Chapter 36 - 34: Vengeance is Served

Chapter 36: Chapter 34: Vengeance is Served

After being thoroughly ruffled and manhandled, Yin Zhen barely managed to escape Bai Qiang’s clutches. After a long and exhausting ordeal, she finally made it home before dawn, her Character Card’s Assimilation Degree creeping close to 60%.

If not for the cat’s energy-saving mode, she never would have lasted this long.

The craving for blood was overwhelming, and the first light of dawn filled her with dread.

Sinking back into her wheelchair in that moment of exhaustion brought Yin Zhen a strange, quiet sense of peace.

Bang!

The lightbulb suddenly burst, plunging the room into darkness.

The old saying went that a bursting lamp flame meant good fortune on the way — so did a bursting bulb count for anything?

Yin Zhen tilted her head back and looked at the old fixture on the ceiling. Her mother had always talked about replacing it with a proper LED ceiling light, but she could never bring herself to spend the money — she’d rather save it for a decent blazer and a nice bag, so Yin Zhen could look put-together when she went to job interviews.

Meanwhile, her mother had spent year after year squinting under that dim, yellowed light, threading needles by hand, mending clothes Yin Zhen had worn for over a decade.

If her father were still alive, he probably wouldn’t have replaced the light either — but he would’ve taken the needle and thread right out of her mother’s hands and dragged her out to buy something new.

Her father had died during her sixth grade year, killed while stepping in to help a stranger. The family he saved never once came forward. Her mother refused to pursue it, and raised Yin Zhen alone on the money she made from her street stall and her mending work.

In the original novel, this was probably mentioned in a single sentence — just enough to frame her as someone beautiful and resilient in the face of hardship, before everything was cruelly torn away.

But Yin Zhen knew the truth. Her twenty years weren’t just a thousand words on a page. They were real — warm, and full of a strength that was entirely her own.

Anyone who tried to destroy that deserved to die.

Whether it was Sheng Yehan, or Nan Jiamu, or even whatever existence had written all of this into being.

She’d settle the score with each of them. One by one. Nice and slow.

Yin Zhen picked up her phone and called someone to come replace the lights.

...

It wasn’t until dusk that Yin Zhen finally had every light in the apartment replaced.

On his way out, the electrician muttered "weirdo" under his breath — but after seeing the transfer amount, quickly added, "Call me again next time."

Yin Zhen wheeled herself over to the balcony window, took out the Silver Item — a single sheet of paper — and without a moment’s hesitation, used her mind to trace out three characters, stroke by deliberate stroke.

Sheng!

Ye!

Han!

[Characters consumed: 3,100]

[Characters remaining: 10,533 (Falling below 10,000 will downgrade to Gray Card, Luck Value -3, Talent -1. Use with caution.)]

The sky grew dark. Yin Zhen didn’t turn on the lights.

The apartment was a mess — the trash can still knocked over on the floor, the bookshelf askew. She had no desire to clean any of it.

At half past six, the sun went down. Yin Zhen was about to head to the kitchen to boil some noodles when a sharp sound cracked through the air behind her.

Crack!

Something had been stepped on and crushed. A second presence filled the room.

Yin Zhen turned her wheelchair around to face the person she had been "looking forward to" for so long.

Sheng Yehan!

Yin Zhen’s entire body trembled, impossible to suppress.

Sheng Yehan stood in the shadows, picking up the family photo from the bookshelf.

It had been taken at a park when she was little — her mother’s arm looped through her father’s, her father with her perched on his shoulders, and her own eyes crinkled into crescents as she laughed.

Sheng Yehan smiled, something sick and wrong in his expression. "Nan Jiamu never would’ve thought I’d hide here," he muttered. "She actually got the whole official task force hunting me down. Crazy bitch."

He glanced at Yin Zhen. "Right, what was your name again?"

He didn’t wait for an answer. He let go.

The frame hit the floor. Sheng Yehan stepped on it — grinding his heel across all three of their smiling faces — then walked toward Yin Zhen and looked down at her.

"That look in your eyes..." He frowned, then shot his hand out and grabbed her face hard, wrenching her head up to meet his gaze. "I don’t like it."

Yin Zhen stared back at him. The hatred in her eyes was so raw it was almost visible.

"Though seeing you does remind me — your mother had surprisingly fast reflexes. At the speed I was going, she still managed to shove you out of the way. If she hadn’t, all three of you would’ve been reunited a long time ago."

Yin Zhen gripped the light remote so hard her fingernails nearly broke the skin of her palm.

"You look like you’re suffering so much. I’ll do you a kindness and send you down to join your parents."

Yin Zhen spat directly at him. "The only one who needs to go down there is you — to kowtow and beg my parents for forgiveness!"

"You’re looking to die!"

Shadows surged beneath Sheng Yehan’s feet. Yin Zhen slammed the remote.

Click!

Every light in the room blazed on at once — high-intensity LEDs she’d spent every last cent of her savings on, hidden in every corner of the apartment, flooding the room in an instant with the blinding white of midday.

The light annihilated the shadows — and lit up a Yin Zhen who had come here for one thing only: revenge.

[Talent: I’m afraid of myself when I go crazy — Activated!]

Power surged up from somewhere deep inside her — scorching, feral, impossible to contain.

She had put all 10 attribute points from the assassination mission reward into Wisdom. Her base Wisdom was 23, S717 Wisdom was 17 — stacked together, 40.

Talent bonus: 50%. Wisdom reached 60.

Her spiritual power had never been this strong. It dwarfed what she’d had when facing Lucia, several times over.

Sheng Yehan felt it — something was wrong. He dropped the arm he’d raised to block the light, furious, and tried to pull the shadows in from outside the window.

[Title: Why aren’t you dead yet — Activated]

Sheng Yehan’s movement jerked to a halt. Rage flooded his mind, and the words tore out of him before he could stop himself.

"Why aren’t you dead yet!"

[Protagonist Halo Experience Card — Activated!]

[At this moment, you are the protagonist of your own story.]

From the moment she’d gotten this card, she had known exactly when she would use it.

Yin Zhen unleashed her blood silk at full force.

Countless threads of blood silk erupted from her fingertips — amplified by her spiritual power to a speed the naked eye couldn’t follow, blazing through the air like streaks of crimson light.

They split into two paths. One drove straight into Sheng Yehan’s heart and shredded it in an instant.

The other punched up through his jaw and straight through his brain.

One second. That was all it took.

Sheng Yehan’s eyes flew open. The roar that had been clawing its way out of his throat never finished — death arrived before the sound could fall, so absolute and so fast that he couldn’t even attempt to teleport away.

Some overwhelming force pinned him exactly where he stood, forcing him to meet his end head-on.

"Sorry to disappoint you." The smile curving Yin Zhen’s lips was vicious — the smile of a villain.

[Title: Why aren’t you dead yet — Cooldown reset]

Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. In the very last moment of his life, Sheng Yehan’s fury-drowned mind held not a single thought of escape — only the blind, consuming need to kill the woman in front of him, even if it meant taking them both down.

He forced his arm up with what little remained. "Shadow Servant..."

[Title: Why aren’t you dead yet — Activated again!]

His movement was cut off once more. The shadows scattered in the corners of the room collapsed and dissolved.

"Why aren’t you... still..."

Sheng Yehan’s knees buckled. He crashed to the floor in front of Yin Zhen.

He looked up at her, his eyes full of disbelief, and beneath that, fury and a desperate, clawing refusal to accept it.

"...dead..."

Crack!

The voltage spiked and failed. Every light went out at once, and the room plunged back into darkness.

Yin Zhen seized Sheng Yehan by the throat, bent down, and bit.

She drank him raw.

She had wanted to do this for so long.

Every day. Every hour. Every second. For half a year straight.

The moment her fangs broke through skin, warm blood flooded her mouth — sweet enough to make her shudder, more exquisite than anything she had ever tasted.

[Resonance successful! You have obtained A-level Shadow Manipulation.]

[Current Assimilation Degree: 47%... 54%... 61%...]

The Assimilation Degree was skyrocketing. Yin Zhen didn’t care.

She drank her enemy’s blood and let the intoxicating rush of vengeance wash over her completely.

She didn’t know when the tears had started. They ran down her face and mixed with the blood, sliding into her mouth.

Salty. Metallic. Sweet.

[Current Assimilation Degree: 81%... 82%...]

[WARNING: Exceeding 90% Assimilation Degree will make the Character Card irremovable.]

[WARNING: Exceeding 90% Assimilation Degree will make the Character Card irremovable.]

[WARNING: Exceeding 90% Assimilation Degree will make the Character Card irremovable.]

89%!

Yin Zhen wrenched her mouth away and shoved Sheng Yehan back hard.

She forced the Character Card off. Weakness crashed through her immediately — she slumped back in her wheelchair, gasping, her heart pounding wildly.

Sheng Yehan lay on the floor, drained nearly to a husk. His pupils were blown wide. All life had left him.

Yin Zhen wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and looked down at him.

This lunatic. This murderer. This man she had spent half a year hating with every fiber of her being — he was finally lying at her feet like a dead dog.

"Dad... Mom..."

Her voice shook.

"Did you see that... I did it... I actually did it..."

Yin Zhen couldn’t hold it back any longer. She laughed — a ragged, broken sound — and laughed until the tears came flooding out.

At that same moment.

A stunning Black Gold card and two Items materialized silently on Yin Zhen’s card table.

A new post appeared on the Ancient Abyss Forum: [Player ’Want to Kill Someone Today’ has died. The Player who killed them will receive their Identity Card and Items.]

Air raid sirens screamed to life, their wail tearing across the entire night sky over Guan City.

The phone Yin Zhen had set aside lit up on its own, displaying an official emergency notification.

"Due to an unforeseen incident, effective immediately, all public transportation in Guan City has been suspended. The city is in lockdown — no one may leave. A curfew is now in effect. All residents must return home before 7:00 PM and complete location check-in and facial recognition verification through the Mini Program..."

Yin Zhen reached over to grab her phone — and suddenly realized that her legs were moving.