Stop it, the country really can't fit any more bans on the domestic entertainment industry.

Hearing his wife's heart-wrenching cries, the middle-aged man suddenly lost all strength and plopped down on the cold cement floor.

He hung his head, staring blankly at the cracks in the ground, his hands unconsciously rubbing against his knees, making his faded trousers all wrinkled.

"Confess..."

He mumbled those two words under his breath, his voice barely audible.

"But...but didn't that young man say that it could only be used for three days, and that it would be fine to switch back after three days?"

The man raised his head, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. His words were less about persuading his wife and more about brainwashing himself.

"That young man seemed quite knowledgeable; he spoke very eloquently. Since he said he'd be fine in three days, then... he should be fine, right?"

At this point, he shrank back further, his voice even lower:

"And...and if we turn ourselves in, our lives will be over. Not only will we go to jail, but Dad...he's so old, what if he gets arrested and dies in jail too?"

Fear, selfishness, resistance to imprisonment, and the last vestige of conscience were battling fiercely in his mind, causing him a sharp pain.

"Snapped!"

A crisp slap echoed in the small room.

........................................

The middle-aged man was stunned by the beating, covering his face and staring blankly at his wife in front of him.

The rural woman, who was usually timid and afraid to even speak loudly, was now a completely different person.

She cried as she got up from the ground and knelt in front of her husband. Her swollen eyes were bloodshot, yet they revealed an unprecedented ferocity.

"Are you stupid!"

The wife screamed, spitting all over the man's face:

"What's there to be afraid of in jail! Going to jail is better than spending the rest of your life haunted by nightmares about the deaths of hundreds of people! Those are human lives! Those are the lives of dozens of families, hundreds of people!"

She grabbed the man by the collar and shook him violently:

"You forgot? You forgot that when you were little, you had a high fever and your family had no money. It was Granny Wang from the east end who carried you on her back in the middle of the night, running more than ten miles of mountain road to town to see a doctor? Her feet were worn raw!"

"And there's Grandpa Li from the west end! When you were little, you were naughty and insisted on climbing trees to steal birds' nests. Who caught you from below? Who taught you how to climb trees?"

"And our dad! He got lost when he had a seizure in the dead of winter. Who was it? It was Old Wang from Da Nan Tou. He had a fever and led the whole family into the mountains to carry our dad back!"

With each word the daughter-in-law spoke, tears streamed down her face, and her voice grew increasingly choked with emotion.

"They're all elders who watched you grow up! And Er Gouzi and those kids... Now they're all going to be blown up! All because our dad made a mistake, all because we tried to run away!"

"Have you lost your conscience?!"

........................................

These words struck the middle-aged man's heart like a heavy blow.

Even if he was selfish and wanted to escape, he felt as if his heart was being gripped tightly by a hand, and the pain made it hard to breathe.

This book was first published on 2009.com, providing you with a reading experience free of errors and disordered chapters.

He stared blankly at his wife, and all the long-buried memories in his mind surged forth like a flood bursting its banks.

Aunt Wang's kind face, Uncle Li's rough, calloused hands, and Old Wang's honest, simple smile...

Familiar faces flashed before his eyes one after another.

If because of his concealment, all these people are gone, all have become the corpses under the rubble in this episode...

"call......"

The man let out a heavy sigh.

He closed his eyes tightly, and two streams of murky tears finally slid down from the corners of his wrinkled eyes.

A few seconds later.

When he opened his eyes again, most of the fear and hesitation in his cloudy eyes had faded, replaced by a resolute determination to go all out.

That was the last glimmer of humanity, ignited in the darkness.

"Stop talking..."

His voice was terribly hoarse, like a broken bellows.

He reached out and pulled his wife, who was kneeling on the ground, to her feet. Then, supporting himself on his knees, he stood up unsteadily.

"Walk!"

He gritted his teeth and squeezed out a single word.

"Let's take Dad and turn ourselves in! Let's tell the police!"

........................................

Upon hearing this, the daughter-in-law's tears flowed even more fiercely, but they were tears of relief. She nodded vigorously.

The two turned around, glanced at the old man who was still fast asleep in bed, completely unaware of what had happened, and were about to wake him up.

however.

Just as the middle-aged man's hand was about to touch the old man's shoulder, his movement suddenly stopped.

He subconsciously turned his head and glanced out the window.

The sky outside was pitch black, with only the dim yellow glow of the streetlights in the distance.

The clock on the wall pointed to 2 a.m.

Then, as someone who suffers from procrastination, he suddenly started procrastinating again.

"that......"

The middle-aged man withdrew his hand, glanced at his wife, and spoke with a slight hesitation:

"Old woman, look at the middle of the night, we don't have a car, and if we go to the police station, they'll probably be closed by then."

"How about... how about we go tomorrow?"

........................................

The daughter-in-law paused for a moment, looked out the dark window, then at the old man who was sleeping soundly. Her earlier fierce determination to die subsided slightly.

As the saying goes, two kinds of people can't sleep in the same bed.

and so.

Actually, she is also a procrastinator, and right now, she is also under the control of procrastination.

"That's true..." She wiped away her tears and sniffed. "Going now is indeed inconvenient. Besides, Dad hasn't woken up yet, and it would be too much trouble for him."

The two exchanged a glance, and the unspoken understanding that "like attracts like" was perfectly evident at that moment.

The solemn, heroic atmosphere that had just been there, as if they were about to die a martyr, instantly dissipated by half.

"Then tomorrow."

The middle-aged man sat back down on the small stool. As the tension in his heart eased, his thoughts began to wander.

He sat there, smacked his lips, and the words of kindness his wife had spoken earlier floated into his mind again.

"Grandma Wang from the east end did indeed carry me to see the doctor."

He pondered to himself.

"But if I remember correctly, that fever was because I visited her house, and she gave me some mung bean cake that had expired two weeks ago. That's when I started vomiting, having diarrhea, and a fever, right?"

And there's Grandpa Li from the west end...

"He did teach me how to climb trees. But the old man only taught me halfway through before he went to chat with the widow. As a result, I fell from a branch and ended up sitting on it."

The middle-aged man subconsciously squeezed his legs together, a faint sadness welling up in his heart.

"If it weren't for that incident, I wouldn't only have one testicle now."

This is his pain as a man, and also the deepest secret in his heart.

As for Old Wang from Da Nantou...

He glanced at his father on the bed again.

"That time Dad got lost, wasn't it because Old Wang, that drunkard, got drunk and insisted on dragging Dad into the mountains in the middle of the night to see some kind of will-o'-the-wisp, saying it was a sign from the gods?"

"If we hadn't found him in time, my father would have frozen to death that night, or been carried off by wolves."

Actually, that's not all. Although those villagers didn't do it intentionally, if you think about it...

After thinking about it, he felt he should indeed call the police tomorrow.

"Anyway, a few more hours won't make a difference."

With that thought in mind, he went back to his room, took off his shoes, and went to sleep, feeling at ease.