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墨書 Inktalez
As I witnessed the young boy about to fall victim to a brutal attack, I could no longer afford to be concerned about the terrifying scene before me. I drew my sword, ready to rush in and save him. However, before I could make a move, I saw a flash before my eyes and heard a muffled sound escaping someone's throat.
When I focused again, the Brute in Black dropped his Steel Blade with a clatter onto the ground. His eyes widened in shock, and he made a choking sound as a distinct red mark appeared on his neck. Suddenly, blood gushed forth from the wound.
Before him stood Ren Pingsheng, gripping a curved dagger, his aura as cold as ice.
The brute's body slumped down, his legs twitching slightly before going still. Blood continued to pour from his neck, pooling beneath him into a growing puddle.
Ren Pingsheng's icy gaze shifted to the boy.
I had no idea what he intended to do, so I tightened my grip on my short sword and stepped forward, closing the distance between us. My thoughts raced; if Ren Pingsheng planned to harm this child as well, I would do everything in my power to stop him.
But Ren Pingsheng sheathed his dagger with a speed I could barely comprehend. He approached the boy and crouched down in front of him, meeting the child's terrified gaze.
Ren Pingsheng glanced at the boy's blood-soaked pant leg and then reached out to tear it open. His movements were swift and decisive, showing no regard for whether the boy would feel pain. With a sharp ripping sound, the boy let out a muffled groan but did not scream.
"How old are you?"
To my surprise, Ren Pingsheng chose this moment to engage in casual conversation with the child.
The boy gritted his teeth and replied, "Thirteen."
"When did you come here?"
"Eleven."
"Where are your family?"
The boy fell silent for a moment before replying, "They all died here..."
Before the boy could finish, Ren Pingsheng's fingers pinched the area around his shin bone twice. The boy let out a muffled groan, drenched in sweat, clearly in excruciating pain.
Ren Pingsheng swiftly sprinkled some medicinal powder on the wound on his leg and began searching around. He found a suitably sized stick and tore off a piece of clothing from the recently killed man, using it to bind and stabilize the boy's leg. Judging by Ren Pingsheng's technique, the boy's leg was likely broken.
I watched in confusion. If I wasn't mistaken, it seemed that Ren Pingsheng was actually saving someone!
Having known Ren Pingsheng for several years, I had only ever seen him kill and harm others; I had never witnessed him save anyone. What had gotten into him today?
"You at your age have managed to survive for two years; that's not easy. Keep living; being alive is ultimately a good thing."
Ren Pingsheng's words caught me off guard, seeming entirely out of character.
The boy struggled as if he wanted to bow down, saying, "I thank you for saving my life. Please have mercy and take me out of here. I will serve you like an ox or horse for the rest of my life to repay your great kindness!"
Suddenly, Ren Pingsheng appeared a bit angry.
"Get out on your own! Once you're outside, don't rely on anyone, and don't believe that anyone will treat you well for no reason! I don't want your gratitude; go and live freely."
With that, Ren Pingsheng ignored him and turned to look at me.
"Ah Ying, you can stay here or go outside; just don't venture further in. With your skills, this place poses no threat to you. You won't be afraid of what's on the ground, right?"
"What are you going to do?" I asked him.
A faint smile appeared on Ren Pingsheng's face.
"It's something Ah Ying doesn't like, so don't watch, don't know, just wait for me."
"I'm not waiting! You're going in alone, and you're not keeping an eye on me? Then I'm leaving!"
"Well, Ah Ying, you can go," Ren Pingsheng said lightly, raising the corner of his lips. "If you leave, I'll go slaughter a village. Let's start with the one where we found the bodies yesterday. If I can't find you, I'll just keep slaughtering village after village. If that's the case, I won't believe you won't come back to find me."
"Ren Pingsheng, you!"
He looked at me with a smile.
"Ren Pingsheng, if you do something so wicked, the Mirror Gate will find you soon!"
"Anyway, Ah Ying has also gone missing, so it doesn't matter."
"You, you, you!" Was this really a time for jokes? For the first time, I felt a sense of helplessness. What was I doing? Trying to stop him from going deeper into the mine and committing more atrocities?
"Well then, Ah Ying, see you later."
With that, Ren Pingsheng decisively turned around and vanished in an instant.
I hesitated for a moment, then gritted my teeth and turned to the boy behind me. "Come on, I'll carry you. I'll take you out."
I carried the boy on my back, retracing the path we had taken. To my surprise, he was incredibly light, almost as if he were made of feathers, revealing just how malnourished he truly was.
"What is your name? Where are you from?"
The boy spoke succinctly and with clarity. Despite having just faced a life-threatening situation, he quickly regained his composure, demonstrating an extraordinary level of intelligence and calmness for someone so young. Yet, being a child, the joy emanating from him grew stronger, enveloping me.
"My name is San. I can't remember where I used to live. Two years ago, all the people in our village were captured and brought here. Now, more than half of them are dead."
"What did they bring you here for?"
"To mine stones and make weapons."
"Who are they?"
"I don't know. They just make us mine day and night underground. Those who get injured are killed, those who fall ill are killed, and those who can't endure it are also killed. If we work too slowly, we get whipped. The wounds hurt, but we can't scream or cry out; we have to hide them. If they think our injuries will affect our work, they will kill us outright. People down there die quickly; in less than a year, half of our village had perished, including my grandfather and father..."
"What about your mother?"
"When they captured the men from our village, all the women in Village were killed... In fact, most children my age have been killed as well. I wasn't killed but was captured instead; I don't know if that's fortunate or unfortunate..."
I fell silent for a moment. Before I had picked him up, I had seen something in his eyes—an expression far too complex for someone his age. In those eyes lay tenacity and endurance, the courage to overcome everything, shrewdness to avoid risks, hatred for the world, confusion about the future, and a deep-seated bewilderment about why people exist at all. The moment I lifted him onto my back, I felt a sense of fate; his life seemed to lack any certain direction or certainty about where he would go in the future.
"Why do they kill the injured and then dismember them like that?" I wondered if such a question could elicit an answer from a child.
To my surprise, the boy seemed to know everything.
He said coldly, "Because there is a legend underground. In ancient times, Gan Jiang and Mo Ye jumped into the sword-making furnace to forge an unparalleled sword, for it was infused with human blood and flesh. Thus, they filled the furnace with the bodies of those they killed to create weapons. Weapons forged in this manner are said to be aided by ghostly soldiers; whoever possesses them can achieve greatness. However, the furnaces here come in various forms, some so intricate that corpses cannot fit inside. Therefore, they specifically set up a place to dismember our bodies, which is what your sister saw earlier. I accidentally broke my leg when a rock fell on me while working. If you had arrived even a moment later, I would have likely been forged into a weapon myself."
The more I listened, the angrier I became. These were truly a group of heartless maniacs, and I felt an impulse to rush back and wipe them out.
At that moment, I carried the boy up the shaft and reached the surface. The warm sunlight of early summer lazily poured its rays over us.
The boy let out a soft "ah."
I set him down and helped him sit on a nearby rock, only to find him squinting his eyes, tears streaming down his face for some unknown reason.
"What’s wrong?" I asked in surprise.
This boy was resilient and stubborn; just moments ago, facing death, he hadn’t shed a single tear. Even when Ren Pingsheng reset his broken bones, he remained dry-eyed. Yet at this moment, his tears flowed freely like a flood released from a dam.
"I haven’t seen the sun for two years. I’ve never felt the sun to be this good..."
Just those words brought him back to his own age, making my heart ache. I opened my arms to him; after hesitating for a moment, he suddenly lunged into my embrace and cried out loud.
Tears fell from my eyes unbidden, landing in his messy hair.
Because at that moment, as he sobbed about never feeling the sun this good before, a shadow suddenly appeared before me. That shadow stretched its arms toward the sun as if trying to grasp the elusive warmth and freedom between earth and sky.
"It must have been tough... these years..."
I was asking the boy in my arms but was unsure who I truly wanted to inquire about. In that instant, I felt as though I understood many things—things that needed no words to explain: his pain, his confusion, his indifference and hatred, his ruthlessness and brutality—so many aspects of him.
"Ugh, I'm so sad! Really, so sad... I don't know if there will be an end to this, but I can't bear the thought of dying. I keep thinking, if I just endure a little longer, maybe I'll see the day of freedom. Sometimes I feel like maybe the Lord will show his spirit, and other times I think, perhaps the Lord doesn't even exist..."
I embraced him, gently comforting him, but in my heart, I recalled the case of a young man who had committed murder while being interrogated by the police.
That boy was still a minor, yet he already had a long list of offenses. From a very young age, he started smoking, drinking, making bad friends, stealing, lying, and eventually resorted to robbery and murder.
From these actions alone, it would be easy to judge him as a weed that everyone despises and wishes to uproot. However, he was a minor; during the investigation process for minors, it was necessary to look into their upbringing and social environment to protect them properly. During the social investigation, I was surprised to discover some different aspects.
His parents divorced when he was young, both considering him a burden. He was placed under his mother's care, but she abandoned him. No relatives were willing to take him in; he grew up eating from various households. He was bullied, deceived, insulted—yearning for power and the ability to trample others beneath his feet. He craved the gaze of others looking up at him, filled with hatred and indifference towards life, unable to feel its beauty.
With so many negative experiences piled upon a single youth, could it all be his fault? Even though he had become a murderer now.
While I was listening in on the interrogation, I eventually saw him cry. He uttered one sentence that I have never forgotten.
"If you had seen the old me, maybe you could forgive the current me. But the current me truly does not deserve forgiveness..."
In that moment, I suddenly wished I could pay any price to bring back that filled-with-hatred person who had been deprived of freedom by crime during those dark years.
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