Chang Wo's body convulsed, not in a fit of vomiting—there was nothing left to vomit. His body was wracked by dry, torturous spasms, squeezing the last remnants of bile from his empty stomach. The bitter, burning liquid splashed through his clenched teeth in a yellow stream, mixing with the already dried mass of his son's blood, vomit, and saliva on his face and chest. It dripped from his chin, fell onto his bloodied t-shirt, adding a new, acrid chemical smell to the general stench.
His wife, Chang Yeon, was no longer reacting. She hung in the ropes like a wet rag. Her eyes were open and staring into emptiness, pupils dilated to the limit. From her slightly parted mouth, a thin thread of clear saliva, mixed with a pinkish foam, trickled down. Only a faint, intermittent twitching of her eyelid indicated that somewhere deep inside, a spark of life still smoldered—or that her nervous system was continuing to autonomously discharge shock impulses.
At the center of this hell stood their daughter. Little Chang Su Yeon. Her throat-rending scream had gradually transitioned into a hoarse, gurgling moan. With each passing second, more and more flowed from beneath her blood-soaked skirt. Dark scarlet, almost black liquid mixed with urine and feces, forming a wide, foul-smelling puddle beneath her. Her body still thrashed in weak, arrhythmic convulsions, but its strength was fading with every drop of life draining away.
And leaning over her was Ming You. In his hands, still wet and sticky, glinted the scissors. The very ones he had just used to turn her childhood into a bloody pulp. He looked at her face, at the tears mixing with sweat on her cheeks, at lips twisted in a silent plea for mercy.
He was in no hurry. Slowly, with almost surgical precision, he placed the tips of the blades against her right eye. The little girl froze, sensing the new threat. Her left eye, wild with terror, darted to her father, to her mother, seeking a salvation that did not exist.
"N-no…" she whispered, and it sounded more like a death rattle.
Ming You pressed.
At first, it was just pressure. Then—the resistance of the resilient, moist sphere of the eyeball. The scissor blade slid across the cornea, leaving a cloudy scratch. He adjusted the angle and pressed harder.
The crunch was not loud, but distinct. The sound resembled a rubber toy filled with water popping under pressure. The eyeball didn't burst immediately—it first yielded, then the outer membrane, the sclera, cracked with a soft, wet click. From under the blade, a clear, vitreous fluid spurted, mixed with the first drops of blood.
Chang Su Yeon screamed. But it was no longer that piercing shriek, but a short, hoarse exhalation, followed by a convulsive, soundless opening of her mouth. Her body jerked, but the ropes held her in place.
Ming You screwed the blade in deeper, slowly, precisely. The scissor blades parted, tearing the tissue. He felt the metal scraping against the bone of the eye socket, the muscles holding the eye tearing. From the ruptured eyeball now flowed not just fluid, but a red, gelatinous mass—the crushed insides of the eye. The vitreous humor, mixed with blood, hung on her cheek in a sticky, trembling droplet.
Ming You didn't stop with one eye. He moved the scissors to the left one. The girl was no longer screaming. She was making a strange, gurgling sound deep in her throat. Her remaining eye looked directly at him, and there was no fear in it anymore. There was only a wild, animal incomprehension of what was happening to her body.
The second eye yielded more easily. Ming You drove the blades directly into the center of the pupil. The crunch was wetter, juicier. He closed the handles. The blades met inside the eye socket, cutting, crushing, turning everything into a uniform pulp. The nasal bridge bone crunched under the pressure. From both eye sockets, streams of dark blood gushed, mixed with grayish, oily particles of brain tissue—the blades had gone deep enough to damage the frontal lobes.
The girl's body went completely limp. The convulsions ceased. From her ruined, bloodied face now only two scarlet rivers seeped, running down her neck onto her chest. Her breathing became barely perceptible, an intermittent bubbling in her destroyed throat.
"Su Yeon!!!" Chang Wo's cry was hoarse, broken. He could no longer see clearly—tears, dirt, and blood had sealed his eyes. But he heard. He heard those sounds. And his mind, even in a state of total catastrophe, filled in the picture.
"You bastard, what did she ever do to you!? For what!?" It was no longer a cry, but the wail of his wife, Chang Yeon. By some miracle, through the thickness of her shock, maternal instinct breached a gap. She stirred, tried to lift her head, her glazed gaze falling on her mutilated daughter. "Chang Su Yeon! My baby!"
"Chang Yeon! Don't provoke that psycho!!!" Chang Wo roared, making a final effort of will to stop his wife. But it was too late.
Ming You slowly pulled the scissors from the bloody eye sockets. They came out with a nasty, oozing sound, dragging shreds of tissue with them. He leisurely shook off the viscous drops onto the floor. Then he turned his head. His gaze, empty and heavy as lead, slowly crawled from the lifeless girl's body to her mother.
He didn't say a word. He simply threw the bloody scissors onto the plastic sheeting. They landed with a dull slap. Then he bent down to a black trash bag standing by a column. His hand disappeared inside and emerged, gripping a handle. Not a kitchen knife. Something more massive. A cleaver. A broad, heavy blade for butchering meat, gleaming dully in the half-light.
Slowly, with measured steps, he headed towards Chang Yeon.
"N-no! Wait!" Chang Wo thrashed like a wounded animal. The ropes dug into his flesh, but the pain was nothing compared to the soul-freezing horror. "She didn't do anything to you!"
Ming You didn't react. He walked right up to the woman. She smelled of fear, sweat, and sour vomit. His even, calm breathing mixed with her ragged, hoarse exhales. He looked into her eyes. In them, through the haze of shock, a primal, animal horror was visible.
He raised his left hand. Fingers in a thin latex glove dug sharply into her face. His thumb and forefinger squeezed her nostrils, crushing the cartilage to a painful crunch. She instinctively jerked her head back, but his grip was iron. Her mouth gaped open in a soundless scream, exposing a trembling, wet tongue.
And then Ming You acted.
His left hand released her nose and dug into her lower jaw, yanking it sharply downward. His right, holding the cleaver, lunged forward. He didn't cut from the outside. He shoved the wide blade into her mouth.
Cold metal struck teeth, slid over her tongue. The woman began to shake, her eyes rolling back. Ming You found the base of the tongue, where it attaches to the larynx. He pressed.
The first movement was sharp and precise. The blade cut through the mucous membrane, muscle tissue, severed the frenulum. Blood, warm and salty, gushed into her mouth, flooded the blade, began to splash out over her lips. Chang Yeon shook, emitting gurgling, choking sounds.
But Ming You didn't pull the blade out. He sawed. He moved the heavy cleaver back and forth inside her mouth, cutting the root of the tongue, sawing through ligaments, crunching as he broke the small bones of the hyoid. Blood now gushed like a fountain, drenching her chest, splattering onto Ming You's face. He felt the tissue tearing, separating under the blade.
Finally, he wrenched it toward himself.
The tongue, or rather, what was left of it—a shapeless, torn piece of meat, tangled with bloody threads of vessels and nerves—slid out of her mouth, dangling from the cleaver blade. Ming You lifted it and examined it closely. Then, without looking, he flung it across the space. The warm, bloodied lump of flesh slapped right onto Chang Wo's chest, stuck to his t-shirt, and slid into the puddle of vomit at his feet.
Chang Wo didn't scream. He stared at this piece of meat that just a minute ago had been part of his wife. His stomach, empty and spasming, convulsively clenched, squeezing out the last drops of bile. It splashed into his mouth, burning his tongue. He swallowed it, feeling it burn everything inside.
Ming You had already returned to the woman. She was still alive. Her body thrashed in agony, hoarse, gurgling sounds escaping her destroyed mouth. Blood bubbled in her throat, spilled over the edges of her mouth in a wide, crimson stream. He grabbed her by the hair, tilted her head back even further, exposing her neck, already awash in crimson.
The cleaver flashed.
The blow was not chopping, but thrusting. The point forcefully entered under her throat, piercing skin, subcutaneous fat, muscles. The blade struck the cervical vertebrae with a dull, bony thud. Ming You twisted it, widening the wound. Then, bracing her head against the column, he began to saw.
This was no longer a quick strike, but a slow, torturous destruction. The blade scraped against the vertebrae, severed the trachea—a hoarse, whistling sound of air rushing out was heard. Severed the esophagus—semi-digested remnants of dinner poured from the wound, mixing with blood into a revolting mush. Severed the carotid arteries—and then the blood gushed not in a stream, but in a powerful, pulsating fountain, beating in time with her fading heart.
He sawed until her head tilted back at an unnatural angle, held only by shreds of skin and muscle. Chang Yeon's body twitched more and more weakly. Her legs gave a final convulsive jerk, then went still. Her eyes, just a second ago hollow with horror, glazed over. A last, bubbling exhale escaped her destroyed throat.
Ming You pulled out the cleaver. The woman hung limply in the ropes. Her head fell forward onto her chest, a scarlet fluid still seeping from the terrible wound on her neck, but without its former force.
"Bastard!" a hoarse whisper escaped Chang Wo. He looked at his wife's body, at this woman who was literally decapitated. "You won't get away with this… The police… won't turn a blind eye to this… This is no longer games, this is…"
"Shut up."