"Defendant, for the cri of intentional homicide, carried out with cruel thods—a knife attack in broad daylight that led to the deaths of multiple innocent victims at the scene..."
The judge unfolded the verdict, his voice steady and cold. Every charge he read was like a sharp arrow piercing the silence of the prison cell.
"...After deliberation by the collegiate panel, the verdict is a sentence of death, to be carried out imdiately tomorrow morning!"
After he finished speaking, the judge sighed.
He looked at the silent Hu Qi.
Thinking about the case,
he couldn’t help but add,
"You shouldn’t have been so impulsive. They would have received the full punishnt of the law. You..."
Before he could finish,
Hu Qi cut him off.
"Enough. Stop with the useless nonsense. Go. I want to be alone."
Hu Qi’s voice was flat.
As the cell door closed,
the room fell silent once more.
The occasional sobs and angry curses of other prisoners could be heard from outside.
Inside the cell, the light was dim.
The surrounding walls were as hard and cold as iron.
A chill seeped from the walls, piercing to the bone.
Hu Qi sat quietly on the edge of the bed, his hands bound by heavy cuffs and his feet in shackles. Every slight movent produced a cold, shrill clang of tal on tal.
His face was as wooden as a carving, his eyes vacant and numb, yet they held a faint hint of relief, as if he’d finally been set free.
He raised his head and stared at the small, high window on the wall, which let in only a few faint slivers of light. His thoughts began to drift away.
Scenes from his mory flashed before his eyes like a rising tide.
From the ignorant innocence of elentary school to the awkward days of college.
After graduation, the pressure to find a job weighed on him like a mountain.
He had no choice but to start as a chef’s apprentice, beginning a difficult journey of learning the trade.
Fortunately, he was willing to work hard and had an exceptional Talent for cooking. He stood out among the other apprentices and was eventually promoted to head chef.
After several years of hard work, he had saved up a little money. He was set up on a blind date and t a woman he got along with well.
They dated for about a year and a half, found they were a perfect match, and so they married and started a family.
Then they opened a restaurant.
A year later, their lovely daughter was born, bringing endless joy to their small family.
However, the gears of fate began to turn rcilessly in reverse.
When his daughter was three, she vanished during an outing.
From that day on, a heavy shadow of grief enveloped their family.
Overwheld by self-bla and heartbreak, his wife’s Spirit nearly collapsed. One quiet night, in her despair, she jumped to her death.
In an instant, his family was shattered, his ho destroyed. The once-warm haven was left in pieces.
But a stubborn thought remained in his heart; he never gave up on finding his daughter.
Finally, not long ago, he got a key piece of information from a support group for finding missing children. He learned his daughter might be in a remote mountain village.
He set out to find her without hesitation. In that remote and backward mountain village, he found the daughter he had longed for day and night.
He saw her small figure, her face sallow, dressed in ragged clothes. Her frail body looked as if a gust of wind could blow it over.
She was nothing but skin and bones. Seeing his daughter in such a state, Hu Qi’s heart felt like it was being sliced by a knife.
The mont he found his daughter, all he wanted was to get her out of that place imdiately.
But things didn’t go as planned. Desolate mountains and treacherous rivers breed savage people.
When the villagers, young and old, heard he was going to take the child, they sward him.
They surrounded him, hurling insults.
They wouldn’t let him take a single step out of the village, even arrogantly threatening to break his limbs.
Hu Qi stared at their hideous faces.
The rage that had been building up for years erupted like a volcano, and he completely lost his sanity.
He violently snatched a sickle from a villager’s hands and, driven by fury, began to swing it wildly.
He cut down the villagers who blocked his path, one by one.
Blood splattered everywhere, dyeing his entire body red. Thirty-four living souls were extinguished.
Such a major criminal case naturally drew the full attention of the police.
Before long, Hu Qi was arrested and brought to justice.
Due to the extre severity of the case, there was no room for leniency. The court directly sentenced him to death.
’At least my daughter still has her paternal and maternal grandparents to rely on. They’ll definitely give her all the love and care she needs. She’ll surely have a better life than in that mountain village.’
Hu Qi comforted himself with this thought.
’Still, I’m pretty impressive. I killed over thirty people by myself and didn’t even get hurt.’
Hu Qi frowned.
He felt no fear or regret in his heart.
’Because those human traffickers and their accomplices deserved to die!’
The only regret was that the true culprit, the one who had actually abducted her, was still alive and well, having only been sentenced to a few years in prison.
Another thing he found strange was that...
...he couldn’t clearly rember the faces of his wife or his daughter. There was only a vague outline, as if seen through a thin veil.
’Forget it.’
He shook his head, deciding not to dwell on it.
’I’m going to die anyway,’ he thought, ’might as well get a good night’s sleep.’
So, he lay down on the bed, cleared his mind, and closed his eyes.
Before long, the cell fell silent, with only the sound of his soft breathing rising and falling in the darkness.
...
The night passed without incident.
「Early morning.」
A gloomy sky hung over the execution ground, which was surrounded by high, cold, and imposing walls.
It was as if this place was separated from the outside world, a world of its own.
In the center of the execution ground stood a series of lonely posts, each with a wooden plaque hanging from it.
The plaques swayed gently in the breeze, making a faint creaking sound.
On them were written the nas of those about to be executed.
Hu Qi easily found his own na among them.
The two words looked particularly glaring under the gray sky.
The surroundings were dead silent, save for a row of executioners standing by, their expressions grim, ard with live ammunition.
On the execution ground,
the atmosphere was so heavy it felt tangible. One by one, gunshots rang out.
With each shot, a prisoner fell. Their bodies convulsed a few tis on the ground before going completely still, dead on the spot.
"Sentence for defendant Hu Qi: death. Requesting confirmation to execute imdiately?"
The Executor’s voice was exceptionally cold in the silent execution ground.
"Execute!"
The superior’s command was brief and decisive.
Hu Qi closed his eyes.
Strangely, he felt no fear.
It was as if the gun barrel pressed against the back of his head was nothing more than a useless fire poker,
as if it couldn’t possibly harm him.
’Has sothing gone wrong with my Spirit?’
The thought couldn’t help but cross his mind.
A normal person, in this situation, with a gun pointed at them...
...and after seeing those other prisoners die right in front of them...
...would at least have sweaty palms. Their breathing would beco rapid and erratic, and their heart would start pounding wildly.
Their thoughts would fall into chaos, with all sorts of ideas flashing through their mind like a spinning lantern.
In extre cases, they might even lose control of their bladder.
But he felt absolutely no fear at all.
This was clearly not normal.
"Safety off! Three, two, one! Fire!"
BANG!
A bullet, wreathed in the aura of death, shot from the muzzle like a bolt of lightning.
It struck Hu Qi squarely in the back of the head.
But the expected scene of blood and gore did not occur.
There was only a crisp CLANG, and the bullet that should have pierced his skull fell limply to the ground, bent and twisted.
Hu Qi, however, remained standing perfectly straight, completely unmoved.
After a brief silence,
a voice as cold as if it ca from Hell itself rang out over the execution ground once more.
"Execute again!"
At the sa ti, the surrounding mbers of the firing squad quickly regrouped.
Once again, the black muzzles of their guns aid in unison at Hu Qi, and their fingers pulled the triggers without hesitation.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
A dense volley of bullets rained down on Hu Qi, but to everyone’s astonishnt,
when the bullets hit his body, it was as if they were striking an iron man forged from steel.
They only produced faint sparks on the surface of his skin before ricocheting and scattering across the ground.
"Are... you... ssing with ?"
Hu Qi slowly twisted his neck, producing a CRACKING sound.
The shackles and ropes that had bound him suddenly shattered, exploding into countless pieces that scattered across the ground.
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