Murder

  Liu Ziguang had many dreams, dreaming that he had killed someone and was bidding a tearful farewell to his parents on the execution ground. A gunshot rang out and he woke up with a start, finding himself safely lying in bed at home. It was just a dream! He let out a sigh of relief, only to have a blood-stained long knife thrust into his face, holding a head that was blurry with blood and flesh. A menacing voice exploded in his ear, "This is the consequence of trying to escape! Take a good look!"

  Liu Ziguang let out a loud cry, waking up from his recurring nightmare, and suddenly sat up to find himself drenched in sweat. The air was filled with the sound of snores, body odor, foot odor, and fart smell that made one want to vomit. This was a large dormitory, occupying half of the room's space, where hundreds of dirty men were packed tightly together. The door was closed tight, and the high windows had iron bars as thick as thumbs embedded in them. Moonlight shone through the window, casting a mottled shadow on Liu Ziguang's face.

  He pinched his thigh, it hurt, not a dream. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his chest, looked down and saw that the place where he was whipped by the leather belt during the day had an iron mark: a hammer and a pickaxe crossed each other, with a very ancient style, and below were four Arabic numerals 9527.

  This is the logo of Ligu Iron Factory and slave number, 9527 is now Liu Ziguang's name.

  The slaves had no names, only code names. All the contradictions between these code names were solved with fists. The physically weak could only become the objects of the strong preying on the weak, the slaves of slaves.

  When Liu Ziguang first arrived at the slave camp, his Beni Road T-shirt with a bit of color was snatched away by a prisoner of war with the code number 5914 from Qingguo, saying it was soft enough to be used as a sweatband. When Liu Ziguang uttered a word of complaint, he was punched to the ground by the tall and sturdy 5914, and could only watch helplessly as his Hong Kong brand pure cotton T-shirt was triumphantly wrapped around 5914's waist.

  The slave team has several very powerful roles, which can be called the overlord of slaves, abbreviated as slave overlord. Normally, no one dares to bully them, only they bully others, and they are at the top of the food chain in the slave team. A sturdy bullet-like former Mongolian army centurion, a Roman white infantryman from the Western Xia mercenary group, a tall black man from the original Zheng family's Wu Fan guard team, and one is 5914 from Qingguo. Among them, 5914 is the most arrogant and domineering, and everyone has been bullied by him.

  Liu Ziguang, who was 1.76 meters tall, had been tempered for a year and his body gradually became strong. The bronze-colored muscles were covered with scars, which were the result of the guards' whips and the slaves' mutual fighting. He never bullied others, but also did not allow others to bully him. In such an environment, cowardice meant death.

  Workers have three meals a day, a corn pancake in the morning, corn porridge mixed with vegetable leaves at noon, and only a thin corn flour soup that can barely see people's shadows for dinner. On special occasions such as the birthday of the factory owner or during holidays, the cafeteria cooks some pork from sick pigs to improve their lives.

  It was the Dragon Boat Festival, and at noon, Liu Ziguang carefully brought over a serving of millet rice with meat. In the ceramic bowl were two large pieces of pork and some pig skin that hadn't been scraped clean, emitting a long-missed savory aroma that attracted several workers nearby. The first to arrive was 5914, who had already finished the meat in his own bowl and was now drooling at Liu Ziguang's serving.

  5914 directly came over and picked up that bowl of meat and left. Liu Ziguang grabbed 5914's worn-out Qing dynasty uniform and shouted "Bring it back."

  5914 slightly stunned, slowly turned around, with a face full of anger. Raised his hand and slapped him, "You dare to compete with me! If I don't teach you a lesson today, my father is not a man!" The other hand covered the ceramic bowl, Liu Ziguang was still dazed from the slap, and then had a headful of pork and millet rice dumped on him.

  Not yet satisfied, a black tiger pounced and struck again. Liu Ziguang was stunned, his head buzzing, with small stars flashing before his eyes.

  The person in front of him was sometimes 5914, and then the overseer who often whipped himself, and then turned into a knife guest who tied himself up. New and old hatred accumulated together, suddenly bursting out in an instant. A loud roar, Liu Ziguang's heavy fist hit 5914's throat, 5914 ate pain, and even more frantically punched and kicked towards Liu Ziguang. The two of them were entangled like this, after all, 5914's physique was obviously stronger, and soon pressed Liu Ziguang under his body, with one heavy hammer after another pounding on Liu Ziguang's face, beating him bloody.

  At this time, Liu Ziguang was beaten to the point of being unable to fight back. 5914 stopped his fists, stood up, turned around and took two steps, saw the pork scattered on the ground, and another wave of anger surged up, turned around and kicked him again, and walked away with a huff.

  Several dirty black hands reached over, snatched the pork and stuffed it into their mouths. Liu Ziguang looked at 5914's back, his fists clenched with a loud crackling sound, his eyes almost spewing fire.

  It was night, the moon was bright and the stars were sparse. The slaves were forbidden to go out at night and could only look at the full moon of Mid-Autumn through the high iron window bars. Liu Ziguang lay in the straw on his bed, sleeping. Last year's Dragon Boat Festival was still spent with his family, glutinous rice dumplings filled with red dates, mother's delicate small dishes, father's small wine jug, everything was so familiar, yet so far away. Knowing that he was in a different time and space, he had long given up the luxury of returning home. Now it was hard enough just to survive.

  "Dad, Mom, I'm unfilial and can't support you in your old age." Thinking of his parents' aged faces, Liu Ziguang's eyes moistened, and he slowly fell asleep.

  In a daze, Liu Ziguang suddenly felt a sharp pain on his scalp. He opened his eyes to find 5914's massive hand grasping his hair, as big as a palm-leaf fan. With a forceful tug, Liu Ziguang felt like his scalp was going to be torn off, and he was dragged to the ground before he could react. As he tried to pry open 5914's fingers, which were as unyielding as an iron clamp, he was pulled to the empty space in the middle of the house. A flurry of punches and kicks rained down on him until 5914 finally released his grip. From the gap between his waistband and clothes, 5914 produced a sharp blade made from an iron sheet, shaking it menacingly in his hand.

  "You dare to fight with me, you 9527, tender girl! You really have eaten leopard's gall. The more I think about it, the angrier I get. Today, I will definitely make you useless, otherwise, I'll be too ashamed to show my face in the future." As he spoke, he knelt down and pressed Liu Ziguang's chest, his menacing gaze sweeping over the slaves on the bed who had been startled awake.

  There were those slaves who usually followed 5914, now all of them were shouting good, the Mongolian army's hundred-man commander and the two black-and-white war captive slaves, all looked at everything that happened with cold eyes, without any movement.

  5914 was very satisfied with his own majestic performance, looking down at Liu Ziguang who was still struggling, analyzing which part to cut off would be better.

  Liu Ziguang struggled desperately on the ground, watching as the knife approached his face. He was pinned down by his opponent and couldn't move his head no matter how hard he tried. "This is it, I'm done for. If anything happens to my head, I'll be disabled." Enraged, Liu Ziguang cursed loudly: "I'll screw your 5914 mother! I won't let you off easy!"

  He sneered and put the knife away: "You little white face can still scold people, you want to fuck my mother, today I'll fuck you first!" He looked up and scanned several familiar slaves, "This little white face is quite handsome, there are no women here, take him to relieve your fire, you few line up behind me."

  Several guys cheered loudly and jumped off the bed, eager to try. Some impatient ones had already started unbuttoning their pants.

  Liu Ziguang's eyes turned black, these scum, actually using such a trick to torment themselves, treating him as a substitute for their own **release**! The slave teams had not seen even a single woman's hair in years, and their minds had already undergone severe distortion. There was once a thin and slender slave who was forcibly **opened**, and he killed himself in shame and anger. 5914 is also one of the **flower enthusiasts**.

  Whatever it takes, I will not suffer such a great humiliation! The enraged Liu Ziguang felt his breathing accelerating, blood rushing to the top of his head, and his teeth almost biting off. The 5914 who was stripping off his pants with a lewd smile did not notice Liu Ziguang's soaring anger, but only felt that Liu Ziguang had stopped struggling.

  "Little white face, rabbit baby, be good and let me have my way for a bit, feel good, today I'll spare you, won't dig out your eyes." 5914 thought Liu Ziguang had given in.

  A few guys next to him followed with lewd smiles: "And me, and me, let's also do it, we'll give you meat to eat tomorrow, hehe."

  Enraged Liu Ziguang suddenly calmed down, he tried to calm his breathing, pretending to be afraid, and let 5914 do whatever it wanted.

  At 5914, he had already pulled down his pants and stood naked, shamelessly displaying his majestic organ in front of hundreds of people in the slave house. The whole slave house was stirred up, with dirty slaves lying on their mats watching the upcoming live spring palace. A few strong characters were still quietly lying down, as if they hadn't seen everything happening before their eyes.

  Proudly displaying his weapon, he came to strip Liu Ziguang's pants. Liu Ziguang's jeans had long been worn into rags, rotten and crumbling, and were torn apart by 5914's iron hand with just one grab. He posed the naked Liu Ziguang in a posture facing away from him, one hand supporting Liu Ziguang's waist, the other manipulating his weapon.

  A burst of coarse and wild cheers and whistles, Liu Ziguang glanced back with the corner of his eye, taking advantage of 5914's distraction, suddenly lifted his leg and kicked him hard.

  He let out a loud cry and retreated two steps back, the surrounding area was also in an uproar, and some onlookers started cheering for Liu Ziguang.

  Liu Ziguang suddenly turned around and took advantage of 5914's momentary distraction to deliver another vicious kick, this time using all his might. The kick landed squarely on 5914 once again, and everyone in the room seemed to hear the sound of eggs shattering. Instinctively, they all covered their own crotches.

  The pain was almost unbearable, an indescribable agony that spread from my lower abdomen to my entire body. The family heirloom might be ruined this time. "I'm going to kill him!"

  But Liu Ziguang wouldn't give him any chance, he ferociously pounced on him, pinning 5914 to the ground, and thrust his hand towards his eyes. 5914's nerves were numbed by the intense pain, and he couldn't even resist. Before the intense pain had dissipated, another wave of agony hit his eyes.

  Liu Ziguang's anger was still burning, the long-suppressed emotions were finally released at this moment. He hated everyone, hated the iron factory, hated those who had kidnapped him, hated the guards who beat him, and hated 5914 for bullying him. All these hatreds were now vented on 5914.

  Two blood-soaked white balls were dug out by Liu Ziguang, which were the eyeballs of 5914. 5914 let out a miserable cry and kicked at Liu Ziguang, but Liu Ziguang had already entered an even more frenzied state. He discarded the eyeballs, pressed down on 5914's body, and bit towards 5914's throat.

  Fresh blood, pungent fresh blood, filled Liu Ziguang's mouth, he tore and bit 5914's artery, like a lion, the surrounding cries had gradually subsided, only to hear the sound of a fierce beast devouring its prey.

  5914 was dead, his two empty eye sockets staring at the ceiling, **'s body was covered in blood, and Liu Ziguang, also covered in blood, crawled out from under the corpse with a ferocious expression, his pale teeth gleaming in the moonlight, the blood in his mouth adding an inexplicable horror, even these battle-hardened prisoners of war felt a chill run down their spines.

  Liu Ziguang glared with his eyes, fiercely staring at those guys who just wanted to follow 5914 and shouted: "Come on, come and mess with me!"

  Several guys shivered at the same time, turned their heads and ran to the corner to hide. The rest of the people in the house were silent as a crow. Those three powerful slaves also sat up, looking at Liu Ziguang with some curiosity.

  Liu Ziguang stood for a while, picked up his clothes from the ground and put them on, then picked up the small knife 5914 and the bandana made from the Beni Road T-shirt he had snatched that year, and went back to his bed to sleep.

  He didn't notice that the prisoner of war who was originally sleeping next to him had already made more space for him.