Then Ming You took the knife and began slicing the organs. Not chopping, but precisely slicing — into thin, almost transparent slices, like a chef preparing carpaccio. Slices of liver, kidneys, muscle tissue from the thighs and buttocks. He stacked them into small, neat piles.
So Ho was already completely broken. He wasn't looking. He sat, his forehead pressed against the cold pipe, and quietly, monotonously, on the verge of a whisper, repeated:
"S-So… Ye-Yeon… S-So… Ye-Yeon…"
It was an incantation, a mantra, an attempt to hold onto the image in his memory, an image now forever tainted by the picture of her dismemberment.
But Ming You wasn't finished yet. The most repulsive act was still to come. He set the knife aside and picked up the hatchet again. His attention was drawn to the pelvic area, the very place he had so brutally violated earlier.
He placed the hatchet's blade against the outer labia, already torn, swollen, and covered in dried blood, semen, and mucus. He glanced at So Ho, who, sensing the pause, instinctively raised his gaze.
Their eyes met. In Ming You's eyes — a cold challenge. In So Ho's eyes — the last shadow of awareness of what was about to happen.
Ming You lowered the hatchet.
The blow wasn't meant for severing, but for destruction. The blade drove forcefully into the soft tissue, cutting through the vulva, the vaginal opening, penetrating deep inside. A juicy, squelching sound was heard, mixed with the crunch of the pubic bone grazed by the hatchet.
A new torrent gushed from the destroyed orifice. But it wasn't just blood. It was a thick, murky mixture of blood, semen, vaginal fluids, and something else, whitish and curdled — perhaps tissue remnants, perhaps something else.
All this repulsive fluid splashed onto the polyethylene, adding a new, unbearable layer to the general pool. The smell became even sharper, even more intimate and monstrous.
Ming You pulled out the hatchet, now drenched in this new substance. He made a few more cutting motions, turning the perineal area into a shapeless, bloody pulp, through which fragments of bone and torn edges of muscle were visible.
Then he took a long-handled hammer from his bag and proceeded to the bones. Not just those in the limbs, but also the ribs, the pelvic bones. He crushed them with methodical, powerful blows. The crack of breaking bones filled the basement with a dry, crushing thud. Bone fragments, some large, some small as sand, scattered around, embedded themselves in the polyethylene, fell into the pools of blood.
So Ho was no longer vomiting. He had nothing left inside. He simply sat and watched as the last physical remains of his sister turned into formless biomass. His repetition of her name became even quieter, almost inaudible.
"S-So… Ye-Yeon…"
Finally, Ming You stopped. Before him lay not a corpse, but a collection of parts: a pile of bloody meat, sliced organ pieces, rings of intestine, crushed bones, and at the center of it all — a shapeless, mutilated mass that had once been a pelvis and genitals. Everything was drenched, covered, saturated with blood and other fluids. The white polyethylene was no longer white. It was a crimson-black, sticky, in places soaked through.
Ming You straightened up, stretched, working out the stiffness in his back. He took out several huge, sturdy black construction waste bags from his bag and began carefully, trying not to splash, packing the remains. Meat and organs into one bag, bones into another, the smaller, most repulsive waste — into a third. He tied each bag with a tight, secure knot.
Finished with the body, he turned to So Ho. The boy still sat there, showing almost no signs of life, only his lips moving soundlessly.
Ming You approached him, wiping his bloodied gloves on his own cloth-covered side. The kitchen knife, already familiar to So Ho, appeared in his hand again.
"Alright now, my friend," said Ming You, and his voice held an almost friendly note, making the scene even more monstrous. "Very well, I'll ease your suffering. You've seen your share. Got your 'truth.' What comes next is only silence."
So Ho slowly raised his head. The movement was agonizing, as if his head were cast from lead. His neck cracked. His eyes, once clear, gray, and full of stubborn determination, were now two burnt-out embers, sunken in dark circles of madness and tears. There was no fear of the knife, no hatred for the executioner. Those emotions had burned to ash, leaving behind only cold, indifferent cinders.
There was only one thing — all-consuming exhaustion and, in the deepest recesses, an almost imperceptible spark of a plea. A supplication for an end. For this horror, frame by frame seared into his retina, to cease. His lips, cracked and bloodied, trembled. He wanted to say something. Perhaps a final curse to draw a line. Perhaps his sister's name, to carry it with him into oblivion. But his throat, constricted by hours of inhuman screams, sobs, and retching spasms, merely shuddered weakly, emitting a hoarse, soundless rustle like the noise of dry leaves.
He didn't get the chance.
Ming You, who had been observing this silent agony with cold curiosity, took a step forward. His movement wasn't fast and furious, but precise, measured, devoid of any theatricality. He took the kitchen knife, that same one with the mirror polish, now coated with a multi-layered crust of dried and fresh blood, semen, and other fluids. He took it in a reverse grip, blade towards himself, like a scalpel.
With his right hand, he grabbed So Ho by the hair, pulling his head back, exposing the tense, blood-smeared neck with traces of tape. Ming You placed the tip of the knife into the hollow at the base of the larynx, where the collarbones meet. The skin there was thin, the hard cartilage palpable beneath.
And with a light, almost tender pressure, he drove the blade in.
The tip met the resistance of the tracheal cartilage, pierced it with a quiet, crunchy click, like the sound of a breaking matchstick. The knife went in deep, at the perfect angle, severing first the esophagus, then both carotid arteries and jugular veins. Ming You felt the blade passing through layers of tissue under his fingers, and immediately pulled the knife back out.
The first thing that gushed from the neat, almost surgical wound was not scarlet arterial blood, but dark, almost black venous blood mixed with air bubbles. It erupted in a powerful, warm jet, beating rhythmically to the still-beating heart. The jet hit Ming You's chest, soaked his gloves, splattered his face. But he didn't even blink.
So Ho jerked sharply. Not from pain — his pain threshold had long been burnt out by adrenaline and shock. It was the reflex of a drowning man, an attempt to take a last breath. But the air, instead of passing through his mouth and nose, whistled and gurgled as it rushed into the wound on his throat. Scarlet, foamy bubbles burst from the opening, mixing with the dark blood. His eyes, already empty, suddenly lit up with a final, strange flash — not of realization, but of pure biological surprise at the mechanism of his own death.
His body tensed in a final convulsion, straining against the zip ties so hard that the skin on his wrists split, revealing pinkish-white subcutaneous tissue. Then came a sudden weakness. All tension vanished. His head slumped back helplessly, still held by Ming You's grip on his hair. His eyes rolled back, showing the whites, streaked with burst blood vessels. A trickle of saliva, tinged pink, flowed from his slightly open mouth. His body went limp, hanging from the remaining restraints.
The blood continued to pour for a few more seconds, but weaker, turning from a jet into a stream, then a trickle, and finally a slow seep. It spread across the polyethylene at his feet, warm and bright, slowly merging with the huge, already cooling and beginning to congeal lake left by So Yeon. The floor beneath the two corpses now formed a single crimson swamp.
Ming You let go of So Ho's hair. The head thudded dully against the chest. He wiped the blade of the knife on the dead youth's pant leg, leaving a dark streak on the fabric. Then he shifted his gaze to the hatchet lying in a puddle two meters away.
The massive blade reflected the dim red light. Ming You walked over and slowly picked it up. The handle was sticky with dried blood and grease. He weighed it in his hand, feeling its familiar, soothing heaviness.
He returned to So Ho's body. His gaze was no longer investigative, but purely practical. Ming You decided to start with what would make the body more manageable. He placed the hatchet's blade against So Ho's left shoulder joint. The joint was sturdy, developed from countless throws and strength exercises. Ming You raised the hatchet high and brought it down with a short, powerful exhalation.
THWUMP-SHCRUNCH!
The sound was more muffled and wet than with So Yeon — the youth's muscles were denser, bulkier. The blade sank deep into the muscle mass of the deltoid and pectoral muscles but again met an obstacle — the head of the humerus bone fitting into the socket. Ming You didn't pull the hatchet out. He leaned his whole body onto the handle, using it as a lever.
A repulsive, grating sound was heard — not a crunch, but a grind, as if breaking a thick branch. The ligaments and joint capsule gave way, the bone popped out of the joint with a dull click. Ming You, without stopping, completed the blow, and the blade finally emerged on the other side, almost completely severing the arm, which now hung by a flap of skin and a few fibers of the pectoralis major muscle. Dark scarlet, almost cherry-colored blood from the severed large vessels sprayed in a wide fan, hitting the wall and leaving long, diagonal splatters on the polyethylene.
Ming You set the hatchet aside, took the knife, and carefully cut the remaining connections. The severed arm, with a watch on the wrist, with the thin hands of a basketball player and shortly trimmed nails, fell to the floor with a soft plop. The hand twitched in a final post-mortem spasm, the fingers clenched into a fist, and then unclenched forever.
The second arm was severed faster — Ming You had already felt the material's resistance and knew where to strike. The hatchet descended again, this time hitting precisely into the joint gap. The crunch was clean, dry. The arm flew off, describing a short arc in the air, and landed next to the first one.