My Villain-Raising Plan - Chapter 2

My system was a bit of a chatterbox.

All the way there, it kept asking excitedly:

[Is it happening?]

[Are we finally starting the redemption storyline?]

I ignored it and followed the dungeonlike passage deeper inside, stopping in front of an iron cell door.

The underground arena had always had an unwritten rule: lose a fight, and your colleagues would usually give you a very warm welcome afterward.

Just like this.

In a small cell deep in the dungeon, Shen Zhuo lay curled up with his arms over his head while a group of men cursed and kicked him.

I strolled to the door, tilted my head, and watched.

Hearing me, the men beating him merely glanced over their shoulders. My arrival didn’t surprise them at all.

Guests who found their way here generally had tastes they couldn’t discuss in polite company. These men had seen it all.

The manager who hurried over, though, was a shrewd one.

After taking the card I offered, he put on an ingratiating smile and cautiously asked how I was related to Shen Zhuo.

“I’m his aunt.”

The system had arranged that identity for me in advance.

[You’re Old Mr. Shen’s illegitimate daughter, which makes you his paternal aunt. You can use that as a reason to adopt him and get him out.]

The manager started and immediately ordered the men inside to stop.

Pale-faced, he bowed over and over. “Miss, we had no idea he was your nephew!”

The men inside didn’t know what was happening, but seeing his reaction, they bowed their heads and apologized too.

Even the boy on the floor looked up.

He tried to hide his expression. I still caught the light that flared in his eyes.

I smiled.

The child thought I’d come to rescue him.

The system was just as naive.

[Wow! You had a plan all along.]

[I’m sorry I doubted you, Host!]

See? Society worked in such strange ways.

Shen Zhuo didn’t know me.

He had no idea where this inexplicable aunt had come from.

Yet he could still so easily believe in, and hope for, a savior falling from the sky just for him.

Well, a lovely thing like that simply had to be shattered.

So I curved my lips and, right in front of Shen Zhuo, refused the manager’s offer to release him.

Instead, I had someone bring me a chair.

I sat down.

“Don’t mind me,” I instructed calmly. “Carry on.”

The manager froze. Then he remembered what sort of place this was and readily complied.

The thugs hesitated at first.

But when I showed no reaction, my expression perfectly calm, they soon relaxed and began tormenting Shen Zhuo even more viciously.

The boy on the ground endured it without a sound.

His eyes, however, stared straight through the crowd at me.

As though demanding an answer. As though committing my vicious face to memory.

I met his gaze without flinching.

No sympathy. No pity. Certainly no guilt.

Inside my head, the system fell apart.

[???]

[Host, what are you doing?]

[It’s over! Forget redemption—you’re lucky if he doesn’t hate you!]

Its frantic questions were almost tearful.

I curled my lips and shrugged. “What’s wrong with hate?”

I could make him hate me even more.

So when the beating ended, I stepped lightly through that doorway of sin, while the system wailed, [What are you doing now?]