Seventy-nine: Devouring Oneself

He said it did not matter whether I was really Chen Mu; as long as I had that face, it was enough.

At first I did not understand what he meant, but I caught on quickly enough. Was he saying that my face was Chen Mu's face, and therefore I myself was Chen Mu? That even if I was not Chen Mu, so long as I wore such a face, he would still be willing to kill Scar for me?

At that thought, a strange feeling rose suddenly in my heart. I knew Bai Ye was definitely not the sort of man to lose his composure like that; he must have meant something else, speaking deliberately for my ears alone.

So I had to do something. I planted both feet against the wall, launched myself forward, and landed beside Bai Ye.

Then I said to him, "Bai Ye, Scar says I'm not Chen Mu. What do you think I should do?"

Bai Ye's lips curved faintly. He turned his head to look at me and said, "Then let him see what the real Chen Mu is like."

So once again I pushed off with both feet, sprang at Scar, and when I bent over him and drove the knife toward him, Scar instinctively tried to fight back.

But just then Bai Ye's cool voice sounded again. "Scar, every movement you make brings death one second closer."

Scar's body stiffened at once. He did not dare move.

My sharp dagger soon reached Scar's throat, but I did not kill him so cheaply. Instead I withdrew my hand at the last moment, used the blade to tilt up Scar's chin, and smiled as I asked, "Scar, you say I am not Chen Mu. Then who am I?"

Scar raised his eyes to me. Perhaps it was my deranged smile that chilled him, for he could not help shivering. Then he looked away and no longer met my gaze.

Only then did he answer, "Because the real Chen Mu isn't this weak. If he wanted to kill me, I would not be able to resist."

When I heard that, I finally breathed a little easier. So that was what he meant. I had thought he was about to expose my identity as an undercover agent.

So I suddenly stepped on Scar's hand and drove the dagger straight through the back of it.

The blade was so sharp that it pierced clean through at once. I even heard the shrill scrape of the tip against the concrete after it went through his hand.

But I did not stop there. I twisted the dagger cruelly before speaking to Scar again. "Then let me tell you this: perhaps my strength as Chen Mu has not yet fully returned, but my bloodlust will never vanish. I will not tolerate a single word of blasphemy from you. Whoever insults me dies!"

As soon as I finished, Scar suddenly roared and lunged at me, clearly unable to swallow this humiliation and determined to fight to the death.

This time I was no longer as weak as before. Perhaps it was Bai Ye's presence, but some perverse urge for slaughter had taken root in me, and I felt myself become instantly fiercer. It was like when I was with Jin Ze, and Jin Ze could give me a sense of safety. To me, Jin Ze and Bai Ye were like true angel and devil.

So when Scar charged me, I simply rolled agilely to the side, sprang up, and kicked him hard in the ass, sending him crashing face-first to the ground.

By then Bai Ye had already reached Scar's side. He planted a foot on Scar's head and crouched down.

Scar seemed to have gone mad, or perhaps he had simply given up all fear. Maybe because he knew he would die today no matter what, he no longer begged for mercy and instead burst into curses.

He shouted, "Freaks! You two freaks, a pair of perverts! You're all damned degenerates! If you've got the guts, kill me right now!"

Bai Ye only gave a cold laugh. "Why kill you right away?"

Then he asked me, "A Mu, how should we kill him to make him suffer the most?"

I knew Bai Ye was probably testing me again. If I could not come up with some perverse way to kill Scar, it would be extremely unfavorable for me.

So my mind began turning at once. Very quickly, a wicked thought flashed through me, and I immediately said, "Make him eat himself. Let Scar eat himself!"

Hearing that, a look of anticipation slipped into Bai Ye's peach-blossom eyes. Then he told me to go and restrain Scar while he went to look for tools.

Soon Bai Ye had brought back a rope, a dissecting knife, a pair of scissors, an axe, a juicer, and a meat grinder.

Even I shuddered at the sight of those tools. This was a bit too perverse.

Scar truly panicked then. I saw terror written all over his face, and he cried out at once, "Don't kill me! If you kill me, the organization won't let you off. You won't be able to stay in the organization!"

But Bai Ye ignored him, as though Scar were nothing but farting air. He simply walked over, grabbed Scar by the body, and tied him to a chair.

Then Bai Ye said to me, "A Mu, begin your performance."

I swallowed hard, my heart uneasy. I may have killed before, perhaps, but I had never truly, consciously killed anyone.

Still, I had to pretend to enjoy it. I picked up the axe at random and said to Bai Ye, "Bai Ye, aren't you going to record this for me?"

I knew the files said that I had a habit of filming murder scenes to enjoy later, so saying this would help lessen Bai Ye's suspicion of me.

Sure enough, after hearing those words, Bai Ye's peach-blossom eyes softened as he looked at me.

When Bai Ye began filming, I raised the axe and brought it down hard on Scar's foot. Scar let out a howl.

My heart was nearly breaking then. I felt as though I were walking down a road of no return, and at that moment I desperately wanted Fang Qinghe to follow the signal from my earpiece, come straight here, seize Bai Ye, and end this undercover operation. But I knew he would not do that, because he too understood that a great secret lay hidden behind this murder game.

So I kept hacking at Scar's foot with the axe. Because the bones in the foot were especially hard, it took several blows before I finally cut one of his feet off.

Scar was in such agony he was nearly driven mad, screaming hysterically and begging me to kill him quickly.

I ignored him and had Bai Ye take the severed foot to be processed in the meat grinder and juicer.

Very soon Bai Ye had ground Scar's foot into mincemeat and bone paste. Then I pried open Scar's mouth and poured the nauseating paste into it.

Scar did not want to swallow, but in the end we forced it down his throat.

Next I repeated the same method and cut off Scar's leg. During it all Scar fainted from the pain, but Bai Ye soon woke him again.

We tortured Scar like that until his entire lower body had been reduced to meat paste and forced into his mouth. After that, as he kept eating his own flesh, he began to leak from below.

With Scar chewing his own body and his intestines and stomach beginning to spill out beneath him, we finally brought this perverse game of making him eat himself to an end.

Then I sprang to my feet. I felt the vomit in my stomach had risen to my throat and was about to come up, but I had no choice but to swallow it back down.

To be honest, I really felt like crying then. I felt as though I were about to break and cry out.

So I pretended to pick up the video Bai Ye had recorded and went off to one side to "watch" it, when in truth I was calming myself, making sure I would not be affected by the bloody spectacle. I had to be strong. I had to personally send Bai Ye, and the perverts behind Bai Ye, to their deaths, perhaps even myself included.

Very soon I reviewed the clip we had just recorded. And when I saw the scene where I began forcing the flesh paste into Scar's mouth, I was suddenly drawn to my own eyes. That expression was familiar, the same as the one in the last two videos I had seen at the Chen Mu Research Center.

My expression was bloody and twisted, yes, but there was also a trace of helplessness and resistance within it.

Perhaps no one else could detect the slightest change in my gaze, not even Bai Ye, but I could truly feel it.

Then I could not help thinking: why would the same person have different eyes? Could it be that before I lost my memory, I had already begun resisting this perverse life?

I could not know, and I had no time to dwell on it. Bai Ye was right beside me. I had no right to lament the unfairness of fate, and I had to keep forcing this undercover mission onward.

At that moment Bai Ye came to my side. He said directly, "The A Mu I know has returned."

I showed no expression at all. I looked at him coldly and asked what we should do next. Scar was already dead by my hand; it was time to tell me the truth.

But Bai Ye took a phone from his pocket and handed it to me. Then he said, "I'm sure the police have been hunting you all along. Scar still has a small half of his body left, so let's leave them something to dream about. I stole your phone. You can turn it on and let them locate it, then have them track us here."

Bai Ye really was a monster. After carrying out such a bloody and horrifying act, he still had the leisure to toy with the police!

I truly wanted to butcher this madman with my own hands, but I had to pretend to agree. I took the phone and powered it on at once.

As soon as it turned on, many text messages popped up, the vast majority from Jin Ze.

Jin Ze wrote: Chen Mu, where are you? Don't forget what I told you. We could not choose the past, but we can embrace the future. There is only a hair's breadth between devil and angel; the choice is yours.

He wrote: Chen Mu, I still want to believe in you. I will keep looking into this, and I ask you to believe in yourself as well. Even if you truly lost your way once, you must not continue down the wrong path.

The final message was: Chen Mu, even if we are trapped in hell, we can still look up at heaven.