"The evidence is irrefutable," and I was immediately locked up in an underground room in the detention is dark, cramped, damp and cold here.
I couldn't help but wonder if Chu Yucheng was also being held in a similar place.
I knew nothing. I didn't even know when the sun rose or set. I could only guess how many days had passed by the number of times food was delivered to me.
They want me to admit it.
They want me to admit that Chu Yucheng fabricated lies and took away the credit that should have belonged to Captain Wang. They want me to admit that I did something wrong. They want me to throw myself into the mud and let them trample on me, and they want me to pull Chu Yucheng into the abyss.
I disagree.
There is no way I can agree with that.
I refused to give in, so I started singing the tune.
The memories that the hanged men were reluctant to give me at the beginning, have now been given to me. When those melodies appear in my mind, I know that it is because I made the same choice as he did at the beginning.
I sing loudly, I sing about the snow in June, I sing about the battles on the battlefield, I sing about the love between a man and a woman.
Sing about the frivolity of youth, sing about the recklessness of youth, sing about the difficulties of middle age, sing about the non-attachment of old age.
The song doesn't have any special meaning, it just expresses my attitude towards this fucked up world.
I had already given up on my own destiny.
I do not care anymore.
I don't even care about death.
"If you admit your mistakes, you will have a chance to get out. If you refuse to plead guilty, you will really die here."
The person who brought me food turned out to be an elderly woman.
At first she would try to persuade me, but when she saw that it had no effect, she stopped saying anything and only occasionally told me about the situation outside.
But I dare not say much. It's just like someone's family behaved well during the observation period and got a reduced sentence. Someone originally looked like an honest person, but someone posted a newspaper report on him.
One of the people who was covered in newspapers was the leader of the excrement-collecting team. Because he was close to me, he was considered to have bad intentions.
"The guy who came in on the same day as you has already admitted it, so why are you hiding it for him?"
One day, the aunt who delivered meals to me sighed casually, but it caused a huge wave of uproar in my heart.
Chu Yucheng has admitted it?
How could this be possible? Those drawings were his own hard work, and he worked through countless days and nights and conducted countless tests to come up with the plan.
From what I know about him, there is no way he would do that.
Was the confession obtained under torture?
No, it's impossible. How could a person who would risk his own life to find out the truth about his brother's death, a person who is determined to take revenge even though he knows he is facing an unknown force, be tortured into confessing?
I grabbed the hand of the auntie who was delivering the food and stretched it through the small window: "Auntie! Why did he plead guilty?"
Auntie was really frightened to see a living dead like me suddenly move. She sighed again:
"Because of you. What else could it be?"
All the strength in my body seemed to be drained away, and I sat there dejectedly.
Because I...?
This is the answer I least want to hear, but it is also the only possible answer.
If he didn't plead guilty, I would have been locked up here forever, so he had to plead guilty.
I no longer sang, nor spoke a word.
There is always a voice in my heart: "You are a troublemaker."
"You can't do anything except getting others into trouble."
"go to hell."
Is it the hanged man talking to me? Or is it just the body's instincts? I no longer have control over my body.
I began to tell my aunt that I wanted to confess my guilt.
My aunt quickly reported my wishes to her superiors, and soon they handed me a confession.
I acknowledged everything, signed the papers, and stopped struggling.
Finally, they decided that I was no longer suitable to be here and that I needed physical labor to make up for the mistakes I had made.
So I was sent to the countryside to work.
Without any resistance, I got on the bus from the city to the remote mountain village.
The road up the mountain was blocked, so two people escorted me from the bottom of the mountain to the top.
They also took away my gorgeous outfit, saying that they wanted to use it as a negative example for everyone.
"I" stole the clothes and went into the mountains, where I hanged myself with a rope.
Before I died, I put on the costume I had loved all my life, meticulously.
Perhaps the heavens could no longer bear it and sent down heavy rain to wash away the filth around me. Lightning struck the tree where I was hanging, and the evil spirits no longer dared to stay around me.
"I" became a wood-bound spirit.
Normally, if you are struck by lightning, your soul will be torn apart. But by chance, I managed to cling to this tree and escape.
From that time on my power was tied to that tree.
This century-old tree survived with its tenacious vitality, and I also survived in the form of a "spirit". From being unable to leave the tree at first, to being able to move around, and then to being able to run all over the mountain.
There has always been an obsession in my heart.
"I" want to find the person who is willing to confess his sin for me.
Although we are separated by life and death, even if I find him it won't make any difference, but I can't see him one last time before I die, I feel really reluctant.
I didn't expect that before I could leave, an unexpected person would come.
Captain Wang.
How could he be on this mountain? He was still mumbling that he was not wrong and that the struggle could not stop. He kept saying this whenever someone passed by.
But people who passed by him just rolled their eyes and said, "What nonsense!"
These words... have they become crazy words again now?
"I" really don't understand, and I want to see what changes have taken place in this world.
Someone jokingly said, "I heard that this lunatic was a technical backbone before. He caused a big mess and broke more than a dozen machines in the factory. He later shirked responsibility by saying that it was a small technician under his command who did it. Tsk, how shameless."
Another person asked, "Then why did he come to our country?"
The man replied, "He went crazy after being released from prison for a few years. He couldn't make it in the city, so he ended up in the countryside. I heard he has some relatives here."
……
I clearly felt an emotion called regret.
Perhaps if I had been able to hold on a little longer, if I had not ended my life so early, and if I had had a little more faith in this world, I would have been able to wait for the moment when my injustice was vindicated and live openly in the sun.
Later, Captain Wang died. Oh no, now we should call him Crazy Wang. He ran to a place where Yin gathered on this mountain and was scared to death by the Yin objects that had accumulated for a long time.
Later, the area developed rapidly and was developed into a tourist area. Most of the young people in the mountains left the mountains.
From time to time, tourists take this road to the top of the mountain, but the shady area is the only way to get there, so I put some confusing things here with this crooked tree as the center.
Most people will be confused and will be sent down the mountain after wandering around here for a few rounds.
If you encounter some capable and stubborn people who insist on taking this path, then "I" will show up and scare them away. (End of this chapter)
