The Forbidden Island of Life

She couldn't answer immediately. After thinking for a while, she said, "You have a lot of food."

That made sense to me. I had thought she was going to tell me that her mother had shared the secret of the groceries with her. I asked her if she was afraid of me. She said, "No, I'm not afraid. My mom said you're a good person. You were gentle with her that day and didn't treat her like the other women."

So, the girl's mother had told her about that day. I asked her, "Do you hate me?" She shook her head. "No, you're a good person. I hate my father. He loses money gambling and then drinks. When he comes home, he tortures my mom or beats me."

I didn't say anything, just picked up a nut and carved into it with my knife.

Suddenly, her eyes widened. "Could you kill my dad? He always hurts my mom. Sometimes, when he can't pay his gambling debts, he makes my mom sleep with those men. At first, she refused, but later, she gave in to avoid the beating."

It hit me then. That woman holding the cucumber—now I understood why her body had so many bruises.

"Now, strangers come to our house often. My mom worries about me the most. So, if I go home, she'd rather strangle me herself than let those men..." She choked on her words, her eyes red, but she didn't let the tears fall.

I asked her, "Why me?" Finally, she couldn't hold back the tears, sobbing as she said, "They say you're a killer. You're the man who's killed the most in this town."

I told her, "I haven't killed anyone in this town."

"But you're a good person. They're bad people. You even gave my mom double the money for the groceries."

I put a nut in my mouth and chewed it hard, then awkwardly said, "It wasn't charity. Giving your mom double the money, I wanted her to sleep with me."

She didn't speak anymore, just lowered her head, crying silently. I felt I shouldn't be so harsh with a poor child. Softening my tone, I said, "I'm not a killer. The men in this town fear me because I've killed many people while I was in the army. And I've often treated them to drinks."

She stopped crying and looked up at me, blinking her wet eyes. "Are you a soldier?" Maybe it was the innocent, tear-streaked look on her face, her naive charm, but it stirred something in me, making me want to open up.

Outside, the thunder and lightning raged on just like last night. I began to tell her about my past.

How I wandered in Vietnam, captured by mine owners and forced into slavery, then ended up in Thailand. At seventeen, I joined a local government mercenary group. For six years, I lived in a world of gunfire and bloodshed. I killed many armed militants and was tasked with eliminating Western spies.

I always thought those people were terrorists, that they deserved to die, until later, when the military department split into two factions. One wanted to strengthen the regular army, and the other secretly formed an underground mercenary group to counter it.

The higher-ups used the mercenaries to eliminate political rivals or carry out dirty work. Once a mission failed, the mercenaries were labeled as terrorists and hunted down by the regular army.

One time, we were sent to clear out terrorists near the border. But when we got there, I discovered we were actually destroying villages of refugees, many of them children, like you. Do you know China? The Nanjing massacre, when Japanese soldiers slaughtered unarmed civilians—it was like that, a scene of animalistic brutality.

You could stand in the center of the village and just open fire on everything with two legs, as long as it wasn't wearing the same uniform. The villagers' eyes, throats, hearts, and bellies were all stabbed, with holes oozing dark blood.

There were eight of us in my team. During the search, we found two ten-year-old girls hiding in a haystack. Seven of us stripped them naked and assaulted them.

I vomited when I saw what was happening. Two team members came over and tried to drag me into the act, to rape one of the girls, who was already bleeding between her legs, on the verge of death.

In my rage, I instinctively drew my knife and slashed one of them across the throat. Then, I shot three others with my pistol. The remaining three saw what was happening and immediately tackled me. We fought fiercely.

The shock I experienced left my mind in chaos. In my anger, I pulled the pin on a grenade, ready to take us all down together. The three of them saw it and quickly ran. Two of them were killed by the blast, and I shot the last one with a handgun I picked up from the ground.

The explosion drew the attention of the other soldiers, and they surrounded me. I ran desperately into the jungle, gunshots following me. Bullets whizzed past, tearing through the branches and leaves around me, some of them hitting my arm and face. I felt two bullets graze me—one nicked my ear, and the other scraped my shoulder. If I had veered off by even two centimeters, I would've been dead.