Mutual Redemption with the Villainous Boss [Infinite] - Chapter 5

No, Zhu Ci felt she had missed a point. She wanted to flip back and look at the page behind it. But sitting in the tree now, with one hand gripping a branch and the other holding the paper, it was extremely inconvenient; she decided to climb down first.

Accidents always happen faster than stories.

The branch supporting the entirety of her body weight snapped.

Zhu Ci’s head was still lowered, and she hadn’t noticed that right by her hand, the branch was slowly cracking. The small limb couldn’t sustain her for long, and it suddenly slanted and broke from the base. Her palm went empty, the entire world before her flipped upside down, and the ground rushed up to meet her.

She hurriedly threw her hands up to shield her eyes.

Fortunately, where she had been sitting wasn’t very high, and her arms acted as a buffer. The red rain had washed over the dirt, making the mud soft, so she didn’t suffer any serious injury from the fall.

Lying face down on the ground, Zhu Ci felt as if her bones were about to fall apart. Her whole body was immobilized, and she couldn’t get up.

After lying there for a while, she began to feel a bit better and propped her hands against the ground, trying to crawl up.

Suddenly, her right hand slipped, and she nearly fell back into the mud.

Feeling somewhat helpless, she thought she must have scrambled her brain in the fall, which was why she was so uncoordinated.

But looking closely, the patch of mud where her right hand had slipped seemed to be emitting a faint, almost invisible glimmer of light.

She hadn’t noticed this spot when she was climbing the tree earlier.

She went at it directly with her hands and started digging into that patch of earth.

Xiao Chuang leaned against the tree root, looking up at the busy Zhu Ci: “You didn’t fall and turn stupid, did you? Why have you started digging in the dirt again?”

“Didn’t you see it? This spot seems to be glowing. Oh—” Her digging hand stopped; she had hit something hard. “I think I found it.”

Xiao Chuang leaned in curiously. Zhu Ci pried the object out and brushed off the wet soil.

It was a small metal card. The moment it reached her hand, it stopped glowing. The letters “SR” were engraved on it.

Xiao Chuang was very excited: “This is probably an item card! Player, hurry and put it on your sleeve-cuff to check.”

Obediently, Zhu Ci brought it close to her sleeve-cuff. The card was automatically vacuumed into a slot in the first row.

Thought Card.

The screen emitted a “ding” sound, the indicator light flickered on, and the item card description appeared: “SR Card — Calm Reflection. Allows you to remain calm at all times. Duration: Permanent. No cooldown. Usage interval: Permanent.”

“Thought cards don’t have a limit on the number of uses, right?” Even though it was an SR card with no usage restrictions, this specific utility…

“I feel like I’m already quite calm.”

Encountering so many strange things in a single day, along with various monsters chasing her—the fact that she hadn’t had a mental breakdown felt like proof enough.

“No, no, no, not really. Before the monsters even got inside, you started closing your eyes and waiting for death. I think you still need it.” Xiao Chuang shook its head repeatedly, mocking Zhu Ci’s self-satisfaction.

She didn’t argue. Indeed, after equipping the card, her mind felt much clearer. Since she had pathetically few cards anyway, she might as well use it.

Zhu Ci didn’t know that this card held a secret; by the time she understood what it was, she would never be able to leave it behind.

The thing she had forgotten before falling suddenly came back to her. She picked up the fallen paper to study it. The red rain had blurred some of the handwriting, but the date was intact.

September 17th. That wasn’t just the day the twins were discovered during an exam; it was also Caizu’s birthday.

Thinking of the room on the first floor and the two infants in the freezer—who were likely the dismembered twins—she planned to go back inside and observe them properly.

After that RM had pulled their card, the two infants didn’t dare cry anymore. They just huddled together, refusing to leave the freezer, staring blankly at Zhu Ci.

Dismembered by their own biological father, cut into pieces and hidden in an ice cream freezer—and all of this had been done with the mother’s consent.

The same pair of parents, the same date of anticipation; one child in a warm bed, the other two in a cold, empty freezer.

“You are clearly dead, yet you remain here. Do you have some unfulfilled wish?” she asked the two baby girls gently.

Both of them simultaneously raised their left hands and pointed toward the upper-right corner of the ceiling.

That was Caizu’s room—the place where the crib stood.

Zhu Ci looked up. There was a hole in the ceiling, and in that cold, dark space, a pair of eyes seemed to be staring at her fixedly.

She rushed upstairs. There wasn’t a soul on the second floor, as if that pair of eyes had just been an illusion.

But that gaze was still there, showing no sign of leaving.

“Is it you, Caizu?” Zhu Ci bolstered her courage and asked loudly, “Come out. Let’s talk. You should still be alive; why are you staying here?”

No voice answered.

“Your sisters were innocent. The killer has already been sentenced to death. What exactly are you holding a grudge against?”

“Against all of you.”

It was a crisp female voice.

It wasn’t Cai Zu.

Cai Zu was only five years old; he was just a child who understood nothing.

So it was her.

“It’s you, Auntie Zhu.”

It was Uncle Li’s wife, the twins’ mother, and the woman who had also been sentenced to death as an accomplice.

The Town Daughter-Killing Case.

A family of five—except for the infant in swaddling clothes, everyone was a killer.

“If it weren’t for these two money-losers, how could I… Do you know how much sacrifice I made? Do you know how hard I worked!”

“I risked my life to give birth to them, and everything changed,” the female voice said with a sob. Zhu Ci sensed trouble and summoned her knife first. “My husband beat me, my mother-in-law squeezed me out, and my father-in-law ignored me! All because I gave birth to two useless daughters for the Li family!”

The sorrowful voice turned into a roar. A “crack-crack” sound came from the darkness, sounding like the snapping of bones.

“It’s all because of you! You were the ones who called the police! You were the ones who destroyed everything I had just gained! You!” A massive object suddenly expanded. Auntie Zhu’s distorted face swelled, her entire waist elongated, and countless legs grew out.

It was that monstrous insect!

The monster let out a mournful cry and burst through the roof. Zhu Ci threw herself through the window, rolling several times on the ground outside before stopping.

Xiao Chuang flew over and said, “Player, congratulations on attracting the Big Boss in just three sentences. But if you don’t run now, she will definitely tear down the house and you with it.”

The Calm Reflection card was proving useful; she felt significantly less panicked than before, and a strategy quickly formed in her mind.

The monster began to extend its disgusting neck—or perhaps its waist—as its dense legs floated in the air, sensing the movements of the wind.

Instead of fleeing, Zhu Ci ran back toward the house, jumping back into the twins’ room through the window the RM had left open.

The two baby girls were still huddled there, motionless.

One infant’s hand was already open—it had once held that limited card—while the other’s was still clenched tight.

She whispered a soft “Sorry,” picked it up, and pried open the soft, small hand.

Inside was a crumpled, ruined ball of paper.

Zhu Ci smoothed it out:

“September 17th. I haven’t been feeling well lately. I went to the hospital for a check-up, and the doctor said I’m pregnant—with twins. My husband is thrilled. I asked him if he wanted boys or girls, and he said either is fine, but a boy and a girl would be best to make the word ‘Good.’ Actually, in my heart, I want girls more.”

This was Auntie Zhu’s diary, torn out by someone.

If she had looked forward to girls so much back then, how could she hate these two children?

The walls were crumbling under the monster’s impacts. The creature was determined to find Zhu Ci, thrashing about madly as disgusting bugs covered the ground, tracking her scent.

Seeing this, Zhu Ci didn’t plan to hide anymore. She exposed herself to the red rain and stood tall to face the monster.

“Have you gone mad?” As an intelligent sprite, even Xiao Chuang couldn’t decode this move.

“Far from it. That card has made me extremely clear-headed,” Zhu Ci said. As the monster was drawn to her figure, she pulled her phone from her bag. “Do you remember before that RM left, I asked if this Limited Enchantment Card had any other use, and it shook its head?”

“Uh…”

“I originally thought its head-shake meant ‘no,’ but now I realize I was wrong.” Zhu Ci curled her lips. “Since the next two sentences were hints, that head-shake probably represented a ‘secret that cannot be told.’ It knew it was possible, but it couldn’t speak the words, so it used another way to remind me.”

Xiao Chuang was shocked.

She actually thought of such a minute detail.

This player was already very smart, but it seemed the Calm card had given her a sufficient buff, allowing her to consider every aspect of the situation with absolute precision.

Player Zhu Ci: Classified as a priority observation target.

“So, I think it should be like this.” She opened the camera on her phone and took a photo of the monster.

The mournful cries stopped abruptly. The monster ceased all movement, as if frozen in place.

Zhu Ci shouted at the monster: “September 17th. You gained hope because you were pregnant; you thought a beautiful life was coming. On the third September 17th, you regained hope because you gave birth to a boy; you thought the beautiful life you once looked forward to had finally arrived. But all of this was just your illusion. You were deceiving yourself. You never actually got what you wanted.”

“The name of this enchantment card is Tears Falling Like Rain. Just like the red rain outside, these are the tears a mother cries every night.”

Tears welled up in the eyes of the human face atop the monster.

With a massive “boom,” the monster collapsed.

The red rain stopped.

A mechanical female voice echoed from the sky:

“Congratulations to Player Zhu Ci for solving 90% of the puzzles in the single-player novice dungeon Town Twins. Reward: 900 points. The R-grade Watermelon Knife obtained in the dungeon is retained. The R-grade Senses Vanisher is retained. The SR-grade Calm Reflection is retained. The Limited SR-grade Tears Falling Like Rain is retracted.”

“Congratulations! Best wishes!” Xiao Chuang was overjoyed, doing two flips in the air. “Congratulations to the player for clearing the dungeon! You have defeated 71.4% of players worldwide. Next, we will load the game rest station—Pelekonk!”

The mechanical voice stopped, though some echoes remained in the air. Zhu Ci looked at Xiao Chuang and asked, “Is there something I didn’t solve? Why was it only 90%?”

Xiao Chuang didn’t answer, only saying that the player could see the full story later in the Exhibition Hall.

Then, it urged her to leave quickly; the world was about to be restructured.

Afterword:

Ten years ago, there was a man named Li Quan. He married a gentle wife, Zhu Yue. The two met through a blind date and were married within a year. In the eyes of outsiders, Zhu Yue had married a good husband—he could run a small grocery store to earn money, and he doted on his wife. Most importantly, he was an honest man.

The people in the town also envied Li Quan; not only was his wife capable of managing affairs, but she also became pregnant with twins right away.

Later, the townspeople stopped being envious. They said: What a pity, they turned out to be two girls.

Violent emotions spread through Li Quan’s heart like weeds climbing a wall, entangling and suffocating.

That day, he told his wife he had bought candy to send them off on their final journey.

But how can one-year-old children eat candy?

The candy was meant for the children who came to buy things. With candy, they would ask fewer questions.

That day, the two children were already in the freezer.

Before he ever spoke to his wife, he had already killed them.

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