It was eleven at night.
The interrogation room reeked of death, the body on the floor already beginning to rot.
Marlon Jeff hung upside down from the ceiling, like a great worm suspending itself with silk. His skin was almost entirely peeled off, like a fish scraped clean of scales.
Footsteps sounded again, and someone approached him.
He had endured a full day of torture and didn't want to open his eyes.
"Just kill me, quickly! Kill me!" he called weakly.
"Open your eyes and see what this is," Shao Wan said.
"Don't bother, just kill me, hurry up!" Marlon stretched his voice, roaring hoarsely, "You're all a bunch of sons of bitches! If you have any guts, kill me right now! For every second I live, your family registration will lose ten members! My curses always hit their mark!"
Shao Wan extended his pincer-like hand and dug into his eyes, as if to pluck out the eyeballs directly. But he only forced the eyelids open.
Marlon was forced to open his eyes and saw the phone in Shao Wan's other hand.
On the phone was surveillance footage of a woman and a child, bound to chairs.
Marlon's face twitched, and he roared, "Why are you showing me this! What do you mean? Shao Wan, if you have the guts, kill me! Your family registration is running out of pages!"
"Open your dog eyes and look closely. This woman is your old flame, and this child has just undergone genetic testing. He's your offspring," Shao Wan said. "This mother and son are under control. Their survival depends on you."
"Nonsense, I don't know them! I don't have an old flame, and I don't have a child!" Marlon suddenly exploded in rage.
The child on the phone started crying from fear.
The woman's face was filled with anger, and she cried out, "Marlon! I even gave birth to this child for you! If I had known you would say such things, I would have rather strangled this child and flushed him down the toilet!"
"Who are these actors! I don't know you at all!" Marlon trembled. "I don't have a child! That's not my child!"
"Don't pretend anymore. Our intelligence is never wrong. You met Sally at the Grand Theater eleven years ago. The play that night was 'The Orphan of Zhao.' I don't know if you remember. The surveillance shows you didn't watch much of the play; you were staring at Sally, the beautiful woman in the next seat," Shao Wan said, his tone stern.
"You entered at 10:32, Sally entered at 10:40. Your seat was Row 3, Seat 4, and hers was Row 3, Seat 5. After the play, you exchanged contact information and began a long online chat. In the first year, you initiated conversations with her 581 times, and she initiated contact with you 26 times," Shao Wan took out another phone and flipped through the records. "Eight years ago, on Qixi Festival, you stayed together for the first time. The location was the Heavenly Dwelling Hotel on Sixth Avenue in Suiye City, Ha'er Star. She wore a white dress and high heels, and you wore a rented suit. The room number was 6680. The view from the 66th floor was excellent; you could see half the city from the window. You were in love for three years after that, your dates were always at movie theaters or theaters, quite boring. I have all your dating consumption records, and many street surveillance data from that time can still be retrieved. To avoid your bad breath affecting your kisses, you bought mint chewing gum every day, the Ophiuchus brand. You kept this habit until five years ago when you entered the prison on Ha'er Star."
Marlon's facial expression was like that of a dead man.
He began to tremble in fear.
Shao Wan switched the phone interface, and surveillance photos appeared one by one, all from street cameras many years ago. In the corner, Marlon and Sally walked hand in hand on the sidewalk. The cameras were quite high-definition; when the photos were enlarged, you could even see their smiling faces.
"Marlon, I'm telling you clearly now, don't treat me like some gentleman. I'm a person who uses any means necessary," Shao Wan reached out and slapped his face hard. The crisp sound of the slap echoed in the interrogation room. "If you don't confess, I'll kill your wife and child, and then I'll kill you, letting you reunite in the underworld. I mean what I say! What kind of bug are you? Do you think playing crazy can keep your wife and child safe? Under the Galactic Empire's data network, your entire life is in my hands! I know you better than your mother and the gods!"
"Sally, I'm very sorry. You should be innocent, but if Marlon refuses to confess, your life and your child's life are over," Shao Wan said in a deep voice, looking at the phone. "I'll give you some time. Persuade Marlon, beg him to have mercy on your lives. Whether you live or die depends entirely on Marlon."
Marlon's face turned red, his eyes teary.
He cried out in agony, his voice like that of a wounded beast.
"Marlon! Marlon! Just confess, say whatever they tell you to say!" Sally on the phone also cried. "I know you might not have a choice, but as a father, you should have a conscience!"
"Is it really my child?" Marlon tried to blink, attempting to clear his tears. "Why is there a child? I don't know..."
"Who else could it be if not yours! Look at this child, he looks exactly like you!" Sally cried. "You disappeared suddenly back then, and I couldn't contact you at all. I soon found out I was pregnant. I didn't know why you disappeared, and after a long hesitation, I decided to give birth to the child. You were always associating with those disreputable people back then. I thought they had kidnapped and killed you!"
"I committed a great crime, and I was afraid of implicating you, so I left," Marlon sobbed. "I sent you money several times later, un-sequenced banknotes, over two million in total. Did you receive it?"
"Money? What money!" Sally was stunned. "Not long after you left, I moved. Was the address you sent the money to still the old one?"
"No time for reminiscing!" Shao Wan said. "Gunmen in position!"
Two masked gunmen suddenly appeared on the phone screen, roughly pushing Sally and the child onto a table, holding pistols to their heads.
Marlon trembled violently, his eyes wide, staring at the screen in terror.
The child screamed and cried.
Sally desperately begged, "Marlon! Marlon! Save me! Save your child! Just confess! I have some money now, and tomorrow I'll book a spaceship ticket and come to reunite with you with the child! I've been looking for you all these years! If you're in prison, I visit you every month, waiting for you to get out! If you're executed, I'll collect your body and burn paper for you on Qingming Festival! Marlon! Please, just confess!"
"I'll count to five. After five, if you don't confess, I'll kill one first," Shao Wan said. "Who should I kill first? Hey, Marlon, you decide, who do you want me to kill first?"
"I confess!" Marlon almost shrieked. "Let go of my wife and child! Shao Wan, you son of a bitch, you're inhuman! Are you even human? You're a beast!"
"You're really confessing?" Shao Wan stared at him suspiciously. "If you dare to play any tricks, I'll kill that child immediately. If even one punctuation mark in your confession is false, you can expect your family to be destroyed."
"I'll confess everything! I'll answer whatever you ask!" Marlon screamed. "Let them go! Let them go first! Don't point the gun at them. If that damn gun misfires, I won't say a single word!"
"Hey, lock up that mother and son for now," Shao Wan waved at the phone.