"Hello everyone, I am Peng Fei. I am very sorry that I have to bring up my hometown in this way after all these years. I am truly sorry, and deeply ashamed."
"Over the past two days, there have been many discussions online about me and my hometown. Everyone has been asking me to speak up. I have thought a lot, and I was indeed afraid. I considered running away, but after much consideration, a person must ultimately pay for their wrongdoings and face their own shortcomings. That is why I am standing here today."
"Please allow me a few minutes to explain everything from the beginning. Thank you."
"My hometown, my family, was very, very poor. How poor, you ask? Although I finished high school, before I came to Nancheng a year and a half ago, the furthest I had ever gone was to the high school in the county town. I had never been anywhere else."
"I had heard words like skyscrapers, dazzling array, streets paved with gold, and bustling crowds in textbooks, but they were abstract. I couldn't truly grasp their meaning. To use a popular saying nowadays, poverty limited my imagination. Things that are commonplace to you were things people in my hometown would never see in their lifetime."
"Electricity only reached our village five years ago. There are over 30 households in the village. While every household now has electricity, fewer than ten have a television, let alone a color television."
"Hard to imagine, right? In today's society, with technology having advanced so far, my home didn't even have a television."
"I am currently considered the most educated person in our village. This is because my father was a carpenter in his youth and had traveled to some places, broadening his horizons and understanding the importance of education. However, he passed away early. After he left, my mother had to raise three children alone. As the sole male heir in the family, I had to share the burden, and naturally, I stopped going to school."
"When I was in elementary school, I would wake up at five in the morning during summer to make breakfast and then walk an hour uphill to school. In winter or on rainy days, I usually woke up as early as four."
"Because it was so far, we didn't go home for lunch. There was no food provided at school. Everyone basically brought leftovers from breakfast, wrapped in plastic bags."
"But because we rarely shopped for groceries, we had very few plastic bags at home. A tattered plastic bag was something we cherished and used for a long time, even for years."
"Some people might ask, why not buy a lunchbox? That was also an expense. For a poor family, any small expense could be the last straw that breaks them."
"Due to the harsh conditions of attending school, with fewer teachers and low educational standards, coupled with low salaries, our educational environment was very poor. Most people managed to finish elementary school or dropped out before completing it."
"Helping with chores at home, day after day of repetitive, uneventful life, until they reached their teenage years. Elders would deem them old enough to get married and start arranging it for them."
"Girls were never worried about getting married. Although our area was very poor, there was still a bride price. For families in our region, a bride price of a few thousand yuan was a cause for immense worry."
"Moreover, marrying a local girl usually involved an engagement period of two years, during which the man's family's attitude was observed before the marriage. During these two years, the groom had to bring various gifts to the bride's family on every festival. Over two years, this amounted to a considerable expense. Therefore, to marry a local girl, one had to be from a very well-off family."
"Many families couldn't afford it, and with a scarcity of women, the phenomenon you see online emerged."
"This phenomenon has been prevalent in our area for at least ten years. As far back as I can remember from my childhood, women from outside were constantly coming into the village. For us, this was commonplace. Coupled with our ignorance and lack of legal understanding, we didn't think much of it. We even felt it was the right way, a normal social phenomenon."
"We didn't try to put ourselves in others' shoes, lacked empathy, and didn't pity the women or their parents. As long as our own families were complete, the whole world seemed fine."
"What everyone says is correct; I was once one of those people. Two years ago, my maternal uncle arranged for a wife for me through someone. She was very beautiful, from Nancheng, and I fell for her at first sight."
"Honestly, I didn't want to get married so early because my family was poor, but after meeting her, I forgot everything else. I would rather borrow money to bring her back."
"Like all the women who first arrived in our area, she cried, she threw tantrums, she begged me to let her go, promising to give me a lot of money. But I didn't believe her. I didn't believe anyone in the world could have so much money. More importantly, I couldn't bear to part with her. She was so good, so beautiful. If I let her go, I would never meet anyone as good again. So, I locked her up..."
At this point, Peng Fei closed his eyes, recalling Zhan Jingchun's pitiful appearance from back then, and felt even more like a scumbag.
If he could bravely reveal these things today, and his town could completely eradicate this poison and change this vulgar custom, even if people looked down on him or ridiculed him, he would accept it.
"We don't have children. It's not that I didn't want them; we did, but she found a way to get rid of them."
"She never liked me. Every day spent there, she was scheming to escape. Later, she finally left, and my world collapsed."
"All I knew was her name, and that she was from Nancheng. I didn't know if I could find her, or where to find her, but I still chased her to Nancheng."
"Scary, isn't it? Someone who hurt you, relentlessly pursuing you to your hometown, like a vengeful ghost?"
"But I didn't see it that way then. On the way, I thought I was so devoted. I treated her so well, why wouldn't she like me?"
"It wasn't until I truly entered Nancheng and met cultured, normal people that I realized how profoundly wrong I was."
"I have wronged her, I have wronged all my fans who like and trust me, I have wronged my agent, I have wronged the brand sponsors, and I have wronged everyone who has ever given me work."
"I should have revealed these things from the very beginning, instead of waiting until now. I deeply know that I was wrong, and that is why I sincerely apologize to everyone here."
"I will pay for my past actions, and in the future, I will be cautious in my words and deeds, and never repeat my mistakes. I am sorry!"
After speaking, Peng Fei bowed deeply twice in the video, and it was uploaded online without hesitation.
It was imaginable how explosive the online reaction would be to such impactful news.
Within just one hour, the server crashed.
With billions of views, his agent was likely driven mad by him.