“I… we…” Xi Zhigao stammered for a good while, then suddenly said, “We did chase you, but that’s because you were digging up graves and robbing them. Whose child’s grave gets dug up without them wanting to beat you to death? Besides, we didn’t hit you. We just chased you. You weren’t looking where you were going and fell into a trap, and now you’re blaming us for not saving a grave robber?”
“That’s right!”
“Exactly! When we saw our children’s bodies being dug up, our hearts were breaking. He’s lucky we didn’t beat him to death!”
Prompted by Xi Zhigao, all the villagers came to their senses and chimed in as witnesses.
Xi Zhigao then shouted to the police, “Officer, you have to believe us. There might be a lot of baby girls’ bodies, but that was from many years ago. Back then, in these mountain gullies, conditions were terrible. It took two days and two nights of walking over mountains to get to the nearest town. Baby girls are weaker, and they were breathless as soon as they were born. We didn’t want that either! Burying them together is our custom here, so they’d have company in the underworld and wouldn’t be lonely when they reincarnate. They’re our own flesh and blood. It only takes a bit of food to raise them, and they can even help the family when they grow up. Why would we kill them?”
“Save it for the station,” a police officer beside him snapped with a stern face.
“Fine, let’s not talk about the infanticide for now. Let’s not talk about you chasing me and filling the pit either. Let’s just say I wasn’t looking where I was going, accidentally fell into a pit, and my one-ton weight caused an earthquake, triggering a localized landslide…”
Anyone could hear the sarcasm in Ji Xun’s words.
Xi Zhigao, however, didn’t catch it. He thought he had caught Ji Xun in a slip of the tongue and, overjoyed, said, “Officer, you see, he said it himself! It was all just a misunderstanding!”
“—This, how do you explain it?” Ji Xun picked up where Xi Zhigao left off, slowly continuing.
He opened his hand.
An old, red, bow-shaped hairpin lay in his palm.
Xi Zhigao’s eyes went wide, his pupils shrinking to pinpoints, the whites of his eyes turning bloodshot. He stared intently at Ji Xun’s palm, his expression more terrifying than when he had first seen Ji Xun.
“I found this in the trap. An old woman’s hairpin.”
He gave Xi Zhigao a mocking smile, closed his palm, wiped the dirt off the hairpin with his thumb, and then gently placed it in Huo Ranyin’s hand.
“It seems you understand what this represents. It means that if we let the police search the mountain now, they will definitely make some remarkable discoveries.”
“There won’t be just one trap on the mountain, and there won’t be just one hairpin in the traps. After all, over the years, you’ve used countless cruel cat-and-mouse tricks on many poor women. You thought the mountains were deep enough, the traps numerous enough, and that all evidence of your crimes would be buried in time…”
His smile faded, and his voice turned cold, chilling to the bone.
“The evidence of a crime cannot be buried. No matter how long it takes, they will be staring at you from those caves. Even if their bodies have lost their flesh, they will carve your sins with their white bones.”
“No,” Xi Zhigao cried out in panic. He tried to jump up, but the police officers on either side of him not only had faces like iron but hands like steel, firmly holding him on the ground, forcing him to face the truth, to face judgment.
It wasn’t just him; all the men in this village panicked.
Xi Zhigao was their leader, the embodiment of their will. The will of this remote village had achieved an unprecedented unity—a shameful, despicable unity of collective oppression and abuse of women.
“I didn’t,” Xi Zhigao panicked for a moment, then quickly calmed down. He stopped struggling, became docile, and squatted down again. He spoke with that simple and honest face, but venom flowed beneath his skin, seeping out from his features. “Officer, you can go ask the women. See if they have phones, if they can freely contact the outside world. Just a few days ago, they even went to Ning City together. Is this how human trafficking works?”
By the end, he was even gloating.
“If they were really trafficked, would they be beaten silly and not call for help? Wouldn’t they take the opportunity to escape when they go to the city?”
It was all Xi Zhigao talking.
It was all the men talking.
After Ji Xun’s reminder, Wen Yangyang was about to lead the women inside, but the women stood there like wooden posts, ignoring her, and no one went in.
Helpless, Wen Yangyang could only stand beside the women, accompanying them. She could feel them trembling.
They didn’t speak, their expressions were indifferent, as if they were used to it, but their bodies were still trembling, trembling with fear.
Her blood boiled, and she was about to speak when her vision blurred. Ji Xun was standing in front of her.
More accurately, Ji Xun was standing in front of the women.
“Looking in the wrong direction, aren’t you? With such a big person like me standing in front of you, you’re not looking at me, but at the women?”
Ji Xun’s voice was still drawling, listless, and slow. From his slumped posture, he looked anything but imposing and resolute. But Wen Yangyang suddenly understood why, even after three years, when Tan Mingjiu talked about Ji Xun, he would still say, time and time again:
“That guy has countless flaws—pretentious, dramatic, a total princess. He’s got it all. But when it comes to being reliable, he’s truly reliable.”
Huo Ranyin also stepped forward, as did the other police officers. They stood in front of the women, forming a human wall, blocking the view of Xi Zhigao and the others.
The women were all blocked. Xi Zhigao could only direct his anger towards Ji Xun.
The malice on his face was no longer hidden:
“You said you’re a novelist, right? Does being a novelist mean you can just make things up? Why are you stopping me from looking at my wife? What hunting, what imprisonment, what nonsense are you spouting? I don’t even understand what you’re talking about! These are all legally married couples who’ve had their wedding banquets. We’ve raised I don’t know how many children. Those children are all out working now, living good lives. Some even have grandchildren and send them back for us to raise. Look—my precious granddaughter is right there.”
He pointed to the area outside the police cordon where the children were gathered.
It was the little girl Ji Xun had given a lollipop to. There were no other girls her age around. The little girl stood alone. With nowhere to shrink, she just tapped her feet together and lowered her head in bewilderment.
Ji Xun withdrew his gaze.
He narrowed his eyes slightly. “You’re really getting old, sir. Your mind isn’t working so well. Some victims will remain silent, but some won’t. Look at me. Do I look like the type to be born without a tongue and swallow my teeth and blood? Or perhaps—you’ve done too many guilty things and have already forgotten that just an hour ago, you committed a serious crime and nearly made me one with the earth?”
“This whole evening, you’ve been the most talkative… Since you want to talk so much, let’s have a chat.”
Ji Xun began to chat unhurriedly:
“Tonight, you all ganged up on me, beat me, and chased me. This is a group malicious incident, with a principal offender and accomplices. I have a very strong impression of you. I remember you directing others to surround and intercept me, and I remember you leaning in to talk to me while you were filling the pit—from all aspects, you are the mastermind. Your crime is a degree higher than others. If they get ten years in prison, you get a suspended death sentence. If they get a suspended death sentence, you get the death penalty. Happy? Surprised?”
A subtle seed was sown among the ironclad group of village men.
Interest can always divide people—and so can fear.
“And that’s not all. Let me think… Death, actually, isn’t that scary. Death is just a momentary thing. What’s scary is the preparation before death. You’ve never been to the station, have you? Let me tell you about it. Let’s start with the interrogation you’re about to undergo. In the interrogation room, there’s no light, no sound, no water, no food. No one pays attention to you. You’re all alone, not knowing day from night, not knowing when it will end. Why? Because that’s what you did to them in those pits. This is retribution.”
Ji Xun’s voice was soft and cruel.
“After the interrogation, you will be taken into judicial custody. No lawyer will be willing to help scum like you who have neither humanity nor money. All the other inmates will have the right to despise you. Their gazes will follow you every day. No one will heed your cries, and the trial will be indefinitely postponed. All of this will slowly destroy your will, just as you destroyed theirs. This is also retribution.”
The police officers standing by wanted to stop Ji Xun. What he was saying was not in accordance with regulations. Police interrogations must follow rules and procedures, and bullying is strictly prohibited in prison.
But they looked at the panicked men, then at the silent women, and in the end, they chose silence out of contempt and disgust, letting Ji Xun threaten and intimidate them.
Ji Xun’s words were like knives, each one carving into bone.
“You see, what goes around comes around. Retribution is swift. Now, it’s your time to go to hell.”
“I won’t go to hell! You’re the one going to hell, you grave robber! I didn’t kill the baby girls! That was decades ago! I didn’t hurt you either! I don’t have to go to the station! No one can catch me! There’s no evidence—” Xi Zhigao panicked, then yelled even louder as if to bolster his courage. But with a click, shiny handcuffs locked around his wrists. Huo Ranyin pulled him up from the ground by the handcuffs.
There was no warmth in his face or his eyes. He never reserved his warmth for scum.
“The evidence is on the mountain. Don’t worry, we will dispatch a large number of police officers to conduct a thorough search of the mountain, find every trap you’ve made, every single thing inside those traps, and secure them one by one. Then, we will use the existing evidence to request the procuratorate to file a public prosecution against you. A public prosecution doesn’t need someone else to accuse you. That evidence will never be silent.”
Xi Zhigao was finally broken, completely panicked. But his panic was still laced with barbarity and oppression. He jumped up, and even while being held by Huo Ranyin, he didn’t forget to inflict it on the women nearby. “You all, come out! Your men are about to be taken away, what are you still looking at! Come out and explain to the police! Tell them there’s no trafficking, no infanticide! We were legally married! Those dead baby girls all died of illness—come out, all of you—”
“Take him away,” Ji Xun said sternly. “Don’t cause any more secondary harm.”
Huo Ranyin and Ji Xun looked at each other.
A hint of doubt flashed in his eyes, and his raised foot paused for a few seconds… Ji Xun’s urgent attitude made him suspect that he was hiding something.
From behind the human wall formed by the police, footsteps were heard. A woman had stepped forward. Ji Xun looked back and saw it was An Xinhe.
“Don’t—” he immediately raised his voice to stop her, but his protest had no effect.
An Xinhe, her face wooden, began to speak.
Huo Ranyin noticed that Ji Xun’s expression at that moment was very strange. He looked away, turning his cheek, as if he couldn’t bear to listen, didn’t want to listen. But his gaze also held a knowing insight, and his face didn’t show much pity or sadness for what he was about to hear—it was something he didn’t want to face himself but knew was inevitable.
Ji Xun’s lips moved. Huo Ranyin didn’t hear a sound. He tried to read his expression, but the other man had already resumed that weary look, as if he could fall asleep at any moment, desperate to go home.
Then, Huo Ranyin’s ears caught An Xinhe’s voice.
“All the women here were trafficked. Some who were obedient got married and lived their lives. Those who were disobedient became their public property…”
A brief commotion broke out at the scene, then quickly fell silent again. The thick, sticky air made everyone feel suffocated.
“The ones standing here now are all the obedient ones. It’s true they didn’t kill the baby girls. I killed them. I’m a nurse. When the baby girls were born, I killed them all.”
She said it so calmly, so simply:
“Don’t follow our old path. Come into this world clean, and leave it clean.”
A sudden sob broke the frozen air.
Wen Yangyang finally couldn’t hold back her tears. She wiped her eyes and said, “It’s okay. You were forced. There were special circumstances. Find a good lawyer, explain it to the judge, and the judge will give you a lenient sentence. Everyone will understand you.”
Find a good lawyer, publicize the case, peel back the scars, recount the pain, let everyone examine her suffering with a magnifying glass… Ji Xun had already looked away from An Xinhe and the others. He looked ahead. It was brightly lit here, but the mountain in front was still dark. He didn’t know when it would be illuminated.
“…Is that so?”
An Xinhe smiled. She was tall, sturdy. She stood there, a shadow passing over her face.
“But I also killed someone else.”
“I killed Tang Jinglong.”
