"Soul-Crying Street": It Takes a Villain to Punish a Villain
Xu Xi subconsciously looked down.
It was an orange cat with a fishbone pattern, and its belly and four paws were white.
The orange cat had multiple wounds that were still bleeding, and it was on the verge of death after falling from a height.
No, to be precise, it was thrown down.
He looked up at the Second Floor.
The heavy curtains effectively blocked the view from the outside world.
But Xu Xi still spotted the eye peeking out from the narrow gap.
Someone threw the orange cat off the Second Floor and is now hiding behind a window, watching what's happening below.
The orange cat was too badly injured to even howl as it lay on the ground, and soon it stopped breathing.
The pair of eyes behind the curtains also disappeared.
Xu Xi for a while, but no one came down. So she quietly moved the orange cat's body to the side of the road, forced herself to stop staring at it, and walked to the next floor.
Congratulations, your judgment was correct.
It just can't understand what it did wrong.
10th floor.
A man carrying a briefcase was talking on the phone, his head down and shoulders slumped.
"I've given you so many chances, and each time you improve, it's worse than the last!" The man's voice on the other end of the phone was gruff, his impatience undisguised.
"I'm sorry, boss, please give me another chance. I promise I'll do better this time!" the man pleaded humbly to the person opposite him.
"Hmph, this is your last chance. If you can't fix this version, you're fired!"
The call had already been disconnected, but the man was still thanking them repeatedly and making promises.
The next phone call rang immediately.
The man answered, his voice much more relaxed. "Hey, Jingjing, I just got off work, what's up?"
"Zhou Cheng, let's break up."
The man's tone suddenly turned panicked. "Weren't we having a good talk? Why do you want to break up? Is it because your parents don't approve? Do they look down on me because I'm an orphan? Tell them, I'll do anything for you, even kneel down. Jingjing, please don't break up with me! I really love you! I'll die without you!"
The man said a lot, but the other person replied very briefly.
"Zhou Cheng, I sincerely suggest you go to a mental hospital for a checkup. I'll come pick up Orange Treasure in twenty minutes. Let's call it a day."
The man hung up the phone dejectedly, then brushed past Xu Xi, looking utterly defeated.
Xu Xi turned around and watched the man's figure gradually walk away, eventually disappearing into the distance on the street.
Congratulations, your judgment was correct.
Sometimes, evil thoughts can take root and sprout in an instant, and then become unstoppable.
This slogan confirmed to Xu Xi that the protagonist of this third story was indeed the man she had just heard from.
The man isn't a cat breeder; he's just an ordinary office worker about to lose his job and being dumped by his girlfriend.
Orange Treasure must be the orange cat that was thrown down earlier.
The owner of those eyes hiding behind the curtains no longer needs to think about it.
So this story is actually about... a man who was upset at work and then dumped by his girlfriend, so he vented all his malice on her orange cat?
Then, he found a twisted pleasure in this process, and from then on, he couldn't stop, constantly abusing cats to gain pleasure?
The fact that the black cat with the little bell appears in this story proves that its fate was not accidental.
Its two hind legs were broken; it was deliberately left in the middle of the road; it was maliciously run over multiple times by car wheels...
It was all the man's doing.
When the girl said, "I sincerely suggest you go to a mental hospital for a checkup," was she being sarcastic, or did the man actually have a mental problem?
Xu Xi prefers the latter.
He turned and continued to the next floor.
This story is told in reverse order, unlike the previous two.
However, the beginning doesn't mention the man's fate, which will likely be revealed in the subsequent cycles.
Level 11, no issues, proceed.
The 12th floor also passed without any issues.
13th floor.
Xu Xi stepped into the street, she noticed the scattered bloodstains on the ground.
The still-dry bloodstains stretched all the way to the front of the residential building.
It was as if something had been dragged all the way here.
Xu Xi initially thought it was another sign of a man abusing a cat, but as he approached the apartment building, he faintly heard a man's wailing.
The man was now like the cats he had abused, howling in pain and moaning intermittently.
In front of the same residential building, at the same location, the only difference this time was that a man was thrown from the Second Floor.
The moment Xu Xi saw the man's horrific state, she couldn't help but gasp.
The other person's limbs seemed to have been completely broken, his flesh was torn apart, and he was covered in blood. There wasn't a single patch of good skin left. He stared with bulging eyes and made meaningless "hoarse" sounds.
He looked like he had suffered a lot.
Xu Xi looked up at that window.
The curtains were drawn back, and in the dark room, another figure stood by the window, looking down at the man who had struggled for so long as he gradually breathed his last before slowly turning and leaving.
Was the man being retaliated against?
Congratulations, your judgment was correct.
"Evil people will be punished by other evil people."
The wicked?
Xu Xi stared at the slogan, thinking, "This story is almost over. Will the next story be about that villain who used the same methods to take revenge and kill the man?"
After all, based on the three stories we know so far, they are more or less connected.
Level 14, no abnormalities, pass.
15th floor.
Xu Xi received the third photo.
The honest-looking man, clutching a briefcase, dodged the camera's lens.
--
[Ugh, what did the cats do wrong to deserve this?!]
This Dungeon is so depressing; the atmosphere is oppressive, and the content is depressing too.
[I suddenly realized that Xu Xi slows down her pace whenever there's a loop that explains the background.]
[The pro player was probably just reading the story, otherwise he could have speedrunned it already at double speed.]
[Indeed, there are no teammates to entertain him in solo Dungeons.]
[Xu Xi: How can you talk like that? I'll give you two seconds to rephrase your words.]
[This man was eventually tortured to death; it was truly a case of evil getting its just deserts.]
[The ending wasn't bad; I was just afraid he'd die of old age without any problems.]
[Although the slogan called him a villain, the fact that he ripped this guy to death makes him a good person in my eyes.]
[It's such a pity about the black cat. I can't imagine how it would feel if it knew that its owner had also committed suicide by cutting his wrists after its death.]
[After the black cat went down, it was still worried that its owner would be too heartbroken and cry all the time without it. But when it opened its eyes, it found that its owner had also come down.]
[Hey you, get back to sleep!]
[Why is no one mentioning the girl who lost Orange Treasure? Orange Treasure Orange Treasure, my precious little orange kitten, was cruelly tortured to death like that.]
[Holy crap, you know what, I'm worried this guy might impulsively kill his girlfriend too, right?]
[!!!]
[Holy crap, no way!]
[That's not necessarily true; that man didn't seem to be mentally stable.]