The sound of Tang Wan's high heels stepped on the ground steadily and rhythmically, gradually getting farther and farther away until disappearing. But her "ultimatum" always lingered in Luo Ye's ears, like a vulture that could not be driven away in the wilderness. Luo Ye
Ye must make himself as cold as a towering ice wall in order to prevent vultures from taking advantage of him.
But this is easier said than done? He can disguise himself in front of another person, but he cannot deceive himself when he is alone.
As a killer, Luo Ye advised himself to be ruthless. Jiang Yunmeng and his son were not his, and he had nothing to do with them. If Demon Leader Wan wanted to kill them, then just kill them. Every day, every time in this world
, people are dying every moment - starved to death, suffocated to death, strangled to death, and countless ways of death. Why should he care about people who will die sooner or later.
But do you really have to be so heartless? Do you really want Jiang Yunmeng and her son to die because of him? Can you really bear all the guilt and sadness without shedding a single tear?
"Only by being cruel can you gain a foothold." This was the first sentence taught to Luo Ye by his so-called "father" when he was a child, and it was also the sentence he said most often. At that time, he had just been able to hold a wooden knife.
Along with other boys, they fought with each other for three meals a day.
Only by being cruel can you gain a foothold. Luo Ye thought silently in his heart. He closed his eyes and tried hard to search for cruel things in his memory, hoping to harden his heart.
...The place where the orphans are trained is actually a deep well. The well is a hundred meters deep, so even though the wellhead is as big as a football field, when you look up from below, you can only see a tiny patch of sky. The orphans call this training ground "frog well."
"The orphans at the bottom of the well are all frogs, and they all want to jump out of the frog well and live a different life.
There is no medical treatment in the frog well, and food slides down through pipes. Every orphan who is ready to become a killer, from the age of eight to ten, must live and train here. The monitor will record the behavior of each child.
Children will get opportunities, and those who have not grown by the age of ten will be sent deeper into the frog well...
Deeper. Every time he thinks of this word, Luo Ye can't help but feel his heart tremble. For orphans, deeper means torture. People in white coats will use waste children for human experiments, dismember, sew, and then dismember.
Then they were sutured, soaked in various acid and alkali solutions, and exposed to various weird lights until the child's life completely withered.
The deeper part of the frog well means hell. When people talk about hell, they always use the word "mountain of swords and sea of fire" to describe it, but no one alive has really seen what is a mountain of swords, what is a sea of fire, and what is the god of death who refines people.
The oil pan - deeper. All the legends have been materialized.
Every orphan in Wajing doesn't want to be caught deeper on their tenth birthday, so they train hard and treat each other cruelly in order to attract the attention of "parents". Of course, strictly speaking, orphans
There is no birth date. From the day they were adopted from the orphanage, the birth certificate was burned at the same time. The "parents" don't bother to remember the birth date of each child. They just use the orphans to enter the frog well.
time as birth date.
Each batch of orphans has the same birth date, but the date of death is different. Luo Ye still remembers being mixed in a group of crying orphans and being sent into the frog well in an iron cage. The cry disturbed the frog well.
Some of the older children there, who are already very strong and almost ten years old, have not been selected. The addition of new orphans will be their last chance to prove themselves. They foolishly thought that the "parents" would
Prefer children who are cruel and unscrupulous.
So, as soon as the iron cage door opened, hundreds of children armed with wooden knives rushed forward. In an instant, the crying turned into shouting, and countless severed limbs flew in front of Luo Ye. The blood flowed into a river, and Luo Ye was tight.
He closed his mouth and used his short stature to hide among the dead bodies.
He was extremely scared, but this was not the reason why he did not fight. He was secretly observing everyone, remembering every swing of the sword, and thinking about every response.
The battle lasted all day. Although more than half of the orphans sent down in the same group were still alive, most of them were disabled. Two years later, their lives would end in a cruel way.
The whole frog well was filled with cries. What surprised Luo Ye was that the ones who cried the most were the group of children who were fighting bravely. Yes, they used all their strength to attract attention. In a sense, they
They are already very good, but they are still not favored by their parents. Soon, they will be taken deeper into the frog well together with the group of disabled people who are despised by them. They cry hoarsely and are unwilling to give up.
Only cruelty can gain a foothold. This is also the last sentence "Father" said before throwing them into the frog well. In the frog well, everyone will recite this sentence. There are no brothers here, only enemies. Everyone is
Stepping stones, the higher the stepping stones, the closer they are to the entrance of the frog well.
In the early years, Luo Ye always stayed away from the crowd. Life in Wajing was actually very simple, training, fighting, eating, and sleeping. Some people did all four, while some people only did fighting, eating, sleeping, and some
People have lost hope of survival and just eat and sleep.
Luo Ye chose the latter. He ate and slept, turning a deaf ear to the training and fighting. Occasionally, a child was chosen to leave the frog well, but he didn't care. No one paid attention to him. Everyone thought he was just a Chinese kid waiting to die.
.
But at night, when all the lights went out, Luo Ye found a place with no one and trained himself hard. All children think that being cruel to others is true cruelty, but Luo Ye understands that only by being cruel to yourself can you be cruel.
That's the real ruthlessness.
Until now, he could not imagine that this was the truth he had understood when he was eight years old. He understood the meaning in his "father's" eyes when he said those words: Only by being cruel to yourself can you stand above others.
He kept training himself at night, and during the day he pretended to sleep and secretly observed everyone's habits and moves. He only slept for two hours a day. In order not to attract attention, he did not eat with the children, but only waited to pick them up at night.
He eats the food left by others. When someone bullies him, he just walks away silently and hides far away. Sometimes when it is unavoidable, he just grits his teeth and persists, allowing others to punch, kick, or even attack him.
Pee. He doesn't remember the faces of those people, because sooner or later they will be thrown into the crematorium. Gratitude and resentment are not important in this environment. What is important is how he will leave the frog well.
Six months later, another group of orphans were sent into the frog well in iron cages. The melee started again. The shouts and blood were mixed together, and the entire frog well seemed to be shaking with the shouts. Luo Ye wrapped his hands under the blanket and felt cold.
Watching the battle scene coldly.
As he expected, the new orphans were at a loss as to what to do and suffered heavy casualties. Although the older children had won the victory, they were still not favored. Despair spread with the smell of blood at the bottom of the frog well. A heavy pressure suppressed everyone.
The heart of a child.
Luo Ye stepped on the river of blood flowing on the soles of his feet and quietly walked to the frustrated victor. The sturdy boy glared at him in confusion. Before he could curse, Luo Ye's right hand suddenly stabbed out with a wooden knife.
It was inserted into the boy's brain from the eye socket in an instant. The boy fell to the ground, twitched several times, and died immediately.
The sudden change shocked everyone. A big boy next to him reached out to grab the wooden knife soaked in blood, but Luo Ye kicked him away, and then chopped off his ribs with the wooden knife. Several other big boys
They roared and charged together, but Luo Ye had already studied their moves and flaws clearly. With a clever dodger, he thrust out his left hand from under the blanket. Two wooden knives flew at the same time, striking the enemy in front of him in an instant.
Fall to the ground.
He killed two without hesitation, and the others tried to escape, but it was too late, and they all died under his double wooden swords.
There was silence in the frog well, and even the child with a broken leg forgot to cry. Everyone was shocked. They didn't remember that there was such a prominent figure in the frog well. They thought he was a life-threatening ghost made of resentment.
.
Luo Ye leveled the wooden knives in his left and right hands, and the sharp tip of the knife drew an arc in front of everyone - everyone was pointed at it. He wanted to challenge everyone.
No one dared to fight. After fighting for a whole day, the aggressive people were exhausted. Even if they still had the strength, they did not want to die.
There was a sudden sound above the frog well, and another iron cage slowly descended. Luo Ye raised his face covered with blood, squinting and looking up high.
A group of armed guards first emerged from the iron cage, surrounded the orphans, and ordered them to put down their weapons. Luo Ye refused to let go and was slammed to the ground by the butt of his rifle, and the wooden knife in his hand was kicked away by other guards.
He tried to struggle to stand up, but was hit hard by the butt of the gun on the back of his head.
After the guards took control of the situation, "Father" slowly walked out of the iron cage with his hands behind his back, accompanied by a woman in luxurious clothes - "Mother".
His father walked up to Luo Ye and asked him a question: Do you want to go out?
If you jump out of the frog well, you will find another sky. No one wants to soar into the sky. Father's questions mean that he is being noticed. His forbearance, his intelligence, his calmness, and his determination are undoubtedly the factors that make him the most famous person in the world.
The conditions for a top killer - of course, the most important thing is that he is ruthless enough to himself.
But Luo Ye just stared at his father at that time without saying a word. Not only did he want to escape from the frog well, he also wanted to destroy this place. He wanted to kill the guards, and he also wanted to kill his father——
His father saw the danger signal in his eyes, but his mother was very interested in his attitude. She leaned down and whispered in his ear: Let me teach you how to deceive your enemies.
Luo Ye immediately answered the answer his father expected. His father glanced at his mother and nodded slightly to the guard. The guard grabbed Luo Ye and threw him into the upward iron cage - only cruelty can gain a foothold.
Only when his feet stood on the horizon again and watched the sun set slowly in the west did he realize that he had really succeeded.
Cruelty is never cruel to others, but to oneself. Death is actually a very simple thing. Perhaps a rope, a bullet, a sharp knife, and a small mouthful of poison can take Jiang Yunmeng away in an instant.
The lives of mother and child. They will only suffer for a few seconds, and then they will rest forever - but Luo Ye will have to endure a lifetime of guilt and torture for this. This is the cruelest thing -
Should he choose to compromise with Tang Wan? Or should he be a real killer and let himself bear the guilt and torture? Luo Ye couldn't help but question himself, after being killed, is he still a real killer?
Suddenly, there was a very slight scraping sound of clothing behind his ears. He quickly turned around and at the same time twisted the arm that was reaching for his shoulder——