Judgment

Jiang Qian's expression gradually turned cold.

It wasn't because of the subtitles appearing on the screen. The moment he sat down, he had inexplicably felt dizzy.

The dizziness was very strange.

If he had to describe it... it was as though some part of his brain had been shaken. Images from his memories surged into view and vanished in quick succession, while the Memory Palace, where countless records had been neatly stored, seemed to draw near and recede, just out of reach.

Jiang Qian raised a hand and pressed his temple until the dizziness faded.

By then, the subtitles on the screen had disappeared.

The feature had begun.

Jiang Qian raised his head and focused on the screen.

In the high-definition footage, the back of a boy appeared.

He crouched in a corner, busy turning something over in his hands. From the way he moved, he looked as if he were practicing his cooking.

He was completely absorbed, thoroughly enjoying himself.

The camera slowly zoomed in, revealing the ingredient he couldn't bear to put down: a roasted rat.

Its charred outline hung grotesquely between several bricks, skewered through its plump body by two thick iron wires and propped over a fire.

The smell of singed fur, mingled with the savory aroma of roasted meat, slipped into Jiang Qian's nostrils without warning. His pupils contracted slightly.

At the same time, he could confirm that the screening room was playing a memory from sometime after he turned eight.

Images from his memories were playing like a film on the screen, while other sensory memories, such as smell and taste, acted directly on him.

The result was that although Jiang Qian sat in the audience, he felt as if he were "inside the story."

He silently clenched his hand.

"Jiang Qian, what are you doing?"

A voice tinged with restrained anger came from behind the boy Jiang Qian, making him instinctively drop the skewer and quickly turn toward the speaker.

Standing across from the boy Jiang Qian was a big boy a head taller than him.

His skin was a couple of shades darker than Jiang Qian's. His features were beginning to sharpen, and he was sturdy and upright. He was none other than Jiang Qian's older brother, Jiang Yang!

Jiang Yang was six years older than Jiang Qian. Jiang Qian was eight, making Jiang Yang about fourteen.

At the time, Jiang Yang was still an arrogant, unruly brat—a notorious tough guy at school.

But to his younger brother, he was all bark and no bite.

Jiang Yang looked past the boy Jiang Qian and saw the charred rat. He was clearly shocked; even the corner of his mouth twitched.

Then he forced an awkward smile. "Well, looks like you're eating good today. It's cooked, at least."

"Crispy on the outside, tender on the inside. Want some?" The boy Jiang Qian pointed to the side, where six or seven freshly roasted baby rats lay in a row.

The atmosphere immediately grew tense.

But both brothers knew perfectly well that none of this was meant to be eaten.

To Jiang Qian at that age, small animals were like toys. Roasting rats was just a bit of fun.

But his older brother didn't approve of this kind of fun.

"...You're a freak!"

The next instant, Jiang Yang charged over, shoved his younger brother to the ground with brute force, and followed up with a flurry of punches and kicks.

Every pair of brothers fought and quarreled. Under the same roof, conflicts were inevitable, especially when they were young.

But even when things got physical, most people would hold back to some extent. They wouldn't go all out.

Jiang Yang's violence had clearly crossed the line.

It didn't look as though he were disciplining his younger brother. It was more like he was... using force to punish the "devil inside his brother."

This was a genuine memory of Jiang Qian's.

Pain from all over his body converged on his central nervous system. It felt so real that it made him slightly nauseous.

Jiang Qian sat on the sofa, his expression calm, but his hand had clenched into a fist, his nails digging deep into his palm.

On the screen, after venting his violence, Jiang Yang grabbed his younger brother by the collar and pinned him against the concrete wall of the storage shed. He warned him, each word deliberate: "If I catch you doing that again, I'll chop off those filthy hands of yours."

Watching his brother grit his teeth, the boy Jiang Qian showed no fear despite his pale face.

"Do you understand? Do you hear me?!" Jiang Yang grabbed his younger brother's collar and shook him.

It was as if he were using his fury to hide his panic.

At last, the boy Jiang Qian's bruised, purplish lips curled into a faint smile.

"What the hell is that look for? I'm beating the crap out of you!" Jiang Yang was so furious that the corners of his eyes twitched. The hand clutching his brother's collar was trembling slightly, too.

"You'd better chop my head off right now, or kill me. Otherwise, don't mess with me."

"What?" Jiang Yang seemed not to understand.

"I said, bro, do you have the guts to chop me up?"

"Damn it, Jiang Qian... what do you mean?! You want us both to go down together?" Jiang Yang became increasingly hysterical. "You think you can do that?"

"You have to sleep sometime, don't you?" the boy Jiang Qian said calmly.

At that, Jiang Yang's expression turned bewildered.

Then uncertain.

Finally, even the hand gripping Jiang Qian's collar began to loosen...

But the next moment, Jiang Yang's hands suddenly tightened, and his pupils narrowed!

"Fuck... Jiang Qian, you really don't want to live, do you?!"

In the next scene, the boy Jiang Qian was shoved to the ground.

Jiang Yang stepped over him and kicked over the "stove" his younger brother had put together, then stamped on it viciously until the fire went out. The crispy-skinned rats were crushed into a pulp, just as expected.

That wasn't all. He also rushed into the storage shed and dug out stacks of small animal specimens... The creatures had been killed but preserved in their original forms. Under Jiang Yang's feet, they were crushed to pieces.

At the sight, the boy Jiang Qian lunged like a bullet, and the brothers started fighting again.

The scene shifted amid escalating violence.

This was the first time the conflict between the Jiang brothers had escalated: they were locked in a battle of wills, one using violence to suppress the other, the other refusing to bend.

Jiang Qian sat on the sofa with his body taut. Only after the violent confrontation on the screen had completely faded out did he slowly unclench his hand, which had gone white from gripping it so tightly.

The sensations from this memory were being fed back into his body as well. The pressure was easy to imagine.

Thankfully, Jiang Yang wasn't very old back then. Otherwise, I'd be in pretty bad shape right now... Jiang Qian thought.

He flexed his hands, stiff and numb from being clenched for so long, while his memories continued to play.

On the screen, Jiang Qian had suddenly grown into a young man.

That day, he returned home, carefully locked the door, and took the items hidden in his backpack out one by one, laying them on the desk:

Sleeping pills, piano wire, gloves, a boning knife, powerful cleaning agent.

Jiang Qian on the sofa grew more focused.

The high-definition memory was being transmitted to his eyes exactly as it had happened.

Jiang Qian watched the screen as he put on gloves and carefully crushed an entire bottle of sleeping pills. An indescribable sense of anxiety slowly erupted in his chest.

Then the lights in the screening room abruptly went out.

The scene on the screen suddenly vanished.

The space before his eyes twisted and folded. When it unfolded again, he had arrived in a solemn courtroom!

The judges, all dressed in black robes and wearing masks, sat high above.

The sofa Jiang Qian had been sitting on had somehow become a metal chair for the accused. Iron rings bound his hands and feet, leaving him unable to break free.

The half-length steel rebar he had brought in earlier had also disappeared...

Just then, a forceful voice pierced the silence and declared from on high:

"Suspect Jiang Qian, you are accused of murdering your older brother, destroying his body, and concealing your crime. The court's investigation has confirmed the facts of the case. Proceedings are now in session."

The voice came from the Chief Judge seated high on the bench. He wore a scarlet Mask, and indignation was restrained in his voice:

"Let the Public Prosecutor present the case!"

At the words, another man in a black robe and gray Mask rose. "Thank you, Chief Judge. I must say, this case has given me a whole new understanding of the evil in human nature."

As the case presentation began, the television on one side of the courtroom resumed showing the interrupted memory, perfectly synchronized with the narration.

"On July 9, 2017, the suspect, Jiang Qian, returned home from school ahead of schedule with the tools he would use to commit the crime. He was only fourteen years old at the time."

The Public Prosecutor paused, then slowly turned his face, hidden behind the gray Mask, toward Jiang Qian.

Though the man wore a Mask and his expression was impossible to see, Jiang Qian could still feel a suffocating pressure.

At the same time, chains scraped overhead.

Jiang Qian instinctively looked up at the sound, only to discover a massive, bloodstained axe suspended high above him!

Its blade gleamed as if ready to sever the head of a sinner at any moment.

At that instant, Jiang Qian felt his usually steady, controlled heart beginning to beat faster in his chest.

"The case unfolded exactly as your own memories show..."

"First, you dissolved sleeping pills in fruit juice and prepared it in the kitchen ahead of time. Then you claimed to be feeling unwell and skipped dinner. That night, everyone else in your family who drank the juice fell asleep early."

"You and Jiang Yang shared a room at the time. Once you confirmed your brother had fallen asleep from the drugs, you used the piano wire you had prepared to strangle him, killing him."

At that point in the gray Mask's account, the massive axe hanging over Jiang Qian dropped sharply. The scrape of the chains was harsh and grating.

It was as if the weapon couldn't wait to punish an evildoer.

"Afterward, you used the boning knife you had prepared to dismember your brother at home, then cleaned up the scene by yourself."

"Your movements were precise and practiced. We believe you had some prior knowledge and experience with dissection. You also cleaned the scene thoroughly enough to leave no obvious traces."

The massive axe descended again!

Its sharp blade was now only three feet above Jiang Qian's head.

"After that, you used your brother's phone to forge a text saying he had left on a trip, then sent it to your close family members to conceal the actual time of the crime."

"You used the time before the police became involved to dispose of the tools and the body in batches at different garbage collection points around Jinping City."

"Unfortunately, this evidence can no longer be recovered..."

This time, the massive axe dropped all the way down, stopping just short of Jiang Qian's neck!

It forced him to bend over the tabletop of the interrogation chair, barely evading the fatal blow...

Seeing this, the gray Mask sighed heavily. "Ah, to commit such a serious crime at such a young age... it's almost unimaginable."

As he spoke as the "Public Prosecutor," the corresponding events from Jiang Qian's memories played on the screen.

The account matched the memories.

They were indeed his memories, though for the moment he couldn't recall exactly when they had happened or what had led up to them.

Pinned against the interrogation chair by the massive axe, Jiang Qian's face paled slightly, and his fingers clenched tight.

The case presentation was over.

The Chief Judge in the scarlet Mask roared from the bench, "Suspect Jiang Qian, do you have anything to say in response to these charges?!"

The shout cracked like thunder, pressing the courtroom's atmosphere to the breaking point.

At the same time, the massive axe suspended above Jiang Qian's head stirred as if it were alive, its blade poised to strike his skull at any moment.

[The moment of judgment has arrived. Make your choice]

[Choose to plead guilty: offer your sinful hands to the Court of Truth]

[Choose to appeal and defend yourself: you have some chance of escaping conviction, but a far greater chance of dying on the spot]

"?"

The instance had given Jiang Qian a prompt that only he could hear.

This clearly didn't follow normal judicial procedure, but the instance world had rules of its own.

The gray Mask stepped forward as well, speaking in a sinister tone. "You deserve to die. But if you admit your crimes and sincerely repent, the Court of Truth guarantees that your sentence will be reduced as appropriate. So I'll ask you one last time: do you plead guilty?"

"I..."

Jiang Qian's chest rose and fell as he sat in the interrogation chair, seemingly under tremendous pressure.

His psychological motive and memories of the case, perfectly consistent in every detail, both pointed to his guilt. It seemed there was no way to defend himself or escape conviction.

He had planned and carried out his brother's murder with his own hands.

His purpose was clear, and his methods were brutal. Once he accepted the judgment, he would have to leave his hands here.

The Chief Judge's stern voice came through the scarlet Mask once more. "Jiang Qian, do you plead guilty?"

A bead of cold sweat slid down Jiang Qian's temple.

"I don't."

He raised his head and stared directly at the Chief Judge's scarlet Mask, his eyes bloodshot. "Jiang Yang's disappearance has nothing to do with me."