Chapter 44: Father Always Acts for Your Own Good-Supreme Prince of the Underworld(Wailing Old Crone)

Yang Yongsheng’s eyes grew cold, though his face retained its harmless smile. “Oh? Really? And what are they saying about me online?”

“They say you invented the electrotherapy machine. That you’re amazing, unstoppable.”

“Am I really so capable, that I could invent such a thing?” Yang Yongsheng patted Yan Yu’s shoulder. “Do you know why your father sent you here?”

“My dad said it’s just a check-up. Can we start now?” Feng Liang’s voice was rough, caught between boyhood and manhood, and he sounded impatient.

“In such a hurry?”

Yang Yongsheng turned to Feng Liang’s father. “Are the formalities done?”

“All done. Please, Uncle Yang, I beg you, save my child.” His father’s face was earnest, pleading.

Yang Yongsheng nodded and spoke to several young men in military uniform behind him. “Take him in.”

Yan Yu barely had time to react before several people seized his arms and legs, carrying him directly into a ward. As his gaze darted forward, Yan Yu glimpsed the doorplate.

Room 13.

Up to this point, Feng Liang felt no fear at all, only boredom. He just wanted to cooperate, finish the examination for his father, and hurry home.

Room 13 was stark—a desk, a hospital bed, and a strange device resting atop it.

Yan Yu was hefted onto the bed. Only then did he see clearly: seven boys surrounded him, four pinning his legs, two his arms, one holding his head.

Their eyes were vacant, utterly emotionless—machine-like.

Next, several wires were fastened to Yan Yu’s temples. Only now did a faint fear stir in Feng Liang’s heart. He couldn’t help but cry out, “What are you going to do to me? Let me go! I want to see my father!”

“Still thinking of leaving?” Yang Yongsheng sat down in the chair before Yan Yu, still wearing that lifeless smile, but his eyes had turned icy.

Feng Liang grew more frightened. “You’re restricting my freedom! When I get out, I’ll expose you all online!”

“Let me be blunt: the Professor Yang they talk about online—that’s me. Do you think I haven’t seen those filthy words? All those curses, I don’t care. Do you think I’m bothered by your feeble threats today?”

Yan Yu was about to speak when Yang Yongsheng moved his finger, pressing the switch on the machine beside the bed.

Instantly—

Yan Yu felt as if his skull had been pried open, a stick stirring his brain.

Agony!

Unbearable agony!

His eyes rolled back, his hearing faded, he was barely aware of his own body—only one sensation remained: pain!

“Aaaah—”

Yan Yu screamed in hysteria.

The torment was brief but searing, etching itself onto his soul like a brand—impossible to forget.

“Still want to go online?” Yang Yongsheng’s voice sounded in Yan Yu’s ear.

Gradually, his senses returned.

The soul’s memories, after passing through judgment, can sometimes fragment. At this moment, a piece of Feng Liang’s memory vanished.

Yang Yongsheng’s smiling face.

Yan Yu opened his eyes. He could see the room, see people moving, but not their faces.

Not Yang Yongsheng’s, not the seven boys who’d pinned him down. Instead of faces, each wore a ghastly mask—demon-like, twisted, as if from hell itself.

Every single one was identical.

“I was wrong… I was wrong… I’ll never go online again, I’ll never be disrespectful to my parents, Uncle Yang, save me, let me see my mom and dad…” Feng Liang pleaded in a broken voice, but Yang Yongsheng only smiled brighter and waved his hand. The seven boys let go.

Yang Yongsheng helped Feng Liang to his feet, slinging an arm around his shoulders, leading him out of Room 13.

By now, Feng Liang was too terrified to speak. He dared not look back, afraid he would be dragged once more into that nightmare room.

His father was pacing the corridor. The moment he saw his son emerge, he rushed forward.

Without a word, Feng Liang clung to his father in a desperate embrace. “Dad, I’m sorry, I’ll never go online again, please, please take me home…”

As Feng Liang spoke, Yan Yu could not help but echo him inwardly. In this moment, both longed for the same thing.

Better to die than to remain in this place.

Feng Liang’s father held his son tightly, tears streaming from his clouded eyes. “Son, you still need treatment. Stay here until you’re better, then you can come home.”

“Dad… you’re leaving me here?! No… take me away, I don’t hate you, I swear I don’t hate you!” Feng Liang begged.

His father’s eyes reddened as he forced Feng Liang away, pushing him toward Yang Yongsheng.

Terror overwhelmed Feng Liang. “Dad, you don’t know what they did to me in there! They shocked me with that machine! They forced me to talk!”

“For the sake of our bond, let’s get through this together, alright?” But Feng Liang’s father seemed deaf to his pleas.

“No… don’t!” Feng Liang wrenched free and screamed at his father, “How can you live with yourself? Do you know what they did to me?”

Yang Yongsheng’s face darkened. He signaled to the seven boys, who immediately seized Feng Liang.

Feng Liang—or Yan Yu, in this moment—fought with everything he had, but the seven were far too strong. He had no hope of resisting.

“Dad, how can you live with yourself? You’ll regret this! I’ll get out—I’ll expose everything about this place!”

“Take him in!”

Yan Yu was dragged once more into Room 13. He clung desperately to the doorframe, hoping his father, seeing his son like this, would relent and take him away from this hell.

But all Yan Yu saw was Feng Liang’s father kneeling before Yang Yongsheng, weeping as he said, “Son… your father loves you! Everything I’m doing is for your own good!”

Despair.

Yan Yu forgot the agony of the electric shock; after those words, only despair remained in his heart.

It’s all for your own good, son…

The words echoed endlessly in Yan Yu’s mind, a nightmare that would not fade. In that instant, even Feng Liang’s father’s face blurred—his features collapsed into a black void, then emerged as a mask.

The same as Yang Yongsheng and the seven boys.

Grotesque. Devilish.

“You think you’re the only one to expose me? Haven’t enough people across the country seen the truth?”

“You imagine you have such power?”

“Take him up—continue the treatment.”