Chapter 232: Birth (IX)
The sharp watermelon knife severed Zhong Siyu’s right ear, then plunged deep into her small shoulder. She was only a hair's breadth away from having her entire shoulder separated from her body by that single blow.
A scream ripped from Zhong Siyu’s throat, her fear and despair reaching their absolute peak at that moment.
The middle-aged man pulled out the cleaver, then, with a twisted grin, swung it down at Zhong Siyu’s shoulder again, seemingly intent on dismembering her entire shoulder.
Zhong Siyu, who had been utterly terrified into a stupor, ignored the excruciating pain tearing through her body at that moment. She cried out, scrambling off the bed, her primal survival instinct driving her to flee.
The middle-aged man’s blow missed, striking the blood-soaked quilt instead. Yet, he wasn’t in the least bit anxious, immediately swinging the knife at Zhong Siyu once more.
This strike landed on Zhong Siyu’s leg.
Zhong Siyu, who had only just managed to stumble off the bed, hadn’t had time to run far when she felt something forcibly carve into the flesh of her thigh. Her body lurched, and she crashed to the floor.
“Daddy, no, no! ”
Filled with despair, Zhong Siyu pleaded for mercy even as she dragged her severely injured body toward the corner of the room, leaving a trail of fresh blood behind her.
“Daddy, heh heh. I’m not your daddy. As for who your daddy is, I don’t know. But you can ask your mom in a bit; she might know. ”
The middle-aged man sneered in response, and as his words fell, he once again raised the butcher’s knife in his hand.
Zhong Siyu’s consciousness was already blurring. Her heart filled with terror, she instinctively crawled toward the corner of the room.
However, before she could successfully reach the corner, she felt another strike land on her right arm. She glanced to her side in horror, only to see her right arm had already separated from her body.
“Don’t worry. I’ll stitch your body back together with needle and thread in a bit. While I can’t restore you to your original appearance one hundred percent, I can definitely make you. . . more interesting. ”
The middle-aged man spoke with a sinister grin, but then the smile on his face abruptly vanished, replaced by a look of raging fury. This sudden switch in emotions made him seem utterly deranged.
The rage in his heart twisted his entire face. With boundless fury, he violently stomped on the wound on Zhong Siyu’s leg.
A painful shriek tore from Zhong Siyu’s lips. Her once delicate and lovely face was now smeared with blood and tears.
As her scream died, Zhong Siyu could no longer bear such torture. She completely blacked out, collapsing into the pool of blood.
The middle-aged man didn't realize Zhong Siyu had already lost consciousness. With that twisted expression, he continued to fiercely stomp on the knife wound on Zhong Siyu's leg. Blood splattered all over him, particularly soaking his pant legs.
Ten minutes later, the middle-aged man finally stopped, panting heavily. He looked at Zhong Siyu's leg, which had been stomped into a bloody mess, wiped the blood and sweat from his face, and withdrew his foot with a satisfied expression.
“There’s still a long road ahead. Can’t kill you all off just yet, or the days to come would be incredibly dull. ”
The anger from moments ago was gone from the middle-aged man’s face. Now, a grotesque smile once again spread across it. His mood shifted incredibly fast, like June weather.
He put away the knife, squatted down, and grabbed Zhong Siyu’s injured foot, then dragged her back to his own room as if she were a corpse.
A moment later, he returned to Zhong Siyu’s room and dragged away the Old Butler’s corpse.
The Old Butler was dead now. Whether he died from excessive bleeding or from the knife wounds didn't matter; what mattered was that he was now a lifeless corpse.
Compared to a few days ago, the middle-aged man was a completely different person. The gentle smile on his face was gone, replaced only by a pathological, twisted grin.
Indeed, the middle-aged man had changed. More accurately, he hadn’t just changed—he had gone mad.
The Old Butler had been right; the middle-aged man was now completely, utterly insane.
His wife’s betrayal, and then catching them in the act, had dealt him an immense psychological blow. However, at that time, he hadn't completely gone insane; at least when facing Zhong Siyu, he still knew he was a father.
His wife's betrayal hadn't affected the middle-aged man's love for his precious daughter. On the contrary, he doted on his daughter even more than before, cherishing his beloved daughter all the more.
In addition to his affection, a deep sense of guilt also welled up within him. He felt that his actions had wronged his daughter, and this guilt further intensified his love for her.
The more he cared, the more he feared losing her. The middle-aged man didn’t want to lose his precious daughter, but his wife's actions had planted a seed of unease in his heart. He worried deeply that his beloved daughter might not be his biological child.
He hadn't initially wanted to get a paternity test, fearing the result would shatter him. But without one, his heart remained restless and deeply anxious.
After much deliberation, he finally decided to go through with a paternity test. Not for anything else, but simply for peace of mind.
If Zhong Siyu truly was his biological daughter, he would undoubtedly treat her even better in the future. But if she wasn't. . . at the time, he hadn't considered what he would do, because that question was simply too difficult for him; he had no idea how he would cope.
When the paternity test results finally landed in his hands, the outcome he least wanted to see had indeed come to pass: Zhong Siyu was not his biological daughter.
Looking at the paternity test in his hand, his last psychological pillar crumbled. Unable to bear the blow, he completely lost his mind.
His wife’s years of betrayal had inflicted a tremendous psychological toll on him, but the reason he hadn’t completely gone insane was precisely because he still had his beloved daughter, Zhong Siyu.
Though his wife was gone, he still had at least one cherished daughter. In his mind at the time, this was a silver lining amidst misfortune.
But what he hadn't expected was that a single paternity test would plunge him into utter despair. Already mentally unstable, he finally became completely unhinged.
Zhong Siyu had once been his greatest love, the person he cared about most in his entire life. But upon learning she wasn’t his biological daughter, Zhong Siyu instead became the person he hated most in his heart.
His hatred ran so deep that it even surpassed his hatred for Zhong Siyu’s mother.
This hatred was inexplicable; a normal person would never be able to understand such animosity. But in the eyes of a madman, this hatred was perfectly logical.
There was only one reason he chose to target Zhong Siyu and treat her with such cruelty: he wanted to reclaim the love he had given her over the past ten years.
However much care and affection he had given Zhong Siyu over those ten years, he would now use this cruel and twisted method to reclaim it from her, one by one, with interest. For he was a merchant, and he would never willingly engage in a losing business.
The words and actions of a madman can never be understood by a normal person. They simply do not belong to the same world as normal people; their words and deeds will never resonate.
The blows of reality had driven the middle-aged man to madness. He took everything too seriously, and so, when the truth was laid bare before him, he couldn’t withstand the shock.
Yet, none of this had anything to do with Zhong Siyu. She was just a child, knowing nothing, never having participated in anything, yet she became the ultimate victim.
The middle-aged man’s room was filled with the scent of chemicals and a faint smell of blood. In addition, there was an unidentifiable, strange odor.
Two people hung suspended in the room, both naked, forcibly bound together by ropes and then hung on an iron hook, like a slab of pork belly waiting for a customer to buy—only this slab of pork belly was exceptionally large.
Both individuals were filthy, with dried blood caked in scabs all over their bodies, a truly disgusting sight. They looked miserable and barely alive, like candles flickering in the wind.
These two were none other than Zhong Siyu’s mother and her “ordinary friend” with whom she had shared a bed.
Seeing that the two people hanging on the iron hook were still alive, a satisfied smile involuntarily appeared on the middle-aged man’s face.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let you die. Although I’m a merchant, I also worked as a doctor for a long time at first. Keeping you alive for a while longer is something I can still do. ”
As his words fell, the middle-aged man turned his gaze to Zhong Siyu on the floor, and a pathological, twisted grin once again surfaced on his face.
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