The director was silent. She turned the card over in her hand and let out a long breath.
"I originally planned to wait until the interview is over before talking to you alone about this."
She looked at Jiang Xun and considered her words. The wall clock in the living room clicked for several seconds.
"Are you sure you want to know now?"
Jiang Xun was sitting on the sofa, with his back straight and no expression on his face, and his fingers dug deeper into his palms.
He had been waiting for this answer for a long time.
From the day Shen Wangjing disappeared, he thought about that envelope every sleepless night.
Thinking of Shen Wangjing, after reading what was inside, he pinched out four crescent-shaped blood marks on his palm on the escort bed, curled up sideways by the bed, and stretched his back to the limit.
"Say." Jiang Xun said.
The director signaled Old Zhao to turn off the camera, took out a file bag from the bottom of the equipment box, and placed it on the coffee table.
Not in a hurry to open it, she first glanced at Jiang Xun, then at Duan Qizhao, and sighed deeply.
"Do you know what Shiban Village was like twenty years ago?"
"A dirt road leads to the entrance of the village, and even donkeys can't get in on rainy days. There are no telephones or health clinics in the village. Anyone who loses a chicken can be scolded for three days, and if someone has an outsider, the whole village knows about it."
The director paused, "Shen Wangjing His mother is the extra outsider."
"When the program team was doing background work, they looked through the old files of the town police station. There was no record of Shen Wangjing's mother's name, only an altered number. She was probably in her early twenties when she first arrived at Shiban Village. Her throat was mutilated by human traffickers and sold to Shen Dayong."
Duan Qizhao suddenly jumped up from the carpet, his back hit the edge of the coffee table, and the bag of potato chips fell with a crash on the floor. His mouth was open, his eyes were wide, and the usual laughter on his face was completely shattered.
Jiang Xun was sitting on the sofa, motionless.
He remembered what Shen Wangjing said in the hospital - my mother passed away very early. She was a mute girl and could not speak.
She has beautiful eyes and looks good when she smiles, but she always looks a little melancholy. She always sits under the jujube tree at the entrance of the courtyard and looks towards the end of the village road.
What is she looking at?
A woman whose voice had been muted by poison sat in a ravine surrounded by mountains, looking at the end of the dirt road at the entrance of the village every day.
That road leads to the town, the town leads to the county town, the county town leads to the provincial capital, and the provincial capital leads to the home she can never return to.
"You should know who Shen Dayong is after staying in the village for a month." The director's voice was very low.
"He is a pure scumbag, addicted to alcohol and domestic violence. Shen Wangjing's mother cannot speak and cannot scream even after being beaten. People in the village think she is unlucky and her man thinks she is mute. Only Shen Wangjing will protect her."
"Shen Wangjing was about four or five years old at that time. He held a broom in front of his mother and was slapped by Shen Dayong. He got up and tried to block her again. His body was always bruised."
Jiang Xun's lips moved but he made no sound. His fingers dug into the edge of the clothes, and he had already formed fine folds in the fabric.
"What happened next?" he asked hoarsely.
"Later she gave birth to another child, Shen Yuxing. She suffered massive postpartum bleeding and there was no doctor in the village. By the time she was sent to the county hospital, there was no one left."
The director turned over the file bag and pulled out a few yellowed pieces of paper.
"This is the call record from the town police station at that time. When Shen Wangjing was five years old, a man went to the town police station to report a crime, saying that his father beat his mother. But the police at the time visited the village, and everyone said that Shen Dayong was an honest person. This child lied, and no one was willing to tell the truth for his mother."
The column where the reporter signed the crime was crookedly written with three words - Shen Wangjing.
The strokes are jerky, as if they were drawn stroke by stroke.
Jiang Xun stared at those three words.
He has known Shen Wangjing for so long, and he has never heard a single complaint from this person.
Chopping firewood, farming, paying off debts, taking care of my grandfather, and sending my younger brother to school, I carried on without saying a word for more than ten years.
He thought it was because his bones were hard, but now he realized that it was because he had stood in the mud for too long. If he didn't have hard bones, he wouldn't be able to survive.
This man's bones were made of iron, his heart was also made of iron, but his iron heart was also made of flesh. When he was five years old, he walked more than ten miles of mountain road alone to the police station to seek justice for his mother. The whole village lied on his father's behalf, but no one believed him.
Since then, he has never said the word "pain" to anyone.
"In the envelope you gave him," Jiang Xun raised his head, his voice tight, "That's all."
"More than that." The director poured out all the remaining items in the file bag, including several copies with yellowed pages and the official seal of the Provincial Public Security Department on the header.
"Back then, the human trafficking gang traveled across three provinces and committed more than 20 crimes. Later, a few were arrested, but the first criminal and core members escaped, and the case was not completed. When the only main criminal who was arrested mentioned the list of victims, he mentioned a woman who was sold to Shiban Village. Her age and physical characteristics matched."
"But this line could not be traced."
The director pulled out the bottom copy and pushed it in front of Jiang Xun.
It was a notice of withdrawal of the case, with an official seal on the signature, and a line of handwritten instructions next to it. The handwriting was sloppy but heavy--the evidence was insufficient and the case would not be filed.
"Someone suppressed this matter from above. As for who it was, there is no record in the file. The police officers who handled the case were transferred or retired. It is impossible to find out."
"Until her death, Shen Wangjing's mother was only an altered number in official records. No one knew her name, where she came from, or where her home was."
Jiang Xun dug his fingertips into the palm of his hand, and suddenly realized Shen Wangjing's name - Wangjing.
Wangjing.
Shiban Village In that place where people are so poor that they can barely afford to wear pants, and the villagers are named either rich or safe, who would name their child Wangjing?
Could it be that Shen Wangjing's mother is also from Capital City?
Her throat was muted by the poison, and she wrote all the unspeakable words into her son's name.
Wangjing, Wangjing--she looks in the direction of Capital City every day. She will never be able to get out of that mountain in her life. She engraved her hope in her son's name and asked him to look for her.
Jiang Xun's eyes were burning hot.
Why didn't Shen Wangjing tell him?
Even if the truth is like this, they can investigate it together.
Go find the records of that human trafficking gang, go find the truth that was suppressed, go find his mother's family, go find anything that can make her leave traces in this world.
He is willing to accompany him anywhere.
But Shen Wangjing left him behind.
After reading the truth in the envelope, I watched the stars with him on the night of his eighteenth birthday, and then walked away alone while he was sleeping without even leaving a word.
Why?
Is there any hidden secret? Is there anything else he doesn't know?