Free A Perfect Crime by A. Yi

like acrawling gecko, until a roar of water echoed around the otherwise quiet bathhouse. Like a meteorite shower splashing into the ocean. The loneliness was like a slaughter.
    T he next morning I got on a bus to the Western Hills. In ancient times they were known as the Qin Mountains, as China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuang, was supposed to have reached this spot after conquering the Warring States, forming roads with his whip and slicing mountains with his sword. I was just here for the view from the top, where I could catch the sunrise. I wasn’t the only one to have the same idea, so we sat together in the darkness, like strangers in a doctor’s waiting room.
    The sky slowly turned from blue to faded red. It was coming in from the sea. When the sun came peeping from behind the clouds, everyone whooped for joy, but I was disappointed. To be honest it looked a floating orange ping-pong ball gradually moving closer, hotter, spreading its arms out towards us. I was scared, as if I was being examined. I couldn’t escape its evil clutches.
    In its overenthusiasm, the sun spat out tongues of fire. At first it was like a ball of dry grass going up in flames, a fireball at its centre and with dry singed outer edges. I could no longer look at it straight. Eventually themetal and rays of light began to melt and fall. It was leaving us, as if trying to flee the sky. A bright black hole burning in it. Then a freeze-frame. And it was back to being that normal sun, the one we see every day. My skin was greasy and my clothes were wet. I was itchy all over. I hadn’t had enough sleep and felt like being sick.
    I took my bag and walked down the other side of the hill, where there was still some shade. I checked there was no one around, put down my bag and suddenly cried out, ‘I’m here!’
    The sound was like a stone skimmed across the water’s surface, as it travelled up through each layer of cloud and out into the sky. Then I took out the last three banknotes in my possession. Their serial numbers ended with 1, 2 and 3 respectively.
    1.  Keep running.
    2.  Give myself up.
    3.  Suicide.
    I would listen to God. I folded and mixed them until I could no longer tell them apart. I reached for one, but unfolded another. HQ24947723. A crooked name written in ballpoint pen: Li Jixi. It had once been in the possession of a poor peasant. And now it wanted me to kill myself.
    I removed a nylon rope from my bag (I had planned for this) and started patting nearby trees like a carpenter. I chose one that must have been at least a hundred years old, one that had calmly faced down hail, lightning and snowstorms and would continue to do so for some time to come. I carried two stones, stacked them, knotted the rope and fastened it to a thick branch above. I looked around me. Beyond the dense forest a road circled and beyond that I could see small box-like houses with people crawling around them like insects.
    I stepped up and secured the rope around my neck. I kicked away the stones and felt my body plummet, only to then get jerked back up again, as if the lift I’d be been riding had lost control. It all happened in slow motion, but before I knew it I was hanging, the rope digging into my neck. I felt the blood surge upwards, but it quickly sank back down. Then a pain and itch in my extremities, followed by numbness. The only thing I could feel was above the neck. It was as if my insides had been squeezed out of my body by a car.
    The sky was receding ever higher as I swung from the branch. In the distance I could hear the sound of splitting wood. I continued to hang for a few moments and then dropped like a bag of pork to the ground. I lay there, trying to catch my breath, before ripping away at the claws around my throat. But I couldn’t loosen therope, so I scrambled to my feet and stumbled on. I wasn’t dying but it had to come off. I was going crazy.
    I don’t remember who cut the rope, someone with a knife. But I recall my body’s