Eyes of Sin

He died in a pool of blood at an abandoned factory on the west side of the city, divided among seven black plastic bags.

He came back to life at "Old Wang's Breakfast Shop" on the south side of the city, taking his first bite of fried dough stick for the day. A trace of last night's blood still clung to the rim of his soy milk cup.

For Lin Chen, death was nothing more than changing workplaces.

March 4, Sunny.

At 9:17 a.m., hit sideways by an overloaded dump truck.

After completing three and a half involuntary rotations in the air, landed in a flower bed on the sidewalk 98.34 meters away.

"My head may have split in two. My vision is in split-screen mode. My left eyeball rolled into a storm drain grate, but my right eye still works. This reminds me to protect my right eye first next time."

April 15, Rain.

11:48 p.m., in a dark alley in an urban village.

Chased and stabbed 18.5 times by a drunk man for "staring longer than the socially acceptable amount of time."

"The nineteenth stab wound could not be fully pulled out because the arm muscles had given out. The knife tip was lodged between the third and fourth ribs. Recommend strengthening upper-body muscles."

July 28, Cloudy.

At a suburban back-alley clinic, Dr. Wang, who called himself a "urology specialist," removed his two "fresh, healthy" kidneys.

"The operation did not use standard sterile procedures. The scalpel was probably reused. However, the anesthetic dosage was precise, which deserves praise."

November 31, Snow.

Kidnapped by a criminal gang and taken to a warehouse after being "suspected of being a male friend kept by a rich woman."

"Struck in the face 23 times with a blunt object. Left eyeball came out. With my eyes closed, I continued taking notes using my hearing and sense of smell: the ringleader had a cavity-like odor when he spoke, underling A used cheap hair gel, and underling B had poor digestion."

"When they demanded, 'What the hell are you writing? Are you a cop?' I answered truthfully, 'You're not my mom.' This objective statement provoked the twenty-fourth blow."

Then came this morning.

As he took his third bite of fried dough stick, the notebook lying open on the greasy table turned to a fresh page of its own accord.

Ink seeped through the paper and gathered into a line of words that did not belong to him:

"Recorder, you have witnessed ███ sins.

Your pen never trembles, and your heart never wavers.

So tell me: is your 'objectivity' itself an indulgence of evil?

Is your 'record' becoming a 'ledger of sacrifices' for some greater ritual?"

Lin Chen set down his fried dough stick and wiped his hands with a tissue.

Then he uncapped the fountain pen that never ran out of ink and neatly wrote an annotation below the question:

"1. The question contains a fundamental logical fallacy: equating 'observation' with 'indulgence' is a typical slippery-slope argument rooted in idealism. Poor argument.

As for the 'ledger of sacrifices' hypothesis: the notes lack the basic elements of a ritual. There are no coordinates, no true names, and no non-Euclidean geometric patterns. The hypothesis is unconvincing.

Most importantly..."

He paused, squinted into the morning light, and wrote his final sentence:

"You wrinkled my paper.

And when you questioned me, my fried dough stick went cold.

That's more serious than any philosophical question."

Theme: Crime and punishment.