Wen Li had lived for a very, very long time—so long that he was almost beginning to forget the person he once was.
Had he not unintentionally picked up an eye by the seashore, his life would likely have been entirely different.
He was born into a terrible family. His father was an alcoholic who would beat him savagely when drunk, and his mother would only weep and tell him to endure it.
A father who drank and abused his family, paired with a weak and powerless mother—for a child, it was nothing short of a living hell.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t fought back, but what could a child of a few years do against a grown man? His resistance only earned him worse beatings and accusations from his mother for being disobedient.
It seemed that even resisting was considered his fault.
Deep in Wen Li’s heart, a seed was planted: if he had power, he could stand up to his father; if he had power, no one would ever be able to humiliate him again.
But unfortunately, he was still too young to fight back.
His mother was weak and useless, only clinging to him and crying all day. His father was perpetually dead drunk, naturally incapable of earning money to support the family. And so, the burden of survival fell on Wen Li’s shoulders, even though he was only a few years old.
He didn’t want to die, so he learned to act like an adult, scavenging for stranded fish by the shore or picking through the scraps the fishermen discarded, all just to barely stay alive.
Then, when he was six years old, he found an eyeball by the sea.
The eyeball seemed to be alive. He could feel its pulse, clearly see it blink, and even sense a strange light radiating from it.
Pick it up. Pick it up.
Pick it up, and you can have everything you desire.
The thought came to him, utterly bizarre and utterly terrifying. But the six-year-old boy felt no fear. Instead, he picked up the eyeball and took it home.
The eyeball possessed immense power. It made Wen Li understand that violence wasn’t the only form of resistance. With its power, he learned hypnosis.
Wen Li stared at the eerie eyeball in his hand, a thick, dark malice flickering in his eyes. A person’s guard is lowered when drunk. There was a filthy ditch along the path his father had to take to get home.
His father died.
It was dark and hard to see the path. And he was drunk. No one would suspect it wasn’t an accident. No one would suspect a six-year-old child.
This was Wen Li’s first murder. He watched his father fall into the stinking ditch. He watched him sink beneath the water. But he felt no fear, no horror, no regret. Instead, an indescribable excitement surged through him, so intense his hands trembled uncontrollably.
The man was finally dead. Finally, no one would hit him anymore.
Wen Li had thought that without his father, his life would get much better. But it seemed he had been too optimistic.
After his father's death, his mother ignored his protests. Claiming she couldn’t give him a happy childhood on her own, she remarried another man.
And this man was no different from his father.
The only distinction was that his father was an alcoholic, while this man was a gambling addict. When this man was in a bad mood or after losing a bet, he would still beat and kick Wen Li.
Wen Li didn’t care. Since he was so fond of hitting people, he might as well send him to keep his father company.
The man died, in an accident.
On his way home from gambling, as he passed a construction site, a falling steel rod pierced his heart, killing him instantly.
This time was different from his father’s death. This time, he and his mother received a large sum of compensation, enough for them to live comfortably for a long time. It was the result of Wen Li's meticulous planning.
But his mother remarried again, taking him with her.
This time, Wen Li wasn’t too surprised. He simply watched quietly as that man swindled all his mother's money, and then stood silently in the corner as the man negotiated with a trafficker about selling him.
He killed the man again. This time, he did it right in front of his mother. After killing him, he even cut the man into pieces.
The woman was tied to a chair, watching the blood-splattered boy smile as he dismembered the body, her face filled with terror and fear. Her gaze was as if she were looking at some horrifying monster.
She watched the boy slowly approach her with a blood-stained knife, struggling desperately to escape.
But she was bound to the chair, her mouth taped shut. She didn’t even have a chance to scream for help, let alone run away. She stared in terror as the boy drew near.
"Mmph! Mmph!"
Wen Li stood before his mother, his gentle gaze carrying a hint of disapproval, as if looking at a disobedient child.
"Why do you always have to remarry? Why won’t you just listen?"
"Mmph! Mmph!" Tears of fear streamed down the woman’s face as she shook her head frantically, seemingly trying to say something.
Wen Li tilted his head. "You want to speak?"
The woman immediately nodded.
Wen Li didn't actually deny her the chance to speak. He gently peeled the tape from her mouth.
Yet, the moment the tape was removed, the woman let out a sharp scream, clearly trying to call for help and draw attention.
In the very next second, her voice was cut off. A knife was embedded in the wood right next to her face. Fresh blood was still dripping down the blade. Had it been aimed just slightly differently, it would have pierced her skull.
"Shh." Wen Li placed a finger to his lips, speaking softly. "Too noisy."
The woman dared not scream again, or even make a single sound. Her body trembled uncontrollably. Even though the person standing before her was just a child of about ten years old, the terror in her eyes was overwhelming.
Wen Li was quite satisfied with her compliance. He really did prefer obedient people.
"Am I your biological son?"
Wen Li watched as the woman prepared to nod, then let out a light chuckle. His smile carried an indescribable eeriness.
"Think carefully before you answer. I don't like being lied to."
The fear in the woman's eyes reached its peak. In the next instant, her gaze became vacant and dull. Trembling, she confessed everything.
He was indeed not her biological son. He was the child of her romantic rival.
She had loved the boy next door since childhood, but he only saw her as a little sister, with no romantic feelings for her.
The woman didn't give up. She worked hard to get into the same university as he did. But when she arrived on campus, she discovered he already had a girlfriend.
Watching the person she loved shower another woman with care and affection drove her mad with jealousy. She committed many reckless acts.
But none succeeded.
After graduation, the young man and that woman left, moving to a place she didn't know.
Years later, by sheer chance, she saw them again. They were married now, and the woman was pregnant. This drove her even further into madness.
This time, however, the woman had learned her lesson. She didn't confront them. Instead, like a rat in a sewer, she hid in the shadows, secretly observing their lives.
She watched them relentlessly. She watched until the woman gave birth. She watched until the child was five months old. Finally, she found her opportunity.
She stole the child, immediately fled the city, and went to a remote village, claiming the boy as her own.
A child under one year old does not retain memories, so naturally, they wouldn’t know they aren’t the biological child. The woman had no intention of treating her rival's son well. She deliberately married an alcoholic man, guiding him to be violent toward the child, all to make her rival's son live in fear and ruin that woman's child.
Wen Li wasn’t overly surprised. Once might be a coincidence, but every time? That was no coincidence.
He killed the woman without hesitation, dismembered both bodies, and fed them to stray dogs.
Having lost his "parents," Wen Li became an orphan. He went through immense hardship to find his biological parents, only to discover they already had another child.
The couple had given up searching for him the year after he went missing and had conceived another child. When their lost son returned, they weren’t particularly happy; in fact, they subtly resented this eldest son who had never received a proper education.
The younger son seemed to understand that this new big brother had come to steal his parents and would throw tantrums, trying to drive Wen Li away.
Of course, they couldn’t just drive him away—Wen Li was still a minor, and abandoning a child is illegal. The couple had no choice but to take him in.
Seeing that his tantrums didn’t work, the younger son began bullying Wen Li in secret. When he realized his parents scolded Wen Li instead of him, he grew even bolder, ordering Wen Li to do all sorts of chores. The couple turned a blind eye, assigning all the household work to Wen Li.
Though he was the eldest son, Wen Li was treated like a servant, constantly subjected to bullying and verbal abuse.
Within just a month of returning home, Wen Li understood—no one would ever love him, not even his own biological parents.
If they wouldn’t love him, then they might as well die.
The city was different from the countryside, and the police were far more thorough. Even though Wen Li left no traces, he still fell under suspicion. The police even dug up the deaths of his previous "parents."
By this time, Wen Li was no longer the helpless child he once was. He had absorbed a trace of power from the eyeball, capable of hypnotizing tens of thousands of people, and he easily crafted himself into the perfect victim.
But that wasn’t enough—he wanted to grow stronger.
Wen Li studied the eyeball for a long time, even conducting experiments on live subjects. He discovered a power within the eyeball, one that could make a person stronger, but absorbing it quickly was extremely difficult.
Perhaps due to his miserable childhood, perhaps from a simple desire to dominate, or maybe for other reasons, Wen Li was desperate to grow stronger.
Slowly absorbing the overflowing trace of power no longer satisfied him. Becoming stronger had become his deepest obsession—even if it meant turning into a monster.
He worked day and night on his research and finally found a way to accelerate the overflow of the eye's power.
That method was negative emotions.
When people are in extreme emotional states, they generate negative emotions, and these negative emotions can speed up the dispersal of the eye's power.
This world is dirty and dull, so it might as well become a stepping stone for his strength.
Wen Li used the power of the eye to create a live-streaming room, then selected targets for hunting to generate negative emotions.
This method indeed proved effective.
The power of the eye dispersed much faster, affecting not only the targets but even starting to influence the viewers of the stream.
The targets and viewers Wen Li chose were already selfish and self-centered individuals. Under the influence of the horror stream and the eye, they unleashed the malice in their hearts without restraint.
Both the selected targets and the viewers would become 'food' for the eye.
Wen Li was extremely satisfied with this. The horror stream now operated without his involvement, as it could select its own targets.
This time, the target seemed to be a weak young man who could be crushed in an instant.
Wen Li looked at the young man's profile, feeling rather unenthused, and put down the tablet to continue his research.
The tablet was left nearby with its interface and sound still on, though the volume was set quite low.
It wasn't until the sound of a door being kicked in came from the tablet, interrupting Wen Li's experiment.
He glanced at the tablet on the table but showed no intention of picking it up. It seemed this target would die on the very first night.
The faster they died, the fewer negative emotions they would provide. This target was truly too useless.
Just as Wen Li was lost in thought, a clear, pleasant voice came from the tablet. The voice sounded innocent and harmless, almost like the soft mewling of a kitten.
"You... what are you doing?"
"... I’ll transfer the money to your card later."
"It’s fine."
Though he couldn’t see the stream, Wen Li’s mind already conjured an image of the voice’s owner. The next moment, the live-stream’s footage indeed appeared in his mind.
Since he had created the horror stream, he could naturally perceive everything happening within it. However, he usually severed his connection to the stream.
The scene in the horror stream was exactly as he had imagined.
Weak, harmless, no different from a newborn kitten that can barely walk.
A target like this can barely provide any negative emotions—utterly useless trash.
!I was like, who? Until they talked about the Horror live stream, then I wad like :O
ReplyDeleteThank you for the chapter
Ohh 😮,so this Wen Li pov? interesting.
ReplyDelete