98 Father

 

What did the young man feel at that moment? He felt like even the world around him was brighter. Lin Dafa’s cleaver stopped on the young man’s neck but didn’t push further. Lin Dafa even pulled back the cleaver and nodded satisfactorily. “Looks like you did remember it after all. It’s because of you that her whole life is ruined. But I’m a man of my words. Since you did solve my question, then I won’t kill you.” Then Lin Dafa squatted down and yanked down the young man’s pants. The rich second-generation screamed. “Stop that, you’re sounding like a girl.” Then Lin Dafa continued to remove the young man’s underwear.

The young man’s eyes widened as he looked at Lin Dafa who knelt between his crotch. Instantly the light snuffed out again. Blood was still trickling down from his neck wound, but he had given up. He was numb. He was rethinking his life. Perhaps on the day he decided to take revenge on the world, he should have known one day the society would take revenge on him.

“Eh! Stop closing your legs like that!” Lin Dafa pried the young man’s thighs open. “Make this easy on yourself. You should be thankful that I’m not killing you.” There was a cold and then a hot sensation. When the young man lowered his head, there was nothing there anymore. He didn’t feel pain, or perhaps it was already over his pain threshold. His face was bleeding, his neck was bleeding and now his crotch was bleeding. “When I was young, I helped neuter our home’s livestock. Even my father praised me for my handiwork, saying that I’m a born swordsman.” Then Lin Dafa replaced the bloody cleaver into the pocket and left the scene.

Seeing Lin Dafa walk away, the young man perhaps was thinking, ‘I should have bitten him when I had the chance.’ He still wanted to live even though he no longer had his offending weapon. The young man struggled until his phone fell to the ground. He tipped himself over and used his teeth to call 911. In the process of waiting, he died, enveloped by despair. He had lost too much blood. In the last few minutes, no one knew what was on the rich second-generation mind. In the reflection of the blood, did he see the girls whose lives he had ruined, the baby born under the bridge and died, the women who were charred in the flames or the young lady who jumped from the building? Or his own despair? The blood dripped slowly, tik tok, tik tok. Those were the wails of the women whose souls he had crushed.

We had no idea whether Lin Dafa meant to leave the rich second-generation to die in his own blood or he really planned for the young man to survive. In his testimony, Lin Dafa said he didn’t mean to kill the young man but only Lin Dafa would know the truth. Lin Dafa was soon captured, he didn’t escape, in fact the cleaver was still left in his home.

“Goodbye, my girl.” Before Lin Dafa was brought away, he told Lin Rong this, “I don’t know anything, I am not a good father. From now on, you have to live for yourself. My money is hidden under my bed. Don’t do anything stupid, this will be the last time we meet, yes?” For some reason, Lin Rong couldn’t stop her tears. Lin Rong had never cried, not when her mother died, not when she was told she had AIDS. But now she did.

Staring at her own father, the father whom she hated and was embarrassed by, she cried.

From then on, Lin Dafa spent his life in prison. No matter where he went, Lin Dafa was still that honest, straightforward person. When he was bullied, he smiled; when he was targeted, he smiled. Lin Dafa knew that he was given life imprisonment with parole, so in other words, he still had hope of leaving this place. He would wait 20 years, 30 years as long as he could see his daughter again. Lin Dafa was imprisoned due to murder but Lin Dafa didn’t look like a murderer at all, he was easily bullied and was always friendly with everyone.

Therefore, one day a new inmate who was imprisoned due to malicious injury asked why Lin Dafa was there. He probably thought Lin Dafa was easy to pick on due to his personality. So Lin Dafa told him about his story. The young ruffian asked, “Sounds like your daughter is quite a beauty, or else the man wouldn’t be interested in her.”

Lin Dafa took that as a compliment, “Yes, she takes after her mother, thankfully.”

“Well, I’ll have to go look her up and have my fun with her when I’m out of this place, to see what I’ve missed.” The young ruffian joked. No one minded it, everyone knew it was a joke. No one would have gone after a woman with AIDS willingly. But Lin Dafa was livid. He slapped the young ruffian. “If you dare to lay a hand on my daughter, I’ll kill you.”

Being slapped by a man in his 40s, this 20 plus youth instantly exploded. He wanted to jump on Lin Dafa but he was held back by the other inmates. Apprehended, the young ruffian shouted, “Fuck, I’ll definitely rape your daughter when I’m out of here. You’ve killed someone, you won’t be leaving this place before I do. Lin Rong is it, okay, I’ve remembered her name! Just you wait! Just you wait!” At the prison, this small altercation was soon forgotten. The year passed in the blink of an eye and it was almost time for the young ruffian to be released.

That night, the ruffian was very happy. After 1 year inside the slammer, he had forgotten what the air outside tasted like. As he brushed his teeth, he hummed a song. No one was going to rain on his parade. With a thud, a mug fell beside him. The young ruffian turned around and saw Lin Dafa standing beside him. The young ruffian smiled, “Oh, it’s you, Master Lin. I’ll be leaving this place tomorrow. Be a good man and maybe I’ll see you on the other side.”

Lin Dafa didn’t answer. Noting the silent treatment, the young ruffian shrugged and then turned back to his teeth brushing. When he was done, he turned to leave. At that moment, a hand fell on his shoulder. Since there was only Lin Dafa around him, the offender couldn’t be anyone else. The young ruffian turned around and grumbled with impatience, “What is it, Master Lin, what do you want?” Just as he whipped his head around, a brush pierced into his eye. A brush about 4 cm stuck out from the young man’s left eye, it punctured the eyeball. The ocular liquid splattered all over Lin Dafa and some even dropped into his mug. The young ruffian groaned and collapsed onto the clean tiled floor. His remaining eye stared at Lin Dafa before that closed as well. Several seconds later, the young man passed away. When the prison guards arrived, Lin Dafa was brushing his teeth with the murder weapon. His teeth were sparkling white, he brushed them daily.

No one knew why Lin Dafa had killed, other than Lin Dafa himself. When asked, he said matter-of-factly, “He said he would rape my daughter after he leaves prison. I’m in jail, I can’t protect her, therefore I can’t allow him a chance at survival like that rich second-generation. So to be safe, I have to kill him.”

The guards interviewed other cellmates to see if Lin Dafa was telling the truth. The interviewed cellmates were shocked. One of them gasped, “The young man did, but, but that was 1 year ago!”

The day after, the young ruffian would be released from prison so Lin Dafa had to kill him that night. Perhaps the young man himself had even forgotten about his altercation with Lin Dafa from a year ago but Lin Dafa did remember it. From then on, no one dared to mention Lin Dafa’s daughter again.

So a person’s memory could be that good when it involved something important.

This time, Lin Dafa was given the death sentence, it would be delivered 1 month later. This time, Lin Dafa would die in prison. This time, Lin Dafa had no hope of seeing his daughter again. When someone was absolutely obsessive about something, they could come up with normally unimaginable ideas. Lin Dafa considered breaking out from prison but the defense of the prison was high, he wouldn’t be able to escape. He didn’t have time to start digging tunnels either.

When he was completely flummoxed, he was reminded of an incident that happened 2 months ago. A cellmate was sent to the hospital outside the prison because he suffered from acute gastritis. Lin Dafa used half a month to sharpen the end of his brush. Then one late night, he punctured the brush into his left wrist. He wailed in pain. The prison infirmary doctors suggested sending Lin Dafa to the big hospital or else he might end up with lower body disability for the rest of his life. This sounded quite ironic because Lin Dafa would be dead after another 15 days, would he still care about disability? But as doctors, they had to treat their patients without discrimination.

The defensive system at the hospital was not as firm as the one at the prison. No one at the hospital expected a patient to rappel down a 7th floor building. And it was only the night after Lin Dafa had the surgery. Although, technically he used the bedsheet rope to escape from the 7th floor to the 6th floor and escaped the hospital. When the police who were responsible to watch over Lin Dafa woke up, the man was already gone.

It was drizzling that night. A criminal tied bed sheets into a rope with one hand and then sneaked out unnoticed. The walls were slippery and the night was dark, if he was not careful, he’d slip and end up a splat on the ground. But Lin Dafa did it, he left the hospital unnoticed and had been unnoticed for the next 3 years. Lin Dafa, a reticent criminal, who had a single obsession. His biggest merit was his biggest weakness.

“Find Lin Rong.” I said, “When Lin Dafa is captured, only Lin Rong will be able to make him speak. And I believe it’s only a matter of time until Lin Dafa is captured.”

Captain Zhao nodded and said seriously, “Okay, I’ll have it arranged.”