Another month of such sunless days passed in its entirety.
The landlord's family had amassed a large sum of money by exploiting their servants and profiting through opportunism.
They planned to relocate the entire family to a larger, more prosperous and affluent city to enjoy a better life.
As the lowest slave in the household, Huo Yuhao naturally had to follow along, enduring the jolting journey and every hardship along the way.
When the group passed through Jialing Pass, the previously relatively peaceful journey was suddenly shattered by a terrifying and evil aura.
A sudden, catastrophic disaster descended completely.
A band of Evil Soul Masters, their bodies radiating a sinister, malicious aura, abruptly sprang from the shadows, setting their sights on the landlord's family, who were carrying considerable wealth.
These Evil Soul Masters were cruel in Heart-Nature and brutal in their methods. Without the slightest hesitation, they immediately launched a merciless and bloody slaughter against the landlord's family.
Piercing screams and pleas for mercy instantly echoed along the road beside Jialing Pass, blood staining the ground red.
The landlord's servants and family members fell one after another into pools of blood, utterly powerless to resist.
Huo Yuhao trembled all over with fear, curled up on the ground like a discarded dead dog, not even daring to move.
He could only watch helplessly as the landlord's family, who had tormented him in every way daily, were slaughtered wantonly by the Evil Soul Masters.
He watched as those who had once freely oppressed him writhed and wailed in agony.
From the depths of Huo Yuhao's originally numb heart, an indescribable sense of catharsis unexpectedly rose.
It was the long-suppressed emotion, an instinctive release upon seeing his enemies suffer.
One Evil Soul Master with a sinister, hawk-like face swept his gaze over the scene of utter carnage, his eyes finally settling on the trembling Huo Yuhao and the landlord who was on the brink of death.
He was in no hurry to kill the two. Instead, he slowly walked up to Huo Yuhao, stretched out a rough, cold hand, grabbed him by the neck, and lifted his entire body off the ground.
The Evil Soul Master looked down at him, a cold, cruel smile curling at the corner of his mouth, his voice hoarse yet carrying a hint of Gu-like temptation:
"Little slave, look at the one who tormented you. Do you want revenge?"
Seeing this, another Evil Soul Master nearby also chimed in, his tone full of mockery and cruelty: "Kid, listen up. Kill him, and you get to live!"
Huo Yuhao, who had originally believed he was doomed to die here alongside the landlord's family...
...upon hearing these words, a spark of hope for survival suddenly ignited in his muddied, dim eyes.
It was the only glimmer of light in this desperate situation.
His neck was tightly gripped by the Evil Soul Master, making it hard to breathe, utterly impossible to speak.
He could only use all his strength to nod frantically at the Evil Soul Master, his eyes filled with a desperate desire to live and long-suppressed hatred.
The Evil Soul Master casually tossed him, throwing Huo Yuhao heavily in front of the landlord, and coldly spat out a few words:
"Do it. Whatever he did to torment you daily, pay him back in kind."
He looked at the landlord before him, on the brink of death, eyes full of terror.
Recalling all the torment, humiliation, and pain he had endured over these past two months, the last trace of hesitation in Huo Yuhao's heart completely dissipated.
With trembling hands, he reached into his inner clothing and pulled out the white tiger dagger he had always carefully hidden.
This dagger was his last remaining keepsake, the final sliver of sharpness he kept hidden in his heart.
He gripped the dagger tightly. Without the slightest hesitation, and without granting the landlord a quick death...
...he followed the Evil Soul Master's words, starting from the bottom and slowly, methodically, carving cuts into the landlord's body.
Each cut carried with it all the suffering and humiliation he had endured these past two months, all the anger and hatred long suppressed in his heart.
Listening to the landlord's heart-rending wails and screams, watching the other's agonized writhing...
...Huo Yuhao's long-tense, suppressed heart finally found a long-awaited release.
All the accumulated pain, despair, and hatred seemed, in this moment, to find an outlet for Venting through each cut of this revenge.
Huo Yuhao watched as the landlord before him collapsed into a pool of blood, his body mutilated and bloody from the dismemberment, long devoid of any sign of life.
His nerves, stretched to the breaking point, suddenly relaxed. All the strength in his body seemed to drain away in an instant.
His legs gave way, and he slumped heavily onto the cold, hard dirt ground.
His back was soaked with cold sweat; his ragged gasps were especially piercing in the deathly silent air.
Each breath carried a heavy scent of blood, stinging his throat painfully as his chest heaved violently.
These gasps seemed to expel all the exhaustion and fear he had accumulated during this time.
Sunlight slanted down, falling on his dirty face, outlining the tear tracks and bloodstains not yet dry on his cheeks.
He tilted his head up slightly, his right eye looking at the sky. For the first time, a faint glimmer of light appeared in his turbid depths.
It was finally over.
The landlord who had daily kicked and beaten him, freely humiliated him, and treated him like the lowest slave had died by his own hand.
He thought that having survived this darkest moment, he could break free from this endless cage, could truly live on.
Even if it was just a lingering, wretched existence, it was still better than slowly dying under endless torment.
But this hard-won sense of release lasted only for the briefest moment.
A bone-chilling, sinister aura abruptly closed in. Before Huo Yuhao could even react, a large, rough, powerful hand covered in black spirit power patterns clamped around his slender neck once more, like an iron vise.
The force was so great it instantly cut off his breathing. His newly Smooth breathing choked off abruptly, his brain plunging into an oxygen-deprived Chaos.
It was that Evil Soul Master, the one who had earlier used freedom as bait to force him to kill the landlord with his own hands.
The other looked at Huo Yuhao, his eyes full of mockery and cruelty, a cold smile curling at his lips. He spoke in a casual yet deadly tone:
"Not bad, kid. You're ruthless enough. This farce of ants devouring each other is finally over. Time to send you on your way too."
A single, lightly spoken sentence, yet it pierced through the last shred of hope for survival in Huo Yuhao's heart like the sharpest ice blade.
The chill of death instantly swept through his entire body. His eyes flew wide open.
The slight glimmer that had appeared in his eyes after surviving the ordeal was instantly filled with utter terror.
His limbs thrashed and struggled uncontrollably, wildly.
He used every last ounce of strength in his body to try and pry open the iron-vise-like hand on his neck, to escape this fatal grip.
But he had long suffered torment, his body weak to the extreme, and killing the landlord had drained all his remaining strength.
Before the powerful Evil Soul Master, his resistance seemed so feeble and futile.
Like a lamb awaiting slaughter, he had no room for resistance whatsoever.
The pressure on his neck grew greater and greater. His bones emitted faint cracking sounds. The sensation of suffocation spread wildly; his lungs felt like they would explode from the intense pain.
Darkness swam before his eyes; a buzzing filled his ears. The shadow of death, like a thick black curtain of night, completely enveloped him.
"Am I going to die..."
"Am I really going to die so ignobly?"
"I'm unwilling! Why?! On what grounds?!"
Huo Yuhao's inner roars exploded violently, yet he couldn't make a single sound.
Boundless despair and resentment surged like a tidal wave, instantly drowning his consciousness.
Countless memory fragments flashed through his mind like a revolving lantern, appearing and vanishing rapidly.
Those past events buried deepest in his heart—happy, painful, warm, humiliating...
...all these memories now turned into sharp blades, stabbing viciously into his heart.
His mother's gentle embrace, Teacher Xiao Ya, Senior Brother Beibei...
...the father who never appeared, the damned Duchess, that old hag Zhou Yi who expelled him from Shrek, Dai Huabin who took his left eye...
...the villains who treated him as a slave, the landlord who tormented him, the Evil Soul Masters who toyed with him...
He was only eleven years old, yet he had tasted every bitterness. His life held no light...
On what grounds?!
He had clearly never done anything wrong, yet he had to bear all the injustice and torment in this World!
On what grounds could those people freely trample his dignity, strip him of everything, control his life and death!
He only wanted to live, only wanted to avenge his mother!
He only wanted to live properly. Why couldn't even this meager, Humble wish be fulfilled!
Boundless, limitless hatred and venom, like madly growing vines, devoured the last shred of his reason.
He hated all those who bullied him, hated this cold, cruel World, hated the unfairness of fate!
But even with this sky-reaching hatred, at this moment, he couldn't even protect his own life.
He could only let himself be slaughtered, unable to do anything, unable to change anything.
This sense of powerlessness was more painful, more despairing to him than death itself.
His consciousness gradually blurred; his life force was ebbing away bit by bit...