Chapter 456: Blind-Eyed Monster

Jiang Hai City, Renhe Private Hospital.

In the corridor of the top‑floor VIP Ward, a strange odor of disinfectant mixed with red wine wafted. The Nurse Station was empty, and three unopened red envelopes sat on the duty desk, thick enough to make a person shut their mouth, eyes, and ears.

The door of VIP Room No. 1 was tightly shut.

Inside, Huang Datong reclined half‑way on an electric hospital bed, clutching a glass of Louis XIII; his fat fingers wore three gold rings, each worth enough to buy a school‑district house in this city.

He was not ill at all.

He was hospitalized only to avoid the spotlight. Three months earlier, that old case resurfaced and caused an online uproar—claims of "fabricated psychiatric assessment to evade legal punishment," and "victims' families begging for a retrial." Huang Datong's legal team advised him to "take a convalescent stay" until public opinion cooled.

So he moved in.

The ward had been turned into a suite. A sixty‑inch TV hung on the wall, imported cigars and caviar rested on the coffee table, and a small freezer tucked in a corner held only premium 1982 stock.

Four bodyguards were positioned at the four corners of the room, and occasional reports from downstairs colleagues came through their earpieces.

"Huang Zong, it's getting late, how about …"

"What's early about it?" Huang Datong burped, his chubby face glistening with oil. "I spent a million a month to stay here, just for comfort. Go fetch that junior nurse from next door, tell her Huang Zong has a sore back, and have her give a massage."

The bodyguards exchanged glances; the leader clenched his teeth and turned away.

Huang Datong tipped his head back, downing a mouthful of liquor that ran down his chin into his collar. He wiped his mouth, stared at the crystal chandelier overhead, squinted and smiled.

Laws, public opinion, victims' families—

In this world, anything money can solve isn't a problem.

Has he killed anyone? He has. More than one.

But the psychiatric assessment plainly stated "intermittent mental disorder episode"; the court ordered compulsory treatment, he stayed eight months and was released. On the day he got out, he even ate Japanese cuisine, ordering the most expensive tuna.

This is Rules.

The rich man's Rules.

"Sss—"

Huang Datong suddenly drew his neck back.

Cold.

The temperature in the ward dropped. Not the uniform cooling of an air‑conditioner, but a damp, rot‑ting chill that rose from the floor upward.

He looked down at his arm; every hair stood on end.

"Who the hell turned the air‑conditioner down?"

No one answered.

Huang Datong lifted his head.

The four bodyguards remained in place, posture unchanged, but their eyes were off.

Their pupils dilated to the maximum, sclera streaked with blood vessels, lips trembling, as if they had seen something utterly terrifying.

"Hey! Speak!"

The bedside ECG monitor emitted a sharp beep.

Huang Datong snapped his head around to look.

On the screen, the previously steady green waveform began to deform. The lines twisted, folded, recombined, and finally froze into a clear image.

A gallows.

A bright‑red gallows, its rope's end still swaying gently.

"Wha… what is this…?"

Huang Datong's wine glass slipped from his hand, shattering into pieces on the floor. Amber liquid splattered everywhere, but he could no longer care.

Because his bodyguards moved.

The leader drew a tactical folding knife from his waist—not toward the door, but toward his own face.

The blade tip pressed against the lower edge of his left eye socket.

"No… don't look… can't see it…" the guard's voice changed, as if something choked his throat, "Dig it out… as long as the eyes are gone, you won't see it…"

Pfft.

The blade tip pierced the eye socket.

Huang Datong's scream and the guard's scream rang out together. Yet the guard didn't stop; he laughed, twisting the knife deeper, blood and fragments of the eyeball streaming down his cheek.

The other three guards did the same.

One used a finger, another a steel pen, another slammed his head against the metal rack in the corner.

The entire VIP Ward turned into a slaughterhouse within three seconds.

Huang Datong rolled off the bed, crawling and scrambling toward the door. His legs grew weak, knees thudding the floor with dull sounds, but survival instinct drove him to push forward desperately.

His fingers just touched the door handle.

The handle was icy.

Not the chill of metal itself, but a cold that seeped out from the gaps in his bones.

Huang Datong's hand froze mid‑air.

He heard a sound.

Coming from behind the door panel.

Light. Rhythmic.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Like someone walking with a cane. Also like something sharp poking the floor repeatedly.

The handle turned by itself.

The door opened.

The corridor was unlit. Darkness surged in through the crack, carrying a strong, rotten, sweet‑fishy smell.

In the exact center of the darkness stood a humanoid thing.

It had no eyes. Where the eye sockets should be were two black holes, the surrounding flesh rolled inward as if something had literally dug them out. It wore a Doctor's Lab Coat stained with dark brown grime, its right hand hanging at its side, each fingertip of the five fingers fitted with a curved Iron Hook.

A piece of skin hung from the Iron Hook.

Human skin.

The thin, translucent human skin, still bearing pore texture, swayed gently in the windless Corridor.

Huang Datong's crotch grew hot.

"Don't... don't come closer..." he retreated, his back hitting the metal rail of the bed, "I have money! Whatever you want I'll give! One hundred million! Ten hundred million!"

The monster tilted its head.

The eyeless skull turned toward Huang Datong, as if it were "looking" at him.

Then it smiled.

The fissure at the corner of its mouth stretched to the base of its ear, revealing rows of neatly aligned, honed sharp teeth.

It strode forward.

Huang Datong screamed, snatched the table lamp on the nightstand, and hurled it. The lamp passed through its body like a wisp of fog, then *crack! * shattered on the wall behind.

He then grabbed a vase, a remote control, even that bottle of Louis XIII.

All passed through its body.

No effect.

All physical attacks—no effect.

The Blind-eyed Monster walked to Huang Datong's front and halted.

It crouched.

Its right hand rose, the five Iron Hooks spreading in the air, aimed at Huang Datong's Heavenly Spirit Cover.

"Nooooo—"

The Iron Hook pierced the scalp.

Without hesitation, without pause, the five points of force hooked down simultaneously, embedding precisely into the fascial layer between skin and skull.

Then, pulling downward.

Huang Datong let out the last sound of his life. It was not a human howl, but a frequency only a freshly skinned animal could emit, forced out from the depths of the soul.

The entire sheet of skin was completely peeled off.

From hairline to chin—a whole sheet.

The Blind-eyed Monster hung that still twitching sheet of skin on the Iron Hook of its right hand, alongside its other trophies. Then it rose, turned, and walked toward the dark Corridor.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Footsteps faded.

In the VIP Ward only four self‑blinded corpses remained, and a faceless lump of flesh.

The gallows icon on the cardiac monitor slowly faded, and the screen returned to black.

Seven kilometers away.

Deep within the Underground Pipe Network of the South City Abandoned Wastewater Treatment Plant, Zhang Yuanqing sat cross‑legged inside a broken cement pipe.

He sat with his eyes closed.

Yet he could see everything.

Through the authority and the link he forged with his own legend—the Blind-eyed Skin Peeler—each twisted frame of Huang Datong's dying expressions was fully transmitted back. Pain, fear, despair, remorse—no, no remorse; a person like that never feels remorse even in death.

It doesn't matter anymore.

The judgment does not require the defendant to plead guilty.

"Drip—"

The translucent panel hovering before Zhang Yuanqing lit up.

【Karma Recycling......】

【Total Karma Pool: 289,4→337,2】

The numbers pulsed.

The instant the recycling completed, Zhang Yuanqing's body jolted sharply.

Karma surged in like a torrent, flooding every meridian and cell. Dark‑red veins surfaced on his skin, like magma coursing beneath.

His bones restructured.

Muscle fibers tore and healed.

His consciousness expanded.

Zhang Yuanqing opened his mouth and silently tilted his head back. The cement ceiling of the pipe cracked spontaneously within a three‑meter radius, debris raining down. Groundwater seeped from the fissures, instantly vaporizing into white mist upon touching the heat his body emitted.

Zhang Yuan opened his eyes.

His pupils were no longer human in color. Dark red, with a liquid sheen, like two blood‑soaked agates.

He looked down at his hands.

The dark‑red veins beneath his skin were fading, returning to an ordinary human appearance. But he knew those things were merely hidden.

"Ha."

He smiled.

The sound forced out from deep in his throat—hoarse, low, bearing a resonance not belonging to a normal human.

"Haha."

The laughter grew louder.

In the cavernous Underground Pipe Network it reflected back and forth, layered, distorted, eventually becoming a kind of maddening echo.

"Zhang Forensic Doctor," he mutters to the darkness, his tone as if bidding farewell to an old friend, "Zhang Forensic Doctor is dead. He died three years ago. He died in that suppressed autopsy report, he died in the wine glasses of those scumbags who smiled and shook his hand."

He stands up.

The tunnel's height is insufficient, so he has to bend slightly. Yet this posture makes him appear even more dangerous—like a beast crouched in a cave, ready to pounce at any moment.

"Now standing here..."

He lifts his hand and gently touches the map interface on the floating panel.

The holographic projection of Jiang Hai City unfolds in the darkness, blue light dots marking every street and every building. Some of those dots are red.

A lot of red.

Each red dot represents a name. A crime. A blood debt.

"... is a god."

Zhang Yuanqing's finger slides across the map.

There are too many red dots. Just Jiang Hai City has hundreds. If the scope expands to the entire Federation...

A smile spreads at the corner of his mouth.

Not a laugh. It's a hungry, greedy expression.

His finger stops.

In the map's northeast corner, a specially highlighted red name flickers. The annotation shows that the person is currently in the Federation Third Administrative District, equipped with quasi‑military security, and is linked to at least seventeen unresolved cases.

Zhang Yuanqing's knuckle taps that name.

"Next."

His voice steadies, unnaturally calm.

"It's you, then."