Chapter 875: Hou Mengji

"If possible, I'd like to force out that alternate personality of his, the one that caused so many of our people to die last time."

"In that case, let me give it a try."

The Monkey King Mask Man pulled out his phone from his pocket, unlocked it, opened the photo gallery, and found a video recorded not long ago. It was the footage of Zeng Yan's final moments before death.

He placed the phone in front of Jiang Ran's eyes.

Of course, since Jiang Ran was currently lying face down on the floor with his head turned to the right, the Monkey King Mask Man thoughtfully propped the phone upright on the ground to make it easier for Jiang Ran to watch.

Despite Jiang Ran's hazy consciousness, muddled mind, and the stack of negative buffs weighing down his entire body, he could still roughly muster the mental strength to understand what he was seeing.

He watched Zeng Yan in the video begging for mercy over and over again.

But the other side refused to let him go no matter what.

Especially when Zeng Yan screamed for help at the top of his lungs.

He called out to Jiang Ran, and to Yang Qi.

He begged them to save him.

Jiang Ran was furious, but his fury was powerless.

He slowly closed his eyes.

After the video finished playing, the Monkey King Mask Man retrieved his phone. The man in his thirties asked, "What's the point of that? Trying to stoke his rage?"

The Monkey King Mask Man chuckled. "When you're desperate, you try anything, even if it's a long shot."

On the other side, Huang Kaiyu had been watching the whole scene unfold.

Earlier, Jiang Ran's plastic baton had been thrown at him with surprising suddenness, but given the distance between them, he'd managed to dodge it without any real threat to himself.

Right now, he was mulling over something. He felt like he'd boarded a pirate ship with these three people.

He'd originally killed Huo Yun, so he should've been free.

But now...

His hands were stained with the blood of innocents.

Well, so be it.

As long as it wasn't the blood of cats and dogs.

He was afraid that if he got tangled up on this ship, he wouldn't be able to peacefully feed his cats and dogs anymore.

"Not working, it seems."

The Monkey King Mask Man lowered his head, staring at Jiang Ran, whose eyes were still shut.

"We should just kill him now. I don't think his alternate personality is coming out."

"If it won't come out, then we won't let him off easy either."

The man in his thirties reached for Jiang Ran once again, looking like he was about to continue tormenting him.

But just as his hand grabbed the fabric at the back of Jiang Ran's neck...

Jiang Ran suddenly spoke.

His voice wasn't loud, but in the deathly silent library in the dead of night, it was perfectly clear.

"Hou Mengji, male, 33 years old."

"He has a wife, a son, and a daughter."

"He used to have a blissfully happy family, but one day, a flood of police suddenly showed up at his door and took this man named Hou Mengji away."

"A good husband in his wife's eyes, a good father in his son and daughter's eyes."

"A good son in his parents' eyes."

"A good son-in-law in his in-laws' eyes."

"A good man in the eyes of his colleagues and friends."

"Everyone who knew you, close or distant, everyone who still remembered you, had a favorable impression of you."

"But this supposedly good man..."

"No one ever would've guessed that he was the culprit behind a series of heinous murders from years ago."

The words stopped there, abruptly.

But the man in his thirties' right hand didn't stop.

He'd originally been gripping the collar at the back of Jiang Ran's shirt, but now, his five fingers were digging desperately into the skin beneath that collar.

His fingernails weren't long, but pinching that hard still hurt like hell.

Yet Jiang Ran didn't let out a single sound.

"And then?"

The man in his thirties' voice turned deep and eerie. "And then?"

Jiang Ran still had his eyes closed.

He said slowly, "Isn't this man named Hou Mengji just you?"

"A complete psychological freak, a pedophile."

"Fifteen victims."

"Fourteen of them were girls, and the oldest was only eleven years old."

"As for the final victim, he was the father of one of those fourteen girls."

"He had a leg disability. His wife divorced him, leaving him to depend on his six-year-old eldest daughter. He loved his daughter more than anything, but one day, she vanished from his life. From the moment her body was found, he went insane trying to find out who killed his daughter."

"Finally, he found the culprit, but you still managed to escape, and you killed him too."

"You're such a good person, really. You sent father and daughter to reunite down below."

The man in his thirties' grip on Jiang Ran's skin tightened even harder.

"And then?"

Jiang Ran opened his eyes at that moment. "And then, you thought your crimes were flawless, but you never expected that the police never gave up on the case. Years later, they arrested you and brought you to justice."

The man in his thirties: "And after that?"

Jiang Ran: "After that, you were taken into custody. After rounds of interrogation, faced with mountains of evidence, you finally confessed."

"Throughout that time, your wife, children, parents, in-laws, colleagues, and friends, who had all believed in your innocence, refused to believe it. They simply couldn't."

"In the end, your wife divorced you in a mix of fury and heartbreak. Even after the divorce, because of you, she had to move multiple times. Every time, people would find out she was the wife of a perverted pedophile, and her life fell into complete chaos. She could barely find work."

"As for your children, from the moment they started kindergarten, they were subjected to the contempt and bullying of their classmates."

"Even some teachers gave your children cold looks and gossiped about them behind their backs."

"They were the children of a perverted pedophile murderer. When they grew up, would they turn out just like their father?"

"Bringing harm to others? Endangering society?"

"Why not, while they're still young, have some brave hero rid the world of them? Kill them all, so they don't grow up to become the same."

Jiang Ran's face slowly turned upward toward the man in his thirties looming over him.

The corners of his mouth were stretched all the way to his ears.

His smile held a hint of mockery, a hint of ridicule, and something else that no one could understand, except this man named Hou Mengji standing in his thirties.

"So, your wife, your son, your daughter."

"The more they loved you before, the more they hate you now."

"Every single time they face unfair treatment in life or at work because of you, they hate you a little more in their hearts."

"They don't understand. They didn't do anything wrong. They're just your wife, your son, your daughter. Why should they be dragged down by the things you, a perverted pedophile, did?"

"They wish you were dead! Hou Mengji!!!!!"

Jiang Ran let out a string of laughter.

But this laugh was strange.

It wasn't the wide-mouthed, roaring laugh.

It was with lips pressed together, only the upper teeth centered around the incisors showing.

A stream of bizarre "mm-mm-mm-mm-mm" sounds escaped his mouth.

At that moment, the man in his thirties tore off his white ghost-face mask.

Revealing a face etched with the word "coldness" itself.

His right hand released the skin, then grabbed Jiang Ran by the neck.

His left hand reached for Jiang Ran's hair.

Then, he viciously slammed his face down into the ground.

From the expression on Hou Mengji's face and the twitching of his facial muscles, it was obvious this guy was putting his full strength into it.