While I was still counting sheep, the police told me that the man had been caught.

The man looked quite haggard. I never would have imagined that such a frail man could be a murderer.

The day after the man was caught, the police found several skeletons at a garbage site. According to his confession, they were his parents and two younger brothers.

The incident caused a public outcry. After all, how cruel must one be to kill one's own biological parents and siblings?

In the end, Li Jun and I were acquitted, though Hongyu was not the murderer, she was still guilty of a crime and was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Due to the severity of the case, the man's first trial verdict came quickly. As expected, it was the death penalty, and he did not appeal.

Before the execution, I went to see him. He was surprised to see me and actually smiled and chatted with me.

He asked if I would listen to his story.

I nodded.

He said he was the eldest son in his family, but he was not his parents' biological child.

Back then, his parents couldn't have children, so they bought him from a human trafficker.

At first, they treated him well, but later on, they had their own son, and they became increasingly harsh towards him. Beatings and scoldings became routine, especially from his mother, whose daily curses made him fearful.

As he grew older, he ran away and went out to work.

However, his parents always managed to find him to ask for money, causing him to lose several jobs.

Eventually, he stopped working and taught himself to draw, resting during the day and painting at night. His parents completely lost track of him.

Later, he moved to this community and adopted Little Orange, who became his only companion.

The man said he found Little Orange when it was on the verge of death, and seeing a reflection of his own plight in the cat, he took it home and cared for it for five years.

But on that fateful day, he didn't keep an eye on Little Orange, and it ran out.

When he found it, Little Orange was being held underwater by Zhang Jing's son. He grabbed the nearly lifeless cat, ready to argue, but Zhang Jing cursed him out, reminding him of his foster mother. Frightened, he took Little Orange home.

He thought the matter was over, but the boy soon set his sights on Little Orange again.

Not long after, he found Little Orange missing again.

After searching for a long time, he finally found it in a flower bed, its neck broken, with Zhang Jing and her son laughing from upstairs.

This ignited his desire for revenge. He practiced many times and eventually devised a meticulous plan, but unexpectedly, Hongyu acted first.

He thought he had missed his chance for revenge, but when he found out they weren't dead, he used the same method they used to torment Little Orange to kill Zhang Jing and her son.

"Why did you also kill Ms. Zhang?" I asked.

"Don't you think her tantrums were just like my mother's?" the man said.

I didn't know what to say. The man was undoubtedly pitiful, but the law shows no mercy.

As I was leaving, the man asked if I could bury him and Little Orange together.

I agreed to his request.

Not long after, I moved out, but because of the murder case, the house never sold and was eventually abandoned.

I completely buried this matter in my heart until one day when I went out to buy groceries and saw Li Jun, whom I hadn't seen in a long time, selling vegetables. I was stunned.

The once high-spirited Li Jun was now hunched over, smiling and haggling with customers, while a little boy beside him was crying and fussing.

At last, justice had been served.