10.
The orphanage.
Because I didn't know much about Trần Nguyên, I was always on the receiving end of information, but just now, something had felt off.
After hearing that, I finally realized what the problem was.
—Trần Nguyên's file stated that he was an orphan.
But in Trần Nguyên's story, his father had left when he was very young, while his mother was still alive. I had a very bad feeling.
Trần Nguyên said his father had left because he was afraid of him. Whether Trần Nguyên was telling the truth or not, I'd never looked into his file, so I really didn't know anything about him.
I went out and asked a colleague to get Trần Nguyên's file, then returned to my seat and continued. “The orphanage was a good place.”
Trần Nguyên lamented, “I was free there. No one could control me. The children at the orphanage envied me, but they had no idea that I envied them.”
“You said you envied the orphans?” I asked tentatively.
Trần Nguyên had repeatedly stressed that his mother had smothered him, pressured him, restrained him, and stood in his way, keeping him from fully embarking on a life of crime. He'd also said he envied the orphans.
My blood suddenly surged. “Trần Nguyên, tell me clearly—what else did you do?”
“What do you think?”
“You're a demon. You were born evil…”
I couldn't imagine that someone like him could exist in this world.
————He didn't even deserve to be called human.
“A devil, you mean?”
Trần Nguyên asked boldly.
“I couldn't control myself…”
Trần Nguyên murmured, his eyes growing very dark. “I once had a happy family. I was a good boy, smart and sensitive. My parents loved me dearly. Everyone who saw me praised me, saying I had a bright future, that I'd get into a good college, find a good job, get married and have children, and be a good son to my parents.”
“But from the day I started second grade, my world changed completely. That person ruined me. My father refused to help and abandoned me. My mother didn't know what to do, so all she did was keep forcing me.”
“Everyone abandoned me. I was lonely and desperate. My mother dragged me from place to place looking for a cure. She forced me to watch executions and undergo psychological treatment. Because of her, I endured despair and pain and lived a normal life. I went through middle school and high school, continuing to endure a normal life, even as my body and soul screamed all the time. My mother flattened me and made me look the way she wanted me to?”
“I was nothing but a walking corpse. The only meaning in my life was killing that beast. I only wanted to save myself. I only wanted to set myself free. What did I do wrong? But she wouldn't let go. She tried to hold on to me, but when I couldn't take it anymore, I had to make up my mind and put an end to it.”
“Even so, that doesn't give you a reason to kill your mother!”
I snapped, “You may have a reason to hurt other people, but you have no reason to hurt your mother. She did nothing wrong. She gave birth to you and raised you. She kept you from going astray because she loved you!”
“She could have abandoned you like your father did and gone on to live a new life in peace, but she didn't. She moved with you again and again, took all kinds of jobs to pay for treatment for your illness, and went through every hardship to help you live a decent life. She didn't want you to end up on a path with no way back.”
“She knew you had antisocial tendencies, but she wasn't afraid. She was probably terrified of executions, yet for your sake, she had to live right next to one every day. She loved and trusted you so much, and this is how you repaid her? Are you even human? You killed the person who loved you most in the world. You're a cold-blooded monster. You deserve to be shot to death!”
Trần Nguyên said, “Dr. Lu, what kind of psychological counselor talks to people like that? Aren't you making my pre-execution stress even worse?”
“All I can say is, you've achieved your goal. You may not be executed today, and your execution might even be delayed by a few days. If that's what you wanted, just say so. You didn't have to make up such a long story. It still can't absolve you of your crimes.”
If a new case was filed, it would naturally have to be tried again. Multiple charges would be heard together, so the execution would have to be postponed.
“Can I delay my death by a few more days?”
Trần Nguyên feigned surprise. “Then if I testify in another case a few days from now, could my death be postponed by a few more days?”
Judging by what he was implying, it seemed he regretted killing so few people.
Using his victims' lives to prolong his own life of crime—including his own mother's—was the most despicable thing I'd ever heard of.
“At first, I was surprised by how calm you were before your execution, but now I understand. You really are—”
I gritted my teeth, wanting to curse him but unable to find the words. Furious, I stood up and prepared to report what had happened.
Just then, a colleague brought over Trần Nguyên's file. I tossed it onto the table, with no intention of reading it.
“Dr. Lu, I'm not confessing to anything.”
Trần Nguyên stopped me. “Besides, are you sure you don't want to look at my file?”
I glanced at him and hesitated for a moment before opening the file. At a glance, I saw the first entry in his background—between 1990 and 1998, at the Xishan District Sunshine Children's Welfare Home.
I checked it over and over, and that was exactly what the file said.
So what had happened? He'd clearly moved to Xishan District with his mother in 1995. How could he have been admitted to an orphanage in 1990?
“I see……”
I muttered, “You really are making things up. Everything you told me today was made up. I suspected it at first, but in the end, I believed you…”
“No, I didn't make it up.”
Trần Nguyên let his smile fade and said seriously, “I’ll emphasize this again: everything I’ve said is true. You think I’m making it up because I haven’t given many details. If the details aren’t explained clearly, of course it’ll seem ‘illogical.’”
“Also, Dr. Lu, don’t accuse me based only on your assumptions. You have no right to accuse me.”
Trần Nguyên said, “We have 15 minutes left. Let’s continue.”
11.
Trần Nguyên’s Account (5)————
Do you remember what I said at the beginning? I’ve studied psychology too. Psychology wouldn’t really be this useless.
In my third year of middle school, I studied psychology at Dr. Giang’s clinic and applied it to myself.
I kept experimenting on my own mind, and finally realized that Chu Hồng Hưng was the knot in my heart. If only I could break free of Chu Hồng Hưng, I could ease the pain that had haunted me since childhood.
However, every stage of life brings new pain. Many things only dawn on you after that stage has passed, or years later.
I can think about the past, but I can’t think about the present, because I’m still trapped in it. When I first started high school, my relationship with my mother had reached an impasse after one failed attempt to run away from home.
Whenever I had free time back then, I’d either go to the clinic to study with Dr. Giang or visit the orphanage to spend time with A Nguyên. In short, I didn’t want to go home. I avoided my mother as much as I could and didn’t want to see her.
Like father, like son. I always thought I hated my mother, but A Nguyên saw right through me at a glance. A Nguyên asked why I’d told my father about being sexually abused as a child but not my mother. I didn’t answer.
A Nguyên asked again: Before I ran away at 16, I’d prepared thoroughly, and I’d managed to reach another city more than 200 kilometers from Xishan County in just three days.
Given the circumstances, it would have been very difficult for the police to find me. So why had I been caught and brought back after only three days on the run?
The answer to both questions was actually the same, but I didn’t want to admit it.
—Because my mother would be sad.
That was when I finally figured out what was keeping me stuck.
Why was I still in pain after facing my childhood trauma? When I was 16, I could have left and found a way to get revenge. There was no need to keep going through this.
In high school, why did I have to suffer living with my mother? Because Chu Hồng Hưng was the knot in my heart—and so was my mother.
I’d once had a happy family, and I’d been a good boy. But from the day I started second grade, I stopped growing up and began to rot.
I’d taken a different path from my mother, and I was on the verge of being completely ruined. But she wasn’t like me. She was a kind, wonderful mother who wanted to guide me back onto her path.
She’d bet half her life on me, just to help me get back on track. I worked hard to build a normal life with her. I studied hard, got into a top middle school, and then a top high school.
But I really couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t keep living a normal life. On the night of my 16th birthday, I finally worked up the courage to say goodbye to my mother.
I told her I couldn’t go on living like this. I hoped she’d understand and let me leave. I was 16, old enough to bear full criminal responsibility on my own. I’d be responsible for everything I did, and she wouldn’t be implicated.
But she cried and said, “How could you do this to me? Why can’t you think about me? It wasn’t easy giving birth to you and raising you.”
That made it even harder for me. I realized more and more that what people called being implicated wasn’t as simple as criminal responsibility. The bond between mother and child couldn’t be severed so easily—not at 16, not even at 18.
The day the police brought me back, my mother held me and cried all night. I didn’t shed a single tear. But I told her I’d given up, that I’d become a good person and stay by her side forever.
My mother believed me.