Chapter 233: Birth (Part 10)
This room was originally the Middle-aged man's and his wife's bedroom, but now it had been forcibly converted into a makeshift operating room.
The once grand bed had been transformed into a crude, makeshift operating table, stained with blood and exuding a foul stench, both nauseating and terrifying.
Scattered across the bed were various medical supplies, along with sharp, blood-stained scalpels, adding another layer of horror to this already ghastly operating table.
With a sinister grin on his face, the Middle-aged man placed the unconscious Zhong Siyu onto the makeshift operating table.
The operating table was equipped with handcuffs and ankle chains. Once Zhong Siyu was on it, these bloody restraints tightly secured her to the table.
With these handcuffs and ankle chains, let alone the severely injured Zhong Siyu, even a fierce tiger would not be able to break free.
"My dear daughter, you've lost too much blood, but Daddy will save you right away. I won't let you die. I want you to live a good life."
With a twisted smile, the Middle-aged man began to busy himself at the operating table.
Zhong Siyu didn't know how long she had been unconscious. When she woke up, the intense pain radiating throughout her body continuously stimulated her nerves. Before she could even begin to comprehend what was happening, the sight before her eyes made her burst into tears.
Though she tried her best to control herself, her sobbing was still heard by the Middle-aged man. He turned around, his face covered in blood, and bared his teeth in a wide grin at her.
Zhong Siyu, who had only just regained consciousness, immediately fainted from fright.
The days that followed were pure hell for Zhong Siyu.
Yet, the Middle-aged man acted as if nothing was amiss, living his life as usual.
Although the Middle-aged man was insane, he didn't exhibit overt signs of madness in front of outsiders. Those who frequently interacted with him would notice some changes in his personality, but no one would consider him insane; they all thought he was still quite normal.
To avoid suspicion, he didn't even dismiss the servants in the villa, not a single one.
As for his missing wife, daughter, and the Old Butler, he concocted a plausible excuse: his daughter had gone to study at an aristocratic school in another city, and his wife and the Old Butler had gone with her to look after her.
No one harbored much suspicion regarding his explanation. After all, it was quite common for wealthy people like them to send their children to study in larger cities. Furthermore, he had secretly used money to manage the situation, so even fewer people suspected him.
During the day, he continued to busy himself with his business as usual, but unlike before, he no longer traveled frequently outside Lecheng. While this meant losing a considerable amount of business, he no longer cared.
At night, he would begin to torment Zhong Siyu and the other two. Only when he grew tired of the torment, or found pleasure in it, would he go to sleep, sharing the same room with Zhong Siyu and the two others.
And his favorite target for torment was his former beloved daughter, Zhong Siyu.
Every so often, the Middle-aged man would violently sever a part of Zhong Siyu's body, then crudely stitch it back on. And each time he did this, he would find a way to keep Zhong Siyu conscious, forcing her to endure it all while fully aware.
Because only then could Zhong Siyu fully experience what true pain felt like, what a fate worse than death truly meant.
To prevent Zhong Siyu from dying, he always avoided vital areas when he acted, and he timed everything perfectly. Zhong Siyu thus endured prolonged torment from this father of hers.
Initially, Zhong Siyu was terrified and desperate, but slowly, she grew numb. In the end, her numbness transformed into resentment.
Whenever the Middle-aged man inflicted cruel torment upon her, he would speak and act simultaneously, using words to provoke Zhong Siyu. His sole purpose was to make Zhong Siyu even more terrified, even more desperate.
It was precisely because of this that, under such prolonged and perverse torment, Zhong Siyu learned the full story behind everything. She learned of her mother's infidelity, and she also realized that this father who wasn't her father had gone mad.
Yet, she could not fathom how any of this concerned her, or why she was ultimately the one subjected to the most agonizing torment.
The more she failed to understand, the deeper the resentment in her heart grew. She hated her mother, and she hated this man who was once her father. In the end, she even began to hate the entire world.
But the more she hated, the more excited the Middle-aged man became, and the more varied his methods of torment grew. Under this onslaught, the resentment in her heart multiplied exponentially.
Finally, one day, she could no longer bear it. Carrying boundless resentment, she departed from this world.
Her mother was sixteen when she married the Middle-aged man, and that very year, Zhong Siyu also turned sixteen, and that day happened to be her sixteenth birthday.
Every year on her birthday, the Middle-aged man would prepare a gift for her.
Before he went mad, the Middle-aged man's gifts for her were always things she liked.
After he went mad, she remained fixed on the makeshift operating table year-round, yet the Middle-aged man would still prepare birthday gifts for her. However, these birthday gifts were not things she liked, but rather torment that was twice as severe as usual.
On that sixteenth birthday, the Middle-aged man prepared a "grand gift" for her, and this grand gift was torment several times more brutal than usual.
It was precisely this grand gift that definitively ended Zhong Siyu's life.
Zhong Siyu's death dealt a tremendous blow to the Middle-aged man. He cried and screamed in the room like a child who had broken his beloved toy, terrifying Zhong Siyu's mother and that other man.
Over the past six years, the two had endured no small amount of torment, but compared to Zhong Siyu's suffering, their torment was insignificant. It was precisely because of this that they both managed to survive.
With Zhong Siyu dead, the Middle-aged man would inevitably vent his rage upon the two of them. They understood this truth, and naturally, they were utterly terrified.
The Middle-aged man did not disappoint them. On the very day Zhong Siyu died, the two of them received torment far more intense than usual.
However, with Zhong Siyu serving as a stark warning, the Middle-aged man was extremely cautious when tormenting the two, fearing he might accidentally "play" them to death, leaving him with no one left to torment.
As for the deceased Zhong Siyu, he stitched her body back together and hung her on an iron hook like a piece of pork. He intended to air-dry Zhong Siyu's corpse to create a unique specimen for his future enjoyment.
Those stitched-together pieces of skin and limbs were unspeakably horrifying in the eyes of a normal person, but in the Middle-aged man's eyes, they were a rare work of art.
Yet, this "work of art" in his eyes would claim his life seven days later, leading to his ultimate Soul Transformation.
Zhong Siyu's death only caused the Middle-aged man a brief period of sadness. Like a child whose toy broke, his sorrow came quickly and left just as fast. Once his sadness passed, he had already put Zhong Siyu out of his mind.
Seven days later, a strong surge of Yin Qi and towering resentment enveloped the villa. Ordinary people couldn't sense this intense Yin Qi and overwhelming resentment, but those who were not ordinary could.
Especially the Underworld Office personnel, who were most sensitive to such sensations.
At that time, many capable individuals rushed to the villa, and Deng Feng, the Emissary of Death of Lecheng, was among them.
When they arrived at the villa, there was not a single living soul left. The servants, Zhong Siyu's mother, that man, and the perverted Middle-aged man—all had died tragically, without exception.
The entire villa was left with only a resentful Blood-Clad Evil Spirit and an ordinary Wánglíng.
As for everyone else, not only were they dead, but their souls had been forcibly extracted from their bodies and devoured.
This Blood-Clad Evil Spirit was none other than Zhong Siyu herself—the Evil Spirit Zhong Siyu.
And that ordinary Wánglíng was the former Old Butler.
Although he was a Wánglíng, he was the only survivor in this villa. Everyone else didn't even have their souls left. Compared to those who suffered Soul Transformation, he was indeed the luckiest.
After his death at the Middle-aged man's hands, the Old Butler's soul coalesced into a Spirit, and he remained in the villa ever since.
The reason he hadn't left was that he wanted to save Zhong Siyu. He didn't want to see Zhong Siyu suffer endless torment at the Middle-aged man's hands.
But unfortunately, he had died too suddenly, and hadn't harbored much resentment before his death, so he only coalesced into an ordinary Wánglíng.
An ordinary Wánglíng's abilities were quite limited; besides scaring people, he had no other capabilities. He tried to scare the Middle-aged man, but the insane Middle-aged man was too thick-skinned, making it very difficult to frighten him. Instead, several of the villa's servants were scared away one after another.
Not only did the Old Butler fail to scare the Middle-aged man, but he was also terribly frightened by the Middle-aged man's actions. It was because of this that he never successfully rescued Zhong Siyu before she was tormented to death.
Zhong Siyu became an Evil Spirit, hating everything in this world, including her parents who were on her list of hatred. But the Old Butler was the sole exception.
It was precisely for this reason that after Zhong Siyu's Spirit Body successfully coalesced, everyone else in the villa died, not even leaving their souls behind, with only the Old Butler remaining. It wasn't that she hadn't noticed the Old Butler's presence, but rather that she deliberately chose not to harm him.
However, just because Zhong Siyu didn't harm the Old Butler, didn't mean others wouldn't. Moreover, the Old Butler was truly unlucky; he happened to encounter the Emissary of Death, Deng Feng.
As expected, he was directly absorbed into Deng Feng's Soul-Gathering Bead without any surprises.
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