The four of us came to an almost empty street food stall, ordered a few bottles of alcohol, and some meat.

Xiao Sha and Xiao Ya Jie were chatting enthusiastically. I didn’t say a word, while Lan Lan kept flipping through that “European History” book beside us.

When I was with these people, I always felt inexplicably relaxed. Xiao Ya Jie was more than ten years older than me, and in many ways she was like a strict mother.

“Hey hey hey!!” Xiao Ya Jie lit a cigarette and knocked on the table impatiently, saying to Lan Lan, “You damn girl, I’m treating everyone to a meal and you don’t even say thank you? What’s so interesting about that broken book? Is it better looking than me?”

Lan Lan somewhat heavily read the last few words, then closed the book, raised her head, and let out a heavy sigh. “Ai!!”

“What are you sighing about?” Xiao Sha also asked. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m upset!” Lan Lan said helplessly. “I just read an incredible story. If I hadn’t borrowed a history book, I would have thought someone made up this novel out of boredom.”

“What is it?” Xiao Sha said while pouring water for us. “What incredible story? Tell us quickly. I love hearing stories.”

“How should I put it…” Lan Lan reached out to take the water cup. “It’s about something that happened in Europe before… called the ‘Witch Hunt.'”

“Witch… Hunt?” Xiao Sha and Xiao Ya Jie exchanged glances, clearly having never heard this term before.

“You won’t believe it when I tell you…” Lan Lan shook her head. “During the most fanatical period of the ‘Witch Hunt,’ you just had to point at a woman on the street and shout ‘She’s a witch,’ and she would be regarded as a heretic and would be burned to death.”

After hearing this, my expression froze, and then I slowly lowered my head.

“Huh…?” Xiao Sha was stunned. “What?!”

“It’s just that absurd.” Lan Lan spread her hands. “One inexplicable sentence could directly condemn a woman to death. She had no way to prove she wasn’t a witch, so no matter how she explained, no one would believe her. Everyone would beat her, curse her, and finally burn her to death.”

“What the fuck kind of logic is that?” Xiao Ya Jie cursed. “Being accused means you have to die?”

“How many…?”

“Official records show over one hundred thousand people.” Lan Lan said, holding her water cup. “Adding those not recorded and those privately executed by civilians, rough estimates are several hundred thousand people.”

“Fuck!” Xiao Ya Jie cursed loudly. “Isn’t this purely fucking framing people? Are we women not human?”

“Why are you getting angry, Jie…” Xiao Sha said with a laugh beside her. “There’s no such ‘Witch Hunt’ now… This shows that modern society has become civilized after all.”

Gone… is it?

No, the “Witch Hunt” has always existed.

Domestic and foreign, past and present, it has always existed.

A fat woman walks into the workshop, points at a woman she’s never seen before and shouts “She’s a witch,” and in an extremely short time, that woman becomes a rat crossing the street, never to turn her life around again.

I am an evil heretic and should be burned to death.

Human traffickers want to snatch women off the street. They rush up and slap them a few times. When someone tries to stop them, they just need to say “We’re catching witches,” and the crowd will silently watch as they drag an innocent woman into a van.

We are evil heretics and should be burned to death.

A customer told me that nowadays young people talk about everything in a place called “forums.”

Once someone posts a photo or video of beating someone, with the caption “Beating a witch,” the comment section becomes one-sided.

They say “Witches deserve to be beaten,” they say “Well done,” they say “Now she knows pain,” they say “Why didn’t she think she’d be beaten at the start.”

We are all evil heretics and should be burned to death.

As if we should be grateful that society has become civilized now, otherwise we would all have been bound hand and foot and placed over a fire.

But has anyone ever actually verified… how many people like me were wrongly accused?

And how exactly are those wrongly accused supposed to turn their lives around?

Everyone holds the idea that “even wise officials have trouble judging family matters,” using vigilante justice against witches tainted with “infidelity,” “unchastity,” and “lack of self-respect.”

We are all evil heretics and should be burned to death.

All humans in the world seem to be telling this same story—every region has its own style of “hunting operation.”

When the rabble gathers together, the destructive power they unleash exceeds ordinary people’s imagination.

No wonder everyone always talks about “trusting the power of the people,” but rarely mentions “trusting the wisdom of the people.”

When there are many people, things that shouldn’t be believed become believable.

“Tiantian… what’s with that expression?” Xiao Ya Jie looked at me. “What’s wrong? Are you tired today?”

“No.” I came back to my senses and shook my head. “Jie, I want to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

“I want to take on jobs.”

“Take on jobs…?” Xiao Ya Jie’s hand holding the cigarette froze, and the ash also fell to the ground. “Damn girl… you’re only eighteen. Have you really fucking thought it through? Even if you work as a massage therapist for your whole life, I won’t…”

“I’ve thought it through.” I nodded. “Jie, I don’t have time. I need a lot of money.”

“…If you’ve thought it through, then start tomorrow.”

In just one year, I earned more than seventy thousand yuan.

That year I was only nineteen.

Compared to when I left home, I had long since become a different person.

I became riddled with wounds, and I became numb and indifferent.

I felt that deep in my subconscious, I was always making excuses for myself. No matter what I was doing, I could say it was for my seriously ill younger brother.

He was the motivation for all my actions, but until that day, I opened my heart to a regular customer and told him about my predicament.

“I know…” The regular customer smiled. “Gambling father, sick mother, younger brother in school, and a broken home… I know.”

“What…?”

“You all in this line of work use the same story.” The regular customer smiled and shook his head. “But you’re too honest. Just saying your younger brother is sick—which customer would feel sorry for that? In the future you can say more, like your mother is also sick, your father is also sick. Anyway, I’m a regular customer, so I won’t hold it against you. Let’s go, come to my car with me?”

Perhaps that was the day I completely died?

Thinking about it carefully, there’s an absurd sense of fate.

My parents said that everyone has their own fate, and all of my fate seemed to determine that I should be in this industry.

Even “the sick younger brother” was called “the industry’s standard story,” almost cutting off all possibilities for me to make excuses for myself.

So it was like this? So Xiao Sha, Lan Lan, even Xiao Ya Jie, all had such a similar story?

So I was still me, the me who wouldn’t gain anyone’s trust.

Also on that same day, in the regular customer’s car, I heard the phone ring. It was my newly bought phone, and it was the first call from my parents.

I had wanted to use this phone to keep in touch with them.

I had wanted to gradually restore my connection with my family.

I had wanted to live like a human being.

But my mother cried on the other end of the phone, telling me that Liang Wa’s condition had seriously deteriorated because it had been delayed for so long, and there was no way to cure it through surgery anymore.