Volume One, Chapter Fifty-One: The Lone Wolf's Home

The plastic bag was thrown onto the cement ground before the two addicts, both trembling with excitement. The one on the left lunged forward to pick it up, his filthy hands resembling animal claws. The man on the right fished out a crushed mineral water bottle from the corner. Flying Squirrel, smoking indifferently, watched them with cold eyes. Both men bore deep yellow burn marks on their right fingertips. With practiced ease, they poured half a small bag of white heroin into the bottle, shook the dregs of water inside, and drew the liquid into a syringe with a needle whose history was impossible to guess.

A chilling scene unfolded before Flying Squirrel’s eyes: one addict injected the cloudy liquid straight into the other’s carotid artery. After years of abuse had hardened every vein in his body, this was both the most exhilarating and the most dangerous method of administration.

Frightened, Flying Squirrel retreated up the steps, darting into the second-floor corridor. Behind him, groans echoed—a sound he had fully expected.

It was the pleasure brought by the white powder, a paradise far beyond the reach of cigarettes and alcohol.

Ten families lived on the second floor. One door was half open; the rest were shut. He pushed open the ajar door. The familiar stench mingled with the acrid odor of burned heroin.

He understood, as someone long accustomed to dealing with drug lords, that Lone Wolf getting his hands on high-quality heroin was a trivial matter. What surprised him was that the door wasn’t locked tight.

Unless the drugs were hidden elsewhere, dealers usually secured their rooms with multiple locks, fearing crazed addicts might break in.

Could Lone Wolf have left the woman a weapon? Flying Squirrel proceeded cautiously, wary of bullets that might fire from any corner.

The room was tiny, built to the standards of the farms during the Cultural Revolution. No bathroom, old thermos flasks, tables and chairs, a coal stove, and a tattered mosquito net draped over an even more battered wooden bed, with quilts torn to expose cotton stuffing.

Just like the cabins in Mang City, a calendar featuring a female star hung on the wall above the bed’s right corner, untouched for three months. An old Panda B302 tube radio sat nearby, and a Shanghai Butterfly sewing machine was cluttered with blue scraps of cloth, seemingly unused for ages.

Many farm workers were former educated youths from big cities, sent to the frontier in the sixties and seventies; Flying Squirrel could tell at least two generations had lived here.

He pictured a scene: a simple but tidy room swept by tropical breezes, warm morning sunlight illuminating a woman’s healthy, rosy face. She wore a homemade floral dress, full-bodied, her skin creamy as jade, eyes shining, teeth white, hands soft as young shoots, her thick, black hair washed with camellia balm and twisted into a bun, fragrant with plants. She sat at the sewing machine, mending clothes, while her favorite pop songs played from the radio.

He thought of his own Ami.

Of course, the woman in this vision might not know Lone Wolf, or had just met him, certainly without children. But she had never touched the substance known in English as “heroin”—the so-called “heroine.”

When Flying Squirrel saw Lone Wolf’s woman again, he found no trace of memory. Now, having overcome his fear of addicts, he scrutinized the pitiful, wretched figure before him.

Half a year ago she was still somewhat plump; now she sat on a bamboo chair, gaunt and barely alive. Her grayish-black skin hung loose from her bones, her dry, sparse hair draped limply. Through her thin bangs, he could see her eyes sunken deep in their sockets. Once beautiful, her pupils were dull and unfocused, her gaze lifeless, indifferent to Flying Squirrel’s intrusion.

Flying Squirrel had seldom encountered addicts; he had no intention of wasting time observing a walking corpse. He wanted only to see if Lone Wolf had left any clues before dying.

A few syringes lay scattered beside the bamboo chair.

The room’s contents were plain to see, and Flying Squirrel could sense where the heroin was hidden. An empty wardrobe leaned against the wall, leaving a triangular gap behind. An old brown leather suitcase was wedged there; he reached in and dragged it out.

The suitcase was secured with a combination lock, but that posed no challenge. Pinching both sides with his left thumb and forefinger, he gently rotated the numbers with his right thumb, relying on touch. In less than half a minute, he had unlocked all three codes.

He lifted the lid: most of the suitcase was filled with heroin, packaged in tightly sealed plastic bags, dozens of syringes lying at the bottom. This confirmed his suspicions—only Lone Wolf could have acquired so much heroin.

Clearly, the supply hadn’t come from those petty, shifty dealers. Flying Squirrel couldn’t fathom why Lone Wolf let his woman indulge in drugs.

Like Flying Squirrel, every member of the tactical team claimed a deep hatred of drugs. He believed them; they had all witnessed the hysterical desperation of addicts in withdrawal, willing to risk their lives for a bit of white powder.

Each portion weighed about fifty grams; Flying Squirrel estimated nearly a hundred portions in front of him.

A dealer’s usual stock was about this much.

The supply came from a drug lord.

Beside the suitcase lay two empty plastic bags and a few burned yellow iron spoons.

Now he understood why the door wasn’t locked: the woman, her brain ravaged by drugs, had long lost any awareness of the outside world. She didn’t need to sell drugs to pay for her habit; the stock here would last her until death. The two addicts at the stairway corner probably didn’t know the woman inside had heroin; their nods were mere perfunctory responses to Flying Squirrel’s questions.

Who would have thought that in this abandoned corner of the human world, such a vast, valuable quantity of heroin could be hidden?

Did Lone Wolf procure all these drugs for love, or for harm?

No ordinary person could ever comprehend the mind of a drug user.

Flying Squirrel closed the suitcase and returned it to its place. He glanced at the woman; her exposed elbows showed bruised, purple veins, the major veins hardened and blocked. Her forearms, wrists, and the backs of her hands were riddled with needle marks. Even the carotid artery bore several punctures.

Flying Squirrel knew Lone Wolf’s woman wouldn’t survive many more days. Unlike those penniless addicts suffering in withdrawal, she lacked nothing—her death would surely come from overdose.

Dying here was more terrifying and tragic than death itself.

When the Grim Reaper arrived, it would find her lying amid fetid excrement. The corpse, already decaying and putrid, would host countless maggots birthed by flies, writhing and feasting on rotting flesh as they burrowed through it.

Before the hot summer ended, the heroin-soaked flesh would be fully consumed by maggots, and countless flies born addicted would dance above this wasteland, awaiting new addict corpses.

Life would continue in such a grotesque manner.