Chapter 22 Chapter Four (7)

The soldiers were tired.A guy stood there panting with his hands on his hips, smiling and gesturing to the crowd.The colonel spoke: The four stopped for a while when they were tired, and handed over the batons in their hands to the audience. A girl is pushed forward by her friend, giggling and covering her face. "Go, don't be afraid!" they urged her.A soldier handed her his baton and led her forward.She stood there in a daze, one hand still covering her face.Shouts, jokes, and ambiguous shouts rushed towards her.She raised her baton, slammed it on the prisoner's hip, dropped the baton and ran back to the cheering crowd.

People began to compete for the batons, and the soldiers could hardly maintain order. People swarmed up or went up to do it themselves or waited for the batons to be passed. I couldn't see the prisoners on the ground, and I stood there forgetting the buckets under my feet. The execution rotation stopped, the soldiers picked up their batons again, and the people retreated one after another, forming the original circle again, but it was much tighter than before. Colonel Joel held up a hammer to the crowd, an ordinary four-pound hammer, the kind you use for ramming stakes in pitching tents.His eyes met mine again.The noise died down.

"No!" I heard a loud shout coming out of my throat, a little shivering, not too loud.Another cry: "No!" This time it came from my chest, and the sound was like a bell.Soldiers blocked me and staggered me aside.I stood in the circle of the crowd and raised my hands and shouted, "No! No! No!" I was within five paces of each other when I turned to Colonel Joel, his arms still folded across his chest.I pointed at him: "You!" I shouted.Shout it all out and let him know what it means to be furious. "You are depriving these people of their rights!"

He didn't flinch, and he didn't answer. "You!" I pointed at him as if waving a gun.My voice resounded through the square, and there was silence everywhere, but maybe I was too excited to hear anything. Something hit me from behind.I lay down in the dust and gasped for breath, and the old injury on my back started to ache again.A truncheon smacked on my back, and when I reached out to parry it, I received a fatal blow to my hand. I tried to stand up, but the pain was too much to straighten up.I curled up my legs to see who gave me the blow, and saw a thick, stocky guy with a sergeant's badge crouching down, his nose fluttering, and he raised his baton to hit me again. "Wait!" I stretched out my numb hand. "You broke my hand!" As I said that, I got hit on the forehead again.I tucked my arms and lowered my head, trying to grab his hand while scratching.The baton fell on my head and shoulders one by one.It doesn't matter: now that I've started the game, I've got to end the game.I grabbed the guy by the tight jacket and pulled him into my arms.He struggled but couldn't reach the baton.I poked my head over his shoulder and yelled again.

"Don't do that!" I yelled.The hammer was in the Colonel's arms. "Don't use a hammer to do it, you don't have to use a hammer to deal with wild animals!" I pushed the sergeant away, and at this moment I was completely in a wave of fury.Immediately, I felt that I had the power of God, although it would disappear in a minute: let me use this power to complete this mission well! "Look!" I yelled.I pointed to the four prisoners lying on the ground docilely. Their mouths were still attached to the wooden bars, and the hands resting on their cheeks looked like monkey paws. Numb to what was to come, they just hoped that the ordeal would be over soon.I stretched out my wounded finger to the sky: "Look!" I shouted, "We are a great miracle of the Creator! But under such torture, the human body and mind can no longer recover! How—!" I was at a loss for words . "Look at these people!" I yelled again, "Man-!" I thought you should crane your necks and look at the prisoners, whose blood-oozing whips had already settled a bunch of flies.

The batons came with the sound of the wind, and I turned to meet them.This hit right in the face. "My eyes were blinded!" Thinking of this, my eyes turned black for a while, I swallowed a mouthful of blood, and a warm rose color bloomed in front of my eyes, followed by heart-piercing pain.I covered my face with my hands, staggered and spun in the crowd of onlookers, trying not to make a sound, and tried my best not to let myself fall down. I don't remember what I was going to say next.The miracle of creation—this is the idea I had always believed in, and now it has left me like smoke.The scene conjures up the idea that we trample the wonders of creation underfoot like insects, crushing beetles, worms, cockroaches, and mosquitoes.

I took my fingers away from my eyes, and the gray world reappeared in the flowing tears.At this moment, I am deeply grateful, because I don't feel pain anymore.I even smiled as the two men dragged me through the chattering crowd, one by the arm, to the cell. This smile, this joy, left them with lingering anger.I knew it was counterproductive for them to deal with me in such a hasty way.Because I'm not an orator, I'm not good at eloquence, if they let me speak, I don't know how to say it.Is crippling a man worse than killing a man in a duel?Is it humiliating to everyone when a girl is encouraged to flog a man?Is not such violence a pollution to the pure heart?What they didn't let me say wasn't really a big deal, it was almost impossible to wake up the mob with words.After all, what else can I do but exhort people to behave civilly towards captured enemies?What else can one object to than against using that "new thinking" to kill those kneeling (confusion and disgrace already in their own eyes)?Dare I call for justice for those naked savages in public?Justice: Once the word is out of your mouth, where will it end?It is easier to say "no" loudly; easier to be slaughtered and a martyr;However, what is the result of right and wrong here?Shall we lay down our arms and open our gates to those whose lands we have plundered?The beaten and imprisoned old magistrate—defender of the rule of law—who, in his own way, fought against the state was not without confusion, not without pain.

The bridge of my nose was broken, and the epidermis on my cheeks was ripped apart.The left eye was too swollen to open. The numbness relieved the pain but gave way to terrible spasms that came every minute or two, so that I couldn't lie down, but shuffled around the room with my cheeks in my hands, howling like a dog.Between the two spasms, I took deep breaths, trying not to cry out in embarrassment.I seem to hear the noise of the mob ebbing and flowing in the square, but I'm not sure if the noise of the noise is hitting my eardrums. They brought me dinner as usual, but I couldn't eat it.I couldn't be at peace for a moment, I had to keep walking up and down to keep myself from screaming and tearing my clothes and scratching my flesh (something people do when their endurance reaches its limit).I shed tears, and the torn flesh hurt like being torn or bitten.I hummed old songs about riders and junipers over and over, trying to remember certain phrases that didn't even make sense.One, two, three, four... I count.I told myself that if I lasted until the evening it would be a great victory.

In the early morning of the next day, I was so tormented that I was dizzy, dizzy, and staggered. Finally, I couldn't help sobbing like a child. I sat by the wall and wept, tears streaming down my face.Pulled by regular bouts of pain, I cried and cried.In this state, the sudden sleep hit me suddenly, and I fell over the corner of the wall and passed in a daze. When I woke up, I was surprised to find that I was in a bleak daylight.Although there are still bursts of twitching pain, but I can finally bear it. To be honest, it is not so strong anymore.Maybe soon I'll get used to the labor pains.

I lay quietly against the wall, fisted my painful palms under my armpits, fell into sleep again, and merged into a confused and hazy image. It turned out that it was a girl.She knelt with her back to me, facing a castle she had built of snow or sand.She is dressed in a dark blue robe.I walked over and saw her digging around in the castle. She realized I was coming and turned around.I was mistaken, it turned out that it was not a castle but a stove she built with mud.Green smoke curled up from behind the stove.She held out her hand to me something, a piece of indeterminate shape, it looked hazy, I shook my head, but I still couldn't see it clearly.

She wore a round hat embroidered with gold thread.The hair was braided and dragged heavily on the shoulders: golden threads were woven into the braids. "Why are you in your best dress?" I meant to say, "I've never seen you look so pretty." She smiled at me: what beautiful teeth, what clear, bright black eyes!Now I can see clearly that what she gave me was a piece of bread, still warm with a crispy aroma.A wave of gratitude surged through me. "How did a kid like you learn to bake bread so well in the desert?" I want to say this.I opened my arms and hugged her, the tears streaming down my cheeks were dripping on the wound, it was painful.I suddenly woke up from the dream, and I could no longer go into the dream and taste the piece of bread that made me drool.