Chapter Thirty-One: The Sins of Teacher Peng

"Are you Feng Xiaoyu? How could this be possible? Weren’t you already—?"

Before he could even process his shock, the young man before him slowly stepped out of the mirror, drawing closer with every moment.

Mr. Peng’s feet seemed rooted to the spot, as if bound by some unseen force; no matter how he struggled, he couldn’t move an inch.

"Xiaoyu, what happened back then was my fault, truly, I know I was wrong. Please, let me go, I’ll turn myself in right away, all right?"

Mr. Peng was on the verge of tears, his eyes red and swollen as he begged for forgiveness again and again.

But the youth only pressed in, step by step, until he stood right before Mr. Peng, revealing an unsettling, twisted smile.

"Mr. Peng, let’s revisit what happened all those years ago."

"No… please, don’t!"

When Mr. Peng came to his senses, he found himself surrounded by darkness. Nothing existed—not beneath his feet, above his head, nor around him—just endless black.

As confusion swirled within him, two figures appeared in his line of sight.

He knew them both too well: one was himself, the other his former student.

At the time, he was smiling gently at a little girl.

The girl hung her head, shyly whispering, "I… I don’t know how…"

"If you don’t know, I can teach you. After all, that’s a teacher’s duty."

Mr. Peng spoke as he reached out with his wicked hands toward the girl.

Just then, the youth appeared out of thin air, summoning his courage to speak.

"You… stop it! Let go of my sister!"

But the teacher showed no fear at the boy’s protest; instead, he pulled up his pants, sneering dismissively.

Now, a voice echoed in Mr. Peng’s ears: "Well? Do you remember now?"

Sweat poured from Mr. Peng’s face like rain.

How could he possibly forget this scene?

Back then, he was teaching in the countryside, and he preyed on the local children more than once…

"I was wrong, I really was wrong!"

He apologized over and over, realizing he was utterly unable to move. All he could do was watch, helpless, as his past crimes replayed before his eyes.

"Don’t rush—keep watching."

The boy, desperate to protect the girl, picked up a stone from somewhere. "Let her go! Or else I won’t hold back!"

But Mr. Peng never took such a child seriously. He approached calmly and slapped him hard.

"You little brat…"

Before he finished his sentence, the stone struck his face.

The blow didn’t injure him, but it stung enough to make him furious.

"You dare? I was being lenient!"

Enraged, Mr. Peng began to beat the boy mercilessly. Soon, the child was battered and unconscious.

The girl lay on the bed, whimpering, clearly also on the brink.

At that moment, Mr. Peng devised a sinister plan.

He strangled the girl to death, buried her deep in the mountains, and then contacted a human trafficker to sell the boy.

For a child of his age, there was no chance he’d be adopted; more likely, his organs would be harvested.

Yet Mr. Peng felt no remorse—he even took pride in his actions.

It didn’t end there. Later, the siblings’ parents began searching for them, and Mr. Peng told them he’d seen the boy leave with his sister.

The police struggled to investigate in the remote mountains, and Mr. Peng covered his tracks so thoroughly that the matter was left unresolved.

"Do you know what happened to me after you sold me?"

Mr. Peng was speechless, his head shaking wildly, eyes brimming with tears.

It wasn’t regret—it was sheer terror.

Another scene unfolded.

After several hands, the boy was finally sold to a place known as the Strange Creature Research Facility.

Terrifying monsters were imprisoned everywhere.

But the true horrors were not these so-called monsters—the strange creatures—but the humans clad in white protective suits!

The researchers subjected the boy to inhumane experiments daily, until he finally died, discarded like trash in a corner, awaiting mass cremation.

Yet something miraculous happened. The boy’s fingers twitched among the corpses, and he opened his eyes.

Confused and disoriented, he looked around.

He soon discovered that absorbing the fear of the humans in the facility made him stronger.

His consciousness cleared, and his memories returned.

But he realized he was no longer human; his skin was rotting, his heart no longer beat, and he felt nothing—he was like a zombie.

At first, he couldn’t accept his appearance, so he smeared thick white paint over himself, gradually adopting a clown-like visage.

He wanted to escape, but the energy fluctuations from the facility’s ghost tamers instilled terror in him.

He remained trapped until his power reached F-level. Once he attained that rank, he was shocked to find he could induce hallucinations in humans.

With this ability, he soon escaped the facility.

After leaving the hospital, he had only one goal: to find Mr. Peng and exact his revenge!

He searched every corner of the Maoguo, which fortunately was not a large country. After more than a year, he finally found him.

He lay in wait at the school for two days, confirmed his target’s identity, and struck today.

When all this was revealed to Mr. Peng, he was utterly dumbstruck, his worldview turned upside down.

The shock didn’t last long; soon, he completely unraveled.

"Yes! I did it—so what? Let me tell you, over the years, there have been plenty worse off than you two siblings under my hands. I don’t regret a thing! If you’ve got the guts, just kill me!"

No sooner had the words left his lips than his vision suddenly soared upward, until he saw his own headless body—and then consciousness fled.

Mr. Peng was dead. The clown stood by his side, laughing wildly.

Xiao Zi had no idea what had happened, or why simply killing a person could yield so much fear value.

This horror value allowed Xiao Zi to leap straight from E to D rank.

[Congratulations, host, for completing Task 1. Reward: five random skills unlocked.]

Looking at the clown again, Xiao Zi used the Blood Demon Eye to observe that the last traces of humanity in the clown were vanishing quickly. In the blink of an eye, he was transformed into a complete, unadulterated strange creature.

He didn’t have time to check what five skills had been unlocked. Instead, seizing the moment before the corpse grew cold, he rushed to Mr. Peng’s body and extracted his eyes and heart.

[Detected: Host has obtained the heart*1 and eyes*1 of a wicked person.]

[Blood Demon Eye and Soul Parasite can be upgraded. Upgrade now?]

[Yes!]

Without a moment’s hesitation, Xiao Zi used the two items and six thousand fear value to upgrade.

At the instant Blood Demon Eye reached LV3, he distinctly saw a figure in the shadows, staring at him intently.

"Damn, this Immaculate One must have a screw loose, spying on me all this time!"