Chapter 106
"The young man was the son of one of the high-ranking officials in the Supreme Court of Humanity, Ling Xu," said The Silent One. His voice was no longer flat and hollow, but sharp and piercing, like a dagger slowly driven into someone's back, like a knife slicing layer after layer of flesh until nothing remained but bone and marrow that could never heal.
"His name was never important—names are never important to the victims, because what they remember is not a name, but the pain, the fear, the helplessness when their bodies were violated by filthy hands, when their mouths were gagged with foul-smelling cloth, when their screams were never heard by anyone because no one cared, because no one dared to resist, because the son of a high official could never be touched by the law, no matter how much blood he spilled, no matter how many lives he destroyed, no matter how many tears he collected as part of his private collection."
Within that reconstructed memory, it became clear how the young man—with his gentle smile and cold eyes—approached Huan Shu and Huan Yan in a park near their inn, how he introduced himself as someone wealthy and influential, how he offered them help, how he claimed he could free them from poverty, pay off their debts, and provide a proper life for them and their sick mother, as long as they agreed to become his lovers, as long as they obeyed him, as long as they did whatever he commanded, whenever and wherever he wished.
"But Huan Shu and Huan Yan refused, Ling Xu," the Silent One continued. His voice was no longer sharp and cutting, but heavy and deep, like a gravestone dropped into the bottom of a well whose depth could never be found.
"They refused firmly, with unwavering voices and unblinking eyes, because even though they were poor, even though they were buried in debt, even though their mother was gravely ill, they still possessed dignity, they still possessed pride, they still remembered that their father—the father they hated, the father they abandoned, the father they considered a failure because he could not provide them with a decent life—had once taught them that nothing was more precious than one's dignity, that nothing was more important than preserving one's honor, that nothing was nobler than dying with one's head held high rather than living on one's knees before someone who demeaned you."
And because of that rejection—because Huan Shu and Huan Yan dared to say "no" to the son of a high-ranking official who had never heard the word "no" in his entire life, who always got whatever he desired, who was always served, worshipped, and feared by everyone around him—the young man became furious.
Not the kind of anger that could fade with an apology, but a blazing rage born from a wounded ego, a rage that declared he would never allow anyone to humiliate him, that he would destroy anyone who dared reject him, that he would make them regret the very day they were born.
"With the help of his friends, who were also the children of high-ranking officials, with endless wealth and authority untouchable by the law, the young man managed to capture Huan Shu and Huan Yan one night while they were walking home from their side jobs as waitresses at a small tea house," The Silent One said. His voice was no longer heavy and deep, but soft, almost a whisper, like someone reciting a prayer for those who never believed in God, like a priest escorting a corpse to its final resting place.
"And inside an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city, beneath the dim, flickering lantern light, surrounded by around a dozen of the young man's friends, all wearing depraved smiles and lust-filled eyes, Huan Yan and Huan Shu were assaulted—taking turns, without end, without mercy, without caring that they screamed, that they cried, that they begged, that they threatened to report them, that they said their father would take revenge, that their father would kill every last one of them."
The Silent One paused, swallowing hard as though forcing down a thorn lodged in his throat, and for a brief moment, he looked uncomfortable—not like The Silent One Ling Xu knew, not The Silent One who was always indifferent and hollow, who never cared about anything except his own plans. Here, before Ling Xu, in this artificial hell among the still-smoking ruins, he looked like someone trying to suppress nausea, like someone struggling to forget what he had just witnessed. Even for him, the monster who had destroyed entire civilizations, the brutal violation of two helpless young girls still felt too cruel, too savage, too inhuman to watch—let alone to describe.
"And after they were satisfied, after they grew tired, after they no longer had the energy to move, they beat Huan Shu and Huan Yan, Ling Xu. Not with ordinary punches or kicks, but with chairs, bottles, wooden planks, and anything else they could grab inside that warehouse. They beat them until their faces became unrecognizable, until their bones were broken in twenty-three different places, until blood flowed from every opening in their bodies—from their mouths, from their noses, from their ears, from places that should never bleed. And when Huan Shu and Huan Yan finally stopped moving, when their breathing ceased, when their hearts no longer beat, they carried the girls' corpses to a cliff on the outskirts of the city and threw them into the sea, into the cold and dark waves, into the bottomless abyss, into a place where no one would ever find them, no one would ever bury them, no one would ever mourn them."
Inside his narrow chest, amidst the pulsating rhythm of the Cancer plague beating with a strangely cheerful cadence—like children dancing in a palace courtyard after the rain had stopped, like soldiers singing victory songs before marching toward a battlefield they would never leave alive—Ling Xu felt something he had never felt before.
Relief. A relief so deep, so absolute, so honest that he almost felt guilty for it. Yet he could not deny it, could not pretend otherwise, could not claim he did not feel relieved upon hearing that Huan Mei—the woman who had once been Huan Zheng's wife, the woman who had once kissed that man's lips, the woman who had once shared a bed with the man he loved—had died as a beggar, and that Huan Shu and Huan Yan—the daughters whose blood carried Huan Zheng's lineage, whose faces resembled that man from certain angles, who would always remain reminders that Huan Zheng once had a family before him—had been violated, murdered, and thrown into the sea like trash.
To be continued…