Chapter Forty-Five

Zhou Yu gave an awkward smile, saying nothing.

Zhao Yan asked, “Do you regret it?”

Zhou Yu looked confused. “Regret what? Learning these things, joining the underground world? Meeting them, or that final battle?”

Zhao Yan replied, “All of it, I suppose.”

Zhou Yu thought for a moment and said, “There’s no question of regret or not. If you had gone through what I did, I believe you’d have chosen the same path.”

“But don’t you think you’re too cruel to your targets each time?” Zhao Yan pressed.

Zhou Yu laughed, a note of self-mockery in his voice. “Maybe I was born with a twisted mind.”

Nian Yu quickly hugged Zhou Yu and shouted at Zhao Yan, “Zhao Yan, what do you know? Do you understand his past? How can you call him cruel?”

Zhao Yan replied, “It’s not that I know nothing—on the contrary, I know too much. That’s why I think he’s cruel.”

Before Nian Yu could reply, Zhao Yan continued, “Do you know what he’s done? He once made a target kneel against a wall, nailed his hands and feet to the floor, then chopped off his head so he could watch his own body.”

“He once cut a male target’s genitals seven times, never severing them completely, just leaving the skin attached. Then he stuffed those two ‘eggs’ into the man's mouth and sealed it so he couldn’t spit them out.”

As Zhao Yan was about to go on, Zhou Yu’s eyes suddenly reddened, and he shouted, “They deserved it! They all deserved it! I was making them atone, making them repent!”

If Nian Yu hadn’t noticed Zhou Yu’s violent trembling after Zhao Yan’s first sentence and called Xiao Jie over to help restrain him, Zhou Yu might have already charged at Zhao Yan.

Nian Yu held Zhou Yu tightly, shouting at Zhao Yan, “Enough! Stop provoking him. Zhao Yan, don’t forget, your life was saved by him.”

She then whispered soothing words to calm Zhou Yu.

Zhao Yan hadn’t expected Zhou Yu’s outburst and was at a loss for words, simply watching in silence.

A long while passed before Zhou Yu gradually calmed, his chest still heaving.

His voice trembled as he spoke. “You only see the outcome. Do you know the reasons? You don’t, but I’ll tell you now.”

“That one, kneeling against the wall, hands and feet nailed down, head chopped off—did you not see the memorial portrait opposite his body? Do you know why I did that? The information I received said his grandfather was slaughtered by invaders during the war, his father was a soldier who died in action and was honored as a martyr. Yet he betrayed our motherland, serving the enemy. Why shouldn’t he repent before dying?”

“And the one whose genitals were cut seven times—do you know what he did? He was a rapist. He assaulted his female student, tattooed the words ‘sex slave’ on the inside of her thighs. Not only did he steal her innocence, but he branded her with those words. How could she go on living? If I hadn’t happened to be there that day and rescued her, she would have ended her own life long ago.”

As Zhou Yu spoke, his agitation grew; Zhao Yan was left speechless with shock.