My ‘Healing’ Game
Chapter 217: Breakthrough through Crying (Third Update)

Chapter 217: Chapter 217: Breakthrough through Crying (Third Update)

"Night Hair Salon? That name doesn’t sound very legit."

Looking at the hair clippings scattered all over the floor, Han Fei had no idea where to step. This was definitely the dirtiest, most chaotic barber shop he had ever seen.

"Bang!"

After Han Fei entered, the man turned and shut the roller door, leaving just the two of them inside.

Han Fei’s face was reflected in the cracked mirror, the panic in his eyes almost spilling out.

The atmosphere in the room grew increasingly oppressive, and the middle-aged man made no effort to conceal his malevolence as he picked up a pair of scissors from the nearby counter.

"Young man, it’s very easy to bump into ghosts when you’re out at night," the sharp scissors clicked and clacked. The middle-aged man revealed his arms; all of his fingers had been severed and then sewn back on with needle and thread, looking extremely abnormal.

"Thanks for saving me. That family is really full of madmen, they were even planning to chop off my limbs and keep me in their house forever." Han Fei seemed still oblivious to the problem. His voice carried a trace of gratitude, and he still looked utterly petrified.

"That family is indeed full of madmen, but..." the man’s head slowly twisted, "if you had followed them, at least you might have survived. Now, you don’t even have the chance to live."

The man let out a bizarre laugh, his eyes filled with excitement and pride, feeling very fortunate, "The owner of this shop went to Beast Alley, he needed someone to mind the door, so he turned me into a living rag doll. Look at the stitches on my arms, look at the knife scars, look at my face!"

Getting more and more agitated, the man, holding the scissors, kept showing Han Fei the scars on his body.

Tiny, meticulous stitches pulled his skin together, making the middle-aged man seem like a rag doll stitched together from human skin.

In the extreme torture, the man had gone mad. He desperately wanted to vent his pain and to re-enact on Han Fei the things he himself had endured.

"I will make you into what the shop manager wants and have you take my place here. But don’t worry, I’m not as cruel as the shop manager. I’ll just split open your chest and neck," the man said as he approached Han Fei.

"Aren’t you the shop manager here?" Han Fei’s expression of fear and unease slowly disappeared, "The people who can open shops in places like this are all terrifying. I’m actually quite curious to meet him. A barber shop is a new industry."

"Playing dumb won’t work with me. Do you have any last words?" the stitches on the man’s face looked as though they might burst open, his body stuffed full of hair drenched with bloodstains.

"The little thing looks pretty unique." Han Fei’s feigned ignorance was a precaution against being ambushed by a top-level grudge. In the Deep World, where danger lurks at every step, the roles of prey and hunter can switch at any time.

But now that Han Fei was sure the barber shop manager wasn’t there, he no longer needed to keep up the act.

Opening the Spiritual Altar, Han Fei let Cry and Yinglong out. Together, the two grudges almost beat the man to soul scattering.

"The Night Hair Salon’s manager went to Beast Alley. I might even meet him there. I’ll keep this human-skin doll for now."

Han Fei picked up the man from the ground. The scant dark energy the man possessed was devoured by Cry, leaving behind nothing but a tattered husk.

"Touching the deepest secrets of the soul."

From the man, Han Fei felt a deep fear and unease, a kind of terror stemming from someone deep in their heart.

Since the ability to touch the deepest secrets of the soul had been upgraded, Han Fei could feel more and more specific things. He could even bring forth the person most imprinted in the memory of a fierce ghost by touching their inner self.

"Judging by the impression in the man’s heart, the barber shop manager is incredibly powerful, definitely not a common grudge!"

Han Fei found it easy to deal with common grudges with the help of his neighbors. He struggled a bit with the mid-level grudges, and while he could defeat them with all his might, he couldn’t kill them.

If he came across top-tier grudges like Jin Sheng or Little Eight, escaping with his life would already be considered lucky.

After folding and compressing the man’s skin, Han Fei stuffed it into the Spiritual Altar and then had Yinglong search the shop for items.

Yinglong had worked in the convenience store for a long time and had seen all sorts of good items, honing a discerning eye that could find treasures that common grudges struggled to notice.

"Shop Manager, there is a heavy residue of grudge energy on the wigs in this hair salon."

Yinglong led Han Fei into the depths of the hair salon, and after lifting the bedding, everyone was stunned.

Other hair salons trimmed customers’ hair, but this one went further; it shaved off customers’ heads.

The hair salon shop manager harvested heads filled with regret and grudge, nurturing hair with their hatred and despair. Those hairs were filled with dark energy, as tough as the strongest ropes.

"Is this hair’s dark energy useful for you?"

"It is useful."

"Then what are we waiting for? Drain the dark energy, and let’s hurry and run! If the hair salon shop manager catches us now, even if we haven’t done anything wrong, it’s likely we won’t be able to explain ourselves."

The interior of the hair salon was filled with severed heads, their expressions full of agony. For Han Fei, this was also a chance to help them find release.

A small hair salon unexpectedly held so much dark energy and living corpses; Han Fei had not anticipated this before he came. It seemed the hair salon shop manager was plotting something big.

After swallowing the last trace of dark energy within the hair salon, Cry underwent a transformation.

The sound of a child’s crying echoed in Han Fei’s ears. Within a ten-meter radius, all remaining grudges were affected—sorrow, pain, despair—countless negative emotions surged from the bottom of their hearts like waves, continuously beating against reason.

The air became extremely oppressive. All the joy and happiness in the world seemed to vanish in an instant, as if God had pressed a switch controlling human emotion at that moment, leaving only grief and despair in the hearts of everyone and every ghost.

Tears of blood streamed from the corners of his eyes; the gaunt Cry extended his hands, cradling the neglected and damaged Spiritual Altar. From the bottom layer of the altar, he pulled out a wrinkled photograph.

In the photo, one could faintly discern a timid child, standing next to an adult whose face had been smeared away.

The dark energy solidified, almost becoming tangible. With bloody eyes, Cry stared fixedly at the photograph, looking at the image of himself.

He tried several times to destroy the photo, but he still could not do it.

The photograph seemed to represent something from Cry’s memory, something he thought he could destroy now that he had become stronger and more terrifying. But in reality, he still could not.

Nails dug into his skin, and despair and pain caused him to lose control. Sharp spikes began to protrude from his emaciated body, like thorns.

The spikes, sharper than any knife, were formed from the transformation of sorrow and pain. Having consumed a large amount of dark energy, Cry seemed to have gained a new ability. Not only could he affect the emotions of others, but he could also express his own sadness and pain in another form.

"The stronger the grudge, the more intense the pain and despair in their hearts?" Han Fei was aware of Cry’s experiences and felt a pang of sympathy for the child.

Gently grasping the thorny arm, Han Fei knelt in front of Cry: "Don’t be anxious. You will eventually be able to do what you want to do, and we will always be here with you."