Chapter 756: Perfect Revenge
Many people, when faced with pain, often choose to avoid it. Even if they can confront it, they won't repeatedly chew over and savor it, let alone turn a place that caused the entire Shang clan such suffering into a tourist attraction.
Calling it hatred would be more accurate.
"For revenge." Teacher Pan sighed. "At the time, only ten of the culprits involved in this incident were executed by firing squad. Others were sentenced to death with reprieve or life imprisonment for crimes including kidnapping, abuse, rape, child abuse, and conducting human experiments. But in the end, only ten people were actually executed."
"These people's family members and relatives used their connections to pull strings. Once the heat of the matter passed, they kept reducing the sentences. Some who received lighter sentences were out in two or three years."
"There was a very sensational news story at the time. A criminal who raped a Shang family woman and caused her to give birth was sentenced to five years. He was released early for good behavior, then retaliated against the victim and her family after getting out. The victim, acting in self-defense, pushed him down the stairs, leaving him permanently paralyzed."
Without him having to spell it out, Xu Huo could guess. As those perpetrators were gradually released from prison, they and their relatives would likely endlessly harass the Shang descendants. Even though the Shang family members were themselves victims, some Shang descendants even had ambiguous blood relations with them.
The scope of people involved was too broad. Even if the Shang family tried to hide in the corners of society, they would still be remembered.
"The Shang family won't just sit back and wait for death," he said.
"So the Shang family rebuilt the Museum City." Teacher Pan said, "The person who built this Museum City wasn't a descendant of that Dr. Shang, but a child born in the Museum City. He was four years old when he left the Museum City, taken abroad by Dr. Shang to study, and only returned after successfully becoming an entrepreneur."
"Nearly twenty years later, of those persecuted Shang family members, some had gone mad, some had committed suicide. The children who grew up all had varying degrees of psychological and physiological problems. Only this one was relatively fine. But that was only on the surface."
"After the Museum City was rebuilt, it brought considerable economic profits to the local area, successfully boosting tourism and turning an entire city into a tourist destination. In a tourist destination, with a mix of people, someone going missing was far too normal. And so, that Shang descendant killed almost all the children and nephews of those main participants from back then."
"Actually, not all of them were in the Museum City. Some disappeared in different ways—like owing huge gambling debts and vanishing, or running off after failing to divorce their husbands. At the time, it didn't seem strange, but it was confirmed afterward."
"Confirmed?" Xu Huo raised an eyebrow. "The Shang descendant admitted to the murders himself?"
"So many people went missing in the Museum City. Some families knew each other, and they also knew about the Museum City's past. The matter blew up."
"But without finding the bodies, these people couldn't do anything to the Shang descendant. Instead, some of them were arrested for picking quarrels and provoking trouble."
"At that point, the Shang descendant could have basically retired in glory. But he didn't. Instead, he anonymously sent videos of the victims before their deaths to their families."
"Those people also suffered greatly before they died. Many died from exhaustion after being injected with experimental drugs. They seemed to know why they had been kidnapped, and before dying, they were all filled with resentment toward their relatives who had committed crimes in the past."
"The victims' families didn't dare to publicly release the videos to denounce the Shang descendant. When the police received the reports, they couldn't do anything to him either—no evidence, and he even had reasonable alibis for when many people went missing."
"Before the police could come up with a plan, these videos were posted on the Shang descendant's social media account."
Teacher Pan paused here. "The sight of those victims hoarsely repenting on behalf of their fathers or uncles caused people to dig up the whole story of what happened to the Shang family back then. Having done such inhumane things, these perpetrators could still settle down, have children, and repeatedly persecute the Shang descendants. Plus, some of them had committed other crimes after being released, and their offspring were also worthless. In the age of the internet, no bystander forgave them. Even those young people who died horribly didn't receive sympathy."
"An eye for an eye."
"This Shang descendant wouldn't really be stupid enough to turn himself in, would he?" Xiao Ling was also listening nearby.
"Of course not. He was detained for investigation, but later it was found that his account had been hacked by a hacker, with the IP address in a chaotic small country. The Shang descendant had capital backing him, so he was released after a few days in custody."
"But he was the one who did the killing," Yu Guangnan said. "Even without evidence, there must have been many people who wanted his life."
Teacher Pan nodded. "The climax of this story is right here. Two months after returning home, that Shang descendant committed suicide."
"Beautiful." Xu Huo commented without any emotion. "He was originally a sinner, but being forced to death could earn him sympathy."
"Exactly," Teacher Pan sighed with emotion. "After his death, some institutions and individuals he had sponsored spoke up for him. He had suffered from depression and had been receiving treatment. He had even attempted suicide before... Such a person, tormented by his childhood experiences, had continuously donated to society throughout his growth—part-time job earnings during his school years, salary after work, the substantial wealth he built through entrepreneurship. He spent very little on himself, donating most of it to places like welfare homes."
"After the Museum City incident broke out, he moved many times but still couldn't avoid death threats. Especially after the video incident, all his contact information was exposed. There was almost no channel through which he could be completely free from harassment."
"His company partner released a video of him before his suicide. He killed himself after watching a video of the Shang family being abused in the past. That video was sent by a family member of a former perpetrator, now a victim's relative."
"The ensuing wave of outrage can be imagined. Those young people who were killed were ignored. Those perpetrators, and even their relatives, were all dug up. Those who still held positions of power naturally couldn't keep their positions. Going to prison was the best outcome. As for the others—their companies couldn't operate, they lost their jobs, and under immense pressure, they had several conflicts with passersby that were made public, after which they were completely reviled by everyone."
"Thanks to technological development, they could be found wherever they went. Someone even created a tracking system specifically to track and publicize their current status. Any action they took would be magnified, even elevated to the level of 'criminal genetics.'"
"At this point, the revenge was complete." Xu Huo said. So what if those people were still alive? Even if they dodged this wave of public outrage, countless more hardships awaited them. Whenever they carefully tried to survive and make their lives a little better, someone would inevitably bring up the old matters. Then they would become rats in the gutter—people would forget them and they could live in the shadows, but when remembered, they would be sinners who could be attacked without any reason.
Until death.