For young Zhong Lichun, those days were nothing short of hell. She was not yet eleven, still a child who needed her parents' protection, but in this place, those vicious people did not treat them like human beings at all. If they made even the slightest mistake, they would be beaten mercilessly. Every day was torture for Zhong Lichun.
Fortunately, a few of the older children took care of younger ones like Zhong Lichun and the others, so life was not entirely impossible. Gradually, Zhong Lichun became numb. She no longer held any hope for the future and only wished that she would still be alive the next day.
The days passed one after another. One afternoon, Zhong Lichun walked toward the storeroom with a box of bullets in her slender arms. However, the box was simply too heavy. How could a child under eleven carrying a box of bullets possibly walk quickly?
Not only could she not walk fast, but because her center of gravity was unstable, Zhong Lichun actually fell. The ammunition box hit the ground, scattering bullets everywhere. A burly man passing by saw that Zhong Lichun had spilled the bullets and immediately flew into a rage. Without saying a word, he rushed over and beat her with his fists and feet.
After taking a beating, Zhong Lichun was locked in a pitch-black little room. This was the Dark Room used to punish children who made mistakes. Any child who did something wrong would be locked inside for a day, and during that time, they would receive neither food nor water.
Zhong Lichun curled up with her knees hugged to her chest in the corner. The places where she had been beaten throbbed with pain. Yet, for some reason, being locked in the Dark Room actually made her feel much safer. There was no food or water, but at least she did not have to continue the exhausting work, and she would not be beaten. Young Zhong Lichun even felt that being locked up here was rather nice.
Just as Zhong Lichun was wondering whether she should make mistakes more often and get locked in here to avoid work, screams suddenly came from outside. The cries were incredibly shrill, making Zhong Lichun's heart prickle with fear.
The room had no windows, but because it had fallen into disrepair, there were still a few cracks in the walls. Driven by curiosity, Zhong Lichun looked outside through one of them. Although her view was not very clear, she could still make out the general situation outside.
At that moment, two men were beating someone. The person being beaten was none other than Zhong Lichun's Mother. Her face was covered in blood, and bruises and wounds covered her body. Though she screamed and begged them, the two men showed no intention of stopping. They even laughed as they beat her.
Watching her mother being abused through the crack, Zhong Lichun gradually clenched her little fists. To keep herself from crying, she bit her lip. She bit down so hard that it even began to bleed. At that moment, a thought suddenly arose in Zhong Lichun's mind: she would take revenge on the villains who had bullied her mother and her.
From that day onward, Zhong Lichun changed. She became quiet and withdrawn, no longer crying and making a fuss like the other children. She silently completed every task assigned to her, and even when she was beaten, she did not make a sound. Perhaps her silence made the people who enjoyed bullying them lose interest. Gradually, Zhong Lichun was beaten less and less, and eventually, hardly anyone paid attention to her anymore.
That was exactly the effect Zhong Lichun wanted. More than anything, she hoped that no one would notice her again, because only then could she carry out her plan.
During that period, Zhong Lichun had done more than merely make herself inconspicuous. While delivering meals to the child soldiers, she had befriended a simple, honest boy. After persistently coaxing him, she got him to teach her how to use weapons and fire a gun. Children had simple minds. Even though these boys would eventually be trained into war machines, they were still children for the time being. Thus, the boy did not refuse and secretly began teaching Zhong Lichun how to use basic weapons.
Two months later, having learned how to use basic weapons, Zhong Lichun was finally ready to begin her counterattack. At that time, she was less than three days away from her eleventh birthday.
Because she worked maintaining weapons, Zhong Lichun could always come into contact with them. No one would have imagined that a ten-year-old girl could do anything so daring, so no one guarded against her. While transporting weapons, Zhong Lichun secretly took several things: two grenades, a pistol, and a pack of TNT. Of course, she was extremely careful while doing this. Each time, she took only one item and hid it in her clothes, so she was never discovered.
On the night before her eleventh birthday, Zhong Lichun made her move. Once the night was deep and everyone was asleep, she took the weapons she had stolen and quietly left the room. Having lived here for so long, Zhong Lichun was already thoroughly familiar with the terrain. Her target was the dilapidated hut where her mother lived.
Although she was young, Zhong Lichun was not foolish. There were several hundred people here, and with the small amount of weapons and ammunition in her hands, she could not possibly stand against them. Thus, her goal had long since changed from taking revenge on those bastards to taking her mother and escaping.
After quietly reaching the outside of her mother's room, Zhong Lichun listened for movement inside. At that moment, sobbing came from within. Clearly, it was Zhong Lichun's Mother crying.
After confirming that no one except her mother was inside, Zhong Lichun pushed the door open a crack and slipped inside. The night was quiet. Although Zhong Lichun had been very careful, the hinges of the shabby door were already badly rusted, and they let out a creak as soon as she opened it.
Hearing the door, Zhong Lichun's Mother looked up. When she saw that the person who had entered was her child, a trace of delight first appeared on her face. But the delight was quickly replaced by fear. Then she whispered, "Child, why are you here? If those people see you, they'll kill you!"
"Mom! If we stay here, we'll die sooner or later. Let's escape together!" Zhong Lichun came before her mother and spoke. Her dirty, tender little face held a determination completely at odds with her age.
"Escape? Where could we go? They control most of the surrounding area. We can't get away. If they catch us, we'll both be executed." Her mother shook her head.
"How will we know it won't work if we don't try? Do we really want to be tortured to death here by them?" Zhong Lichun spoke in a tone utterly out of keeping with her age.
"Try? With what? They have guns!" Zhong Lichun's Mother asked bitterly.
"I have one too!" Zhong Lichun suddenly smiled at her mother's question. She then pulled a pistol from inside her clothes and waved it proudly in front of her mother.
Seeing the gun in Zhong Lichun's hand, Zhong Lichun's Mother's expression became even more troubled. "You... you actually stole one of their guns? Are you insane?"
"We need weapons to fight back! Mom, we have weapons now. We can leave this place, right?" Zhong Lichun was, after all, only a child. In her mind, having weapons meant that she and her mother could leave. How could she have imagined that things were nowhere near that simple?
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