The Gentleman at the End
Chapter 555 - 553: Mask

Chapter 555: Chapter 553: Mask

In the past-life memories William accessed, it was only during his escape from the Orphanage at age ten that he was forced to kill some of the security personnel,

In fact, it wasn’t his first time killing; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to so seamlessly dispatch several well-trained adults, and after claiming several lives on his first occasion, he appeared calm and composed, this in no way affected his escape plan.

The real "murder memories" were sealed and stored in the deeper layers of Yi Chen’s memory vault,

They were contained specifically because these memories could have a detrimental effect on the individual, potentially causing a severe deterioration in ’William’s’ personality.

However, Yi Chen felt that now was the right time to release these memories,

since the theme of the memories was directly related to the ’mask,’ which might significantly impact the upcoming Condensed Face process, even directly governing it.

Buzz! Flashback.

Returning to when he was just over four years old, an age when he should be attending kindergarten in normal human society, Yi Chen had already endured an entire year of hellish life at the Orphanage.

Due to Yi Chen’s special status, being the result of a combination of the director Mr. Cao’s and an external excellent personnel’s genes, and scoring high in various talent tests, he had been favored by director Mr. Cao, his ’mother,’ from a young age.

Even as he officially underwent the hell-style Orphanage life, Mr. Cao still gave him privileges on some matters and provided care and teaching unmatched by the other children.

Not every child could persevere in such an environment,

When there was a child who severely breached discipline and the teacher team unanimously deemed irredeemable and unworthy of nurturing, that child needed to be erased, not just from the roster but entirely wiped from existence.

Because as long as an individual exists, they would consume resources.

But the Orphanage didn’t directly euthanize them or leave them to die; instead, they utilized them.

One day, after ending class as usual, Yi Chen was stopped by Mr. Cao and taken to a special area, pushing open an iron door.

A roommate, who had disappeared days before, was restrained in an electric chair.

At the same time, Mr. Cao handed over a trigger-style remote control to Yi Chen.

Although he was only four years old, Yi Chen was well aware of what he was holding in his hand. At the same moment he grasped the remote control, his roommate, bound in the iron chair, turned his head around. Despite being terribly exhausted from torture, his eyes still yearned to live.

Instinctively, Yi Chen wanted to throw away the button and rush forward to save his roommate,

but his shoulder was heavily pressured down by Mr. Cao.

"Affection is the most difficult softness to eliminate from us humans.

I didn’t have anyone to teach me about this in my childhood, and it wasn’t until I grew up that I realized this, paying a painful price to eliminate this softness. But it wasn’t done thoroughly enough, and some flesh still remained.

Now, you don’t have to take the long route your teacher took. You can cut off this softness before your thoughts are fully formed, at a cost that is a fraction of what your teacher had to pay, perhaps even eliminating it completely.

Don’t mind it. If it weren’t to teach you, this little friend would have died long ago. Now you only need to press the remote control in your hand to directly help him out of his misery."

The four-year-old Yi Chen stood frozen, completely unsure of what to do.

"I know you’re scared. Here, let the teacher help you cover your eyes. As long as your eyes are covered, you won’t need to see those hesitating images. You just push the button."

No sooner had the words fallen than Mr. Cao’s ice-cold palm moved slowly from behind Yi Chen’s head and crept to the front, covering his eyes, concealing everything.

His lips pressed against the side of Yi Chen’s face, whispering, "You have only ten seconds to decide. Don’t disappoint your teacher... otherwise, you might find yourself taking his place.

10,

9,

8,

...

3."

Just as he reached the count of three, Yi Chen pressed the button.

Following a surge of a burnt smell spreading in the room, the cries quickly ceased, and everything was over.

"Well done~ you pressed it even before I finished counting! Such a good boy. I know how painful it is to remove emotions, this softness. Go back and digest it well~ I’ll excuse you from tonight’s art class."

Having said that, the director loosened his grip from Yi Chen’s eyes,

Yi Chen looked at his roommate on the electric chair, already charred, whose bulging, bleeding eyeballs seemed to still be conveying a plea for help.

After this incident, whenever Yi Chen was alone or got up at night, he could always see a completely charred child’s corpse crawling out from dark corners, even climbing onto his body.

But as long as he covered his face with both hands, the figure would disappear.

Therefore, for a long time, Yi Chen would fall asleep with his eyes covered by his hands and sometimes maintained this strange posture even while walking through the hallways.

Two weeks later, he was again invited by the director.

This time, Yi Chen’s playmate was the target, no longer subjected to electric shock but was instead placed on the beheading platform. Under the director’s signal, Yi Chen grasped the rope that controlled the chopper.

The director also covered his eyes with hands, giving a ten-second countdown.

This time, merely counting to 5, Yi Chen chose to let go.

The chopper fell swiftly and neatly, with warm blood splashing onto his skin.

When he moved his hands away from his eyes, Yi Chen saw the severed head in the bucket staring back at him at an upward angle, its eyes wide open.

After this event, apart from seeing his scorched roommate, Yi Chen would occasionally see a blood-drenched head rolling out from a corner and even find it inside his bedding, smiling at him.

Following that, the director only appeared inside the orphanage when a child who strictly violated the rules and knew Yi Chen was there.

From the initial electric chair and beheading platform to personally feeding poison, bleeding by severing major arteries, stabbing the heart with a dagger, and eventually carrying out the beheading himself.

Yi Chen was given a child-sized hand axe, which initially required more than ten chops to fully sever a head due to lack of strength and skill, sometimes even getting completely stuck in the cervical vertebra.

However, the director never said anything, always covering Yi Chen’s eyes with an adult’s palm.

Gradually, with Yi Chen’s talent, he quickly mastered the skill and became familiar with beheading.

He only needed to feel the temperature of the blood splattering, the intensity of the spray to roughly know the other person’s state... Gradually, by the age of six, he could perform a painless beheading in one strike.

From that time on, walking through the orphanage’s hallways, Yi Chen could always sense a multitude of dead trailing behind him.

Some would tug at Yi Chen’s clothes,

others would lick his skin with their tongues,

or incessantly course screams into his ears,

even had heads resting on his shoulders speaking various thankful whispers,

However,

Yi Chen only needed to raise his hands horizontally over his eyes like the director, and all these things would vanish, his feeling of guilt dissolving completely.

It seemed that the action of "covering his eyes with his hands" had become a switch, a crucial switch for personality toggling. As long as this switch was flipped, Yi Chen felt no guilt and even enjoyed the process of executing others, relishing the comfort of being burdened with sin.

Even during a normal class break, a female classmate, who got along well with Yi Chen, sneaked up behind him and covered his eyes, wanting to play the guess-who game.

But the next moment, this classmate was ’beheaded’,

the moment his eyes were covered, Yi Chen’s bare hands struck the girl with such force, directly breaking her cervical spine, blood gushing over Yi Chen’s face.

Till her death, the girl never understood why the boy who usually cared for her would do such a thing.

...

Time rewound.

Sitting under the large tree, William had already completed "Condensed Face",

The resultant mask unexpectedly took the shape of a hand, the wrist resting against the temple, the black palm horizontally covering the eyes.

As the Condensation process completed, a surge of intense killing intent burst forth, immediately other powerful beings undergoing Condensation sensed an innate threat, quickly dispersing and leaving the scene.

The plaza was left with only William and the large tree.