Chapter 18: Human Skin Manor (Part 17)

Warning: This chapter contains a character’s recounts of SA, abuse, captivity, violence, and gore.

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Xiao Muyu’s words were calm yet resonant, causing Liu Wei and the others to suddenly open their eyes wide in realization.

This conclusion also left Chen Xi dumbfounded. After a moment of stunned silence, he finally managed to say, “It seems these pieces of information are indeed crucial. Otherwise, we’d still be in the dark.”

“These things have been obvious early on, but I didn’t understand the reason until now. This new information confirms our guesses, and restores the truth of the matter.” After saying this, Shen Qingqiu continued to look around the room.

“There’s still one more question: How did she transform the human skin into that state?”

She turned to Chen Xi. He averted his gaze to look at the old woman. “We’ll have to ask this old woman about that.”

Nobody could sleep for the rest of the night. When the first rays of dawn appeared in the east, the old woman’s body suddenly trembled unnaturally. Slowly, her rolled-back eyes closed, as if she had fallen asleep.

Cui Xiaoxuan yawned and then whispered, “Is she regaining her senses?”

No one answered; everyone was just waiting for daylight, and for the old woman to speak the truth.

The sky outside brightened. Throughout the night, they had each sat in the hall, watching the window. After all the intense moments, only an indescribable exhaustion remained.

“You’re really not afraid of dying, are you?”

The hoarse and aged voice rang out, instantly drawing everyone’s attention. The six pairs of eyes in the room—some anxious, some tense, some indifferent—all focused on the old woman bound on the floor.

“Sadly for you, we’re still alive. Are you still going to hide the truth at this point? What exactly happened to make you hate them so much? Killing and skinning them wasn’t enough; you also turned them into those creatures that can’t see the light of day, condemned to live in darkness forever,” Shen Qingqiu said calmly.

The old woman stared at Shen Qingqiu, clearly remembering what she had done the previous night.

“It’s exactly what they deserve. How is it a torment? They have no pain, no itching; they’re completely numb. Isn’t that blissful? Hahaha.” She was laughing, but her laughter was filled with hatred and tears.

“Killing so many people is still not enough? Why must you trap them here? They’re harming everyone, including you,” Liu Wei said disapprovingly.

“You all feel sorry for them, don’t you? I’m just an old hag with a vicious heart, who cursed them in this hellish place, bullied them—I’m the real devil, wicked beyond redemption,” she said, her voice tinged with sobs.

“This world has never been about who’s weaker, or who’s more pitiful being in the right. Those who don’t know the truth, have no right to judge who’s to truly blame for this tragedy. So why don’t you tell us, and we’ll see if they truly deserved what happened to them.” Xiao Muyu’s expression remained calm as her dark eyes fixed on the old woman without any hatred or anger. They were as indifferent as the night sky, devoid of any light or shadow.

The old woman stared at her for a long time before finally beginning to tell her story.

An innocent and carefree fifteen-year-old girl followed her only father to seek refuge with distant relatives. Her father fell gravely ill during the journey, and when they passed through this place, they stayed with a family.

The family seemed kind enough. They called a doctor to treat her father, and buried him here after he succumbed to his illness.

Unexpectedly, the family’s two sons both took an interest in the girl brimming with youth, yet they were unwilling to marry her. Through a mixture of coercion and threats, they took advantage of her, one after the other.

The orphan girl’s cries and pleas for salvation went unanswered. The family turned a blind eye to the two sons’ actions, and she became nothing more than a plaything for them.

Most of the villagers were members of the same clan. They married women from outside the village. These villagers pretended not to hear or see her suffering, refusing to help her. With no one to turn to, and unable to die, she repeatedly tried to run away, but each time, the villagers worked together to catch her and bring her back, where she would be beaten and humiliated.

As time passed, her situation only grew worse. The whole family treated her as their slave, beating and scolding her at every turn. It wasn’t until she became pregnant that things began to improve. They even started to take care of her, treating her with a semblance of kindness. The months of her pregnancy were the only time she experienced any peace.

When the child she gave birth to turned out to be a daughter, her situation deteriorated even further.

However, her daughter became her sole source of hope, a precious gift seemingly bestowed by the heavens—a flower blooming in her rotting, stinking swamp of despair. She used every ounce of her strength to protect this flower, so adorable and full of life.

“I should have never hoped. Beasts will always be beasts, they never had humanity to begin with. I endured their beatings and insults, but they didn’t even spare my daughter. They beat her, they scolded her, all because they didn’t know whose child she was. Ah…” Overwhelmed by pain, the old woman screamed amidst anguished wails, and then her eyes locked onto the group as she shouted herself hoarse: “But she was their blood too! And yet, they… they dared to have the same filthy thoughts about her, dragging her into the same hell they forced me into!”

She was near hysterical, and her eyes rolled back again, as if the demon within her was clawing its way back to the surface.

The group didn’t utter a word. Cui Xiaoxuan and the others looked pale, their brows tightly knit.

Shen Qingqiu merely watched with a cold gaze, while Xiao Muyu pressed her lips together tightly, her face slightly ashen. A blizzard seemed to be brewing in her black eyes as she stared at the five people in the photograph.

Shen Qingqiu noticed Xiao Muyu’s expression and glanced at her with some surprise; she was even tightly clenching her fists.

During these days, this was probably the first time that she’d seen such a big fluctuation in Xiao Muyu’s emotions, and it stirred a bit of curiosity in her heart.

Once the old woman finally calmed down, her entire face became twisted. All the pain, anger, and hatred from the past had almost driven her to hysteria.

The human skins outside had all disappeared, and in the emptiness, only the old woman’s cries remained, like the howl of a lone wolf.

“I wanted to take Xiao Yun and run, but with so many people in the village, and not a single good person among them, there was no way I could save her. Then, those beasts married her off to another wealthy household in the village. They used her as a stepping stone to achieve success, and they bought this house with the money they got from selling her!” She looked around the house, her eyes filled with madness.

They could hardly imagine how the old woman had endured all this. No matter how hateful she was, there was also much about her that was pitiful.

“Later, your daughter died, and you lost your grandchild too, so you couldn’t take it anymore. Is that right?” Xiao Muyu lifted her eyes to look at the old woman.

The old woman’s expression went blank for a moment, before sorrow quickly spread across her face, but it was soon replaced by a kind of vengeful satisfaction.

“Yes. Xiao Yun married another beast—a useless drunkard who would beat her whenever he got drunk. She was eight months pregnant, and he still beat her, causing a premature birth. She died after giving birth. They all deserved to die, and I couldn’t let them go. One day, I finally found a packet of rat poison and put it in their soup, their wine, their food—I didn’t spare anything. Then, before the poison killed them, I slowly peeled off their skin. They whimpered and pleaded, just like I did when I begged them to spare me and Xiao Yun… equally desperate.” Her eyes shone with a twisted excitement and elation, and her words made them tremble with fear.

“No wonder. I thought it was strange, how a family of five could be wiped out so easily, but it all made sense if someone in the house poisoned them,” Xiao Muyu said as she looked at the old woman.

The old woman kept staring at Xiao Muyu, who didn’t shy away and met her gaze with neither compassion nor hatred. Instead, there was a calm understanding and acknowledgment.

“You think I did the right thing, don’t you?” The old woman’s expression showed a mix of disbelief and surprise.

The others were stunned when they heard this, and then fixed their eyes on Xiao Muyu.

“There is nothing wrong with what you did. Only when the knife falls on you, will you know pain. People don’t share the same joys and sorrows. Even though they knew they were guilty and wrong, they still sacrificed others without hesitation to satisfy their own desires and interests. If they ever felt regret, it was only because they feared retribution. But clearly, that fear wasn’t enough to stop them from committing their atrocities. It’s only when that same sense of hopelessness befalls them that they truly feel regret, pain, and remorse. Only then can they truly grasp the depth of the sins they inflicted upon their victims.”

This was the longest the group had heard Xiao Muyu speak in the past three days.

Her speech was perfectly paced, her tone slightly low but clear, each word steady, yet carrying enough weight to make everyone feel the gravity of her words. It was like a judge reading a verdict from the bench, compelling people to believe her.

In that moment, they unexpectedly found themselves agreeing with the old woman’s ruthless actions. But when they calmed down, they realized they shouldn’t feel this way. In real-world society, criminals were punished by law, not personal revenge—especially not one as extreme as slaughtering an entire village.

“Haha, you support what I did, don’t you? So I wasn’t wrong; I wasn’t wrong!”

Xiao Muyu’s eyes now showed a hint of pity. “Yes, you succeeded in your revenge, making them eternal slaves of darkness, unable to escape. But what about yourself? You’ve become a slave to your own hatred. You hold on to your revenge, so your own suffering has never ceased. You thought you had trapped those human skins, but have you forgotten? They’re also trapping you, not just your body, but your soul as well—confined here, never able to escape.”

As she spoke, it seemed she was no longer addressing the old woman but rather speaking to herself.

The old woman’s smile suddenly froze, and she stared blankly at her surroundings, her expression beginning to crack.

“You killed them for yourself, for your daughter, for your grandson. But after their deaths, did you ever see your daughter or grandson in your memories? When you tortured those skins, did you remember why you were doing it? I think, if we hadn’t come along, you might have already forgotten, wouldn’t you?”

The room fell into a deathly silence. The morning sun cast its first light into the house from the east, pouring in through the window with a bright and renewing glow, shining behind Xiao Muyu. The light was too bright, and Xiao Muyu, caught at the center of this brightness, appeared as if she were submerged in darkness, almost indistinguishable.

The crack in the old woman’s expression spread and widened, until it shattered completely, and she collapsed onto the floor, as if her soul had been drained away.

Xiao Muyu crouched down and untied the ropes binding her. “You’ve already avenged them. Regardless of how much these people deserved their fate, they have met their end. So let go of yourself. We will handle those human skins.”

The old woman, supported by Xiao Muyu, stared dazedly at the blinding sunlight. Murky tears streamed down her face as she clutched Xiao Muyu, quietly sobbing and whimpering until she broke down into wailing.

Although the group didn’t agree with the old woman’s methods, and found her terrifying, her cries still weighed heavily on them. If one weren’t in hell, who would choose to remain in darkness forever?

After a long while, the old woman stood up and, trembling, walked into the room. Chen Xi and the others followed her, watching as she opened a cupboard and, after much effort, retrieved a brick, followed by a cloth bundle.

Chen Xi reached out to take it, but the old woman gave him a cold glance and handed it directly to Xiao Muyu.

“Consider it a gift for you. Thank you.”

Xiao Muyu nodded and unfurled the cloth bundle. Inside, folded together, was an item that gave Xiao Muyu pause. The others also turned pale upon seeing it.

“It seems to be… another human skin.”