Chapter 49: Torture

“Haa… haa… haa…”

Ye Feng lay flat on the bed, his eyes heavily bloodshot as he stared unblinkingly at the poster of Murong Fanghua plastered across the ceiling.

At some unknown point during his isolation, a desperate craving had begun to take root inside him—he found himself praying for Murong Fanghua to come and rescue him. Even as a small, rational voice deep within his mind repeatedly screamed that she was the sole architect of this nightmare, he couldn’t stop it.

She had become his final, desperate lifeline in this living hell. He wanted so badly to cling to her, to have her pull him out of this suffocating abyss.

He hadn’t slept for a single second the entire night. Every time he tried to close his eyes, the looping music seemed to magnify ten times louder, vibrating straight through his skull.

All he could do was keep his eyes wide open and clamp his hands over his ears. Yet it was entirely futile; the moment his guard slipped even slightly, the piercing melody forced its way back into his mind.

In the end, he simply gave up completely.

Lying still on the mattress, he surrendered to the unbearable noise washing over him.

La, la, lalala, lala, la~

Not long after he gave up resisting, the harsh melody suddenly shifted, softening into a gentle, soothing lullaby.

A bitter, mocking smile tugged at the corners of Ye Feng’s lips. What a beautiful tune…

Enveloped by the sweet melody, he slowly closed his eyes and peacefully departed from this mortal realm.

THE END.

…

[Ye Feng: Hey! I’m not dead yet!]

The second Ye Feng drifted off to sleep, Lisa and the unkempt golden-haired woman stepped into the room.

Scanning the trashed interior, the two women offered no comment as they hoisted the unconscious boy off the bed and carried him out.

Shortly after their departure, a team of workers entered the chamber, rapidly restoring the room to its precise original layout.

In an adjacent laboratory:

“The newly emerging personality is exceptionally fragile right now,” the messy golden-haired woman explained, her usual playful demeanor completely gone as she addressed Lisa with absolute gravity. “It can easily be suppressed or outright erased by his dominant personality. I need you to keep him under deep hypnosis continuously.”

“Understood.”

“Heh~ Then let my real experiment begin!”

The messy woman instantly reverted to her uninhibited, unhinged state. A wide, manic grin spread across her face as she locked her gaze onto the sleeping boy, her eyes gleaming with chaotic intensity.

When Ye Feng opened his eyes again, he found himself back in the exact same cramped room. The only noticeable addition was a flat-screen television mounted on the wall.

Oddly enough, the TV had no remote control and lacked any physical buttons whatsoever.

Furthermore, the background music had changed once more. Strangely, whenever this new melody echoed through the room, Ye Feng found himself involuntarily thinking of Murong Fanghua.

Flicker.

The TV screen flashed to life, displaying a vivid scene. Ye Feng squinted, quickly realizing that the screen was playing a horror movie.

The moment he registered the eerie visual, he scrambled under the blankets like a frightened rabbit. Holding firm to the sacred belief that as long as I hide beneath the blanket, ghosts cannot hurt me, he didn’t dare make a single sound.

Yet his silence didn’t stop the screen from blasting horrifying shrieks and desperate screams of terror, scaring him half to death under the covers.

Still, fear was something one eventually grew accustomed to.

As the days bled together, Ye Feng lost all sense of time inside the windowless cell. For some inexplicable reason, he suffered from violent fits of drowsiness; on several occasions, he would pass out right on the bathroom floor.

Every time he woke up, fresh meals would be laid out on the table. After eating, an overwhelming sense of aimlessness would wash over him.

Eventually, the unbearable boredom drove him to watch the very horror films that had terrified him before. Though still frightening at first, he gradually grew desensitized to the gore and jumpscares.

He even picked up on a distinct pattern: every single film concluded with the brave female lead protecting the fragile male lead, culminating in a romantic union.

When he first noticed this trend, Ye Feng felt deeply weirded out. But considering this was a female-dominated world, he quickly understood why the media was structured that way.

Day after day drifted past, and a full week soon went by.

By now, Ye Feng had watched every single horror movie loaded onto the system. With only a handful of titles available, the films looped endlessly on a relentless cycle. He had grown so thoroughly sick of them that every time he looked at the screen, he felt a burning urge to smash the TV to pieces.

Naturally, whenever he did break the screen, a brand-new monitor would be installed by the next morning.

Another week passed.

In the beginning, Ye Feng still made an effort to bathe every evening. But by now, he hadn’t washed himself in three days.

Yet another week slipped away.

It had now been a full week since his last shower.

Desperately yearning to break free from this prison, Ye Feng stared at the poster of Murong Fanghua on the wall. A surge of frantic emotion welled up in his chest, and he slammed his fist violently against her printed face.

Then another punch. And another.

He struck the wall repeatedly until his knuckles split open, smearing fresh blood across the poster. Only when his physical strength gave out completely did he finally stop.

Yet in the very next second, he gently extended his trembling hand, tenderly wiping the bloody smudges off Murong Fanghua’s printed face with agonizing gentleness.

He loathed Murong Fanghua with every fiber of his being—yet at the exact same time, he craved her salvation more than anything in the world.

Two more weeks elapsed.

During these past fourteen days, Ye Feng was subjected to entirely new forms of sensory conditioning.

He was given a large body pillow printed with Murong Fanghua’s likeness, along with several other specialized items. Every single day, the messy golden-haired woman would enter the cell, using those items to torment his physical and mental limits.

The sensory torture left him thoroughly traumatized. He cowered as far from the entrance as possible, curling into a tight ball at the corner of the mattress whenever he slept. Only clinging tightly to the Murong Fanghua body pillow offered him a faint, bizarre sense of comfort.

Meanwhile, in the grand administrative hall of the palace:

Murong Fanghua was diligently reviewing official documents, while Murong Qingning sat nearby, observing her daughter’s every move.

Murong Qingning felt that something was distinctly wrong with her daughter lately—a subtle shift that had developed over the past few days.

A few days ago, although her daughter had been in somewhat low spirits, her physical health had been perfectly fine. Recently, however, Murong Fanghua seemed to fall into sudden bouts of drowsiness. Initially, Murong Qingning assumed she simply wasn’t getting enough rest and offered a few stern warnings. But as the days went on, the severe exhaustion persisted. It was impossible for her to be suffering from simple sleep deprivation every single day.

“Fanghua, your condition has been consistently poor these past few days,” Murong Qingning remarked with a frown. “Barbara happens to be visiting the palace today—why not let her examine you?”

“There’s no need, Mother. I’m perfectly fine,” Murong Fanghua offered a forced, strained smile.

In truth, she also felt that her body was acting strangely lately. However, she believed it was nothing serious—a few days of rest would surely fix it, making a medical checkup completely unnecessary.

“Nonsense! As the future sovereign of this nation, how can you neglect your health?”

“Erm… alright then,” Murong Fanghua reluctantly agreed, nodding her head.

Simultaneously, back at the monitoring station:

“Tsk, I didn’t expect this little guy’s original personality to be so remarkably stubborn!”

The messy golden-haired woman stared at the surveillance screen, frowning at the blood-smeared poster on the cell wall.

The secondary personality—one completely dependent on and obsessed with Murong Fanghua—had already begun to take shape. All that remained was to completely erase Ye Feng’s original consciousness. Yet at this final step, they had hit a massive roadblock.

His primary personality was absurdly resilient. Despite employing dozens of psychological reconditioning techniques, the impact on his core identity remained frustratingly minimal.

With the one-month deadline rapidly approaching, if she failed to break his original self in time, her professional reputation as an expert reconditioner would be completely ruined.

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