It seems that women always display unprecedented strength when faced with hardship. David Carter's mother was just such a person. The strong character typical of people from Shandong was nowhere to be found in his father, but was vividly embodied in his mother. After handling his father's funeral, his mother carried a basket on her back, walking through the streets and alleys of the small town, collecting other people's trash, or sometimes picking things directly from garbage heaps to make a living, all while raising her child. All in all, life was extremely difficult.

After the Reform and Opening Up, his mother used the money she had saved to set up a small street stall, and life finally got a little back on track. David Carter also made things easier for his mother; he was sensible and obedient from a young age, and after starting school, his grades were always among the top, making him a rare college prospect in the eyes of others.

If things had continued this way, perhaps these two would have been among the first to prosper, but life, that devil, did not spare the mother and son who depended on each other. Its only purpose seemed to be to wear down people's edges and break their backs.

When David Carter had just started his first year of middle school—specifically, on his thirteenth birthday—two people in police uniforms found him at school and told him that his mother was now in the hospital being rescued, having been stabbed seven times, three of which were fatal wounds.

At that moment, David Carter was stunned. When he rushed to the hospital as if he had gone mad, all he saw was his mother's blood-soaked, motionless corpse.

Later, when recalling that scene, David Carter's memory was a bit hazy. The clearest thing he remembered was the pain—bone-deep, heart-wrenching pain, so intense that not a single tear could fall. David Carter knew that from the moment he saw his mother's body, his life had changed. His mother's death brought him not only grief, but also awakened a wildness deep within him, like a beast suddenly breaking out of its cage, impossible to restrain unless he died.

The murderer was quickly caught. By the 1980s, public security in China had basically returned to normal, and catching a thug who committed a crime in broad daylight was still quite easy. It seemed the matter was settled. Killing someone in the street in those days meant facing a firing squad, and there weren't as many procedures as there are now.

If things had ended there, David Carter would not have gone down the path he later took. Maybe he would have been sent to an orphanage or some other place, or left to fend for himself, or perhaps he would have finished his studies and made something of himself.

But things didn't end there. In just a few days, the murderer was released. The same two police officers came to David Carter's home and, with evasive words, told him that the locally notorious gangster was just passing by and hadn't actually done anything. The case had been investigated and cleared, so the man was released. The two officers also brought two thousand yuan, supposedly collected by kind-hearted people at the police station...

Two thousand yuan was a huge sum at that time, but could his mother's life really be bought for two thousand yuan? Having already seen too much of the coldness and warmth of human relationships, David Carter did not cry or make a scene. He simply and silently took care of his mother's funeral. His body was as cold as ice, but it felt as if a raging fire was burning inside him...

What happened afterward became a legend in that small town. A thirteen-year-old child, holding a butcher's knife over two feet long, burst into the home of the town's notorious thug Little Michael in broad daylight, and severely injured four strong men in their twenties who were playing mahjong there. After chopping off Little Michael's hands and feet, he dragged the barely alive Michael Thompson out onto the street, walked down an entire street, and arrived at the scene of the bloody incident from a few days before. People didn't know where this child got such strength, but he managed to drag a man weighing over a hundred jin for nearly a kilometer.

There, David Carter slit Little Michael's throat with a single stroke, without the slightest hesitation. It was said that the blood sprayed five or six meters, terrifying the onlookers into fleeing in panic, and many were trampled and injured.

Then the police arrived, trembling as they handcuffed the child already stained red with blood and took him away.

Originally, David Carter thought he would be executed next. After all, a life for a life—this was the simple, almost naive thought of someone with no knowledge of the law.

But life seemed to play another huge joke on him. Perhaps it was that unparalleled murderous aura that seemed to be born within him that saved him. In the temporary detention center, a man who looked like a soldier appeared before him...

David Carter disappeared. In the criminal records of the small town, it was recorded that David Carter had been sent to a juvenile detention center somewhere in Shihezi, Xinjiang, for re-education through labor.

Training, then being sent on missions, then more training, then more missions... This became David Carter's life.

At that time, the TV series "Garrison Death Squad" was very popular. David Carter watched it a few times out of boredom and felt a certain resonance. Weren't people like them just like those guys in the movie? Typical cases of redeeming themselves through meritorious service, scrap metal being recycled, but with no hope of ever seeing the light of day...

As for all this, David Carter was unwilling to recall, because it was always filled with blood and death.