Never thought I’d lose my virginity at sixteen. At home, on my own bed. With a girl most people would call pretty. And without a condom.

I threw her onto the bed, rough. I stripped fast.

I lost all sense. Heat surged through me, edged with mad, animal hunger.

I lunged. One hand pinned her. The other tore away her loose bath towel.

I forced kisses on her and moved down her neck and collarbone, then lower.

I pressed her down and pawed at her all over.

Yet she made no sound. As my toy, under my assault, she only stared. Eyes wide. The corner of her lips tilted slightly. Blank.

Not enough?

What a woman starved for more. I’ll make sure you get your fill today.

Maybe that numb look only fed the beast in me.

Thinking that, I got even more excited.

My movements grew harsher. I tried everything to satisfy her, but she was a corpse. No response at all.

Don’t know how long we went. That night, Mom never came home. We kept going, never stopping. Didn’t even think about resting.

I lost count. Dawn bled in. I collapsed on her, spent. We finally stopped. Exhausted, tangled up, we fell asleep.

We kept the secret. After that, we did it many more times.

If the house was just us two, we’d go at it. Sometimes, impatient, we’d sneak to Jiang Muqing’s empty place and do it in her bedroom.

Never once with a condom.

Then things went south. By semester’s end, Jiang Muqing’s belly grew, day by day. Teachers and classmates found out.

I was expelled. Sent to juvenile detention. Jiang Muqing was expelled too. She swallowed the scorn, chose to give birth to our child. A girl, brilliant like her mother.

“You’re the disgrace of First City High.”

That was the discipline director’s last sentence when he announced our expulsion.

Young and already a father, I thought of nothing but being with Jiang Muqing and our daughter. But her family had returned. They refused to let me see her. They kept Jiang Muqing from visiting me too.

I begged my parents for help. They said they had no son like me. Cut me off.

Just like that, adults tore us apart.

So I tried to break out, again and again, to see Jiang Muqing. Each time, I was caught. The charges piled up until they sentenced me to death.

“I just want to see my woman and my child.”

On the final statement the police gave me, I wrote that.

My neat handwriting had gone crooked from years without practice. My studies—and my life—were wrecked. Now only the death inside the syringe could end it.

“Next life, don’t stick your nose in.”

I smiled bitterly. Said it to myself.

On execution day, no one came. The only one to see me off wore a white coat—a police officer.

He raised the needle, expression blank, aimed it at me strapped in the chair. Then a policewoman pushed in the door. A family member wanted a last look at the condemned.

They unbound me. Officers on both sides lifted me and hauled me to the visitation room.

Across thick bulletproof glass sat a pretty girl, sixteen or seventeen. She sat quietly.

That chill, keep-your-distance aura was exactly like the most important person in my life.

?!

She was…

She was…

“Jiang Muqing… you finally came…”

My eyes filled with tears as I stared at the young girl.

“Dad, Mom died yesterday at the psych hospital. She slipped past the nurse and jumped from the building. Before she went, she told me to come see you.”

The girl spoke, hollow.

So she was my daughter…

Jiang Muqing… dead?

“Jiang Muqing… she died? She jumped?”

Looks like I did nothing in the end. She still died. And I dragged her into it too. Is that fate written by some god?

“Dad, don’t worry. You two just went ahead first. I’ll catch up soon.”

The girl gave me a bleak smile.

“No. Child, you have to live. Live well.”

I cried out through the glass, pained.

“Sorry. I can’t do that. Without you two, I’m alone here. So lonely. So cold.”

She pressed against the glass and sobbed.

“Someone will care for you. Someone will take our place and care for you!”

I shouted, trying to persuade her.

“If there were, I wouldn’t be here. I hate seeing you both. You made me on a whim. Dad in prison. Mom in a psych ward. I sit alone in that dark home every day. I hate you!”

On the other side, the girl clutched her chest and screamed.

“I’m sorry.”

I held my head and wept.

“But you two are my only anchor. I waited every day for you to come home. Now you never will. What’s the point of living?”

Her empty eyes were exactly like Jiang Muqing’s back then.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

All I had were apologies. Nothing else.

“Mom said, if it’s too much, go to the sixteen‑story building at the street corner.”

She wiped her tears and suddenly smiled.

“Sixteen‑story building?!”

Wasn’t that… the place where I saved her?

Jiang Muqing remembered.

“All right, time’s up. We have to proceed.”

An officer at my side spoke low.

“Goodbye, Dad.”

She waved at me, forcing a smile.

“No. I don’t want to die. I want to stay with my daughter!”

I yelled, terrified. I thrashed, trying to break free of the officers’ grip. They lifted my thin body with thick arms and dragged me from the room.

Then they took me to the execution chamber.

I fought every tiny chance along the way. It didn’t matter. They pinned me to the chair and strapped me down.

When the needle slid into the vein in my arm, I knew it was over.

As the liquid pushed through my blood, an image of my daughter’s end rose before my eyes.

Jumping from that sixteen‑story building to die on impact. Or meeting a scumbag like me, getting “saved,” dragged home, ending up pregnant, and repeating her mother’s tragedy.

A normal girl turned yandere, then crushed by scum. She births another yandere, then gets crushed again… on and on.

…

My last hope was that she just dies fast. Or, if a scumbag breaks her, she at least carries a boy.

Ha ha…

Huh. Why can’t I see anything…

…

…

The above story is purely fiction. Any resemblance is coincidence.

I guess that’s about all I wanted to say.

My mouth is so dry. I didn’t make tea tonight. Hope I didn’t spit on her face.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

I looked at the girl in front of me. Her face was stiff. Her eyes were dazed. She seemed a little lost.

My body was pressing on hers. My forehead touched Jiang Muqing’s. Our noses bumped. Somehow, I didn’t feel embarrassed.

Her eyes were round, fixed on me. I looked back, just as still.

Our heavy breathing settled. The impulse in us faded a little.

We stayed silent for a moment.

“Too scary.”

The girl was ash‑pale with fear.

“Scary, right? But I can’t hold back anymore.”

I smirked and tugged lightly at the bath towel covering her.

“No, scumbag! You have to wait till eighteen, after graduation.”

Her face flushed. She hugged the towel tight over her chest.