CH 523

“Pure innocence is something the cryptic world doesn’t need, so the Pure Hatred has left you here. The orphanage, on the surface, is filled with horrible smells and resentment. All the kids have malicious intentions; the nurses are emotionless monsters; the rooms are filled with trash, and the kids play murder games daily. Underground, the orphanage is like heaven. All the good things are hidden here, surrounding you. You should be his anchor.”

Han Fei looked at the white house. He was reminded of himself.

The orphanage deep inside his mind trapped many blood-red memories.

Han Fei could only remember ordinary things.

“All the good things?” The boy’s voice came from the white house. He disagreed with Han Fei.”If you are the only one in the world, even if you are surrounded by happiness, will you be happy?”

Han Fei felt like the boy was trying to get him to empathize with him. But Han Fei was already in the same situation as he was. The childhood memory was not happy, but it was not sad either. However, he still chose to walk towards the darkness to find the truth. False happiness was a mirage, like the painting on the wall of this orphanage, they looked pretty, but they were all fake.

“I think I grasp your idea now.” Han Fei knelt before the white house. “You hope that someone can come to find you, and I did; you wish to see the real world outside, and I can help you. I doing this because I want to tell you that we are not enemies. In a way, we should be best friends.”

The boy in the house didn’t reply. He seemed to be ruminating over what Han Fei had said.

“Due to their ‘cultivation’, someone who should have a happy childhood became twisted and introverted. They are the reason why you are the way you are and why you stay in the white house alone.” After Han Fei knew the white shoes was once an orphan at the orphanage, he didn’t feel that hostile against the child anymore.

“My tragedy is because of them?”

“Yes, come out. Don’t trap yourself inside the painting. The world outside has real scenery. I can bring you to go see it.” Han Fei looked at the white house. He had no idea what the boy was thinking, but he was confident he was not lying to the boy. If the boy were willing to walk out of his self-imposed isolation, Han Fei would be glad to help him find the light in the darkness.

The boy didn’t reply until the wall started to crack. Ten Fingers’ screams could be heard inside the room. The boy finally came to his decision.

“This orphanage is my final sanctuary. If I leave, all the darkness will surge into my body. There will be no more false happiness to blind my eyes. I will see the scariest and ugliest side of the world…” The boy’s voice trembled, “Am I really going to leave here?”

“Do you prefer to be trapped in manmade heaven or break away from the shackles? And come see what’s at the end of hell with me? I can’t guarantee that you’ll see salvation, but I know that salvation will not come if you stay here forever.” Han Fei persuaded. While he communicated with the boy, the white wall started to peel, and the building shook. Ten Fingers trapped inside the painting began to resist again.

“After I met you, I felt so close to you like I should become you.” The boy’s voice had changed like he had come to a decision. “To leave this place, the only way is to kill everyone other than myself. Every child, every teacher, every life here is a part of me. They are parts of my thoughts. Everyone has the same number—024. Only by killing all of them that all my consciousness will return, and I can leave this orphanage.”

“I have to kill everyone for you to leave?” Han Fei was startled.

“I am the only one here. The rest are manifestations of my thoughts. This is the only way because I know someone who has done this before. He then disappeared into the blood-red night.” The boy’s voice was innocent. “Do you think that’s too cruel? But if these random thoughts are allowed to escape and join with malice, they will turn into murderous monsters. If we leave them be, they will only kill more people.”

“I don’t think it’s cruel. It’s just…” Han Fei thought about it, and the memories in his mind were slowly dyed red. He seemed to have made this decision before. The person who disappeared into the blood-red night seemed to be Han Fei. Han Fei’s heart rocked hearing that. The laughter appeared in his ears. The blood-red memory fragment was moving the sea of memory.

“You’re the one who told me to choose to leave, right?” Han Fei was silent when the boy asked him. He looked at the white house and the pure, clean buildings around him. It felt like he was transported to the past. He was watching his young self from the perspective of an observer.

“What do you plan to do?”

“I will have my mother kill them. When I was trapped underground, only my mother stayed with me. She is my only family and she will always love me.” The boy said, and Han Fei heard the horrible sound of flesh being torn. He turned around, and the tattered doll had torn open its stomach. A knife and a pure white heart were hidden among the blackened cotton. It pierced through the boy’s chest without hesitation. The boy hugged the doll until the end. Even when he was killed, he smiled. “Mother…”

The boy’s blood dripped on the white house. The first blood flower bloomed on the white house. At the same time, a trace of red appeared on the white heart inside the doll. Han Fei stood inside the room while the doll had raced out holding the knife. The screams echoed in his ears. Blood flowers bloomed on the white house. The boy planned to dye the house red. Everything was similar to how Han Fei remembered it. The feeling of his memory and reality overlapping dazed his mind.

The blood-red orphanage and the white orphanage shook together. The laughter had a firmer grip on Han Fei. “This is the Blood-red Night?”

Walking out of the room, Han Fei looked around. The pure white corridor was stained with blood. Blood flowed on the floor, the false happiness was shattered.

“Don’t come near me, you monster!” Han Fei followed behind the doll. He saw a child in a white shirt trip and fall. The doll held the knife and slowly approached. The boy crawled on the ground and grabbed everything he could to throw at the doll. But the things did nothing to the doll. The doll was already wounded. It was used to all the pain.

“Monster! Go away!” The boy screamed with fear. The scream drilled into Han Fei’s ears and into the blood-red orphanage. “Monster?” Han Fei inside the blood-red orphanage laughed madly like he had heard a joke. The corners of his lips tore open. Following that, the chain that bound around the orphanage tightened again.

The doll slowly approached. Without any hesitation, it plunged the knife into the boy’s body. The white shirt was dyed red, the white shoes soaked into blood water. A blood flower blossomed at the white orphanage like Manjusaka swaying in the wind. Walking past the pool of blood, the doll knocked on the door of the entertainment room. It lost its patience and stabbed through the door.

The doll crawled into the entertainment room, holding the knife. Its heart was slowly turning red.

“Don’t harm these kids!” The nurse shielded two kids behind her. She grabbed the wooden horse in the entertainment room and stared at the doll. The kids were crying, and the nurse was afraid. “Why are you doing this? We haven’t harmed you! We didn’t want to kill you! Many things that happened are accidents. You need to stop!” The nurse’s voice overlapped with another voice inside Han Fei’s mind. It was nasally and shrill, laced with fear. It was too similar, like Han Fei had experienced this incident before. The chain of memory rattled. Han Fei, inside the blood-red memory, walked forward, and the doll walked into the entertainment room. Their eyes had no pity. The white heart was slowly dyed red.

Han Fei in the blood-red orphanage grabbed the front gate of the orphanage, and the doll in the entertainment room waved its knife.

“Run!” The nurse told the orphans to run while she grabbed the wooden horse to swing it at the doll. The knife cut on the wooden horse’s stomach. The carved marks are imprinted in Han Fei’s eyes. He had seen this in his memory before! The wooden horse’s belly in his memory was covered in knife marks!

Wooden splinters flew everywhere. The nurse only held on for a while before she was killed. Her blood flowed into the wooden horse, seeping in through the wounds. Han Fei’s hands raised. He reached towards the wooden horse. It was unclear if he wanted to stop the doll or grab the wooden horse from his memory.

All the children they encountered were killed. The faces entered Han Fei’s mind. His pupils shook, and the laughter in his mind slammed at his rationality like waves. The two memories that he recalled earlier only made Han Fei feel pain, but this scene awakened the despair in his mind. All the children and teachers at the orphanage were the manifestation of 024’s thoughts. If he wanted to leave this place, he needed to kill all of them to regain control of his body.

“Was I the same?”

A person was born with many emotions, but the Han Fei trapped inside the blood-red orphanage would only laugh. After he escaped his enclosure, would he kill the other emotions?

‘My personality is healing, so after my emotions are destroyed, there is a chance for them to be healed. Was the test for me to kill my emotions repeatedly? I lost my smile, and the man inside the blood-red orphanage doesn’t know anything but to smile, we….’ Han Fei wanted to parse the information, but his brain was dominated by laughter. The man in the blood-red orphanage grabbed the gate. The thing Han Fei saw instigated him, and he wanted to get out!

Before starting Perfect Life, Han Fei never thought he would face something like this. As the memory in his mind was dyed red, his firm constitution started to sway. The laughter rang in his ears. Han Fei could even smell the blood in the air. His memory was turning red!

Han Fei looked at the bodies on the ground. After the orphans were killed, their faces would blur, and the number on their clothes faded away. Perhaps it was an illusion, but the orphans took on his face in Han Fei’s eyes. For a moment, it felt like the doll was not butchering 024’s thoughts but Han Fei at different ages.

“Save us! We don’t want to die!” The last children in the underground orphanage ran to Han Fei. His eyes were filled with tears. Seeing how helpless the child was, Han Fei’s hands subconsciously went to guard him. There was no reason. He was merely following his instinct. But his hands stopped. The maddening laughter shot through his soul. It carried n indescribable despair, and it affected Han Fei’s action. Suppressing it, when Han Fei finally held the orphan, the knife had already pierced through his body. Blood gushed out of his heart. The boy looked right at Han Fei. His eyes were brimming with an emotion Han Fei was very familiar with—despair.

This time Han Fei saw it clearly. The boy’s body temperature dropped as his face became more like Han Fei. The body became a mirror, reflecting Han Fei’s forgotten past. He saw his murdered self on the dead boy. Perhaps it was just a wandering thought, but he had his own emotion. The blood splattered on Han Fei. The warm, sticky blood breathed of life, but death was close behind when it appeared. Han Fei hugged the body and looked around. The laughter and Han Fei’s sight overlapped. When the white orphanage was dyed red, the scene that they saw was the same.

The blood dripped on the grass and it dirtied the painted grass. As the slaughter continued, the wall on the orphanage had more cracks. Ten Fingers found the opportunity. He tore out the human skulls from his body and shoved the pleading heads into the black flame of hatred. “When I’m out of here, all of you will die!” The black flame burned, and the painting contorted. The figure of Ten Fingers became clearer. He slowly walked out of the painting.

Hatred weaved together with murderous intent. Ten Fingers burned his way out using a black flame. The painting around him changed. The paintings became Life Threads. They bound around Ten Fingers, trying to drag him back into the painting. “It should take some time for you to rush here from the hospital. You have lost your chance.”

Ten Fingers plunged his arms into the black flame. He used his body to keep the fire burning. The flame of hatred burned brighter. When the fire burned to the maximum, Ten Fingers had it explode!

The black fire burned away the false painting, and the underground orphanage revealed its actual image. The cracks ran on the wall. The white walls were dyed red. The black flame spread on the ceiling. Blood dripped. It was like black flowers wilting in bloody rain.

“The Blood-red Night!” Seeing this, many memories that didn’t belong to Han Fei appeared in his mind. Unfamiliar faces appeared, and they died in horrible methods. Han Fei couldn’t stand upright, he remaining rationality said—only the people with the most profound despair can possess the black box.

His brain was consumed by red. The blood-red orphanage was surfacing. Han Fei’s kind, evil souls and childhood memory was trying to pin it down with the chains. They supported Han Fei’s personality. Kindness helped Han Fei learn how to love and forgive; Evil helped Han Fei be more decisive and taught him self-preservation; childhood memory helped Han Fei o chase after light and happiness.

These 3 souls could help Han Fei suppress the laughter deep inside his mind, but that day, when the Blood-red Night appeared before Han Fei, the memory buried deep inside his mind was loosened. The despair that he had forgotten overflowed.

“Han Fei!” The urn opened, and the ghosts surrounded Han Fei. The scary ghosts looked at Han Fei with concern.

“So you people are here too.” Ten Fingers closed his eyes as if to sense his surroundings. When he was sure there was no Pure Hatred around, he opened his eyes. And they were filled with malice.

“I’d advise you to leave.” Lee Zai told Ten Fingers. “You’re injured at the mall and lost half of your hatred; when you escaped to this place, your hatred was absorbed by the orphanage; when you tried to escape from the painting, you exhausted your black flame. You are now no different from a Top Lingering Spirit.”

Ten Fingers was wounded, but he was still a Pure Hatred. Lee Zai wanted to warn Ten Fingers off, but he underestimated Ten Finger’s cunningness.

“You’re right. Temporarily, without the black flame, I am not different from a slightly powerful Lingering Spirit, but even so, I can easily kill all of you.” Ten Fingers’ eyes glowed with greed. He looked at the cardboard house, which was dyed red. “I will eat all of you.” The ugly face lit up with a gnarly smile. The two skulls on Ten Fingers shattered, and two uneven arms grew out of his shoulders. But that was just the beginning. The human skulls on Ten Fingers started to dissolve, and more things grew out of the man. The extra limbs wrapped him into a meatball. “I will imprint all of you on my chest, so you’ll have to serve me forever!”

Ten Fingers’ expanded. The black flame at his heart was almost extinguished, but even the tiny bit of hatred could damage Lingering Spirits significantly. No matter how hard they tried, the tenants at Ziggurat couldn’t harm Ten Fingers. But once they were touched by Ten Fingers, they would lose a large chunk of their soul. To make things worse, Ten Fingers had powerful recovery ability. He consumed the torn soul and used it to heal his injury.

“Stop him!” All the neighbors guarded Han Fei. Lee Zai and Weep used their power to influence Ten Fingers, but there was a giant gap between Lingering Spirit and Pure Hatred. Their abilities had no influence on Ten Fingers.

“Xu Qin, bring Han Fei and leave, he’s not doing so well!” The neighbors sacrificed themselves to carve out a path for Han Fei. But Ten Fingers knew Han Fei was the core. Plus, he had a history with Han Fei. Be it in the altar world or the cryptic world, Han Fei had ruined his plan. If Ten Fingers had to choose one person to kill, it was Han Fei.

“Taking over your body will help me regain the altar!” The large body charged at Han Fei. He imbued his remaining hatred inside one of his arms. Normal Lingering Spirit would be vanquished with one hit if he swung that arm. Seeing this, Xu Qin pushed Han Fei away. Her table knives oozed with the deepest curse.

“Move out of the way!” Ten Finger’s arm grabbed Xu Qin. The arm with the hatred damaged Xu Qin. The curses couldn’t harm Pure Hatred. Xu Qin was slammed to the ground. The blood with curses turned Xu Qin’s lips red. She stared at Ten Fingers as she plunged the table knives into her body. “I’ve been meaning to taste Pure Hatred.”

The curse with the strangest pattern surfaced on Xu Qin’s body. When the last table knife was inserted, Xu Qin’s rationality was consumed by curses. When the hundreds of curses bound together, even Ten Fingers had to turn around.

“Bring Han Fei away!” Xu Qin’s voice echoed in the underground orphanage. Han Fei stood in the blood rain. This red orphanage was similar to the Blood-red Night in his mind, but it was also different. On that despairing night, he was alone. He could only hear his own voice. But on this night, many people were waiting for him.

The laughter bounced around in his mind. Han Fei’s lips curled upwards. He had no idea why he had turned to murder then, but Han Fei understood why he needed to kill now. The blood-red memories boiled as they tried to consume him. He struggled. He saw Xu Qin whose body was pierced through by the knives; Drake, who charged ahead risking being eliminated; Weep, who controlled despair as a weapon.

“The Blood-red Night will not reappear.” Slammed by endless blood-red memories and despair, Han Fei made a decision.

The Evil Soul who held onto the chain of memory understood. His evil gaze shone with excitement. “Since we’re part of the same soul, why should we rely on chains?”

With the signal from Han Fei, the Evil Soul let go. The Kind Soul and the childhood memory were slammed by the chains. Han Fei’s mind dissolved into the red sea. Extremely crazy laughter came out of Han Fei’s mind. The blood-red figure in the orphanage looked in a specific direction. His face was turning clear.

At the same time, Han Fei revealed an exaggerated smile. When his eyes opened again, there was no kindness or despair in his eyes anymore.