable to the Lu family, and couldn’t possibly have the power to mobilize so many police officers.
The conclusion seemed easy to draw:
Today’s engagement banquet might be a collaboration between the Lu family and the police.
After this thought emerged, Fang Xingzhou wore a self-mocking smile. He couldn’t be sure if his judgment was rational; the affair of Lu Jianchuan’s betrayal had already made him increasingly unlike himself.
Now locked in a room, he was somewhat calmer, sitting in the sofa of the resting room, watching the time on his phone.
The banquet is drawing closer.
The banquet hall is very warm, always maintained above twenty degrees. But as the banquet approached, the temperature seemed to silently drop, and drop quickly.
At first, it just felt like an air conditioning issue.
In the last two minutes before the start, the temperature plummeted rapidly.
Fang Xingzhou, wearing a thick woolen suit and a wool vest and thick shirt underneath, still felt bone-chilling cold.
This “cold” was different from the cold outside; the air seemed to become tangible icy water, soaking his entire body, penetrating little by little from the skin.
Fang Xingzhou suddenly felt an unwarranted palpitation, his chest thumping, subconsciously looking around, vaguely feeling he heard heavy, slow breathing sounds, very close in the room.
But there was no one in the room.
Tick, tick, tick.
The watch hand reached 8 o’clock sharp—the start of the engagement banquet.
From outside the excellently soundproofed room, indescribable rustling sounds emerged, like countless arthropods crawling across the floor, a subtle scent slowly spreading from the door gap, slightly fishy, slightly sweet, reminiscent of human reproductive organs, without any fancy colors, but filled with a strong sense of horror.
Fang Xingzhou’s back broke out in goosebumps. He drew the knife, stood up, tried calling Lu Jianchuan; the line was unreachable.
The development of events seemed increasingly beyond expectations.
Or perhaps, since Lu Jianchuan’s betrayal, his mental state had deteriorated so much that he was on the verge of hallucinations.
Fang Xingzhou breathed rapidly, tried calling again, and after failing, sent Lu Jianchuan a message asking him to open the door of the resting room, saying he had something to discuss.
If something really happened today, then, no matter what, he must die together with Lu Jianchuan—
That was Fang Xingzhou’s last thought.
The next moment, the room plunged into complete darkness, he smelled a sweet scent of roses, then lost consciousness, collapsing on the sofa of the resting room, still clutching the sharp knife tightly in his hand.
…
Outside, in the banquet hall.
Lu Jianchuan, dressed in a pure white suit with a delicate red rose pinned on his chest pocket, stood alone on the carpeted stage, glanced at the completely sealed resting room, and slowly curved his lips into an excited smile.
“Goodnight, my dear,” he murmured to himself, then gently licked his lips.
He was almost unable to bear this hunger any longer.
He longed to bite, to swallow, to drink the “Queen Ant’s” blood, to dissolve Her into a pile of excellent nutrients with his stomach acid, to fertilize the offspring he and his lover would have—
He was almost insatiable.
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