Chapter 152: Tracing the Threads of Cause and Effect

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Han Li’s deep-set eyes remained fixed on Chen Yu’s face for more than ten seconds.

It was as though he were scanning him with X-rays, trying to see straight through him from the inside out.

The conference room fell silent once more.

Yan Zheng’s face had gone black as the bottom of a cooking pot. His lips moved, but in the end, he said nothing more in opposition.

He knew Chen Yu. The man was strange, certainly, but ever since he had appeared, there seemed to be nothing he could not accomplish.

“Fine.”

At last, Han Li spoke, uttering only one word.

Clearly, allowing Chen Yu, a civilian with no agent’s credentials, to meet the most crucial witness carried enormous risks.

It also violated procedure.

Yet Han Li rose to his feet and said to Zhang Luyao, “Luyao, take him there.”

“Remember, safety comes first. That is the highest-security observation area. Do not let anything go wrong.”

Zhang Luyao stood. Her beautiful eyes were still filled with deep suspicion, but she nodded all the same.

“Understood, Director Han.”

She shot Chen Yu a sidelong glance. The look in her eyes clearly said, Just you wait. I want to see what kind of tricks you can pull, you bastard.

Chen Yu chuckled inwardly.

Just wait, sweetheart. Try not to drop your jaw when you see what happens.

…

After passing through three alloy doors requiring both fingerprint and iris verification, they were met by the overpowering smell of disinfectant.

This was the deepest part of the entire secret base. The walls were white, the floor was white, and even the lighting was a ghastly white. The silence was so oppressive that it made one’s heart tremble.

“She’s in there.”

Zhang Luyao stopped before a heavy isolation door and glanced inside through a small pane of bulletproof glass.

“I’ll remind you one more time. Her mental state is extremely unstable. Even the slightest stimulation could cause her to break down emotionally—or even harm herself. You’d better think carefully about what you intend to do in there.”

She sounded like a worried homeroom teacher scolding a rebellious student who refused to listen.

“Relax, Professor Zhang.”

Chen Yu grinned, revealing a row of white teeth.

“I’m just going in to chat with her and make a friend.”

Make a friend, my ass!

Zhang Luyao nearly swore aloud, but managed to hold it back.

She drew a deep breath and nodded to the guard beside her.

The heavy isolation door slid open without a sound.

Chen Yu walked inside.

The room was stark. Apart from a bed and a bedside table, there was nothing else.

The walls and floor were covered in soft padding to prevent the patient from injuring herself.

A woman lay curled up on the bed, like a frightened hedgehog.

She wore an oversized hospital gown, and her hair had been cut very short. The exposed skin of her body was covered with scars and swollen welts of every size, some shallow and some deep.

Some wounds appeared to have only just healed, their grotesque pinkness still visible. Other patches of skin were wrinkled and waxy, as though they had been eaten away by some corrosive substance.

The sight was horrifying.

The roguish smile slowly faded from Chen Yu’s face.

Although the woman had been tortured until she was barely recognizable as human, he could still tell from the contours of her pale, gaunt face that she had once been a breathtaking beauty.

Delicate features. Perfect bone structure.

If he had not seen it with his own eyes, who could have imagined that such a beautiful girl had endured this kind of hellish torment?

She seemed to sense that someone had entered. Her body began to tremble even more violently, and meaningless, rasping sounds escaped her throat.

An anger without a name suddenly flared within Chen Yu.

Damn it.

A pack of beasts.

He slowly approached the bed, keeping his footsteps light.

“Don’t be afraid.”

He softened his voice.

“I’m not a bad person.”

At the sound of his voice, the girl abruptly raised her head.

What kind of eyes were they?

Empty. Numb. Filled with a terror that had seeped into the marrow of her bones. They were like two dried-up wells, devoid of even the faintest glimmer of light.

She stared at Chen Yu. Her trembling paused for a moment.

Then, as though she had seen something even more terrifying, she began frantically smashing her head against the padded wall behind her, emitting a piercing scream.

“Melting! Melting! Time’s up! Time’s up! Aah!”

Zhang Luyao’s expression changed outside the door, and she immediately moved to rush in.

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“Don’t move!”

Without turning his head, Chen Yu barked the words in a low voice.

There was an authority in his tone that allowed no disobedience.

Zhang Luyao’s feet halted abruptly at the doorway, disbelief written across her face.

Chen Yu paid no further attention to those outside.

He looked at the girl teetering on the edge of collapse, and only one thought filled his mind.

He wanted to know what kind of hell could torture a living human being into this state.

He reached out and gently closed his hand around the girl’s wrist as it flailed wildly in terror.

Her skin was icy cold, and her wrist was so thin it felt almost sharp beneath his fingers.

The instant he touched her, Chen Yu closed his eyes.

His thoughts stirred.

“System, activate Causal Tracing.”

“Target: Lin Li.”

“Tracing range: the past year.”

[Command received.]

[Third-level skill: Causal Tracing, activated.]

[Causal node locked: Lin Li. Analyzing causal chain… Analysis complete.]

[Retrospection beginning.]

Boom!

In an instant, Chen Yu felt as though a torrent from a supercomputer had violently scoured his brain.

The hospital room vanished before his eyes.

The ghastly white light vanished.

The girl’s screams vanished as well.

In their place came countless fragmented images, surging into his mind like floodwaters bursting through a breached dam.

It was a sensation beyond the reach of language. He was no longer Chen Yu. He seemed to have become an invisible ghost drifting through the river of time, observing another person’s past from the perspective of a bystander.

The images flashed past at dizzying speed.

He saw a deserted street corner in the dead of night. A black commercial van stopped without a sound, and several shadowy figures dragged a struggling girl inside.

He saw a swaying ship’s cabin, where more than a dozen girls as young and beautiful as Lin Li were crammed together, terror filling their eyes.

The scene abruptly shifted.

He saw a vast, boundless blue sea.

At its center lay an island cloaked in dense tropical vegetation.

The island was so beautiful it resembled an emerald abandoned by God in the mortal world.

As the view drew closer, he clearly saw a massive black boulder standing beside the dock at the island’s edge.

Three large, flamboyant words had been carved into its surface in vivid red:

Emerald Island!

His heartbeat skipped.

His gaze passed over the dock and flew toward the heart of the island.

At its very center stood an extravagant complex of buildings—a vast manor blending classical and modern styles.

A massive plaque hung above the manor’s entrance.

Four large words had been carved into it:

Butterfly Dream Manor!

This was the place!

Chen Yu focused his mind to its utmost intensity, greedily absorbing every image.

The next moment, he was pulled inside the manor.

An opulent hall. Glittering crystal chandeliers. Scantily clad attendants. And… a group of men wearing all manner of ornate masks.

Holding glasses of red wine, the men strolled past the girls as casually as shoppers browsing a market.

Every one of the girls was as beautiful as a celestial goddess, with alluring figures. Yet their expressions were identical to Lin Li’s on the hospital bed.

Numb. Empty. Obedient.

He saw a man wearing a golden lion mask point casually.

Two brawny men immediately dragged one of the girls away.

He saw a man in a silver demon mask grin hideously as he dripped scalding wax across a girl’s smooth, bare back. Her entire body trembled with pain, yet she did not dare utter a single cry.

He saw more girls being toyed with and abused by those masked “guests” in ways so grotesque they defied imagination.

This was not the release of lust.

It was the torment of livestock. The destruction of souls.

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At the guests’ command, some of the girls picked up knives and carved bloody lines into their own arms.

Some were forced to kneel on the floor and bark like dogs.

Some were made to swallow brightly colored pills, after which they began laughing like lunatics.

Hell.

This was damn well hell on earth!

Chen Yu felt as though a massive stone had been placed on his chest, crushing the breath from him.

He wanted to roar. He wanted to rush forward and tear those masked bastards limb from limb.

But he could not.

He was only a spectator.

The scene changed again. This time, the viewpoint focused on Lin Li.

He saw the entire process of her abduction.

He saw how, in the “training room,” her dignity was stripped away, how she was hypnotized and brainwashed, and how she was forced to accept the twisted doctrine that “obedience is the only virtue.”

He saw the first time she was brought before a “guest,” and the bone-deep terror and humiliation she endured.

He saw her locked in a water dungeon for three entire days and nights because of a minor act of resistance.

He saw a sadistic “guest” select her and brand a butterfly onto her body with a red-hot iron.

He saw her finally broken beyond repair, her eyes becoming as numb as those of the other girls.

He saw her labeled a “discarded butterfly” and thrown into the maintenance area like garbage, where she was made to perform the dirtiest and most exhausting labor.

He saw her secretly hide a fruit knife in the depths of despair.

On a night of torrential rain, she concealed herself in an unnoticed corner and drove the knife viciously into her own heart.

Then…

She was discovered. Treated like garbage, she was thrown into the vast sea and left to fend for herself.

In the final image, Lin Li lay upon a broken raft, gazing across the boundless ocean. Her face held no fear and no pain—only a dead, silent despair.

At that moment, the effect of Causal Resonance was driven to its extreme.

Chen Yu was no longer an observer.

He was Lin Li.

He felt the coldness of being abandoned by the entire world.

He felt the emptiness of a soul crushed utterly to dust.

He felt that endless despair in which even death had become a luxury beyond reach.

[Retrospection complete.]

The system’s notification rang out in his mind.

Chen Yu’s eyes flew open.

The world before him had become that ghastly white hospital room once more.

The girl whose wrist he held had stopped screaming and struggling at some point. She merely stared at him blankly. Yet within those empty eyes, there now seemed to be a flicker of movement.

A hot tear slid from the corner of Chen Yu’s eye and fell onto the back of his own hand.

He raised his free hand and touched his face.

Wet.

He was crying.

This was the man who feared neither heaven nor earth, who had dared to laugh while dismantling bombs in a deadly game.

And now, he was crying.

Outside the door, Zhang Luyao and the guards stood frozen in stunned silence.

What had they just witnessed?

The man who had entered with a roguish, careless air had been inside for less than two minutes. He had merely grasped the patient’s hand, and now…

He was weeping uncontrollably.

What was happening?

Was it an act?

But the grief that came from the depths of his heart, the pain that seemed ready to overflow, could never have been faked.

Zhang Luyao’s mind had completely crashed.

At that moment, Chen Yu slowly spoke from inside the room.

He looked at the battered, wounded girl before him, though it seemed he was speaking to the air itself.

“Emerald Island…”

“Butterfly Dream Manor…”

“I will… level that place to the ground.”

[Ding…]