the history of huang renjun
It’s Okay To Be Killers[Mansion on the hill, Linjin]
Renjun was back in Linjin, gnarly arms bringing him down the dark dreary halls. He knew where he was being escorted to, the male very familiar of the childhood memories that would haunt him. He stumbled, the men leaving bruises on his shoulders when he finally reached the study.
And there she was.
The one person he dreaded, the male trembling slightly with fear when she turned around and smiled at him.
“Renjun, come and give your mother a hug,” she said so casually, Renjun wanted to wipe that smile off her face. His jaw was locked and he shrugged the men off, the male bravely moving forward to sit down. He did not need to be controlled—Renjun finally sitting across his mother.
Ah, chess pieces were scattered on the board and he realized that she was playing chess all by herself… again. Renjun’s eyes ran over the pieces, his hands going to move one of them to start a game and she smirked.
“What do you want?” he asked, knowing his mother was not one to negotiate. “You hid the note well.”
“I have associates all over South Korea, my child. This is what comes with power,” she answered.
Renjun had seen the note plastered on the wall, a decoded message that he knew was from his mother and his mother alone. The Morse code was something he used a lot when he was a child and he remembered feeling his heart drop. She was a monster and he knew if he didn’t follow her orders, she would find a way to hurt them—Na Jaemin’s parents to be exact.
And Renjun knew of Na Jaemin’s adoptive parents, how they were old yet kind. Nana had told him once before… But what was he against his mother? So Renjun did what he thought was best for everyone’s safety and decided to put the doctor to sleep.
“Why do you need me here?” Renjun asked, calmly. “Why aren’t you doing one of your stupid experiments—”
“There are not stupid, Renjun.” His mother’s voice was sharp and he flinched. “I see that you have a weakness. You need to be fixed, my child. It’s been awhile since you’ve watched your cartoons.”
Renjun knew what that meant, his heart dropping. His mother smiled when she saw his face fall. Renjun was reminded of the times she would make him watch things—things that were horrid and gory. She believed it would make him mentally strong and Renjun did what he had to do, put himself in a trance until he learned how to do it to other people.
“I’m never going to be like you. You disgust me.” Renjun managed to say and his mother scoffed.
“You know nothing of power, child,” she snapped back, standing up and circling him like a predator circling its prey. Renjun looked to the men by the door and he could tell that they were different, their eyes were empty and he saw a tinge of green in their veins.
“What did you do to them?” he managed to ask, his mother smiling and motioning to the men who were frigid.
“Them? You mean, my creation?” she asked, smiling proudly. “I have unlocked the reason as to why the Hulk drug does not work on normal people, Renjun.”
She stepped closer to him and whispered.
“And you will find out soon enough.” She beamed. “But they are rather magnificent, don’t you think? Imagine having an army of it, Renjun. People who comply, people who are strong and only listen to you. With the help of the Marvel drug and the Hulk drug, these people will become weapons… The power I will hold!”
Renjun frowned, trying to make sense of her words when his eyes widened.
“You want to be able to make an army and sell the process to the government,” he said softly. “You worked for YG, didn’t you? I always thought the bioweapon would be a disease, a virus—I didn’t know it would be people…”
“Oh, honey. This is not the olden days. We don’t need viruses to wipe out people, humans do that on their own.” His mother chuckled to herself. “I have a few steps to take care and I will be done with my research. I want you to be with me every step of the way, Renjun. You are my child after all.”
“You are sick,” he seethed, his hands turning into fists. “I will never—”
“Time for cartoons, Renjun. Take him to the study,” she said and the men marched forward, robotically grabbing Renjun.
“No—Let me go!” Renjun began to panic. “Mama, no! No!”
“Now, now, Renjun.” She smiled. “You need it.”
And with that, Renjun was locked up in the subliminal room with the sounds of screaming and blood flashing in front of him.
He couldn’t even close his eyes and for the first time in a long time, he ended up putting himself in a trance just like the old times.
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[Peiyang]
We had reached Peiyang, a town on the left side of the mountain. The truck driver told us that he refused to bring us up the mountain to Linjin and that we would have to go on foot. We had a few hours of sleep and Peiyang seemed like a very peaceful town at best, the small shops and the people yelling out at the market.
We looked up to see a trail up the mountain and the driver told us that it would take around 6-7 hours to climb, all of our jaws dropping from the news. Jaemin decided that it would be best if we ate and packed food and so that was what we did, Xiaojun hauling bags of food that Shotaro and Sungchan helped each other carry. Jisung was exhausted, but my brother didn’t say anything, all of us getting an hour of rest when we began to trudge across the mountain.
This was different from a mission because we were aimless and we finally decided that we needed to camp out. The sun had already set and we decided to get some rest, all of us laying down on the crusty leaves for the night. Jisung lay on my lap and I could see Sungchan and Shotaro huddle together as the wind blew.
Jaemin had made a campfire, the crackling of the flames warming us.
“How’d you make a fire? Were you in Boys Scouts?” I asked Jaemin, the man showing me a lighter. “Oh.”
“We’re civilized, Dana. I bought it in the market,” he said and I chuckled at his words. Xiaojun leaned against the bark of the tree, Jaemin looking around warily. “Is it just me or does Linjin seem like a place everyone is scared of? No one wants to talk about the place. Xiaojun—”
“I told you, I tried asking. No one mentioned anything and it seems like people don’t even bother going over this mountain.” Xiaojun sighed, rubbing his arms and I grabbed an extra cardigan I had packed to give it to him. We weren’t very prepared when it came to the weather. “I wonder why.”
“Let’s get a night’s rest and continue on the journey,” Jaemin said, finally laying down carelessly on the ground. “Tomorrow is a new day and we’ll finally see Renjun.”
He said it so simply and I saw the flames reflect in his iris’, a glimmer of hope in Jaemin’s eyes putting me at ease.
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When we woke up, my mouth felt milky and unclean and I was thirsty. We drank the water we had put in our backpacks, the five hours of sleep helping us regain our strength and as we continued on our journey by foot, we began to see that the trees seemed weird.
“The trees bow down to the ground,” Jaemin whispered to himself and I saw that it was true to what Renjun’s lullaby spoke about. “Look at that.”
The trees were bent, the flowers looked mutated. There were no birds at all and for a forest on top of a mountain, it was eerily quiet. Jisung scooted closer and I held his hand, my brother trembling at the ambiance of the place. This went on and as time passed, Xiaojun pointed out that the there was a road—all of us finally seeing a bunch of brick houses in the background.
The air was a saturated gray and there were sounds of roosters as morning came. Our feet finally ended up on a very badly made trail, Jaemin bounding up and pointing at the small village.
“That must be Linjin,” he said and Xiaojun frowned.
“It looks so… barren. No stores, no nothing. Nothing like Peiyang.”
And that was true. It was a horizon of rice fields and a few scattered straw houses. Some were made of bricks and beyond that was a hill—and we could see a big mansion with a stone wall. Maybe that was the house of the head of the village, I thought.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Jaemin said. “We need to ask around.”
And with that, we began to move down the trail, nearing the edge of the mountain where there was loud sound. It was a truck, the engine seemingly old with the clunking of metal coming from it and a man rolled down the window. He frowned when he saw us.
He was still young, and he had high cheekbones, his black hair covering his forehead when he parked right in front of us, yelling out something in Chinese. Xiaojun answered something back, the man running his eyes over us.
“You guys speak Korean?” he asked and my eyes widened at how fluent he was. “Don’t be surprised, we all do. We live by the border of North Korea.”
And right as he said, I forgot that fact. His accent was different from ours though, and I wondered if it was because they were influenced by the North Koreans. He hopped off the truck, his gaze concerned.
“You can’t be here,” was what he said.
“We climbed the mountain.” Jaemin blurted out.
“I know. You can’t be here, it’s not safe,” he said and we frowned. “What are you here for? To find that Thai girl? I already told the three woman that came days ago that we haven’t seen her.”
Thai girl? Three women? I had no idea what he was talking about.
“No, we’re here for someone else,” Jaemin said, grabbing a picture of Renjun from his wallet and showing it to the man. He took one glance and familiarity clouded over, the man heaving a sigh and looking at us. “Do you know—”
“Renjun,” he said, nodding. “He’s my cousin. My name is Junhui. I heard that he came back a week ago because of his mother and I wondered why, since he was so adamant of never coming back—”
“Cousin?” I asked, frowning.
“First cousins,” Junhui replied. “I need to hide you before the army comes and scouts out the place, get into the truck and hide under the planks.”
“Why the—” Jisung asked, but he was cut off when Junhui said just to do it. Sungchan was muttering under his breath, colors and feelings of fear and trauma could be heard. Shotaro clung to Jaemin, Jaemin being the only person not bothered by the atmosphere and with that, we finally hid under the planks, laying down at the back of the truck.
It seemed like it was a space for something, Junhui seeing us look at each other questioningly.
“I’ll answer your questions later, I have this truck to sneak people out of Linjin. It’s a long story. Be very quiet, I can’t guarantee your safety,” he said and I took a deep breath, the planks being laid on top of us slowly and carefully and we were plunged into darkness.
It was a good thirty minutes, Jisung squeezing my fingers as we endured the rocky road when there was a yell from outside in Chinese then someone switched to Korean.
“Yeah, I came back to get food for the people,” Junhui was saying. “Check the back of the truck—”
“It’s fine. Go through,” the person said and the truck surged forward, all of us finally going to a stop. There were hushed voices and a person asked Junhui what he brought back.
“People, they were looking for Renjun. Minghao, there are six of them—”
“Six of them? How are we going to house six of them?” the guy named Minghao said and Junhui said they had to manage. “I’ll get the basement ready then.”
“You do that. Let me make sure no one sees them,” Junhui said and finally, the planks were moved and we saw light. “Get up, quickly. No one is awake yet so there is less possibility of you being seen. Go, go.”
He urged.
When we got out, I saw that Junhui’s house was one of the brick houses. It had a white picket fence and I saw a couple of cats sprawling around. It looked like Renjun’s dream house—
“Maybe this is why he wants a white picket fence house,” Jaemin whispered softly. “He associates it with safety.”
And maybe that was true, all of us running into the house to see another man coming up from a trap door on the ground. He had goggles on and was hauling blankets. They were old and he nodded at us formally, not surprised to see us when Junhui shut the blinds and closed the door, locking it.
“These are the people looking for Renjun?” the guy asked, studying us. “I’m Minghao, Renjun’s childhood friend. Junhui is his cousin.”
“We know that,” Shotaro answered softly, looking around wari
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