early morning.
The central square, the heart of the entire shelter, was now filled with a lively and cheerful atmosphere.
Thousands of residents, their faces beaming with satisfaction and anticipation, were queuing in an orderly fashion.
Today is the shelter's monthly payday, where they will receive gold coins—currency personally designed and minted by their leader, Lin Feng.
"Haha, Li family woman, look at that grin on your face, you must have received quite a bit of gold this month, right?"
A burly man who worked at the Ministry of Construction joked with a familiar woman in front of him while waiting in line.
The woman, referred to as "Li's wife," turned around, her face beaming with joy.
She weighed the heavy purse she had just received in her hand; the crisp metallic clinking sound was so pleasant.
"That's right! Brother Wang, my husband exceeded his quota at the mine last month, and the leader personally approved a bonus! Now that's great, I was just thinking of going to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy some new cloth to make a new outfit for the kid, and also to get some meat for him to enjoy!"
"Our leader is the best!" In the group, an elderly man with gray hair, his wrinkled face full of emotion, said, "Back then in the wilderness, it was extremely painful, with nothing to eat or drink."
The old man's words immediately drew a chorus of agreement from those around him.
"Who can argue with that! Before, we lived for the boss; now we live for ourselves and for the leader! How can our work ethic be the same?"
"Look at this gold coin, how beautiful it is!" A young man spread out his palm, and a golden coin was shimmering with a captivating luster in the morning light.
"This feels so heavy in my hands. This isn't just money! It's the hope our leader has given us, it's our dignity!"
Hope and dignity.
These two words made everyone who heard them instinctively straighten their chests.
Looking at the increasingly prosperous city, at the cranes swinging and skyscrapers rising from the ground on the construction site in the distance, and at the smiles on everyone's faces around them, their hearts were filled with boundless hope for the future.
However, amidst this peaceful and joyful atmosphere, a chilling aura, like an invisible cold current, instantly swept across the entire square.
The once noisy crowd fell silent instantly, as if an invisible hand had gripped their throats.
The smiles on people's faces froze, and their eyes revealed instinctive awe and fear. They all stepped aside to make way for a wide passage.
A large group of law enforcement officers walked over.
In the center of this group of law enforcement officers, a man was being escorted away with his arms roughly twisted behind his back by two officers, staggering along.
He was like a dried-out human-shaped piece of firewood, tall but emaciated, with only an empty skeleton struggling to support him.
He was wearing a tattered blue and white striped shirt whose original color was no longer discernible.
Those were the prisoners' uniforms. In this thriving, orderly new world, those clothes stood out so starkly.
His wrists and ankles were clad in heavy, gleaming metal shackles.
The man's hair, like a clump of withered weeds, was long, messy, and greasy, almost completely obscuring his face.
He kept his head bowed deeply, unresponsive to everything around him, like a soulless walking corpse, numbly walking towards the center of the square as the law enforcement officers pushed and shoved him.
"Oh my god... what's going on?"
"What's the purpose of this large-scale enforcement operation? Who is this person?"
"Judging from his clothes... is he a prisoner from Earth? How could there be someone like that in our shelter?"
Amidst the deathly silence of the crowd, suppressed whispers began to rise.
Curiosity arose in everyone's hearts, and they craned their necks, trying to see the mysterious prisoner's face.
The law enforcement team escorted the man directly to the high platform in the center of the square.
This is the place where Lin Feng delivered his speech and received the worship of the people last night, but now it is shrouded in a cold atmosphere.
The enforcement captain raised his foot expressionlessly and kicked the man hard in the back of the knee.
Kneel down!
The man's knees slammed heavily onto the cold stone slab with a "thud".
At that very moment, a woman who was queuing to receive gold coins suddenly let out a piercing scream, as if she had been stung by a snake or scorpion.
Her body trembled violently, her face turning deathly pale in an instant. She extended a finger, bent with terror, pointing it intently at the man on the platform, her voice shrill and distorted with extreme fear and rage:
"It's...it's him! It's him! I'd recognize him even if he were ashes! He's Chen Mo!"
All eyes, like searchlights, instantly focused on the woman.
She was a woman in her thirties. She was so excited that she almost collapsed to the ground, but her husband caught her.
Her eyes widened, bloodshot, and she shouted hoarsely at everyone around her who were casting questioning glances at her, "Don't you all remember? Three years ago, in Hong Kong! That shocking family annihilation case that gripped the nation! He did it!"
"His name is Chen Mo! He killed his wife's entire family! Seven people in total! He didn't even spare a five-year-old child! He's not human! He's a complete and utter murderer who crawled out of hell!"
"Chen Mo?"
"The Qinggang City family annihilation case?"
These two words, like a black thunderclap, exploded loudly in the crowd.
For many middle-aged people who came from Earth, the floodgates of memory were instantly opened.
Their faces first showed a look of sudden realization, but this expression was quickly replaced by fear, disgust, and uncontrollable anger.
"I remember now! I remember now! Back then, the newspapers and the internet were full of news about him! They said he was a psychopathic killer!" a middle-aged intellectual wearing glasses exclaimed.
“That’s right! It’s him! I’ve seen his wanted poster! Although he’s become incredibly thin now, his eyebrows and features are still unmistakable!” another man chimed in loudly.
"My God! How could such scum, such a demon, be here? How did he survive the apocalypse? He doesn't deserve it! He doesn't deserve to live in the pure land created by our leader!"
"Murderer! Get out!"
"Demon! Hang him!"
The crowd's emotions were like a powder keg thrown into a spark, instantly ignited.
Especially the women who were already mothers, looking at the silent, kneeling prisoner on the platform, their eyes were filled with the most primal hatred and the deepest fear.
In their view, a person who can commit such a heinous act against his wife, family, and even an innocent child is the most vicious stain on the word "sanctuary."
"Kill him! Kill him!" The woman who recognized Chen Mo first used all her strength to let out a blood-curdling scream.
Her shouts, like sparks that start a prairie fire, immediately garnered a response from countless people.
"Yes! Kill him! Our shelter won't tolerate scum like him!"
"Stone him to death! Hang him on the city wall to dry in the wind!"
"We cannot let his blood stain our land! Burn him!"
The waves of anger rose higher and higher, converging into a torrent powerful enough to destroy everything.
Some people who had completely lost control of their emotions began picking up stones and fruit peels from the ground, and even taking out the heavy gold coins they had just received from their pockets and hurling them hard at the high platform.
"Clang! Clang!"
Several gold coins struck the officer's breastplate with a crisp sound.
The law enforcement team reacted immediately, raising their stun batons to form an impenetrable human wall. Blue arcs of electricity crisscrossed the baton tips, creating a terrifying electric grid that firmly kept the angry crowd below the stage.
However, amidst this almost one-sided chorus of shouts of justice and moral fervor, some faint but stubborn and distinct voices began to quietly emerge from the other side of the crowd.
"Sigh, this matter... caused such a big fuss back then, there's actually more to it than meets the eye."
An old worker, speaking in a low voice to his colleagues who also came from humble backgrounds, sighed.
"Old Liu, what are you saying? At a time like this, you're still speaking up for this murderer?" A younger worker next to him frowned in confusion.
"You don't know anything." Old Liu glared at him irritably, exhaled a puff of smoky smoke, and looked at the statue-like man on the platform with a complicated expression: "All you guys know is what the newspapers say, that he killed someone. But does any of you know why he killed someone?"
He lowered his voice even further, as if telling a long-buried secret, slowly revealing another version of that bloody tragedy, unknown to most people, filled with blood and tears.
“My hometown is Qinggang City, and we live in the same district as them. I know this very well.”
"This Chen Mo wasn't some kind of devil back then. He was an honest, hardworking, even somewhat cowardly, technician. He worked tirelessly in the shipyard, saving every penny, and painstakingly saved up 200,000 yuan. That was half a lifetime's worth of hard-earned money! All he wanted was to get married and live a peaceful life, that was all he wanted."
"But things didn't go as planned. Through an introduction, I met that woman."
Old Liu's face showed a hint of disdain. "That woman and her family are notorious scoundrels in our area. None of them work honestly; they make a living by cheating and swindling. They saw that Chen Mo was honest and easy to bully, so they set up a trap for him."
"The bride price was 200,000 yuan right off the bat, not a penny less. Chen Mo was blinded by love at the time, thinking that this was a once-in-a-lifetime event for him to get married, so he gritted his teeth and gave her all his savings. But as soon as he got the money and was preparing for the wedding, the woman suddenly turned on him! She insisted that Chen Mo had raped her! Not only did she refuse to return the 200,000 yuan bride price, but she also colluded with her family to send Chen Mo to the police station!"
"Two hundred thousand! Just think about it! An honest man's life savings! Just like that, he was swindled out of it all, and then he was falsely accused of raping and sentenced to three years in prison!"
"And that's not all. While he was in jail, his only relative, his mother, died of anger! Tell me, if you were in his shoes, could you have tolerated that?"
Old Liu's voice was filled with indignation: "When he got out of the police station three years later, his family was ruined and he had nothing left. He went to argue with that family not for anything else, but to get the 200,000 yuan back so he could give his mother a decent funeral."
"As a result, that family not only refused to give him a single penny, but also called a bunch of thugs who beat him to a pulp! They pointed their fingers at him and called him a rapist, and said his whole family deserved to die!"
"That beating completely broke him and drove him insane. That night, he somehow got hold of a boning knife and sneaked into the woman's house all by himself... Sigh, you all know what happened next."
This version of the "truth" was like a boulder thrown into a lake, plunging many men from similar humble backgrounds into a long silence.
The look in their eyes as they gazed at the prisoner on the platform gradually changed from initial disdain and disgust to a more complex expression, tinged with sympathy, a sigh, and even a hint of secret understanding.
"So... he was also a pitiful person who was driven to a dead end."
"Yeah, that family is awful! They're driving people to their deaths! Anyone would go crazy in that situation!"
"The fact that someone was killed is undeniable. But the cause... well, it's a damn complicated story."
"But he killed seven people, including children... Isn't that a bit too cruel?"
"Cruel? Wasn't it cruel when his family drove him to the brink of destruction? At that time, Chen Mo was probably blinded by rage and couldn't see anything else."
Two diametrically opposed viewpoints, like two invisible torrents, collided fiercely in the square.
On one side is the "severe punishment faction," mainly composed of women, along with some intellectuals deeply influenced by the "rule of law" ideology of Earth.
They firmly believe that, regardless of the reason, murder is an unforgivable and top-level crime. Especially those cold-blooded killers who prey on family members and children are utterly unforgivable.
They must be executed with the harshest punishment as a warning to others in order to maintain the purity and tranquility of the shelter and to ensure the safety of the women and their children.
On the other side is the "sympathy faction," which consists mainly of men from lower social classes.
They believed that although Chen Mo was guilty, his crime did not warrant the death penalty.
Arguments, debates, and curses rose and fell. The atmosphere in the square became more tense and confrontational than ever before.
People spontaneously split into two distinct camps, glaring at each other, their words growing increasingly hostile, as if the verbal dispute could escalate into a large-scale physical conflict involving thousands of people at any moment.
This is the first time since the shelter was established that such a large-scale social crisis has arisen, stemming from intense internal ideological conflicts.
It is no longer a simple survival issue such as food distribution and housing arrangements, but touches on a deeper, fundamental issue concerning law, morality, humanity, and justice.
The final decision on this matter rests in the hands of the one and only God, who dwells high above the clouds, and everyone in the square, regardless of their opinion.
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