How Did I Teach You When I Was Little!

Shu Sizhuo knew that Tong Zhao must have asked that question because he had run into Boss Huang and that knockoff at the old family residence that day.

No wonder Tong Zhao had looked so displeased when he delivered food to his apartment afterward.

But Shu Sizhuo had no intention of explaining himself right away.

After all, Tong Zhao wasn't entirely wrong. He did like this face.

He liked this face, and he hated it too.

Shu Sizhuo reached out and gripped Tong Zhao's cheeks, forcing him to lift his head.

"That's right, I locked them all up," Shu Sizhuo lied casually. "I locked them up, tortured them, beat them, and gave them nothing to eat. Several of them went mad."

Tong Zhao froze.

"So be good, do as you're told, and don't make me angry." Shu Sizhuo stroked his cheek, his words as chilling as a flickering serpent's tongue. "I'll have someone cook you another bowl of porridge, all right?"

Shu Sizhuo thought his threat had worked. Tong Zhao's long, soft eyelashes had begun to tremble, and his pupils had widened slightly. He looked so frightened that he was about to submit.

Shu Sizhuo's heart ached to see Tong Zhao like this, yet he also found it satisfyingly thrilling in a dark way.

He brushed his thumb over Tong Zhao's bloodless lips and smiled. "But to punish you for losing your temper and smashing the bowl, you'll have to go hungry for a while. Have something else first." With that, he lowered his head and pressed his lips to Tong Zhao's.

Cold, soft, trembling.

Shu Sizhuo kissed Tong Zhao's lips, but just as he was about to pry his teeth apart, Tong Zhao jerked violently and turned his head away.

Tong Zhao glared at him, his eyes rimmed red, his anger and fear turning to anguish and shock. "Shu Sizhuo! Have you gone mad? What on earth are you doing?! Let those people go! Hurry! Hurry!"

Shu Sizhuo looked at him in displeasure. Even Tong Zhao couldn't interrupt his kiss.

He turned Tong Zhao's face back toward him and kissed him hard.

But Tong Zhao kept struggling, shouting indistinctly, "How did you become like this?! ...How are you now... so bad... What you're doing is hateful, what you're doing is disgusting!"

Rip—

Tong Zhao fell silent the moment his clothes were torn open.

Disheveled, he met Shu Sizhuo's dark gaze. His whole body flinched, and a chill rose in his heart. "You... what are you going to do?"

Tong Zhao's words stung Shu Sizhuo. His fingers clutched the clothes he had torn, twitching involuntarily.

He pulled his lips into a stiff smile. "Doing—what a bad person should do. Doing something disgusting."

With that, he buried his head and bit down on Tong Zhao's chest.

Tong Zhao cried out and began pushing and struggling frantically. "Shu Sizhuo, stop! Stop!—Stop, stop!—"

But Shu Sizhuo was like a great mountain, planting fruit after fruit on the land without budging an inch.

When he kissed Tong Zhao again, Tong Zhao thought he had lost his mind.

It could hardly be called a kiss. He was gnawing and biting, as if filled with boundless hatred.

Tears streamed from the corners of Tong Zhao's eyes. Between the lack of air and his exhaustion, he grew weaker and weaker, while Shu Sizhuo's black shirt had been pulled into a mess by his grasping hands.

After they had kissed for a long, long time, Tong Zhao suddenly opened his eyes. The corners of his mouth were wet, and he stared at Shu Sizhuo through tear-blurred eyes, somewhat dazed.

Shu Sizhuo bit his lower lip hard, drawing a bright red bead of blood.

Tong Zhao had no attention to spare for the stinging in his lip. Something was pressing against him, and cold sweat broke out over him in terror. "...What are you going to do?"

Shu Sizhuo gripped his ankle, making the chain rattle.

Then he lowered his eyes to look at him and moved forward a little, as if he would break through his skin the next second.

Tong Zhao turned pale with pain, making the bead of blood on his lower lip look all the brighter.

Shu Sizhuo stared at Tong Zhao's lower lip, somewhat moved. He lowered his head and sucked away the bead of blood.

Tong Zhao slapped his face away. Tears streaming down his face, he cried sternly, "Shu Sizhuo! How did I teach you when I was little?! Just how fucking crazy are you going to get?!"

Shu Sizhuo shuddered and stopped, the bloodred color in his eyes finally fading a little.

He glared at Tong Zhao, hatred, love, resentment, and grievance mingling together. His eyes instantly grew wet, but instead of retreating, he pressed forward, gritting his teeth. "You're finally willing to acknowledge me? Tang Xu, or Xia Zhen?"

Tong Zhao's first assignment after entering the General Institute had been to help his young assignment target, Shu Sizhuo, who was locked in a mental institution, recover his inheritance and take over the family business.

Shu Sizhuo was a poor little thing. After his parents died in a car accident, his father's mistress Qin Yan brought her four- or five-year-old illegitimate son, Shu Yaoxi, to live openly in the house, with the help of Uncle Ou, a friend of his father's and a senior executive at the company.

Although Shu Sizhuo was only ten, he was already very sensible. Like a wolf cub, he guarded what was left of his shattered home and tried to drive out the mistress and her illegitimate son who had taken it over.

But he was too young to be a match for a group of cunning adults. Pushed and deliberately provoked by them, little Shu Sizhuo picked up a fruit knife and charged at Qin Yan when she spoke viciously of his mother.

Uncle Ou ordered a group of his men to stop Shu Sizhuo, who screamed and kicked and hit them, roaring, "Get out! Get out of my house! Get out—"

Uncle Ou bent down with an affected look of regret. "Young Master Shu has been badly shaken since President Shu and his wife passed away. He's not in a good state of mind. Quick, take him to the hospital and have his head examined."

In the end, Uncle Ou took a hospital diagnosis and hired a lawyer. On the grounds that Young Master Shu had mental problems and couldn't reasonably manage his property, he took over management of his share of the inheritance and sent him to Ode Mountain House.

Ode Mountain House stood on a mountain in the suburbs, hard and cold like a demon's castle. It was difficult to reach, and there was no one living for miles around.

Ode Mountain House presented itself to the outside world as an upscale facility that took in troubled children, children with depression, and children with mental illnesses... In reality, it was a den of horrors that treated people according to who they were.

Shu Sizhuo had been locked up there for half a year when the General Institute sent Tong Zhao to rescue him.

In the original trajectory, Shu Sizhuo was supposed to be locked up for a full year. Only then would his maternal uncle, who was far away in the United Kingdom, learn of it and hurry back to the country to get him out of Ode Mountain House and help him reclaim everything that belonged to him.

But after only half a year of confinement, Shu Sizhuo's thoughts had already strayed from the original trajectory. Repeated abuse had given rise to cold, evil thoughts. He wanted to kill someone; he wanted to kill the director who had abused him.

If he killed someone now, his life would be ruined.

That night, a gale raged and thunder and rain crashed down. In a room at the end of the fourth floor of Ode Mountain House, a small, thin figure was curled up in a corner. A barbed whip came down from time to time, and flashes of lightning revealed a bloodied figure.

Fenli, the director, had drunk quite a bit at a charity dinner that night and was striking with particular force. He had a desire to conquer Shu Sizhuo. Other children would cry, tremble, and beg for mercy after a light whipping, but Shu Sizhuo wouldn't.

Boring.

And yet very interesting.

Fenli staggered as he crouched down, grabbed Shu Sizhuo by the hair, and lifted the dying child's filthy face. An evil smile spread across his own. "Good boy, all you have to do is say, 'Mr. Fenli, I was wrong. Please forgive me,' and I'll let you off tonight."

Shu Sizhuo's eyes were so swollen he could barely open them. He shot Fenli a sidelong glance and pulled from inside his clothes a bamboo pole he had spent a long time sharpening. In a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder, a ruthless glint crossed his eyes, and he raised the pole and stabbed it toward the perverted devil—