"It’s up to you now. But you’d better hurry, we have a lot to do tonight."
He was still somewhat worried.
If Tang Rui awakened as a Collapser, bound by the rules, she wouldn’t be able to resort to violence.
Fortunately, this was only the sixth level of Desire Tower, with no Collapsers present. Tang Rui also raised the knife and slashed down fiercely!
The sharp kitchen knife struck a non-lethal spot, but with such force that it caused a significant splash of blood, enough to be fatal.
The anguished scream was finally let out, but to Tang Rui’s ears, it was like her own crying from many years ago.
One slash on the shoulder, one stab into the abdomen, one chop towards the thigh, one slice towards the arm!
Yan Zhihai soon lost balance and fell to the ground. His roaring lasted only a few seconds before he weakened and quieted due to blood loss, his massive body lying in a pool of dirty red.
Initially, Tang Rui aimed to torment him with each slash, but as the hatred erupted continuously from her heart...
She gripped the knife with both hands and began hacking wildly.
Yan Zhihai’s flesh was chopped into pieces, the filthy blood splattered on Tang Rui’s face, making her look like a demon from Hell.
Growing tired, she threw away the knife and used a pen in her hand to stab fiercely into Yan Zhihai’s eye socket.
Tang Rui had envisioned this scene many times. She wanted to slap him, make this fat pig solve problems, cut him with each wrong answer, humming the cursed music box tune, slicing this fat pig into pieces!
But anger caused her to kill the target too quickly. When she finally regained clarity amidst the ongoing eruption of crimson...
Yan Zhihai was already thoroughly dead, his enormous and fat face a bloody mess from the pen stabs.
Tang Rui stared at the face for a long time and then burst into laughter.
It was the first time in her life she laughed so freely and recklessly.
For over twenty years, each time she wanted to laugh, each time she felt a slight joy, she would instantly feel guilty, fearing she’d overreach in her joy, fearing misfortune would strike the next second.
Her laughter turned into uncontrollable sobbing, with tears and snot flowing.
Because of the grievances.
In the midst of her sobs, Wen Xishu felt the horror of this sequence.
He somewhat understood why the girl’s experience resonated with him, maybe truly because of some similarities, but fundamentally, it was due to the complexity of the sequence.
Tang Rui laughed with tears streaming down, both joy and sorrow intertwined, as if she had finally crossed time and space to meet her old self.
She felt pity for the child she once was, and the child also pitied her.
After a long time, Tang Rui no longer cared about the broken flesh and blood on the ground. She stood up and remained silent for a while before speaking slowly:
"Can you... answer one more question for me?"
Wen Xishu smiled and said:
"I can’t guarantee it will be the truth."
"It’s okay, I trust you."
Tang Rui walked into the rain, letting the rainwater wash away the filthy blood on her body.
"After that big fire, did they survive? Do you still care about them? Do you ever think about them?"
Wen Xishu sighed and said:
"Such a life-threatening question."
He pondered how to phrase his response and after a brief silence, he spoke:
"The effect of the glass of truth does distort my image. Without it, I would tell you a different version of the story."
Tang Rui nodded:
"I also want to hear about your story now."
Wen Xishu said:
"Without the glass of truth, I would tell you that I was a freak from a young age, incapable of feeling love."
"At the orphanage, I always played pranks and scared other children."
"When the adoptive parents came to find me, I pretended so well that they thought I was a good kid."
"I never craved love; I just considered them my new toys."
"When they recorded various family videos, I would wonder if anyone would suspect me if they died."
"Driven by curiosity, I did just that. The fire killed them, and I became the pitiful child in the world’s eyes."
"People sympathized with me, but I was just eager to go to a new family and start another journey."
It was a truly creepy version, portraying himself as a born villain.
"I really wish that was my true experience, because that would make me seem invulnerable..."
"It would make me look like a strong person who never yearned for those illusory things."
"But unfortunately, in reality, I had long realized that their love was just a tool for building an image and gaining attention."
"I kept convincing myself that it was love until one day... I overheard their plan and finally confirmed they didn’t love me."
"It was also then that I decided that whatever happened, I had to survive, because the world is so big that I couldn’t let unloving people bind my steps."
Tang Rui looked at Wen Xishu, his tone was so calm.
"What... did you do?"
"Nothing, just made their plan happen ahead of schedule. I wasn’t in the fire that was supposed to kill me. Instead, they were."
Wen Xishu continued:
"For a while, I indeed had withdrawal-like symptoms and did think about some things."
"But gradually, during the process of surviving, I started not to care about these things anymore."