What a strange game you are playing.
All of us are dirty. Every single one. And now we must judge each other. Is it not the devil himself who judges other devils?
Look at the reality we have built. The same judge that gives a man a death sentence is the same judge that takes a bribe from another. The country that marches to defend its neighbor has already begun the work of killing. Someone avenges his family and is killed in return — and the one who kills him will be killed one day. A cycle that never ends. No beginning. No end.
There is no good. There is no bad. There is only human nature.
I like this truth. We do not care to know it. We do not care what is real. We can create a religion — false, without foundation — just to satisfy our own hunger for meaning. We can build a country on justice, freedom, brotherhood, and watch it become the cruelest empire history has ever known.
Human beings can never truly know what is good or bad. It is just a feeling. A whisper. A shadow on the wall. If there were no laws, no rules to dictate right from wrong, then the border between them would vanish. Wiped out. Erased.
So how can we decide?
---
Marrying a cousin in the West is a forbidden thing. In the East, it is normal. The shape of love, the shape of family, the shape of friendship — all dictated by culture more than by the heart. And this is what makes human beings such a strange creation.
We claim we are free. We claim we have our own judgment. We claim we are not dictated by others.
But place us in a position where we must choose between loneliness and belonging — and most of us will choose to belong. Even if it means destroying our own freedom. Even if it means crushing the very thing that makes us special. The thing we think makes us different.
We destroy it. Just to belong to something.
---
That, I think, was my crime.
I did not want to belong. I did not want to be part of something. I did not care if I lived alone. I did not care if the whole world became my enemy.
Inside me, I knew who I was. I knew what I wanted. Everything was clear. Nothing could blur my vision. I was completely free.
And people cannot accept that.
---
* * *
Eyes crossed the room. Three watching one.
Pure darkness around them, with a single blade of light falling across Qingren's forehead. He stood calm. No expression on his face. No fear. No hope. Just a stillness that seemed to grow from his bones.
He was beginning to look more and more like Jeffrey. Old in a way that had nothing to do with years. A little wise, yes. But something else too. Something dark inside his heart — a coldness that showed itself in the quiet way he held his body. No fear of death. Complete control of himself.
The three judges watched him. No one spoke. A minute passed. Maybe an hour. Time had lost its meaning in this room.
They could not ask questions. They did not know what to ask. They were stunned — frozen — not knowing how to judge a man whose crime they did not know.
*Is that not what we all do?* Qingren thought. *Judge people without knowing their crimes. Judge someone by his face, his car, his teeth, his job. Hypocrites. All of us.*
---
The smiling man smiled wider than before. Then he began to giggle. Then to laugh. His voice echoed around the room, bouncing off the stone walls, returning to them distorted, like a voice from the bottom of a well.
The old man watched with a smile of his own — but his eyes were pure, piercing, unreadable. The little child still lay against the wall. His face showed neither fear nor courage. Something in between. Something that looked like the quiet after a storm.
Then the child spoke. His voice was small, but it cut through the room like a knife.
"I don't want to know your crime. You are a stranger to me. I have the possibility to let you live — and I don't care about this game. So my judgment is this: go. Why should I kill you?"
The old man did not disagree. He simply closed his mouth and said nothing.
---
Gu took the gun from Qingren's hand. He tapped it gently against Qingren's shoulder — a gesture almost affectionate. His face was satisfied, but there was a sour taste in his smile. As if this ending had not been the one he wanted.
He looked at Qingren and spoke, his voice echoing around the room.
"You are very smart. You solved this so easily. Thank you for not going where I wanted you to go. Next time…" He paused, his smile flickering. "For now, I will let you rest for a while."
He screamed toward the door: *"Bring the food!"*
The four masked figures entered again. They moved in silence, carrying plates — poor, cracked, ancient. The plates were full of food. Something I could not describe. Meat. Rice. Things I had never seen before. They placed the plates before us, then retreated without a word, their faces cold and empty.
Gu gazed at us for a moment — perhaps a minute — then turned his back and walked through the light. The door did not close. It stayed open, a rectangle of brightness in the darkness.
---
Jeffrey spoke first. His voice was soft, almost tender.
"You did well, my son. I am proud of you. This time, you ended it without shedding blood."
The child looked at Qingren with wet eyes.
"Big brother," he whispered. "You were great. I could not have done it. Thank you… for your initiation."
I felt proud. As if I had done something good. Something right.
But deep inside, a cold finger touched my heart. Something was wrong. Something was not right.
Gu had never given his judgment. He had not said clearly whether I would live or die. He had not pronounced the final word. He had simply given us food and left.
*Why?*
Why did he not tell us we had completed the second task? Why did he smile that smile and walk away?
I had the feeling — heavy, certain — that he would come back. And when he did, he would do something even worse than shooting one of us.
But for now, we did not care. We had survived so many things in just a few hours. We needed rest. I needed to rest.
I closed my eyes.
The food grew cold on the plates.
And the light from the open door waited, patient as a predator.
---
Jeffrey set down the piece of bread he had been holding. He had not eaten either. None of us had.
He looked at me across the dim light, his old eyes calm but heavy.
"We are fighting each other," he said quietly. "Even now. Even without weapons. The smiling man does not need to kill us. We will kill ourselves."
I did not answer. I could not.
His words hung in the air, dark and soft, like ashes after a fire. The child Xiwu pulled his knees tighter to his chest. The chains clinked faintly as he shifted.
But I turned away. Not from Jeffrey. From something else. Something inside.
And in the silence that followed, I began to think.
........
Do I even have an enemy?
Is the smiling man my enemy? Are those who compete against me for survival my enemy? Why should I need an enemy at all?
But I do have one. A dark, strong enemy. Someone who always wants to destroy me.
My enemy is my desire.
Every desire. Money. Power. Sex. Anything you could ever crave. These are our chains. The chains that keep us down. They never let us grow. If you crave money, one day that money will be used against you. If you crave a woman, she will use you. Our chains are our desires. Our lusts.
I do not want to be a puppet. A puppet of my own devil. A puppet of my own wanting.
I want to be free of it all. I want the freedom I was born with — and the freedom I will die with. I want to be completely free.
Freedom is my goal. The kind of freedom no man can have unless he sacrifices everything he desires.
A man without desire cannot be controlled. He cannot be bought. He cannot be tempted. He is his own master. Such a man can rule over himself — and over a country, over a family, over anything.
To be free, you only need to accept one thing: one day, you will have to sacrifice. Sacrifice desire. Sacrifice time. Sacrifice anything.
Freedom comes with sacrifices.
A man who never sacrifices is not free. A man who always does what he wants is not free — because inside us, there is not one self. There are countless beings fighting within you, each pulling you toward a different path. The path of freedom. Or the path of hell.
The hell you are living right now. The hell that few have ever escaped. The hell of an animal life.
Strange sentence, isn't it? At first, we had to choose between the life of a cat and the life of a human. But what is the difference between the two if a human chooses his desire as an animal does? If he wants a woman, he takes her. If he wants money, he steals. He follows his desire without thinking, without pausing, without asking why.
No different from an animal.
We are more animal than human. That is simple. Because we have chosen the wrong enemy.
People always want someone to hate — so they do not have to look in the mirror. But the one they hate the most is the one they see every morning. And the one they love the most is the same face.
Loving yourself is good. But too much is poison. Hating yourself is poison. But too little is blindness.
You need to hate and love yourself at the same time.
And that is what Qingren wanted most. To be free. To win against his enemy.
He sat in the dim light, the cold food untouched before him. Jeffrey had closed his eyes, his white beard rising and falling with each slow breath. The child had curled into a small ball, his tears dried on his cheeks. The door remained open — a rectangle of light, waiting.
But Qingren did not look at the door. He looked inward.
At the enemy that had always been there.
And for the first time, he smiled. Not Gu's smile. Not a smile of cruelty or joy. A quiet smile. The smile of a man who has finally named his war.
a war toward Freedom