PFC Chapter 1031 I'll Do Anything
Chapter 1031 I'll Do Anything
Li Shouren slowly raised his head, his empty gaze sweeping blankly over the survivors kneeling on the ground, trembling, their heads bowed low.
His gaze moved very slowly, as if he was trying to make out something, or perhaps it was just moving unconsciously.
Finally, his gaze stopped.
The focus was on a middle-aged man who was huddled at the front of the crowd, his head almost buried in his crotch, his whole body trembling like a leaf. He was none other than Manager Wang, who had been arrogant and domineering just yesterday!
He didn't die! He encouraged others to run away, while he himself hid in the crowd! How cunning!
At this moment, Steward Wang had lost all of his former prestige.
His face was ashen, covered in cold sweat and snot, and his eyes were filled with undisguised fear and pleading.
He clearly felt Li Shouren's cold gaze, and suddenly raised his head, staring intently at Li Shouren with eyes filled with despair and pleading. His lips trembled violently, as if he wanted to beg for mercy, but he was too terrified to make any sound and could only futilely kowtow.
Li Shouren stared at him for a full five seconds, his face expressionless, showing neither the satisfaction of revenge nor the slightest pity, only a stagnant numbness and emptiness.
It was as if he were looking not at a living person, but at an insignificant object.
Then, under the watchful eyes of all the survivors and Japanese soldiers, Li Shouren slowly raised his right hand, which was covered in frostbite and mud.
He extended a withered, blood-stained index finger.
Without any hesitation, he pointed to Steward Wang, who was trembling and whose eyes were filled with despair.
There was not a single word of accusation, not a single angry roar, only this simple, silent, yet incredibly weighty gesture.
But this action had already sealed Steward Wang's fate.
Inoue Kamsuke's lips curled into a cold, satisfied smile, and he let out a sneer.
A wave of his hand.
The ruthless military police rushed forward and roughly dragged Manager Wang, who was screaming like a pig being slaughtered, out of the crowd!
Like dragging a dead dog, he was mercilessly pulled away from the scene, leaving only a long trail of struggle and Manager Wang's receding figure.
Desperate wails echoed in the cold wind.
A "trial" and "cleansing" of the "mob," unilaterally led by the occupiers, was declared complete with absolute force and ruthlessness on this ruin soaked in blood and tears.
Li Shouren silently withdrew the finger that seemed to have exhausted all its strength, lowered his head again, and returned to his previous zombie-like state.
He participated in the identification, but his heart remained calm and undisturbed, without even a ripple of emotion.
The shackles of morality, the bonds of emotion, and the last glimmer of humanity seem to have all been completely broken, extinguished, and reduced to dust under the crushing weight of this cruel reality.
For the survivors stranded in that hellish ruin for the next two days, time seemed to freeze in endless fear and suffocating oppression.
Although the main force of the military police withdrew, a small number of soldiers, but enough to form an absolute deterrent, were left behind. They patrolled the ruins like ghosts, ostensibly to "maintain order" and "conduct in-depth investigations."
They took over the warehouses in the refugee camp and were responsible for distributing food daily, if it could even be called food.
Usually, it's just a small bowl of thin porridge, so clear you can almost count the grains of rice, or a few hard, musty-smelling coarse grain cakes, barely enough to keep you alive and prevent you from starving to death immediately.
At the same time, the military police forced everyone to work, otherwise they would not even get the food that kept them alive.
The flames of hunger burned slowly and steadily in everyone's stomachs, consuming their already meager physical strength and willpower.
Those who were previously unwilling to be supervised and forced to work by the Japanese, after yesterday's events and the fear of starvation, all chose to bow their heads and submit.
The next morning, before dawn, leaden-gray clouds hung low, and a cold wind howled.
Something incredibly shocking happened, something that could freeze everyone to the bone.
In the heart of the refugee camp, on a relatively empty open space that might have been a small market square, a flagpole was erected. At the top of that towering flagpole, which the refugees had expected to be adorned with the glaring Japanese flag, a chilling sight appeared.
A person was hanging upside down from the top of a bare flagpole, his ankles tightly bound with rough hemp rope!
It was none other than Steward Wang, who yesterday was so arrogant and domineering, but now he was treated like livestock to be slaughtered!
The cold morning wind howled past, and his bloated body, clad only in thin, filthy underwear, swayed slowly like a lifeless rag bag or a pendulum, several meters above the ground.
His thick cotton-padded coat and trousers had long been stripped off, leaving him completely exposed to the sub-zero cold.
In just one night, his exposed skin turned a dark, almost blackish-purple color due to severe frostbite and blood backflow.
His face was covered with snot and tears mixed with dirt, which had now frozen into streaks of white ice, covering most of his distorted face.
His gray hair was covered with frost.
The most chilling and spine-chilling thing is... he's still alive.
"Ugh... Ah... Heh... Heh... Spare... Spare my life... Sir... Please... I'll do anything... Save... Save me..."
A faint, intermittent sound, as if it might be cut off at any moment, like the wails and pleas of ghosts from the depths of hell, drifted down from the top of the flagpole, yet was incredibly clear, penetrating the ears of everyone forced to work early in the morning or awakened in fear.
The voice was extremely hoarse, filled with indescribable physical pain and mental despair.
In the quietest moment before dawn, this inhuman scream traveled exceptionally far, echoing repeatedly above the deathly silent ruins, tormenting everyone's nerves.
Every Chinese civilian driven by Japanese soldiers with rifle butts and whips to clear the ruins or move corpses early in the morning, and every Japanese soldier on routine patrol passing by, could clearly hear this chilling wail.
This is a meticulously designed method of execution.
The purpose is self-evident: to make an example of someone!
Use the most direct, terrifying, and impactful visual and auditory stimuli to warn all survivors.
Any disobedience, any thought of resistance, will bring torment worse than death!