"Keep talking."
Shen Ru kicked the boy in the side, urging him on with an impatient look.
The boy seemed to muster all his courage before gritting his teeth and saying:
"We were raised on the island from birth, without parents. If some unlucky kid died, nobody cared. Everyone who survived wore a white dress until they turned five, boys and girls alike. Only after five could we choose skirts or trousers based on our sex."
Qian Xiwen's heart lurched, and she voiced her suspicion. "Those were the only two styles you could choose from, but the clothes themselves were all identical, right?"
The boy nodded. "After turning five, we could officially start school. From then on, we traded our white dresses for school uniforms."
Shen Ru suddenly remembered that his wardrobe contained nothing but school uniforms.
He looked at the boy and continued, "What a unique school tradition. Raising a child's dress as a flag?"
As though he had heard something horrifying, the boy began trembling uncontrollably. It took him a long while to calm down enough to speak:
"It's a warning, not a tradition."
Shen Ru raised an eyebrow. "Last question. What happened before you turned five?"
"Aaaaah-"
The question suddenly sent the boy into a violent frenzy. Sheng Ziyao pinned him down with all his strength, but he still refused to communicate.
He screamed at the top of his lungs, completely losing awareness as he slammed the back of his head against the ground.
Shen Ru cursed under his breath and mercilessly stabbed through the boy's head, putting him out of his misery.
"Useless."
Apparently, this was as far as his probing of the Instance could take him.
Something horrifying must have happened before they turned five to make them refuse to speak of it. From the