Chapter 31: Dragoncry High School (8) Part 2

Ye Xuechun listened in confused understanding. “The old monk at Thicket Mountain? A Weird you encountered in a previous Weird Domain?”

In this back-and-forth, they arrived at the office door.

Ye Xuechun still hesitated. “We really going in? It’s late at night—kinda dangerous. How about tomorrow during the day…”

Before he finished, Yun Xueqing pushed open the office door without hesitation and walked inside.

Ye Xuechun: “…”

The office was pitch black. Yun Xueqing found the light switch, and after the bulb flickered, the large room lit up suddenly.

Several desks crammed into the small space were piled high with stacks of test papers and books.

Yun Xueqing shifted his gaze to the portrait hanging on the wall.

As Fu Wuxuan had said, it showed only a person’s back, in black and white—like a posthumous photo rather than a painting.

He spoke calmly. “Yin Shixing?”

No response.

“Yin Shixing.”

Still no response.

Fu Wuxuan curled his lip in a mocking smile. “No need to hide. This office is thick with Weird aura—the temperature dropped several degrees the moment we entered. You can’t hide.”

He knew how to provoke Weird entities. The portrait trembled slightly, and a plume of black smoke drifted down, enveloping the entire office.

Yun Xueqing looked up. The back figure in the portrait was gone, leaving only blank space.

A low male voice echoed in his ears. “You’re here to die too.”

Ye Xuechun jumped in fright. “We’re here to investigate your death… to help you. Calm down!”

But the other seemed to have lost his reason. Black smoke gradually wrapped around Ye Xuechun’s body, followed by a searing pain in his limbs like being sliced by knives. He cried out in agony.

Yun Xueqing wasn’t faring much better, cold sweat beading on his forehead. With all his strength, he broke free of the black smoke and pulled a photo from his pocket. “Don’t you want to avenge Yin Yan?!”

The black smoke paused, then slowly retracted, condensing into a point before returning to the portrait.

The black-and-white back figure reappeared in the painting.

The person in the portrait spoke again. “I’ve already killed everyone who harmed Yin Yan.”

Yun Xueqing held up the photo of Yin Yan and Yin Shixing in his hand. His limbs ached as if they had been sliced by knives, but he endured the pain and said, “The ones who killed Yin Yan weren’t just those bullies—there were also the people involved in the human trafficking.”

His voice trembled slightly, but his tone was firm, laced with an unquestionable certainty.

He placed the photo on the desk. Once his emotions gradually calmed, he slowly said, “Killing those who bullied your younger brother was incidental. What you truly wanted to deal with were the people at the Orphanage.”

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have stayed put afterward, choosing not to go straight to the police but instead spreading word of the Orphanage’s human trafficking.

The Man in the Painting fell silent for a moment. “Give me my younger brother’s photo.”

Yun Xueqing picked up the photo from the desk and placed it atop the portrait.

The other’s voice was low and his tone as flat as ever, though a faint trace of nostalgia could be heard. “It’s only been three months, yet it feels like forever.”

Seeing his attitude soften, Ye Xuechun mustered his courage and pressed, “Please tell us the truth. We can help you!”

The Man in the Painting paused before replying, “You can’t help me. They’re too powerful.”

Ye Xuechun hesitated. “You mean the Orphanage director, Sun Li, is formidable?”

The man in the painting suddenly laughed. “You don’t even know who your opponents are—how could you possibly help me?”

Fu Wuxuan said impatiently, “If you don’t tell us, how are we supposed to help you?”

The other fell silent.

As the negotiations stalled and further arguing seemed pointless, Yun Xueqing suddenly said, “You need backing. You want help. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have left that Denunciation Letter—you would’ve burned it outright.”

He hadn’t exposed the secret directly because the enemies were too powerful, and he didn’t want to drag more people into it.

Leaving that letter behind stemmed from his unwillingness to let the evil be buried forever.

The Man in the Painting was silent for a moment before saying, “What you need to confront isn’t just the Orphanage—it’s the entire Anle Town.”

Ye Xuechun’s pupils contracted. “What did you say?”

Fight against an entire town?

That was insane!

Hearing the hint of retreat in their voices, the Man in the Painting sneered, “Scared now?”

Yun Xueqing replied without hesitation, “No.”

His path was straightforward and unrelenting—there was no such thing as retreat.

Seeing his resolute attitude, the Man in the Painting finally relented. “Actually, both Yin Yan and all of you have gotten one thing wrong. What the Orphanage was doing wasn’t human trafficking—it was trafficking in human organs.”

Human trafficking and organ trafficking were both gray industries, but the latter was far more cruel.

Yun Xueqing’s pupils contracted as he suddenly understood what the man meant by “making an enemy of the entire Anle Town.” He also realized why they had appeared in the hospital upon entering this Weird Domain.

The Orphanage sent the children to the school, where they underwent training and exams. Those with good enough grades stayed, earning large scholarships from the education bureau for getting into prestigious schools.

Those who didn’t measure up were sent to the hospital under the pretext of Skull Perforation Surgery, where their organs were harvested and sold.

These three organizations formed a complete industrial chain. No matter what they did, they reaped massive profits, and every child in their hands was merely a tool to be exploited.

Sending them to Dragoncry Middle School under the banner of “hoping for a dragon among men, a stunning success, retreating into the mountains to study” was just a dream fabricated by the criminals.

Upon learning the truth, Ye Xuechun was horrified. “Then… what about us…”

Anle Town was a haven for these criminals. They’d formed an industrial chain and banded together.

Dealing with one was tough enough—how were they supposed to handle a whole group?

After hearing the Man in the Painting’s words, Fu Wuxuan suddenly asked, “If that’s the case, how did you die?”

Killed by a joint effort from all three sides?

It now seemed Yin Shixing knew far more truth than Yin Yan—perhaps even before his brother wrote the Denunciation Letter. He might have already been aware and plotting how to deal with them.

But he hadn’t anticipated Yin Yan suddenly learning about it, disrupting his plans.

Weirds generally flew into a Berserk Transformation when recalling their cause of death.

Yet the Man in the Painting remained calm, his tone heavy. “Those school bullies who killed Yin Yan feared my revenge, so they schemed to kill me too.”

“One of them happened to know about the Orphanage’s human trafficking, so they planned to borrow a knife—have the Orphanage people take me out.”

Fu Wuxuan: “Did it work?”

The Man in the Painting gave a cold laugh. “No, those idiots couldn’t touch me. At the time, the school was preparing to send a batch of poor performers to the hospital for ‘surgery.’ They drugged me to knock me out and tried to sneak me in for ‘surgery’ too. I played along, infiltrated the hospital, and planned to gather evidence to report upward.”

Fu Wuxuan: “Clearly, you failed.”

The Man in the Painting admitted it candidly. “Yes. The hospital’s anti-escape measures were top-notch. I couldn’t get out, got caught, and they chopped off my limbs and dug out my organs.”

He spoke of it lightly, but to Ye Xuechun, it sent chills down his spine.

Yun Xueqing said calmly, “You couldn’t accept dying like that. Your obsession turned your soul into a Weird, but without a body, you could only hide in the painting.”

The Man in the Painting admitted frankly, “Yes. Being dismembered hurt like hell. I wasn’t willing to go like that—I wanted them to taste it too.”

The first thing he did after Weirdification was dismember those bullies who tormented Yin Yan and rip out their organs, killing them.

But because he killed too many, his rationality slipped away, and he began slaughtering indiscriminately.

The school couldn’t let him keep killing their cash cows, so they sent the Dorm Supervisor to capture him and seal him into the portrait.

To prevent escape, they hung the portrait in the office, guarded by some Weirdified teachers.

But Yin Shixing’s indiscriminate killings after Weirdification—and his brutally cruel methods—terrified all the students, who especially feared entering the office.

The school simply exploited this, indirectly forcing the students to study harder.

At this point, the Man in the Painting sounded a bit regretful. “Unfortunately, when I got sealed in this painting, that glasses guy was still alive. I never got to kill him myself.”

Yun Xueqing’s tone was flat. “He’s dead now. Died by jumping off the building. He’s become an Earthbound Spirit.”

The Man in the Painting’s tone was equally flat. “Is that so? Good.”

Hearing this, Yun Xueqing roughly understood why the Earthbound Spirit refused to reveal the truth and dispel his obsession for reincarnation.

Ye Xuechun looked at the photo placed on the portrait. “Is Yin Yan’s soul still attached to that photo?”

The Man in the Painting said indifferently, “His soul’s aura has already dissipated.”

The thing that had haunted the photo to scare them before was just some unrelated minor Weird, not Yin Yan’s soul.

Fu Wuxuan drawled slowly, “Only those with obsessions can Weirdify.”

But for Yin Yan, there was nothing in this world worth his attachment.

Ye Xuechun had felt a pang of sorrow at first, but then something occurred to him, and he blurted out, “If Xueqing and I were poor performers slated for sacrifice, what about Shen Qing? He’s a recommended student, right? He shouldn’t have been sent to the hospital!”

Yun Xueqing looked at him and said abruptly, “His movements have always been different from ours. He’s spent most of his time at the Orphanage.”

Ye Xuechun’s round almond eyes widened. “You mean he’s from the Orphanage, infiltrating us as a mole!”

Yun Xueqing neither confirmed nor denied it—it was just his guess.

Fu Wuxuan, head bowed, was analyzing too when the Man in the Painting suddenly said, “This isn’t good. A rat just came in.”

Ye Xuechun heard the line that sounded like something from a big bad villain and blinked in confusion. “Someone eavesdropping?”

No sooner had he spoken than a black rat scurried out from under the desk!

The rat was pitch-black and hairless, with slender red eyes. Its body was small, about the size of a white steamed bun, but its tail was thin and long—around a meter—trailing behind like a mouse dragging a slender whip as it charged at them!

Ye Xuechun saw it was just an ugly rat and wasn’t too scared. He stepped forward to grab it.

But Fu Wuxuan behind him lost his composure and shouted urgently, “It’s a Rat Spawn! Stay away—touching it will pollute your mind!”