Leichenbergung - Kapitel 54
Of course, he didn't let them off the hook, but he only dared to call the police five days later.
He called the owner of the stolen phone. She arrived; she was a very beautiful girl, accompanied by three tall, burly men. Upon seeing him, they tried to grab him, accusing him of robbery.
Seeing their expressions, he suddenly felt incredibly bored, pointed behind him, and said:
"Look where this is! If I had stolen you, why would I be here to see you?"
They all fell silent. Behind him stood the Municipal Public Security Bureau.
"I bought your phone from them for three hundred yuan. What do you think we should do about it?"
The girl took out five hundred yuan:
"Thank you, here's five hundred."
He took out two hundred and returned it to her.
Only after they left did he realize, "Aren't all these injuries on my body worth two hundred yuan? Why did I return that two hundred yuan to her? I was so stupid!"
The group wasn't all caught. A few of the escaped guys ambushed him on the street several times, and although he managed to escape each time, the robbers all knew about him and threatened to cripple his hands and feet if they caught him.
From then on, he wandered from place to place. Unfortunately, he knew nothing but farming and hadn't received much formal education, so he could only work odd jobs on residential construction sites. Year after year, he contributed his youth, sweat, and hopes to a city whose name he didn't even know. He watched as Western-style buildings and houses rose one after another, the city roads grew wider and wider, and the city lights became as colorful as heaven at night. But all he got to eat were rotten vegetables and stale grains, and he endured countless disdainful looks from the city dwellers. He never earned any money. The real estate developers he encountered were all incredibly wealthy, spending money like water. "A meal costs several oxen, and several buildings are built under one's buttocks," but none of them paid him a wage. Some unscrupulous foremen wouldn't even give him an IOU, openly telling him, "Go ahead and sue me wherever you want. I can take care of everything!"
Exhaustion, hunger, hatred, and perhaps the damage caused by the stale grain finally took their toll; he fell ill, weak and aching all over. He couldn't afford to see a doctor, for he had no money (and even if he did, he wouldn't have the means). Now, in despair, he had only one wish: to return home, to crawl back to the land that gave him birth and nurtured him, to die beside his grandmother and elder brother, to die on the same ground as them. He feared the city, feared the city's business owners, feared the city's scornful looks; he had to return to his grandmother and brother.
Empty-handed, he begged his way back to his hometown, which no longer had any land.
One day, he arrived at a large town and saw a house on the outskirts with a large yard, several large tiled houses with large glass windows, and a tractor in the yard. He knew this was a wealthy family. The gate was wide open, and he hesitated before standing at the gate and saying:
"Please, have mercy and give me a bowl of rice."
These days, everything can be fake. How many fake beggars are out there begging for money but not for food? So if someone is begging for food, they must be genuinely in trouble.
Erzhu stood at the gate, calling out timidly a few times without getting a response. He thought that perhaps the courtyard was too big for the people to hear him, or maybe they were busy with something and didn't care about him. He turned to leave, but the door opened and a man came out, carrying a bowl of fine food. He beckoned to Erzhu as if to invite him into the courtyard.
He hesitated for a moment, not daring to easily cross the threshold, when suddenly he heard a sharp scream, which made him tremble all over:
I'll fuck your own mother!
Then the door was pushed open with a bang, and a fat old woman came out behind the man. She swayed her hips and ran in front of him, blocking his way and pointing her nose while cursing:
"Fuck your own mother! You shameless bastard! He's your own father and mother, and you're so filial to him?" The woman snatched the rice bowl from the man's hand and dumped the food into the dog bowl on the ground. "If you feed it to the dog, the dog can guard the house; if you feed it to the chicken, the chicken can lay eggs; but if you feed it to a stinking beggar, he'll come begging to you for food! So young, and shameless, instead of finding some work, you just want to take advantage of others! Don't you even open your blind eyes and see what kind of family this is?..."
Liang Erzhu felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave on a sweltering summer day, plummeting from the sky to the ground. His heart pounded, and he felt a tightness in his chest, unable to breathe. With all his might, he managed to move his legs, staggering away from the gate. Tears welled in his eyes, which had been dry before. The road beneath his feet felt too hard, too long, and he wondered when he would ever reach his grandmother and brother. The world seemed so devoid of warmth; he only regretted that he had never been born.
Hunger, pain, and anger exhausted him, and he collapsed in the fields on the edge of town.
Seeing the starry sky and the full moon, he thought of his grandmother and brother, and of his grandmother's words: "Poverty doesn't diminish one's spirit," and "A person lives for their pride." The poor have their dignity; they shouldn't be slaughtered; they can go hungry, but they shouldn't be humiliated for no reason. He thought of the wealthy bosses who "eat several oxen for a meal, and own several buildings," arriving at the construction site in their BMWs, surrounded by bodyguards, always carrying lavish gifts. To them, the laborers, were like dog excrement, something to be hated. Seeing them was harder than seeing the Great Leader; trying to collect wages was tantamount to suicide. He feared these bosses more than the King of Hell himself. The King of Hell wouldn't come to take his life until it was time, but these bosses were constantly taking their lives away. The more he thought about it, the more he felt there was no way for the poor to survive; it seemed the poor could only live to create wealth for the rich.
As Liang Erzhu thought this, the anger in his heart flowed like blood through his hands and feet, spreading throughout his entire body. Suddenly, he felt an endless surge of strength and courage. He jumped up and searched everywhere, finding a stick about the thickness of a fist. He immediately approached the house where the beggars had been during the day.
He pushed the gate, but it was tightly shut. He walked a few steps along the courtyard wall and saw a large willow tree growing against it. He climbed the tree first, then the wall, and then jumped into the courtyard.
The moment his feet touched the ground, a large dog silently darted to his side from under the eaves.
He truly deserved to die here! He clearly saw that shrew dump food into the dog bowl during the day, how come he never thought she had a dog! He closed his eyes and thought, if I'm going to die here, then so be it!
There was no movement for a long time.
He opened his eyes and saw the old dog lying obediently at his feet, motionless. In the moonlight, he could see it raising its head and wagging its tail. He couldn't help but squat down and stroke its forehead. As he looked at it, his eyes finally blurred with tears. He nodded to the old dog, got up, and ran towards the gate, intending to open it and run away. Otherwise, he would be letting down this intelligent dog, this dog that treated him like a human. However, he didn't expect that the gate was locked from the inside. He couldn't open it, and after walking around the courtyard wall, he couldn't climb it. At that moment, he thought that this was truly fate, and that this shrew deserved to die!
The door opened with a push.
He didn't know where the strength came from, but he used that fist-thick wooden stick to beat the shrew he hated to death, as well as the man he didn't hate and their two children. In the end, he still didn't know whether the two children were boys or girls.
They used to call me a pig-brain every day, saying I was brainless, that I was like a pig who only knew how to eat. Now no one will call me that anymore, never again…
I later heard that the words he answered most often to the prosecutor and judge in court were "yes," "correct," and "I am guilty."
When the judge finally asked him to speak, he only said one sentence to the court:
“If I had a family, I couldn’t do this.”
Then he started to cry quietly.
He once reveled in the fear of death that had gripped the city, but now that people have been freed from that fear and are no longer afraid of his threats, he is tormenting his life in the despair and fear of waiting for death, hearing the gunshots that will send him to his death day and night, his soul already riddled with holes.
On-site: In the end, he still died at the hands of a woman.
When Zhang Hongmei and her colleagues appeared before Qu Baoyuan, she noticed the surprise on his face. She thought it was probably because this was the first time he had seen a female official since he was detained.
The detention center director pointed to Zhang Hongmei and told Qu Baoyuan, "This is Prosecutor Zhang. The other two are also prosecutors. They will be prosecuting your case. They will be questioning you today. We hope you can cooperate."
Zhang Hongmei noticed that Qu Baoyuan was very nervous, with dry lips and a gurgling throat. She immediately said, "Please sit down." Then she unscrewed the cap of a bottle of mineral water she was holding, leaving the cap in her left hand and handing the water to Qu Baoyuan with her right hand, saying, "Please have some water. I'm sorry, I can't give you the cap."
Qu Baoyuan blinked curiously, then smiled, as if he understood her meaning. He took the bottled water with both hands and said thank you repeatedly.
Zhang Hongmei smiled and said, "What are you thanking me for? You, Qu Baoyuan, can't just say thank you; you have to cooperate with our work."
Zhang Hongmei saw that the smile on Qu Baoyuan's face immediately disappeared.
She said, "A true man takes responsibility for his actions. You're a man, so since you've already done it, you should have the courage to speak up!"
He stood there, and Zhang Hongmei saw a hint of smugness flash across his face. She muttered to herself, "What's the big deal? Don't be a coward."
Why don't you sit down? Zhang Hongmei asked him.