Fairness

Wu Heng made sure he had everything, carefully felt through the pockets of his trench coat, then headed for the door.

He had already received the news.

A moment ago, while Kirsty's father was moving a sofa, a nail had cut a vein on the back of his hand. He'd gone to the hospital for stitches.

By now, Frank and Xia Ying, the Cap-Wearing Woman, had probably escaped from Hell.

Wu Heng picked up his suitcase, got into the car, and drove by the familiar route to Larry's cabin.

Kirsty's stepmother, Julia, was still inside the cabin.

According to the report, she hadn't come back down since going up to the attic. Half an hour had passed already.

She'd probably found Frank and the Cap-Wearing Woman in the attic.

Wu Heng decided to capture them while they had only just been resurrected and were still Blood Corpses, before they'd had a chance to heal themselves with blood.

He could also save Kirsty's father, Larry. It was the only thing he could do for Kirsty at the moment.

Besides, once the story progressed and Julia started luring men from bars to the cabin to feed Frank and Xia Ying, helping them regain human bodies, the two Cursed Disciples would be much harder to capture.

At the cabin, Wu Heng slowly unlocked the door with a key.

As for how he had the key to the cabin,

he'd gotten it through various means on his very first day in Hatton.

Once inside, he gently pulled the door shut behind him without locking it, so he wouldn't cut off his own escape route.

Wu Heng then took the shotgun out of his suitcase, held it ready, and carefully made his way up to the attic.

The dim cabin was silent. Not a sound could be heard.

Wu Heng slowly reached the attic where Frank had been killed, on the second floor. He didn't run into Julia along the way.

Wu Heng suddenly kicked the attic door.

The moment he did, he quickly retreated and pulled the trigger, emptying the shotgun in his hands.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The gunshots rang out in quick succession, bullets punching through the attic door as splinters flew everywhere.

And just as the wooden door was kicked open,

Julia's remaining upper half, clutching a dagger, suddenly lunged out from inside.

She missed and fell straight into the hallway.

By then, Wu Heng had already used the recoil from his kick to retreat to the top of the stairs, where he was reloading.

Julia's lunge landed perfectly in the shotgun's path, taking every bullet head-on.

The skin on her body was torn apart by the bullets like shredded paper, exposing the shriveled skeleton beneath as she writhed on the floor.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Wu Heng emptied the gun again, then calmly watched Julia.

The skin on Julia's face had been completely blown away, exposing the skull beneath. It was clearly Frank's, with its distinctly masculine features.

Only then did Wu Heng take a closer look at them:

Frank's body was nothing but an upper-body skeleton, with a jagged stump at the tailbone.

A scrap of flesh hung from the stump, and the bones of his hands had already been broken by the gunfire.

He was nothing but half a bare skeleton, helplessly sprawled on the floor, using his teeth to gnaw at the ground and drag himself along.

The skin Frank wore—Julia's—was in tatters, riddled with bullet holes.

Wu Heng ignored Frank and shouted into the attic:

"Blood Corpse in there, come out, or I'll throw in a grenade!"

With a creak, a female skeleton with only an upper body, grown as far as the rib cage, emerged. Her heart dangled in the open air as she used her fleshless arms to push herself along the floor, inch by inch. She was Xia Ying, the Cap-Wearing Woman.

Wu Heng looked at the sorry state of the two on the floor.

He was glad he'd known the story and made a plan for his own resurrection.

He hadn't expected them to kill Julia, the very person who was supposed to provide for them. And they'd recovered so poorly that they hadn't even regrown their full skeletons.

Then again, in the movie, Julia had been attached to the passion she'd once shared with Frank. Frank, still a skeleton, had also lured her in with promises. That was why she'd done what she did.

But now Frank wasn't the only one who'd been resurrected. The Cap-Wearing Woman had returned too.

Julia had probably been so terrified that she didn't buy Frank's promises and refused to provide for them, so they killed her.

As for the woman who'd lured men into feeding Frank and cheated with her own brother-in-law in the story, Wu Heng had never intended to save her.

He'd originally thought that if she were still alive, he could take the opportunity to shoot her, just in case she started missing Frank one day and came looking for revenge.

"Ahhh!"

"I'll kill you! Hngh!"

Frank roared furiously, glaring at Wu Heng.

Wu Heng ignored his gaze.

"Are you angry?"

"Do you think your anger can change your fate?"

"Stop screaming. Have some pity on your poor lungs!"

Wu Heng stood calmly where he was, reloading the shotgun as he stared coldly at Frank. "Oh, sorry. I forgot you don't have lungs."

"Who are you? Why are you killing me? Why? Why?"

"I can tell we're both Blood Corpses. Let me go, please. I'll be your dog. I'll do whatever you want." The Cap-Wearing Woman begged frantically.

Wu Heng still had no intention of revealing his true identity.

He raised the loaded shotgun and pointed it at them again, his face expressionless.

"Who am I?"

"I'm definitely not your friend!"

"Ma'am, you're far too clever. It's frightening!"

This woman had drawn Wu Heng's real-life appearance after seeing him just once. There was no way he could let her go. He had vivid memories of the protagonists in the novels of his previous life being treated like livestock by the gods of Infinite Space.

Frank was gnawing at the floor, slowly dragging himself toward the little knife lying nearby.

"You seem pretty unhappy about this." Wu Heng confirmed that neither of them posed a threat, strode forward, and kicked the knife away.

"Come on!"

"I'll give you two a chance. You can attack me together."

"We're all Cursed Disciples. I'll take on both of you without a gun!"

"Give us our human bodies back!" Frank couldn't move, so he could only bite down hard on Wu Heng's boot. "I'll tear you apart!"

"I gave you a chance, and you still couldn't do a thing. Who else is going to die but you?"

Bang! Bang!

"Please—"

Bang!

Wu Heng fired three more shots.

He aimed for their cervical vertebrae.

When the gunfire stopped, two skulls rolled a foot away across the floor, while the remaining bodies continued to writhe.

Wu Heng took out a woven sack and pulled Frank's heart from the chest cavity that was still twitching.

As soon as he held it, he sensed that the heart seemed to contain a source of energy.

Wu Heng had an idea and cautiously tried using a Cursed Disciple's blood-siphoning ability to absorb it.

The Blood Corpse heart in his hand suddenly shriveled.

A stream of energy flowed into Wu Heng's body. It felt as refreshing as drinking an ice-cold soda when he was parched.

He could also feel his body grow slightly stronger. It was a small change, only about two percent.

He figured that absorbing the entire heart would probably make him ten percent stronger.

Cursed Disciples could strengthen themselves by absorbing the energy in blood.

Wu Heng remembered that the Hellraiser comics mentioned how High Priest Pinhead had absorbed the power of three thousand sorcerers, gaining an immense amount of energy.

Cursed Disciples really did have the ability to absorb energy from blood.

However, after they were transformed into Cenobites, they were given more than just the basic ability to absorb energy. They were also given a central organ that could sense pain.

They could strengthen themselves by siphoning intangible feelings of pain. Wu Heng's own Cursed Disciple abilities were still a long way from that.

Wu Heng had an idea and decided to absorb the hearts of both Cursed Disciples in his hands.

Just then, a powerful gust of wind shattered the window, and a Bone Dragon with hellfire burning all over its body appeared in the air.

It transformed into a homeless man and appeared in the attic.

Without paying Wu Heng any attention, it went straight to the mattress and picked up the Box of Mourning, its metal patterns glinting.

Then it walked to the window, transformed back into a Bone Dragon, and flew west.

Wu Heng watched the Bone Dragon fly off with the Puzzle Box. He knew it was one of Hell's Hermits, a top-tier intermediary reserved for High Priest Pinhead.

"Damn it!"

Wu Heng watched the direction the Bone Dragon had flown and felt his heart sink.

That was the direction of his villa on Second Avenue.

"Kirsty!"