Chapter 4: Subtle Changes

A ray of Sunday sunlight streamed in, falling on Zhou Liming’s face.

His facial muscles twitched, and Zhou Liming suddenly opened his eyes, then closed them again under the glare of the sun. Only after opening and closing his eyes several times to adapt to the intensity of the light did he let out a groan, and the hellish night from the previous evening involuntarily flashed in his mind.

Zhou Liming only knew that he had been knocked unconscious by pain and then woken up by pain… repeatedly, until his nerves could no longer bear it, and he fell into a complete faint.

Now that he was awake, the pain on his head had completely disappeared. If it weren’t for his body feeling like it had been scattered to pieces, even Zhou Liming would not have believed that he had endured inhuman torment the night before. The room was a mess. The bed sheets had been torn off and thrown onto the floor, ripped everywhere, probably because he had torn them apart in his pain.

Tables and chairs had fallen to the ground, and the things placed on them were scattered all over the floor.

Zhou Liming smiled bitterly, patted his forehead, and then struggled to get up, starting to tidy up the room. Such a messy room could not be left for others to see.

At some point during the night, the bandage on his head had been torn off. Zhou Liming touched the wound on his head with his hand. What made him pause and look foolish was that the wound, which had been as thick as his finger, had completely disappeared. This supernatural event made Zhou Liming dumbfounded; he pressed his hand against it, but he couldn’t feel any pain at all.

“What is going on?”

Zhou Liming found a mirror and looked at himself. The wound had indeed vanished.

“This shouldn’t be. Such a long wound should leave a scar even if it heals, but now there is nothing, as if it had never been injured.” Zhou Liming was truly baffled. Holding the mirror, he looked dazed. No one could explain what had happened to him.

The entire morning, Zhou Liming was somewhat dazed. He simply couldn’t remember what had happened last night.

At lunchtime, Dean Zhou heard people talking about Zhou Liming’s injury and took a moment to come over. At sixty years old, if it weren’t for her worry about the Orphanage, she would have long retired. Having worked at the Orphanage since it was established, she had poured too much of her heart and soul into this place.

“Liming, how do you feel?”

Zhou Liming’s questioning from the Dean made him feel awkward while holding his rice bowl. For the respected Dean, Zhou Liming always regarded her like his own grandmother, and he was not good at lying. But how could he explain that such a large wound had healed completely overnight? Who would believe that?

Because of this worry, when Zhou Liming went out that morning, he re-wound the bandage around his head. After all, everyone in the small space of the Orphanage knew about his injury. If they saw his head without any trace, how could he explain this mysterious situation?

Zhou Liming’s awkward appearance made Dean Zhou laugh. She said, “Don’t be afraid. You are a man now. What is this wound? You must learn to be strong.”

“De, Dean, I…” Zhou Liming bit his lip. In the end, he hid the fact that his wound had healed and said, “Thank you, Dean. The wound… the wound doesn’t hurt anymore. Really, it doesn’t hurt at all.”

Dean Zhou nodded and smiled. “It’s good that you are fine. I will find Master Huang later and have him make you a pot of soup. Doctor Li said you lost a lot of blood last night.” She gently stroked Zhou Liming’s head. This action made tears swirl in Zhou Liming’s eyes, almost falling. Several times, he couldn’t help but want to tell his beloved Dean that his wound had healed.

“Oh, right, Liming. Shouldn’t I call your homeroom teacher for you later to ask for a leave? If you are injured, you shouldn’t go to school.”

Dean Zhou’s suggestion made Zhou Liming even more uneasy. He shook his head vigorously and said, “Dean, I am fine now. Really. You can ask Zheng Le. I kept him company this entire morning. We are entering the third year of high school now. I have many classes… I don’t want to miss…” As he spoke the last part, his head was lowered.

Zheng Le nodded vigorously beside him, proving that what Zhou Liming said was not wrong.

Dean Zhou sighed slightly in her heart and didn’t say much about this matter. Instead, she instructed Zhou Liming to find Doctor Li if he felt any discomfort, and then she left. How could she not know Zhou Liming’s thoughts? She had worked in the Orphanage for nearly thirty years. There were too many children like him, but…

After lunch, Zhou Liming declined the suggestions of his friends to go out and play. Zhou Liming returned alone to his own room and fell heavily onto the bed. With eyes open, he stared at the ceiling, constantly recalling the events of the previous night. However, his willpower had been blurred back then, so how could he remember anything? Besides pain, there was only pain.

After thinking for a while, Zhou Liming didn’t know how, but he felt his whole body becoming hot, and the entire person became somewhat irritable.

This was a very strange emotion that made Zhou Liming restless and uneasy. He walked back and forth in the room, his heart feeling blocked, as if there was an illusion that he wanted to vent fiercely.

Zhou Liming rarely encountered this situation, so he immediately sat by the bed, picked up a book, and tried to use this method he had often used before to calm himself down. However, after reading only a few lines, he not only didn’t calm down but became even more irritable, giving Zhou Liming an impulse to hit someone.

“Ah!”

Suddenly, Zhou Liming fiercely tore the book in half and threw it hard against the wall. Only then did he feel comfortable.

Then he fixed his gaze on the table. He had an impulse to smash it, and he couldn’t control it. Like a highly addictive drug, Zhou Liming hesitated for only half a second, then took a few steps to the table, letting out a low growl, grabbed a corner of the table, and threw it hard against the adjacent wall.

“Bang… Crash.” The sounds rang out, and the entire table became shattered.

Zhou Liming did not feel anything inappropriate at all. This feeling of destruction gave him a sense of satisfaction.

“I smash, I smash, I smash… Hahahaha…”

Like he had gone mad, Zhou Liming even picked up the chair and smashed it hard against the wall. Staring at the two remaining chair legs that only he was holding after the chair had been broken into pieces, he let out a satisfied laugh. Only in this way could he feel his blocked mind relieved, and his irritability became calm.

As if his body was not under his command, there was only one voice echoing in his mind: Smash… smash…

Zhou Liming, who didn’t realize anything, grabbed the iron pipe of the headboard of the iron bed where he had slept for over ten years. Under the strain, the veins on his arms bulged out one by one, and faint, almost invisible scales appeared. A terrifying power made Zhou Liming roar, pulling the welded iron pipe hard off the iron bed. The piercing metal sound of the break stimulated Zhou Liming to become even more crazy, and he quickly twisted the entire iron pipe into a pile of curled twists.

In an instant, the entire bed was turned into a pile of scrap iron by Zhou Liming, who possessed the strength of a monster.

Only after the wardrobe used for storing clothes in the room was also dismantled into powder did Zhou Liming’s irritable and hot head gradually calm down. Only when he realized that the whole room was like it had experienced a major earthquake did Zhou Liming suddenly shudder, staring dumbfounded at everything before his eyes.

“This… This… Did I do this?”

Zhou Liming couldn’t believe it. Especially when seeing the iron bed twisted like a fried dough stick, he shook his head desperately, roaring, “No, no, impossible, this must be an illusion. How can a human kneel steel like dough?” He patted his head. “Is there something wrong with my head? Why do I have such an illusion? How could it be like this…”

However, everything that had just happened appeared in Zhou Liming’s mind like a movie, proving that the culprit who caused all this was indeed himself.

Zhou Liming stared fearfully at his hands. He simply could not accept that his not particularly strong hands could actually twist steel into pieces.

“No, this is not real, this is not real…”

Unable to accept all this, Zhou Liming suddenly dashed out of the door, escaping from this unreal everything.