Chapter 21

Perhaps his stare was too intense, for the man seemed to sense it and turned around.

Then his eyes suddenly widened. He cried out at him as though he had seen a ghost and began kowtowing to him instead. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Don't, don't come after me. I really didn't mean to get you killed!"

"I didn't mean to drug you and harm your child either. She made me do it. It was all her, go find her..."

Chapter 10: Repulsion

Of course, Xu Qingran had no children.

He hadn't had any in his previous life, much less in this one.

By now, he could more or less guess that most of the people locked up in Tower 4 had mental problems. He had seen a few who saw ghosts in thin air, but this one was especially agitated by his appearance.

Listening to the unfamiliar man muttering in his cell and seeing his terror as he faced him, Xu Qingran didn't back away. Instead, like someone looking for excitement, he deliberately took a few more steps closer. The man reacted as though he had seen a death-claiming ghost or god, knocking his head against the floor even harder. Each blow landed with a thud, and a large patch of his forehead quickly turned red, but he refused to stop.

Xu Qingran didn't know whom he was talking about, but he didn't think much of people like him.

What, after killing someone with a knife while in his right mind, did he still want to claim afterward that he'd been possessed by a ghost?

He crouched down and beckoned to the man in the cell.

Perhaps because it was the first time someone had responded to him this way, the balding middle-aged man actually crawled all the way over, his fearful eyes tinged with confusion.

Xu Qingran kept a straight face and lowered his voice. "Begging won't help."

"You both have to die. Just wait. I'll come for you first tonight." With that, he reached out toward him and made a face in all seriousness.

The system: "..."

???

In the end, an angry staff member forcibly pulled Xu Qingran away.

As he dragged him along, he practically had steam coming out of his head. "You... y-you knew he was mentally unstable and had neurasthenia, so why did you deliberately scare him?"

"Look what you've done now. You scared him into having a heart attack, and we have to go to all that trouble to get him to the medical department!"

Xu Qingran answered earnestly, "Oh, I didn't know. Did any of you tell me about that?"

"I didn't do it on purpose either. I thought he was just joking with me."

The staff member opened his mouth but couldn't come up with a reply.

...Wasn't it obvious to anyone with eyes?!

Xu Qingran followed the staff member who had been leading him around the whole time through two security doors and stopped in front of an empty cell.

The cell was fairly clean, with a metal hanging bed covered by a thin mattress. In the cell opposite was a skeletal male prisoner, lying motionless on the floor, dead or alive unknown. On either side, one prisoner was sobbing while the other was laughing out loud.

Apparently, it had been the decision of the interrogator surnamed Niu, who had questioned him before, to have him brought here today. Even all his punishments before leaving the Evil Tower, as well as the results of the tests he would undergo in the future, had to pass through the interrogator's hands for a final ruling.

The cell door's defensive energy lock was activated, and the clack of the staff member's leather shoes gradually faded away.

Xu Qingran sat on the cold, hard iron bed, propping his chin in one hand as he gazed at the high-rises outside the small window.

He thought that sooner or later, he would fucking kill that interrogator.

"By the way, host, doesn't it hurt?" The system's concerned voice suddenly sounded in his head.

He looked down at his other hand. Beneath the skin, he could seemingly still feel the stinging pain and the uncontrollable tremors.

"It hurts quite a bit,"

he replied.

On the day he transmigrated, he had noticed that this body was much more sensitive to pain and other external forces than his previous one. Even a gentle pinch could leave a bruise. So even the slightest pain would be magnified several times over.

But he had experienced something similar when he first acquired his lightning ability in his previous life. The electric shocks he had endured then had been dozens of times more painful than the bracelet's punishment.

With that thought, he raised the hand wearing the new bracelet, slowly clenched it into a tight fist, and slammed it hard against the wall beside him. The wall, a mixture of metal, earth, and stone, was so hard that it didn't change in the slightest. Instead, a faint red patch slowly spread across his knuckles.

A stinging pain pierced his muscles and a familiar current coursed through his body, yet his lips curved upward, and a trace of ruthlessness flashed in his eyes.

"But it's a very useful tool for helping me adapt to this body."

This body was too weak. For now, it had gained a little more strength only thanks to the increase in his Spiritual Pool level, but it was still a long way from the ideal state in which he could use all his abilities. He not only had to make it adapt to pain, but also had to train it.

During his days at the Evil Tower, Shen Tingyu had gone from Tower No. 5 to Tower No. 3.

The towers covered too much ground, so he had only made a cursory inspection of a few key areas.

After all, his real destination was Tower 2, which held only Type E individuals who had committed crimes and had blood on their hands.

Most of the time, Tower 2 was deathly silent. The prisoners were even separated from one another by several sealed cells, each with only a small iron-barred window protected by electronic energy, so the person inside wouldn't suffocate.

Shen Tingyu walked alone through the space, where patrolling staff were rarely seen. His military boots made a low, soft sound against the smooth floor. But the prisoners seemed highly perceptive. They soon noticed the faint noise and even found it immensely familiar.

They gathered at their small windows, both afraid of the handsome figure passing outside their cells and gnashing their teeth with hatred for him.

Type E individuals' nature made them unable to tolerate the presence of other Type E individuals. Just as one mountain couldn't hold two tigers, the moment they met, they would take an intense dislike to each other and fight to the death until a victor emerged.

And Shen Tingyu, as a member of the empire's official personnel, stood at the pinnacle of the Type E population.

Almost every Type E individual who had been in Tower No. 2 for a relatively long time had been put through military training by him. So they hated him, yet couldn't help fearing him, and could only express their anger through their glares.

After all, if they dared utter a single word, this devil really would drag them out of their cells and suppress them with his mental and physical strength, letting them experience what mental terror felt like.