Upon receiving the report, Bok-yong immediately summoned the village neighbors to the courtroom.
They appeared to be ordinary farmers and neighbors, but one of them was clearly the thief who had stolen the chicken.
However, as soon as the interrogation began, the courtroom was filled with lengthy excuses and pleas of innocence.
"Sir, I plowed the field all night yesterday." "I was sick and just lay there."
Bok-yong scrutinized their faces one by one. On the surface, they all looked calm, and some even confidently met his gaze.
Bok-yong knew all too well that criminals act more composed than ordinary people to erase their tracks.
He did not force a confession. Instead, he made the suspects kneel in a line and began to ask meaningless questions.
As if he had no interest in this case at all, he spent his time rummaging through documents and handling other cases.
As time passed, a strange atmosphere flowed through the courtroom.
The neighbors kneeling under the scorching sun grew exhausted, and tension gradually turned into fatigue.
Bok-yong wiped the sweat from his forehead, feigning extreme tiredness. Then, gesturing with a languid voice, he spoke.
"Haha, it seems we can't reach a conclusion today. The trial ends here. You must all be exhausted, so please head home now."
At those single words, the atmosphere in the courtroom changed in an instant.
The neighbors who had been unjustly dragged there breathed a sigh of relief, and to the criminal, who carried a heavy stone in his heart, those words were like 'salvation.'
A sense of relief enveloped his entire body, thinking, 'I'm alive now, I haven't been caught.'
One by one, people rose to their feet and stepped out the door. It was the very moment when the tension completely dissipated and the thread of vigilance snapped.
"Bang!
Suddenly, along with the intense sound of the hammer ringing through the courtroom, Bok-yung's fierce shout burst out.
"You rooster thief! How dare you get up and try to run away!"
The magistrate, who had just moments ago urged them to leave with a languid expression, was nowhere to be seen. His eyes pierced sharply at the culprit like a hungry hawk.
At that moment, one man among the group walking toward the door knelt again with a 'thump' sound, as if someone had pulled him from behind.
When others turned around in surprise, only the man was trembling all over in terror.
Fu Rong smiled coldly and said, "You are confessing on your own without being asked. Now, tell me. How did you steal those chickens?"
The culprit had already lost his reason. The sudden shout, lodged in his unsuspecting mind, struck his subconscious directly, and his body confessed to being 'guilty' before he could.
Eventually, realizing he could no longer hide it, he confessed to all his crimes.
This story goes beyond a simple tale of the past and offers important insights for us living in modern society.
The tactics used by Fu Rong are the essence of the strategy from Sun Tzu's Art of War, "Attack where the enemy is unprepared, appear at the moment they are not expected."
The Aesthetics of Time:He did not rush and waited until the enemy let their guard down.
Psychological Reversal:After completely releasing tension through the reward of "aspect," he struck at the most vulnerable moment.
Retrieval of the Unconscious:A psychological device that makes the body react before the mind calculates. I utilized it.
