Chapter 507: The Real Tragedy

Before their voices break, most children sound clear and crisp—but sometimes, they can be piercing.

When the tall boy finished speaking, every eye in the classroom turned toward the Hunchbacked Boy.

Giant swaying heads and deformed faces locked their gazes on the child sitting by the wall.

"He killed the robin!" the short boy named Fu Ming jumped up, his voice even sharper and carrying a faint tremble.

The Hunchbacked Boy slowly hunched his recently straightened body back down, his beautiful eyes filled with panic.

"It was you?" the male teacher demanded, glaring at him. "Stand up!"

The Hunchbacked Boy's thin body was already curled almost into a ball. Startled by the teacher's shout, he shuddered and stood up from his chair.

"Did you kill the director's robin?" The teacher stepped down from the podium. At 1.8 meters tall, he loomed over the boy like an insurmountable wall.

"Speak!" the teacher barked, his voice loud and extremely stern.

A layer of gray seemed to cover the Hunchbacked Boy's beautiful eyes. He clasped his hands together and slowly lowered his head.

'Why won't you just tell the teacher the truth?' I felt anxious for the Hunchbacked Boy while standing outside the door. As an adult, I simply couldn't comprehend a child's mindset when facing this kind of situation.

Inside the classroom, the Hunchbacked Boy's silence only further infuriated the male teacher. To think a student in his own class had caused trouble and killed the director's bird. This would definitely lower his standing in the director's eyes.

"Speak! Did you kill the director's robin?" Thinking this, the male teacher grew even angrier. "Do you have any idea that the robin is a foreign bird, incredibly rare in this country? You're infuriating me!"

The Hunchbacked Boy remained silent. The two boys pulling a "the villain files a complaint first" were thrilled, chiming in together to continue: "Teacher, whenever class is about to start and the courtyard is empty, he sneaks into the director's office! We've caught him several times! Other classmates have seen him too!"

"Yeah, I've seen him too."

"That's right, he's the one who killed the bird!"

"Such a cute little life—how could you do it? You're so cruel!"

Giant swaying heads and magnified, twisted faces surrounded the Hunchbacked Boy, accusing him almost non-stop.

The child in the corner still did not speak. He hung his head so low that I could no longer see his face.

"Quiet down. The rest of you continue with your lesson and maintain classroom order. You, come outside with me." Elder Chen spoke, and the classroom immediately fell quiet.

He waved to the Hunchbacked Boy, heading out of the classroom first.

Seeing that Elder Chen was about to come out, I quickly retreated, hiding around the corner again. To my surprise, Elder Chen actually took the Hunchbacked Boy's hand and walked toward my direction.

'Did he spot me? That shouldn't be possible.'

I crept up to the second floor, hiding in a blind spot to peek down. Elder Chen and the Hunchbacked Boy stopped at the first-floor corner. It was far enough from the classrooms that no one could hear their conversation.

"Did you kill the robin?" In the dream, Elder Chen's image had no facial features. His flat face looked extremely terrifying.

The Hunchbacked Boy kept his head down and did not speak. He behaved very obediently, looking just like a child who had made a mistake.

The two of them stood in a stalemate for a few seconds before Elder Chen broke the silence. "I know you didn't kill the robin. I also know you often run into my office, open the cage, and let that bird out. You are friends with it, so how could you possibly tear off its feathers and smash it to death alive? If it wasn't you, why don't you say so loudly? Tell everyone the truth?"

Elder Chen's words took not only the Hunchbacked Boy but even me, hiding on the second floor, by surprise. 'Is this old guy really a good person? He sounds very righteous when he speaks.'

Hearing Elder Chen's words, the Hunchbacked Boy, who had been keeping his head down, slowly raised his face. His clear gaze was like an unpolluted frozen lake.

He opened his mouth, as if he thought of something, but in the end, he didn't say a word.

"Lift your head. Look into my eyes and tell me why you're willing to bear grievances that don't belong to you." Elder Chen placed his thick hand on the Hunchbacked Boy's shoulder. He was tall and looked down from above, like a god presiding over everything.

Hearing these words from my hiding spot upstairs, I curled my lip. What eyes were on that face? It was a complete blank slate.

The boy still did not look up, whether out of fear or some other reason.

'Why is this kid so afraid of trouble? He lets himself be bullied without a word, bears grievances he shouldn't bear, and now that he's met the director, he still doesn't know how to clear his name? This personality really is unlikable.' Excessive humility was no longer humility; it was subservience, and no one in this world would ever genuinely respect a subservient person.

The people I encountered during my live broadcasts were all extreme lunatics, like the Primal Destiny Divine Fiends, who, when pushed to the brink, dared to curse an entire school and drag dozens of people down to the grave with them; or Lu Xing, who, just to change his fate against heaven's will, even dared to blow up the Lanjiang Dam and leave over a million people homeless.

Because I had spent so much time interacting with these lunatics who acted regardless of the consequences, my thoughts had become rather extreme.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Bowing your head to bear bullying would only make your head sink lower and lower, until finally, you could never lift it again.

I was very curious about how this boy's personality had been formed. Even though I had experienced the Shallow Dream Layer, I still only had a half-understanding of his childhood life. I didn't know what kind of trauma he had suffered to make him so cowardly and yielding.

But the scene that unfolded next left me dumbfounded. It gave me a completely new understanding of both the Hunchbacked Boy and Elder Chen.

"Actually, you did very well." Elder Chen's voice dropped its previous severity. Seeming quite satisfied, he simply praised, "The robin is already dead. Hurting your classmates over a dead little bird is the real mistake. You did very well."

'What?!' I could hardly believe my ears. 'Hurting classmates over a dead little bird is the real mistake? Is this how Elder Chen usually educates the Hunchbacked Boy? Not daring to name the real culprits and bearing grievances he shouldn't bear is somehow the correct thing to do? What about fairness? Honesty? A person's most fundamental sense of justice?'

"Go back. We'll leave this matter at that. Everyone is pure and flawless at birth; human nature is inherently good. One day, they will finally see your grievances and burdens. They will understand you and accept you. When that time comes, you will be the most popular one of them all, and everyone will be willing to be your friend." Elder Chen, who had no facial features, stroked the Hunchbacked Boy's hair as if petting a fledgling's down feathers. "Just like that robin you liked, a drab little fellow that never attracted attention will one day also spread its wings and fly into the sky."

"But, the robin is already dead." The Hunchbacked Boy spoke for the first time, his voice cowardly and hesitant. It was very neutral; just by listening to the sound, the vast majority of people probably wouldn't be able to tell his gender.

"You should go back." Elder Chen seemed dissatisfied with the Hunchbacked Boy's reaction. In his view, the boy should obey his words unconditionally; he did not wish to hear a voice of rebuttal.

Elder Chen walked away down the corridor. The Hunchbacked Boy leaned against the wall, his head seemingly pressed even lower because of Elder Chen's touch just now.

'Before being sent to the orphanage, the Hunchbacked Boy must have suffered some kind of trauma. His natural personality was cowardly and introverted, and after entering the orphanage, Elder Chen's educational methods were somewhat misguided, even encouraging this bottomless cowardice. That was what caused the Hunchbacked Boy's growing self-denial.' I looked at the Hunchbacked Boy in the corner with a complex gaze. 'I finally know why the Middle Dream Layer specifically selected this segment, and why it had to start from the robin.'

According to legend, the robin's feathers were originally pale gray. When Jesus was nailed to the cross, it flew to Jesus's ear and sang to soothe his pain. Jesus's blood then stained the robin, and ever since, the feathers on its breast turned bright red.

In reality, this kind of bird symbolizes Redemption, but in the Hunchbacked Boy's dream, the robin was already dead.

A true tragedy usually does not lie in how a person dies, but in how they lived.

And for this boy before me, whose name I still did not know to this day, his tragedy had only just begun.