Before the young programmer could utter another word, the first video concluded.
Every eye in the space was instantly drawn back to the screens; the air itself felt stagnant, punctuated only by the rise and fall of thousands of terrified breaths.
The screen did not immediately brighten. That brief interval of darkness was more suffocating than any physical punishment.
As the question faded into the void, everyone looked as though they had just been dragged from the bottom of an ocean—drenched in sweat.
The fur-clad starlet leaned weakly against the void, her exquisite makeup long since ruined by tears. "Is... is it over?"
The answer came in the form of a blood-red vote counter popping up on the screen:
[Right: 5014, Wrong: 4900, Right & Wrong: 1]
That sliver of grey representing "Right & Wrong" looked disturbingly eerie between the long red and green bars. It was the mark left by the Lawyer. The screen flickered violently, accompanied by the ear-grating static of electronic waves.
[Next, please view the second video]
Unlike before, the screen split into five sections—four small and one large.
Streams, dense forests, precipices, and clouds... landscapes that once cleansed the human soul now appeared in a uniform, pathological hue: burning crimson.
Fire. There was fire everywhere.
The space rippled and distorted as the New Su Qiang stepped out from the shimmer like a silent black monolith.
He held a white object resembling a conductor's baton—similar to a stylus used by live-streamers—and stood beside the screens.
His voice echoed through the virtual space, as cold as frozen ice:
"Next, I shall provide the commentary."
His expression was stern, but upon closer inspection, it carried a trace of imperceptible grief. He tapped the first screen. The lush forest had become a sea of flames—a Purgatory.
Black smoke, like the talons of a rampaging demon, tore through the sky, the acrid fumes nearly spilling out of the screen. The vibrant green that once provided sanctuary was now nothing but roaring orange-red fire and charred blackness.
Beneath the licking tongues of flame, trees withered and carbonized instantly.
"This was once our final refuge," he said, his tone heavy, every deep breath sounding as if he were swallowing embers. He looked into the lens, his gaze part accusation, part testimony.
"It was human 'ambition' that lit this fire."
In the background of his screen, fire licked the interior of a smoke-blackened tree hollow, producing a sharp crackling sound. The visual impact was intensely aggressive.
The global live-stream chat scrolled at a frantic pace—mostly in white and pale grey, with a few red exclamation marks. The world was shivering.
—[How could the fire spread this fast?]
—[Is that the Amazon or Australia? My God, the whole forest is weeping.]
—[Look at the tree hollow! There's something inside!]
In the center of that boundless DivineRealm, She stood silently upon the clouds. Suddenly, a voice reached Her ears like a gentle breeze, stirring the hair at Her temples.
"My Great Goddess, I have completely adapted to this body."
A clear female voice broke the silence of the Divine Realm, carrying the youthful energy of a woman and a secret anticipation, like a child eager to show a parent a new toy.
"Ascend the Celestial Ladder. To thee, there shall be no hindrance."
The Oracle descended, and a pillar of holy light enveloped the woman. She stepped onto the stairs and vanished from the dimension of reality. No one saw; no one noticed.
Back in the virtual space, the New Su Qiang's eyes were bloodshot as he stared at the second screen. There, the flames were licking the last inch of soil. He tapped it, and the image enlarged.
It was a medium shot: several Pangolins, creatures that should have been hidden deep in the mountains, were driven to a dead end by the smoke.
They crawled out from burning hollows and blackened brush, their bodies covered in soil and soot.
Their hard scales had lost all luster under the high heat. Every step they took seemed to exhaust their entire being as they crawled blindly and desperately away from the inferno.
A close-up followed, focusing on a juvenile Pangolin.
Its claws recoiled from the scorching ground, already marked by burns. It shrunk back, its body convulsing in pain. Its bead-like eyes were filled with a confusion and terror that no species should ever have to carry.
The New Su Qiang spoke again, his words seeming to carry the weight of blood: "To escape the fire, we had to leave our final hiding place, only to realize that outside... was another Hell."
Dense layers of text covered the live stream like a blizzard. No one knew if the characters jumping across the screens hid belated repentance or a hollow act of feigning kindness to seek exemption:
—[It's the pangolins! My God, why did they come out!]
—[They are so pitiful... forced out by the fire...]
—[Run! Run toward the places without fire!]
—[(Crying) They look so pained, can someone please save them...]
Seeing this, the New Su Qiang's large human palms trembled so violently he could barely grip the bone-white stylus.
He shakily tapped the next image—a divine close-up, a slow-motion shot stretched into a state of absolute despair.
The moment he clicked, he squeezed his eyes shut, unable to bear the sight.
In the frame, a thin, small pangolin crawled with agonizing effort through the scorching ash. It clambered over charred, broken branches, seemingly spotting a sliver of life ahead.
Snap—!
A crisp, cold metallic clank echoed in the air. The rusted teeth of a leg-hold trap, like a venomous viper, clamped down ruthlessly on its tender forepaw.
Such a tiny creature—its body buckled and convulsed from the searing pain, its throat letting out a muffled, "hissing" sob of utter hopelessness.
It scratched futilely at the freezing iron with its remaining healthy claws, the spark of survival in its eyes flickering out rapidly beneath the moonlight.
The New Su Qiang's ears twitched with sensitivity.
In that moment, within his human eardrums, the sounds overlapped: the snap of the trap in the wilderness, the greedy laughter of the poachers, and the agonizing crack of his kin's bones.
He spoke again, his voice as raspy as if he were swallowing crushed glass, perfectly delivering the line: "The poachers had long ago set their nets. The 'freshness' you speak of—every ounce of it is a sacrifice paid for with our agony and our lives."
—[No!!! The leg-hold traps!!!]
—[These beasts! They won't even let them go during a fire!]
—[My heart... it's breaking...]
—[Too cruel! How can they do this!]
—['Freshness'? That word makes me want to vomit now!]
The psychological defenses of the audience collapsed entirely.
The New Su Qiang's legs gave way, and he knelt heavily in the virtual void, his forehead pressed against his palms, hands bracing against the floor as he wept uncontrollably.
His broad back heaved violently, and the entire virtual space echoed with this blend of beast-like sorrow and human despair.
Unwillingness, rage, sorrow, pain—emotions suppressed for lifetimes poured out all at once.
The thousands of participants in the virtual space watched this, and that eerie "Gaze of Shared Hell" descended once more. Some wept, some were numb, and some grew impatient—yet no one could move.
Just then, the space rippled again. The "New Mad Dog" walked out slowly. He did not speak; he simply walked to the New Su Qiang's side and, with a natural grace, pressed his forehead against the other's, rubbing gently.
In the eyes of the audience both inside and outside the trial, this scene presented an extreme sense of fragmentation:
To those with a remaining conscience, it was the warmth of two beings supporting each other; to those who deemed themselves "elites," the sight of two burly men huddled together seemed absurd or even disgusting.
But in this domain seized by Goddess, no one dared utter a word.
"Next, I will take over."
The New Mad Dog took the stylus. His voice was equally choked, yet it carried the deathly stillness of a dormant volcano about to erupt. He tapped the central main screen.
A sorrowful, mournful melody suddenly blared—a funeral dirge, slow and heavy, crushing the breath out of everyone.
Through the smoke, blurred human figures moved like ghosts, accompanied by sharp, heartless shouting. Several pangolins caught in traps let out pained whimpers.
The camera stopped. No one spoke. Even the chat disappeared for a brief second.
A cold, shimmering knife was thrust into a gap between scales and pried upward with a sharp crack. As the scale fell away, it revealed the bright red, trembling flesh beneath, quivering with terror.
The New Mad Dog stared at the screen, his eyes bloodshot. "To satisfy the morbid 'nourishment' fantasies of some, they are flayed alive while fully conscious. This is not hunting; this is death by a thousand cuts!"
He looked toward the void of the live stream chat and asked, "What do you all say?"
—[(Vomiting emoji) I can't look... that knife tip is stabbing my own heart...]
—[Do these people have no souls?! How can they lay a hand on them!]
—[It's all superstition! How many lives have been murdered for it!]
—[I can't stop the tears... they are in so much pain...]
The "New Mad Dog" stared fixatedly at the scrolling comments. To him, those words of prayer and weeping seemed utterly hollow. Without a single word, his stiff fingers clicked on the final segment of footage.
The mid-shot focused and locked onto a significantly larger pangolin. It looked like a piece of discarded scrap metal, its back pierced diagonally by a rusted, crude spear.
Dark red blood welled from the gaps between its scales, staining the scorched earth beneath it a startling, bruised purple. It was on the brink of death, yet its body maintained an eerie, rock-like rigidity, curled tightly into a ball.
The camera pushed in. Closer. Larger.
Several poachers surrounded the "meatball." Their cursing and crude laughter pierced through the speakers into everyone's eardrums.
They treated it like a stubborn safe, brutally kicking it with mud-stained combat boots and striking it repeatedly with heavy wooden clubs.
Crack— that was the sound of ribs snapping under the forceful blows. Even through the screen, it triggered a sharp, agonizing phantom pain that made one's teeth ache. Yet, it remained motionless.
The "New Mad Dog" turned his head, his eyes bloodshot as he looked at the global audience. His voice had a jagged, tearing quality, his speech faster than ever before:
"This is a female pangolin. The spear pierced her organs; her ribs were hammered to dust. She should have run. She should have wailed. But she didn't. She used her final stubbornness to protect something... more important than life itself."
His pace slowed, but grew more powerful, striking directly at the heart. He stared into the lens as if trying to reach through the screen and seize everyone by the throat:
"Guess... what was she protecting?"
The chat surged like a tide. Some had guessed but remained silent; others questioned in a display of grief.
—[This pangolin... what is it protecting?]
—[Bastards! Stop! It's already dying!]
—[My tears... it...]
—[Stop it now! This is slaughter!]
The poacher in the video clearly lost his patience. With a grimace, he spat on the ground and casually snatched up a blowtorch.
His ugly face, illuminated by the fire, twisted like a demon's. The female pangolin seemed to sense what was coming; her body shivered slightly, but she still did not let go.
He pressed the nozzle against the mother's head, which was shaking violently from the extreme pain.
"Whoosh—!!!"
Orange-red flames instantly engulfed the ball of scales. Then came the sickening, nauseating stench of charred flesh.
Under the thousand-degree heat, the mother's body convulsed violently, but even as her flesh carbonized, she did not release the "ball."
Not until the poacher decided this "merchandise" was ruined did he casually kick her into a muddy pit, laughing to his accomplice, "This one's burnt, move to the next."
At that moment, the charred, broken corpse—now devoid of all life—finally went limp and unfurled.
Everyone in the real world, including the thousands of "elites" in the virtual space, was struck as if by lightning.
Tucked tightly beneath the mother's scorched belly was a palm-sized, pink baby that hadn't even had the chance to open its eyes.
The umbilical cord connecting it to its mother still held a final, faint trace of blood-red color.
The baby seemed awakened by the cold wind. It moved blindly across its mother's charred remains, emitting a faint, cricket-like "chee-chee" sound.
It seemed to be calling out: "Mama, Mama, I'm cold... talk to me..." It was searching for a teat, searching for the warmth that had just sacrificed its life to block the flames.
Blind and innocent, it didn't even know its mother had just left it forever.
The "New Su Qiang" had regained his composure and stepped before the camera, standing side-by-side with the "New Mad Dog." Their voices overlapped, forming a soul-piercing duet:
"It didn't even have the chance to see a sunset in the forest before it learned the temperature of fire. Is this the 'nourishment' and 'freshness' you bipeds pursue?"
The chat fell silent, the audience left speechless by this direct interrogation of the soul. The screen faded to black, finally freezing on the baby's ignorant, tiny face.
The "New Su Qiang" and the "New Mad Dog" slowly raised their hands, pointing toward the red and green light orbs that had lit up once more.
They asked the question that the millions behind them wanted to ask—a question capable of collapsing the world:
"Question 2: Are 'We'... in the wrong?"
[Green: Right, "They" are in the wrong.]
[Red: Wrong, "They" are not in the wrong.]