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The C standard doesn't mandate any particular way of representing negative signed
numbers.

In most implementations that you are likely to encounter, negative signed integers
are stored in what is called two's complement. The other major way of storing
negative signed numbers is called one's complement.

The two's complement of an N-bit number x is defined as 2^N - x. For example, the
two's complement of 8-bit 1 is 2^8 - 1, or 1111 1111. The two's complement of 8-bit
8 is 2^8 - 8, which in binary is 1111 1000. This can also be calculated by flipping
the bits of x and adding one. For example:

1 = 0000 0001
~1 = 1111 1110
~1 + 1 = 1111 1111
-1 = 1111 1111

21 = 0001 0101
~21 = 1110 1010
~21 + 1 = 1110 1011
-21 = 1110 1011
The one's complement of an N-bit number x is defined as x with all its bits
flipped, basically.

1 = 0000 0001
-1 = 1111 1110

21 = 0001 0101
-21 = 1110 1010
Two's complement has several advantages over one's complement. For example, it
doesn't have the concept of 'negative zero', which for good reason is confusing to
many people. Addition, multiplication and subtraction work the same with signed
integers implemented with two's complemented as they do with unsigned integers as
well.

000 0
001 1
010 2
011 3
100 -4
101 -3
110 -2
111 -1