The thing people are best at is judging others. The thing they are worst at is judging themselves.
When Lin Yuan received that text message, he was measuring a crack in the ceiling.
"Welcome to the Court of Judgment. You have seven days." The countdown had already begun. He stepped out of his bedroom and found himself not in the entryway, but in an unfamiliar corridor. Six other people were there, along with a wall covered in rules. There was only one rule: confess to one sin. Anyone who refused would disappear.
When the first person vanished, she crumbled into ashes. Before she disappeared, she called him "Engineer Lin." That was what the old foreman who died at the construction site three years ago used to call him. Her surname was Zhou.
The wall began to write. Stroke by stroke, it pieced together the collapse three years ago, the one ruled an "accident." It turned out that everyone trapped here had played a part that night. Someone had stolen the steel. Someone had falsified the report. Someone had taken a bribe to let it pass. Someone had witnessed everything and then walked away.
No one was innocent.
On the second day, accusations from others became a mirror. On the third, confession came at a cost. On the fourth, chains emerged from their chests, and one person's sin became everyone's burden. On the fifth, they voted on who would stay. On the sixth, every memory of that night three years ago was laid bare before them.
The seventh day. Behind the door was only a mirror.
The person in the mirror asked the question he had avoided for three years.
"Have you forgiven yourself?"
