Liang got married at twenty-two. At the time, his wife was already three months pregnant.
Many people were surprised. Liang never seemed anything like his carefree, unconventional friends, yet compared to those young men with their colorful love lives, the reserved Liang would probably be the first to become a father.
Time flew by as if someone had ripped a page from the calendar, and in an instant, we arrived at the present. Liang opened his eyes. His wife was sleeping beside him, her breathing rising and falling like the tide.
Dim light filtered through the bedroom curtains. It was the damp sunlight of April in Tokyo. Liang had experienced many different springs in many countries, but only Tokyo's spring, from March to April, when the cherry blossoms spread like a sea, made him feel a delicate sadness beneath the bright sunshine. Liang thought it might be something in the blood of this nation, like the unconscious Freud spoke of, or like the faint, lingering melancholy in the stories of this country's most cherished writers, veiled in a mist as damp as spring itself.
Liang was awake, lying on his side, his gaze fixed on the watch by the bed as he watched the second hand tick forward, one mark at a time.
Theme:
Kill N people in a row. . . Either explode or perish. . .