Having traversed countless realms, can you possibly be as clever as me?

"Grandpa, can you please take me to the city? I want to go home!" His voice trembled.

The old man was silent for two seconds, then sighed as if he had thought of something, and then shook his head back to let him come up.

He climbed into the truck bed and curled up next to the scallions. The scallions smelled pungent and spicy, making his eyes water. Or maybe not. He huddled in the corner of the truck bed, burying his face in his knees.

Then, he went home.

Because he had nowhere else to go. Where could a teenager go? His grandparents had passed away long ago, and he had nothing left.

Four hours later, just as dawn was breaking, the tricycle stopped at the entrance of the residential area. The old man said, "We've arrived." He said thank you. The old man glanced at him, then hesitated, as if to say something.

"Son, it's best to tell the police about this kind of thing. Your parents... might not be reliable."

He nodded numbly, watching the tricycle chug away. Dawn was breaking; some people were doing their morning exercises, swinging their arms as they walked. Others were walking their dogs. A dog defecated on the lawn, and its owner picked it up with a plastic bag. Everything was the same as before.

He hesitated for a long time before going upstairs and knocking on the door.

He had thought about it countless times in his mind: would his mother hug him after he knocked on the door? Would she cry? Would she scold him? He imagined her crying first, then scolding, then crying again. He imagined she might hit him. He could accept any of that. He even hoped she would hit him. Then let him take a shower and cook him a bowl of noodles with two eggs.

But she did nothing. She stood in the doorway and looked at him for two seconds. Then she turned her head and shouted into the house.

"His dad, he's been found. No need to trouble the teacher!"

In that instant, he felt as if the whole world was within him in the courtyard.

His legs trembled uncontrollably from running all night and bumping into things. The wound on his back had clotted and stuck to his clothes, causing a sticky, painful sensation when torn. His palms were covered in dried, black blood, leaving several bloody handprints on the iron gate. The soles of his feet were scraped raw, with pebbles embedded between his toes, and his ankles were swollen and shiny—twisted while climbing over the wall.

Couldn't she see it? No, she could, but those wounds were nothing compared to the 80,000 yuan she spent to turn him into a useful child.

His father came out of the bedroom, barefoot and wearing only pajama bottoms. He stood in the bedroom doorway, arms crossed, looking at the man in the doorway—a man covered in blood, his clothes tattered, his face filthy with mud. This man was his son, and he looked at him, his lips trembling.

His father stormed over, slapped him across the face, and then gave the bloodied man standing in the doorway a look of disappointment mixed with judgment before angrily shouting...

"Do you know how much money I spent to get you in there? You've made your teacher and me so worried! You get back now!"

Chen Yu thought about this sentence repeatedly afterward. After he fired the last bullet, as he sat on the floor of his parents' bedroom waiting for dawn, he kept pondering its meaning.

879 >>

Yes, what my parents mean is that they spent 80,000 yuan to have your son beaten on the concrete floor, abused with electric batons, and to have him squat in a small, dark room filled with stinking water until he couldn't speak. They spent 80,000 yuan to have your son taken away and assaulted in the middle of the night and come back crying, all for the sake of obedience.

What exactly does "worth" mean in their eyes?

Perhaps Chen Yu will never understand this answer in his entire life. At that time, he stood at the door and opened his mouth, but no words came out. Only a very soft breath sound, like someone was choking him, was heard.

He wanted to say that they hit him with sticks and shocked him with electric batons. He wanted to say that someone pulled down his pants and touched him. He wanted to say, "Mom, Mom, my back hurts so much, my feet hurt so much, I haven't had a proper meal in so long," but he couldn't say it anymore.

Since he already knew that the final answer would inevitably cause him sadness and pain, he decided not to say it.

His mother went to make a phone call. He heard her say to the person on the other end, "Yes, he ran back. Send someone over quickly." Her voice was very low, as if she was afraid the neighbors would hear. Afraid that people would know she had such a disobedient son. Afraid of losing face.

After hanging up the phone, she turned to look at him. His eyes pleaded with her, and she met his gaze. Then she said:

"Stand outside. Don't drip blood on the floor. I just mopped the floor yesterday."

He stood outside the door numbly and obediently, like a puppet on a string.

His father came over and roughly dragged him into the toilet, then closed the toilet door, leaving only a body "waiting for the school to come."

Before the door closed, he saw his mother turn and walk into the kitchen, put on an apron, and turn on the gas stove. She was making breakfast. Her son was standing outside the door, covered in blood, while she was making breakfast.

He slid down the wall and squatted on the ground. The stairwell smelled of cooking oil. Someone was broadcasting the morning news downstairs. The neighbor's dog was barking. The world went on as usual. His world was the same, except he was squatting in his own toilet, waiting for a white van to come and drag him back to that hell.

He couldn't remember how he started calling that strange name in his mind.

Perhaps it was when he heard the van's tires roll over the speed bumps in the neighborhood. Perhaps it was when he saw Instructor Liu jump out of the van with that familiar smile on his face. Perhaps it was when his mother grabbed his wrist and dragged him downstairs, with her and Instructor Liu each supporting one of him.

His own mother, supporting him by the arm, was putting him into a van heading towards hell. Her hands were warm, gripping his wrist tightly, her nails digging into his flesh. She was afraid he would run away.

Instructor Liu's hand was also on his arm. Two hands. One was his mother's. The other was Instructor Liu's. Both were on his arm.

Finally, he was dragged into the car, and after a few humble words of thanks, his mother went home to prepare her own breakfast.

At that very moment, the name that seemed to echo in the abyss of the soul finally became clear.

He closed his eyes. The world turned a dark red, a bloodshot glow behind his eyelids.

Instructor Liu was pulling him, saying something as he pulled, his voice muffled and indistinct, like someone speaking underwater. He didn't want to listen. He was listening to the voice deep within his own soul.

There was a name inside, a name that had been waiting for him to call out ever since the moment he was tortured and humiliated.

The Crimson King.

He didn't know what the name meant. He had never seen it before, never read it anywhere, and never heard anyone mention it. But it was there, like a red-hot iron branded into his soul, waiting for him to touch it.

He screamed inwardly, channeling all the humiliation and resentment he had felt from being stripped naked and searched, locked in a dark room filled with stinking water, being electrocuted until he urinated in his pants, and being treated like a broken appliance by his own mother.

He slammed those four words out from the deepest part of his chest.

"Crimson King, Crimson King, Crimson King!!!"

His world came to a standstill in that instant.

Instructor Liu's grip on his arm froze halfway, his mouth still forming the shape of a speech, but the sound no longer traveled.

The air solidified. A sparrow hovered in mid-air in the flower bed of the residential area, its wings spread, each feather clearly visible.

Then his hands started to hurt—his bones hurt, his flesh hurt. It was a hundred times, a thousand times more intense than the electric shock, starting from his fingertips and spreading upwards along his metacarpals, carpal bones, and ulna, engulfing every bone, every nerve, and every inch of skin in his arms.

He felt as if his hands were being shoved into a steel furnace, soaked in molten iron, and repeatedly hammered on an anvil.

His fingers began to twitch uncontrollably, the skin at his fingertips splitting open—but no blood flowed out. What gushed from the cracks was not blood, but a dark red substance somewhere between liquid and solid, like the color of rust.

879>>>>

The light enveloped his fingers, reshaping his bones, stretching his ligaments, and tearing apart and stitching his flesh layer by layer. He saw the five fingers of his right hand being forcibly pried open by the light and then rearranged at an impossible angle.

The thumb becomes the gunstock, the index finger becomes the trigger, and the middle, ring, and little fingers, along with the palm, are stretched, twisted, and hardened into a gun barrel that exudes a dark blue metallic luster.

He looked down at his left hand. His left hand was changing too; as the skin and flesh split open, a silver-gray metallic sheen was revealed beneath, steel with a cold blue hue.

The M4A1, his left hand became this gun, just like his right hand became the AK-47, both of which are the two most commonly used guns in the game he is familiar with.

All of this happened in a frozen moment in time. When the world began to flow again, Chen Yu was no longer Chen Yu. His two arms transformed into two guns starting from the mid-forearm. The barrel of the AK-47 in his right hand still retained the warmth of his palm. The M4A1 in his left hand gleamed with a cold blue light in the morning sun.

Instructor Liu's smile froze.

His pale face was instantly filled with terror. His eyes widened, and his pupils contracted sharply. His hand jerked off Chen Yu's arm, and he staggered back two steps, his mouth opening and closing repeatedly, making a sound like a chicken being choked.

Chen Yu raised his right hand.

Bang~~

He said softly

No aiming was needed; the two guns were already part of his body. The barrels were his fingers, and the trajectory of the bullets was his will. The gunshots rang out in the neighborhood in the early morning. The bullets shot out of the barrels, and the moment the bullets left the barrel, Chen Yu felt an unprecedented sense of exhilaration. Countless pain, anger, and hatred accumulated were compressed into a small piece of metal, which was then shot out at a speed of 710 meters per second.

The bullet entered Instructor Liu's forehead directly, exited through the back of his head, and embedded itself in the metal of the van, leaving a cloud of blood and a piece of white material.

Instructor Liu was still standing, but his eyes had lost their light. His knees buckled, and he collapsed like a bag of sand, falling to the concrete ground with a thud.

The hole on his forehead was about the size of his little fingernail, with neat edges, and the blood only slowly seeped out after a second.

But this is not the end—a cheerful voice told him from within.

Because this world has been covered by his domain, that domain called the afterlife, which will subject every damned, sinful soul who has died in this world to endless, ceaseless torment.

Great

Hearing the noise, the other instructor in the car jumped off the driver's seat. Chen Yu recognized him; his surname was Zhao, he had a buzz cut, and broad shoulders. He was in charge of physical training at that school, which involved making students do push-ups under the blazing sun, and stepping on the back of anyone who couldn't do any more.

The instructor, who always boasted about his military service, screamed and scrambled to escape, while Chen Yu raised his hand and gently uttered a sound.

Bang~

The bullet caught up with Instructor Zhao, who was running, and entered through the back of his neck. His body was propelled forward two steps by inertia, and then he fell to the ground, sliding half a meter away. His chin hit the concrete ground, and his teeth shattered.

Chen Yu stood in the open space on the street, two guns emitting wisps of smoke in the morning light. Screams erupted in the stairwell. Someone peeked out, then ducked back in. Someone was on the phone. Someone was filming. Chen Yu ignored them. He turned and walked out of the residential complex. He was going somewhere. He was going to that courtyard with the gray walls. There were still many people there to kill.

There were many people on their way to work early in the morning. A man riding an electric bike passed by him and saw that Chen Yu's two arms had turned into two guns. Terrified, he tumbled into the roadside green belt along with his bike. Chen Yu didn't look at him. He got into a taxi parked on the side of the road. The driver turned around, about to curse, but when he saw Chen Yu, he opened his mouth wide in terror.

"Go to the Yude Youth Growth Base."

Chen Yu casually mentioned the school's name. The driver, though reluctant, glanced at his gun and dared not say a word. The car drove off.

Outside the car window, the city was waking up. Breakfast stalls were steaming, and students were waiting for the bus at the bus stop, their backpacks bulging and their school uniforms neatly arranged.

A mother leads her child across the street, the child holding a steamed bun and munching on it. These scenes are so familiar, yet now they seem so distant, like another world.

Chen Yu lived in that world for fifteen years, but he knew that soon, this world would be different.

All oppression and exploitation will vanish under the violence that the devil only bestows upon his victims.

The car stopped. A gray wall came into view. The words "Yude Youth Growth Base" on the iron gate gleamed in the sunlight.

879>>>>>>

He never wanted to see that iron gate again in his life, but he came back. As he got out of the car, the taxi driver screamed and turned around and ran away.

Chen Yu walked expressionlessly to the iron gate. The gate was locked from the inside. He raised his AK in his right hand and fired a burst at the lock. The bullets struck the lock, sparks flying, and the lock shattered into a pile of twisted metal fragments. The iron gate slammed open with a loud bang, crashing against the wall with a deafening echo.

In the courtyard, morning exercises were underway. Dozens of students in camouflage short-sleeved shirts stood in a square formation, doing push-ups. Instructor Ma Jiu stood at the front of the line, holding a black rubber baton, his mouth open, shouting slogans. His mouth stopped the moment he saw Chen Yu. He only managed to utter half a word, the rest stuck in his throat.

Chen Yu walked into the courtyard, just as he had when he first arrived. The first thing he saw were the students. The boys and girls who had been sent in like him all had the same shaved heads, wore the same camouflage short-sleeved shirts, and were so thin that you could see the outline of their ribs. Their faces turned to him at the same time, their eyes filled with confusion, fear, but even more so with a sense of relief.

In this hell, even when they encounter real demons, all they see is liberation.

And what about the instructors? Instructor Ma's face went from shock to fear. The rubber baton slipped from his hand, and Chen Yu looked at him and smiled.

This fat man, the fat man who beat himself up countless times. This fat man who pulled down his pants in the counseling room in the middle of the night. This fat man who dumped his food on the cafeteria table and made him kneel on the floor to pick it up. This fat man who trampled others underfoot, shone a flashlight into their eyes, pressed a stun gun to the back of their necks, and then laughed heartily.

Chen Yu raised his right hand and said calmly.

"Instructor Ma, give me a smile."

The gun fired, and Instructor Ma's right kneecap shattered. The AK bullet, carrying Chen Yu's hatred, blasted the bone, along with its ligaments, blood vessels, and skin, into an irregular hole.

Instructor Ma let out a piercing scream, his whole body tilted to the side, and he fell onto the concrete ground, his two legs twisted at an impossible angle.

He rolled on the concrete floor, hugging his knees, blood gushing from between his fingers like a tap being turned on.

"This shot is the first time you've ever hit me in the cafeteria."

Chen Yu's voice was very calm. He himself hadn't expected to be so calm.

But his mood was undoubtedly extremely pleasant.