Chapter 215 I Say All the Sins Are My fault

The next morning, the prisoners finished their breakfast in the prison and entered the factory to start their work for the day.

Going to jail is not just about eating and waiting to die. One of the main themes of the continental legal system is labor reform.

Inmates in prison can do some jobs with low thresholds, such as clothing making and screw driving, under the arrangement of the prison, for a salary that is a certain price lower than the market price.

Those who do not have professional skills can choose to receive employment training in prison. The saved wages can be used to buy daily necessities such as instant noodles in prison, or they can be saved for use after being released from prison.

Different prisons assign different tasks to prisoners depending on the local conditions.

The main job in Chenyugu Prison is to make stationery, filling the ink and sealing the ballpoint pen refills. It is a very simple job, which only takes a few minutes to learn and can be mastered in one day, so the salary is also very low.

Lao Li liked this job very much because he found that refilling ballpoint pens in prison made more money than farming.

City dwellers who have never done farm work often have misunderstandings about farmers. They think farming can be hard. Isn’t it just planting seeds, watering and fertilizing, and waiting for the harvest? During the slack season, you can use your idle cars to drive Didi and rent out your extra houses. It’s so comfortable.

However, the actual situation is far from that simple.

Li Tie grows rice in the countryside. After deducting the cost of seeds, fertilizers, herbicides, and losses from natural disasters, he can hardly make 5000 yuan a year even in a good year. This is after deducting the labor costs of getting up early and going to bed late every day, spraying pesticides and weeding, diverting water to irrigate the fields, and transplanting rice seedlings, which makes his waist sick.

Working on the assembly line in prison, even an old guy like Lao Li who is not in good health and is not skilled at the job can earn about 3 to 500 yuan a month, and food and accommodation are all included, and there are doctors to see if you get sick.

In this land, even prisoners in prison live better than farmers.

Sitting on a small stool and putting a handful of ink refills into the ballpoint pen, Li Tie felt quite happy.

The assembly line is great. You don’t have to worry about the weather, or the strong winds and heavy rains that will knock down the rice seedlings and wipe out the crops. You don’t have to worry about the salary subsidy being deducted by the black-hearted village chief. No wonder all the young men in the village go to work in the electronics factory in Yanzhou.

This is the kind of ballpoint pen that the kids in school use to read and write. Do they know that the pen in their hands was made by an old guy like me who made a mistake?

After thinking about it, Mr. Li felt that it was better not to know. He was illiterate and he didn’t want to affect his child’s study.

Old Li stood up from the small stool and pushed a basket of ballpoint pens to the wall. It was noon.

After lunch, there is a two-hour lunch break and walking time. At this time every day, Lao Li likes to sit alone in the aisle between the factory and the basketball court, thinking about all kinds of random things.

For example, he calculated how much money he could save after he was released from prison, how to find the village chief’s family after he got out, how to take revenge without being discovered… He was also secretly planning today.

At this time, a strange inmate in prison uniform sat next to him.

Old Li looked up with some surprise. It was a middle-aged man with a light beard. He didn’t know him.

“Young man, don’t you want to play basketball?” Old Li Na said with a smile.

During the precious lunch break, other inmates either went back to their cells to sleep or went to the basketball court to play basketball. There were very few who were as unsociable as him.

“I don’t like playing basketball.” The man smiled and put a bottle of Coke on the bench.

Old Li took a look at the plastic bottle of Coke and his Adam’s apple moved. He had drunk Coke before and knew that it was sweet and delicious.

Prisoners can use their own wages to buy Coke from prison guards. There are not many entertainment activities in prison. Although the food is nutritious, it is really not tasty. Coke and instant noodles are rare things to improve the food, and they are in short supply here.

“This is mine, you can’t drink it.” The man said with a smile.

Lao Li nodded: “I know, I know.”

No matter how good the Coke is, it belongs to someone else. Only what you earn through your own labor belongs to you. This is his simple moral value. He killed the village chief because his livelihood was cut off, not because he was jealous of other people’s big villas.

Seeing Lao Li’s reaction, the man laughed and said, “Lao Li, you still want to take revenge on the village chief’s family after you get out, right?”

“Ah?!” Old Li was horrified: “I, no, it’s not… why are you…”

“Don’t be so quick to refute. I want to ask you a question.” The man put his index finger in front of his lips and made a ‘hush’ gesture, and whispered:

“If someone reports your village chief for corruption and other crimes, the government will confiscate all his illegal gains, demolish his villa, confiscate his savings, prohibit his sons and daughters from taking the civil service exams, and send his wife, who helped him hide the stolen money, to prison. His entire family will receive the punishment they deserve…”

“In this situation, do you still want to kill them?” Old Li was stunned. He opened his mouth but only uttered one word: “I…”

He is not a rogue who refuses to obey the rule of law. On the contrary, Lao Li believes that bad guys will be punished by law. This is the most simple idea of ​​this illiterate farmer.

Otherwise, he would not have complained to the village several times after the sewage from the village chief’s villa was discharged into his field. If it were another fierce old woman, she would have started cursing as soon as the construction of the village chief’s villa started.

But for such a simple-minded farmer who believed in the rule of law, when he heard that the village chief’s family was going to be sanctioned and their illegal gains were going to be confiscated, his first reaction was not joy or the satisfaction of revenge.

But denial.

“How can that be possible!” Old Li cried out, “I…I will kill them with my own hands. I must kill these landlords who bully the poor. I must, I must, I…I, I…”

What’s wrong with me?
It is obviously a good thing that bad guys are punished, so why would I be so impulsive?

Just as Lao Li was about to attribute all this to emotional impulse and wanted to blame himself, the man next to him spoke again.

He said softly, “Then let’s change the question.”

“Suppose I get out of jail in a few months, and I find the village chief’s family for you, and kill them all one by one to avenge you. What do you think?”

This time, Lao Li’s answer was very quick:
“no!”

He stood up suddenly, his eyes red: “No, no, no, you can’t help me get revenge, I have to take revenge myself, I have to kill them with my own hands, I must kill them with my own hands, I must…”

It can’t be a law, it can’t be someone else, it has to be me, it has to be the knife in my own hand, nothing else is allowed, nothing else is allowed, no…

“Okay, I understand.” The man smiled and signaled him to calm down: “I’m just making an analogy.”

Old Li sat down again, only to hear the man ask again: “You don’t want a fair trial, nor do you want others to avenge you. You are determined to do it yourself… Don’t you think this idea is a bit strange?”

Old Li scratched his head: “It seems a little bit…”

After calming down, he felt that the other person was right. His thoughts were indeed a bit extreme. If he had just been emotional at the time, it would be understandable, but how long has it been now? He actually kept holding on to such extreme thoughts, without any intention of changing or repenting.

When did I become like this?

Old Li was a little confused, as he clearly was not like that.

“Here, have a Coke.” The man smiled and handed the unscrewed bottle to Lao Li.

“No, no, no, that’s yours. I can’t have it.” Lao Li waved his hands and refused, “I can’t drink your Coke.”

“It’s okay. I’ll buy you a drink.” The man smiled and said, “I admire you for daring to resist the village chief who bullies the poor. I think you are just like the Liangshan heroes in the Water Margin. I will buy you a drink when I get out of here.”

“Unfortunately there is no wine here, I can only treat you to Coke.”

The man pushed the Coke bottle forward again.

Old Li subconsciously moved his body back and opened his eyes wide: “What’s going on…”

He is a man who loves to drink and brag. According to his usual personality, if the other party spoke like this, he would take the bottle and take a big sip even if he didn’t like drinking Coke, not to mention that he quite liked this little sweet drink.

But now, he rejected the man’s kindness without thinking, as if an indestructible chain bound Lao Li’s spirit and said to him with a bloody spike:

[This bottle of Coke is not mine. I absolutely, absolutely, absolutely cannot drink this bottle of Coke]

Old Li looked up in shock and saw a green-faced, fang-toothed evil ghost.

“You… it’s you!” Old Li screamed, “It’s you! Could it be that… it was you, the village chief, that day…”

Ning Zhe looked at the ghostly expression on Lao Li’s face and laughed:
“Yes, it’s me.”

(End of this chapter)