Chapter 26: Human Nature Is Fundamentally Evil

The night was as black as ink.

A few expensive sports cars roared with a frantic noise that clashed with the old housing complex, tearing the silence.

After a screeching brake, the car doors opened, and a group of drunken young men and women staggered out. Leading them was Qin Yu, still with a bandage on his face.

"Brother Yu, this crappy place?" a Huang Mao underling pinched his nose, looking disgusted, "That girl lives here?"

"Damn, it's like a junkyard," Qin Yu spat, his eyes mixing ferocity with drunkenness, "Later be smarter, today that bastard named Lin Fan must learn the price of angering me!"

They intended to go straight upstairs to block the door and intimidate, but just as they reached the hallway entrance, they ran into a slender figure carrying a trash bag descending.

It was Ling Xinyu.

The crowd exchanged glances and laughed.

"Yo!"

A rich second‑generation whistled flippantly and stepped across her path.

"Isn't this the little treasure that Lin Fan's kid is protecting? Sis, so late, taking out the trash?"

Ling Xinyu frowned at the strong alcohol smell, and upon seeing Qin Yu leading them, her face turned pale; she instantly recognized the school bully who had harassed her.

She instinctively stepped back, trying to bypass them.

But they circled her like sharks smelling blood, faces wearing mocking yet malicious smiles.

"What are you running for?"

"Just chatting with the brothers!"

"What can that poor kid Lin Fan give you? Follow Brother Yu, you'll eat well and drink spicy!"

Vulgar curses swarmed like sticky flies.

Ling Xinyu's face flushed bright red, both scared and angry, her fingers gripping the trash bag turned white from strain.

"Move aside!"

"And if we don't?" Qin Yu stepped forward, alcohol emboldening him, reaching to pinch Ling Xinyu's chin.

Ling Xinyu screamed, dodged, and turned to run!

"Still want to run?!"

Qin Yu, enraged by her reaction, drunk, seized her ponytail and yanked it backward harshly!

Ling Xinyu cried out in pain as her body was pulled backward.

Several underlings instantly understood, lunged, and with many hands dragged her into a dark, unmonitored alley.

The alley was piled with junk, exuding a damp, musty smell.

"Let go of me! Help!"

Ling Xinyu cried out in desperation, struggling fiercely.

Her resistance became a more entertaining scene in the eyes of these drunken thugs.

"Fuck! Still spicy!"

"Brother Yu, this girl is way more exciting than in the photos!"

During the shoving, Ling Xinyu's Nail, using all her strength, fiercely scratched Qin Yu's face!

"Ah!"

A bloodstain appeared instantly, the searing pain shattering Qin Yu's reason in an instant.

"Fuck! You damn slut! How dare you grab me?!"

Qin Yu erupted in fury, eyes blood‑red, suddenly flinging his hand and hurling Ling Xinyu outward violently!

Bang!

Ling Xinyu's back slammed into the cold wall, emitting a painful grunt, and she slipped to the ground.

"You shameless bitch!" a Huang Mao underling, eager to impress Qin Yu, snatched a fallen empty beer bottle and hurled it at Ling Xinyu without hesitation!

He only intended to scare her.

However, the alcohol numbed his nerves and amplified his malice.

Thud!

The bottle struck solidly on Ling Xinyu's occiput.

The girl's body jolted, and as she fell, her head banged heavily against the cement step edge at the alley entrance.

Another dull thump sounded.

Then the world fell silent.

Ling Xinyu curled up on the ground, motionless.

The arrogant aura that filled the alley vanished instantly.

The men and women who were just spewing curses froze in place, the drunken flush on their faces replaced by a bone‑chilling cold.

"Hey..."

One of Qin Yu's companions, voice trembling, cautiously kicked Ling Xinyu's leg.

No response.

He mustered courage, crouched, and trembling, reached toward Ling Xinyu's breath.

His fingertip lingered a moment.

No breath.

"Ah!!!"

He seemed electrocuted, his butt hitting the ground, rolling and crawling backward, his face as white as paper.

"No... no breath..."

"She's dead!"

These two characters were like a bucket of ice water poured over my head.

Everyone's wine, at this moment, all woke up.

"How... how could..."

"I... I didn't do it on purpose..." The bottle‑throwing Huang Mao's lips trembled, almost to the point of crying.

Panic spread.

"We can't call the police!" A wealthy second‑generation heir was the first to calm down, his eyes cold, "If we call the police we're all finished! We must get rid of it!"

"How... how to deal with it?"

"Dump the body!" The rich heir gritted his teeth, "Find a place no one knows, throw it into the river! No one will know!"

The vile suggestion was instantly met with everyone's assent.

They were grasshoppers on the same rope; none could escape.

A flicker of hesitation flashed in Qin Yu's eyes, but it was quickly swallowed by fear of the future.

He nodded heavily.

"That's the plan!"

They rummaged through the sports car's trunk and pulled out a massive black duffel bag.

Several of them, clumsily and hurriedly, shoved Ling Xinyu's supple body into the bag.

The zipper was pulled shut with a 'clack' sound.

It was as if they sealed that overwhelming crime into this darkness as well.

The night was deep and silent.

The sports car sped to a remote, desolate riverside.

Here reeds grew thick, not even a Shadow could be seen.

They dragged a heavy concrete slab from the roadside and bound it tightly to the duffel with rope.

"One, two, three!"

Together they lifted the heavy bag and hurled it with all their might into the pitch‑black river.

"Splash!"

A huge splash erupted, the duffel sank swiftly to the bottom without a single bubble, and soon the river surface calmed.

Having finished, the bunch of demons slipped back into the car, floored the accelerator, and vanished into the night.

The bone‑chilling river water surged madly through the bag's seams.

The cold oddly stimulated the girl, whose body in the bag was already 'dead', to slowly awaken.

—It turned out she had only fainted before; her life had not vanished.

Where am I?

So dark.

So cold.

Ling Xinyu's consciousness was a haze; she felt herself enclosed in a cramped space, unable to move her limbs.

A sharp, pungent smell of blood mixed with the river's stench and invaded her nostrils.

She suddenly recalled everything before she lost consciousness.

Qin Yu's snarling face, the vulgar curses in the alley, and the searing pain at the back of her head!

Fear, like a tide, instantly engulfed her.

She realized she was trapped inside the bag and... it was sinking!

"Help! Help!"

She screamed with all her might, but the moment the sound left her mouth, the incoming river water choked it back.

She thrashed wildly, clawing with her Nail, gnawing with her teeth, using every ounce of strength to fight the darkness that enveloped her.

But it was all in vain.

The bag plummeted rapidly under the stone's drag.

A suffocating sensation crashed over her like an avalanche.

At that moment.

Buzz—

A faint glimmer of light suddenly lit up inside the dark bag.

It was her phone.

On the water‑logged screen, two stubborn characters glowed.

Lin Fan

The boy who had promised to try not to make her sad in the future.

The boy she had arranged to go to the library together on weekends and then eat fried chicken.

That beam was the last warmth in her life.

She reached out, desperately trying to touch the light, but her body could not muster any strength.

The icy river water mercilessly filled her mouth, nose, and lungs.

Endless fear, suffocating pain, and a towering hatred for those demons intertwined wildly and fermented in her final moments.

The phone's screen finally went dark.

The girl's pupils dissolved completely in the endless darkness and cold.

At the instant Ling Xinyu fully perished.

An invisible, ink‑black wave of resentment surged violently from the river's heart into the sky!

Its concentration is so high, its resentment so strong, that even the night sky within a ten‑li radius darkened.

A stray dog by the road curled its tail, emitting an uneasy whine.

The birds nesting in the reed thicket fled in panic, scattering in all directions.

Not long after.

A man wearing a white shirt and Gold Thread Glasses walked to the shore.

He looked up, gazing at the source of the resentment that surged skyward.

"What an exquisite resentment."

"It's simply… a perfect material."