The screen of Room A shook violently, the cold white light flickering like a dead man's eyeball, emitting a tooth-grinding "zzzt-zzzt" static noise. This wasn't merely technical interference; it was the fury of the consciousness behind the stream, known as the "Laws of Judgment".
At this moment, tens of thousands of "trolls" who remained unrepentant were being "held by the throat" by Divine Power, forced to sit before their screens. They were imprisoned in an indescribable void—their bodies immobilized, their eyelids forced open.
"Let me go! On what grounds are you locking me up? I have freedom of speech!"
"A beast is dead, so what? You're making a living human pay with her life? What kind of bullshit god is this? This is sorcery!"
"Go, Zhu Yulu! Once you break free, tear those 'Saint Mary' idiots to pieces!"
These foul insults traversed the mental space like poisoned arrows. They were used to lording over life from behind a keyboard; even with a blade pressed to their throats, they still believed this was just a bizarre show that could be "PR-managed" or "hacked" away.
The consciousness of Room A finally snapped amidst the repeated cries of "beast". The footage, which had been performing a "waterboarding reenactment" on the fancy rat form of Zhu Yulu, cut out abruptly.
A blood-red dialogue box popped up on the screen, the text twisting like writhing maggots:
[JUDGMENT BONUS QUESTION]
Executed Party: Zhu Yulu. Are you willing to transfer the physical and mental agony you have suffered—at ten times the intensity—in real-time to the 34,921 "Speakers" currently insulting and clamoring against you?
[OPTIONS: YES / NO]
In an instant, the breath of tens of millions of viewers worldwide hitched.
After three seconds of deathly silence, the comment section collapsed into chaos. Pleas for mercy covered the screen like a blizzard:
"God! No! There are over thirty thousand of us!"
"Zhu Yulu, I beg you, hold onto your last shred of humanity! Don't choose it! You'll go to hell!"
"She's already insane! Someone stop her!"
People prayed—praying that this soaking wet, shivering little white rat, who looked delirious as she clung to the edge of the water tank, would choose forgiveness like a saint. Because if she clicked "YES", it would trigger the most horrific mental plague in human history.
Amidst these thousands of pleas, only one person remained as still as a weathered stone carving.
Mrs. Zhu.
She stared deathly at the terrified little creature on the screen. No sound could escape her throat; only tears fell like a breached dam, washing over her expensive but withered face. As the "Zhu Yulu" on screen was pushed back into the freezing water, Mrs. Zhu's consciousness sank back into the nightmare she had fled for ten years.
Others thought Zhu Yulu hated water because of the rat body's instinctive fear of drowning. Only Mrs. Zhu knew that it wasn't instinct—it was a ghost that had imprisoned Zhu Yulu for a full decade.
Ten years ago, the Zhu family was the envy of all. Their life was affluent and peaceful, and Zhu Yulu was the most brilliant pearl atop that ivory tower.
Mrs. Zhu remembered how her daughter loved to laugh, how she loved to act spoiled while holding her father's hand; she even remembered the scent of daisies that always lingered in her daughter's hair.
The tragedy happened during that cold, overcast summer. At the time, Mrs. Zhu was in Europe handling a difficult merger.
Her husband—the man who always mysteriously hid gift boxes behind his back before shouting "Tada!"like a child—had decided to take the family on a luxury yacht vacation to celebrate their anniversary and make up for his lack of time off.
"Mummy, I'll bring you the most beautiful seashell!" Those were the last words young ZhuYulu ever said to her.
The accident happened without warning. The ship sank.
In the bottomless blue, the father who had cherished Zhu Yulu as his life didn't hesitate for a second to put the only lifebuoy on his daughter before being swallowed by the merciless vortex.
The maternal grandparents—Mrs. Zhu's own parents—also vanished in that storm while trying to protect their granddaughter.
Of everyone on the boat, only the paternal grandparents, who had stayed on shore to fish, and Zhu Yulu, whose life had been traded for by her father, survived.
When Mrs. Zhu stumbled back from abroad, what she found wasn't the relief of survival, but a living hell. The Zhu's two elders—ZhuYulu's paternal grandparents—had gone mad. They hated Zhu Yulu.
"Why wasn't it you who died? That was our only son, whom we raised with such toil! He was so brilliant—why did he have to die for a jinx like you?"
"Your maternal grandparents are dead too. Are you satisfied now? You bringer of ruin!"
Mrs. Zhu herself had collapsed. Looking at Zhu Yulu's pale little face, what surged in her heart wasn't pity, but a twisted resentment.
She looked at her reflection—having aged ten years in an instant—and then at the empty side of the bed. The man who used to shout "Tada!" and bring her "Maomao," the fancy rat, was gone.
She began to blame her, too.
Why did she have to clamor for a boat trip?
Why did she lead everyone who loved her to their deaths, only for her to remain unharmed?
And so, in that cold villa, ten-year-old ZhuYulu became a transparent sinner. Her small, pale lips trembled, yet she couldn't utter a single word in her own defense.
Much, much later—she remembered it clearly—some relatives, her cousin-in-law's family, came to visit.
She didn't know what her cousin-in-law's child, who had always been jealous of ZhuYulu, had said. She only saw the young ZhuYulu sitting on the stairs, her expression wooden. In her eyes, the last flicker of light went out, as if her soul had completely shattered.
But she... she never asked why.
Now, half-lost in these memories, Mrs. Zhu looked at the little white rat on the screen, which was beginning to go limp from the unbearable pain. She finally let out a heart-wrenching wail:
"Lolo—!!!"
She finally remembered.
The fancy rat "Maomao" that Zhu Yulu had tortured to death was originally the final bond her husband had left for them. It was she who had personally turned that bond into a curse. It was all of them, through ten years of cold violence and accusation, who had forged a ten-year-old girl into a thorn-covered demon.
Mrs. Zhu wept uncontrollably before the screen. She knew her daughter would never come back. The girl who called her "Mummy", the girl who would be happy all day just from seeing a fancy rat, had died ten years ago on that afternoon in the deep sea, alongside her father. What remained was only this wasteland of karma and embers.
The lingering memories were suddenly shattered as Mrs. Zhu was "jolted awake" by a brutal, overbearing agony. It wasn't just physical spasms; it felt like a pair of icy hands were tearing open her chest—a pain of both body and heart.
In reality, the flickering in Room A stopped.
The white rat that was Zhu Yulu suddenly ceased its struggling. Those eyes, once filled with violence and madness, turned extraordinarily clear—so clear it was terrifying.
She turned her head as if looking through the screen, gazing at the thirty-four thousand trolls still frantically cursing her.
She remembered the lonely nights in the attic.
She remembered the fancy rats whose tails she had personally snipped off.
She remembered her mother's cold back.
And most of all, she remembered her father in the deep sea, giving her that final push, leaving the hope of survival to her.
"Daddy... they say I'm a bad child."
"Since you all want to watch the show... then... let's watch it together."
On the screen, that tiny paw trembled, yet pressed down with absolute conviction on the blood-red [YES].
BOOM—!!!
At that instant, agonized screams erupted simultaneously from over thirty thousand households across the globe. This was no ordinary pain. It was "flaying", "dismemberment", "drowning", and "burning" at ten times the intensity.
The trolls who had been sitting at their computers or clutching their phones, mouths full of filth, tumbled from their chairs in a single second.
Mysterious red welts began to appear on their skin; their lungs felt as though they had inhaled high-concentration saltwater. The sensation of suffocation forced them to gape like dying fish, unable to make a sound.
"He... help..."
"I was wrong! I was truly wrong! Please stop!"
The comment section was wiped clean in an instant. The onlookers who had just been praying for Zhu Yulu to "maintain her humanity" were now so terrified they didn't even dare touch their phones.
The light in Room A gradually dimmed. The trolls continued to wail; this dual torment of spirit and flesh would accompany them for the rest of their lives—the price for the malice they had so recklessly unleashed.
The white rat, Zhu Yulu, floated silently in the cold water. Her pitch-black eyes were like two dried-up wells, reflecting a world saturated with malice.
"It" remembered that day.
Her second cousin had arrived with her daughter—a cousin two years older than her—like crows scenting rotting meat. They hadn't come to offer comfort; they had come to scavenge the remains.
The cousin's goal was clear: the "Heart of Perfection", a set of gemstone jewelry gifted to Zhu Yulu by her grandparents for her seventh birthday. It was her most cherished possession, a symbol of the only warmth her family had ever known.
"Lolo, just give it to me. What's the point of keeping it now? It'll only bring you more bad luck," the cousin said, her voice dripping with high-handed pity.
Zhu Yulu clutched the jewelry box tight. She couldn't believe—she refused to believe—that the grandparents who used to dote on her would allow someone to snatch her things away.
Then, the landline in the living room rang.
It was her grandfather. The man who once spun her around and called her his little princess spoke through the receiver in a voice cold to the bone:
"Give it to your cousin. You killed your father. You killed your grandparents... You don't deserve something that symbolizes 'Perfection'."
That phrase—"You don't deserve it"—was sharper than any stapler, instantly piercing through her spine.
The cousin snatched the box away with a smirk. But she didn't just take the jewels; she leaned into Zhu Yulu's ear and whispered in a greasy, venomous tone only the two of them could hear:
"My dear cousin, look at yourself. You're just like those rats your family keeps... no, actually, you're a 'rat crossing the street, hated by everyone!' Hahaha!"
At that exact moment, Mrs. Zhu returned.
Zhu Yulu looked toward the door, a final, flickering spark of hope in her eyes. She wanted her mother to rush in, protect her, and throw those disgusting relatives out just like she used to.
But Mrs. Zhu simply stood at the entrance, her expression wooden. From that pale, indifferent face, there was no anger, no heartache.
Had Mrs. Zhu heard that "rat crossing the street" comment?
Zhu Yulu didn't know. But in that second, she became certain of one thing: her mother had silently consented to it all. Her mother also believed she was a godforsaken rat who didn't deserve a life of completion.
It was on that day that a frantic thought took root in Zhu Yulu's heart.
"Since you all call me a 'rat', since you all think I don't deserve to live..."
"Then I'll show you. Every bit of malice you gave me, I'll return to this world—tenfold."