On my eighteenth birthday, in the corner of the study room of the University of Political Science and Law, I was carefully peeling a pebble with a utility knife. The blade made a small hissing sound as it rubbed against the stone, almost inaudible in the quiet classroom. I dug this stone out from under the old locust tree in Qingshan Welfare Institution. I polished it for eight years until its edges were sharper than a scalpel. The blade of the knife reflected the green and black color under my eyes. The color was very much like the blood-smelling night that leaked through the cracks in the closet on that winter night when I was eight years old.
The memory of that winter is fragmented. That fire burned everything, my home, my parents, everything about me...
From that day on, I learned that there are no accidents in this world, only well-designed equations. Zhang Qiang fell from the locust tree in the orphanage and fractured his bones, which was the result of "shoe nails + lard = accidental fall"; Aunt Liu was fired because of "forged receipts + strict auditors = inevitable dismissal"; the gangsters who blocked me last week fell into the construction pit, which was the result of "loose warning signs + heavy rain = reasonable and serious injuries". I never touch the knife with my own hands, I am only responsible for creating opportunities for the knife to unsheath itself.
