Always Ending Up as an Animal Cub

In the gaze of everyone, Chenxi collapsed to the ground, finding a position that would make him suitable for being beaten, silently covering his head.
The room immediately fell into a deathly silence.
The priest's expression twisted, and it took him a while to regain his composure. "What is your name?"

Chenxi remained silent, adjusting his position to avoid pressing on his little yellow chick.
This situation must have never happened before, as a full three minutes passed before the nun, under the priest’s instruction, came over and gave Chenxi a beating.
In the orphanage, getting beaten was a common occurrence for every child.

Chenxi clenched his teeth tightly and made no sound.
When the nun's foot struck his groin again, cold sweat trickled down the boy's pale forehead.
Lying on the cold bed, an image from last night suddenly appeared in Chenxi's mind, where the little chick had protected him with its wings.

If he could hide under the little chick's wings right now, wouldn't he avoid being beaten?
If the little chick could really fly him out of the orphanage, would he have a chance to save his father?
The system, a kind-hearted ball, couldn't bear to watch the child being beaten.

It decided to look for a way to buy a pain blocker that could be used on the mission target.
The system took a leave and ran off, leaving Yu Tong alone to watch as Chenxi endured his punishment.
He suppressed his irritation, calmly observing everything. He memorized the names of everyone who had beaten Chenxi.

At the priest's signal, the nuns stopped, dragging Chenxi back to his chair.
With the questioning over, the priest continued calling the roll.
The girl sitting at the back watched the entire scene. She vaguely sensed something and covered her head without speaking.

Some were quick-witted, while others weren't. All the children in this row, except the girl, answered the priest's questions.
In another row, the little mushroom sat with his head down, unsure of what to do.
As it was almost his turn, he caught a glimpse of Chenxi secretly making a "shh" gesture under the desk.
The little mushroom stared at the ground for a long time, and when the priest called his name, he mimicked Chenxi's gesture.

By nearly 11 o'clock, the questioning session finally ended.
Yu Tong roughly counted the number of people in the classroom. There were 53 children in total. Including Chenxi, 22 children hadn't answered the priest’s questions.
They were all about eight or nine years old, the older children who had been in the orphanage for a longer time.

Yu Tong wondered what punishment would be given to the 31 children who had answered the questions.
Before long, he knew the answer.
The priest, standing at the podium, said that the /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ earlier questioning was just a warm-up, and now the real lesson would begin.

He picked up a piece of chalk and began drawing an anatomy diagram on the blackboard, explaining the positions and functions of human organs, as well as how to quickly dissect a living person.
Yu Tong felt a chill in his heart.
Chenxi, gripping the little yellow chick's hand, tightened his grip involuntarily.

After finishing the lesson for today, the priest told everyone that the next part would be the practical session.
He instructed all the children to stand in the empty area at the back of the classroom, those who had answered questions standing on one side, and those who hadn't standing on the other.
Once everyone was in position, the priest casually pulled out one of the children who had answered the questions and stabbed a knife into their abdomen.

The children huddled together, staring at the scene in shock.
The boy's screams echoed through the classroom, and two nuns held him up in the air while the priest sliced open his belly and began pulling out his organs one by one.
Some of the children fainted on the spot after witnessing the gruesome death of their companion.

After preserving the organs with a spell, the priest casually tossed the boy's body aside, expressionless. "Alright, now it’s time for the practical session. Those of you who didn’t answer the questions, line up over here. The nuns will give you the tools for the lesson."
Even the most naive and foolish children now understood what was happening.
The rule for today was to remain silent throughout the class. Answering the priest's questions was considered a violation of the rules.

And the consequence of breaking the rules was the same as the boy who had just died.
The 31 children who had answered the questions either sat on the floor, crying and screaming for their mothers, or clung to the nuns' skirts, swearing they would never break the rules again.
A few braver children, realizing that begging and crying for mercy was useless, took the opportunity when the nuns were distracted and ran out of the classroom.

The priest didn’t chase them, and a mocking smile flickered in his murky eyes.
"Ah—"
Soon after, a series of agonizing screams echoed down the hallway.

When the screaming stopped, there were heavy footsteps and the sound of dragging bodies.
Upon hearing the noise, the other children who had tried to escape also gave up their struggles.
They sat on the floor, their eyes blank, their bodies trembling uncontrollably.

Yu Tong took only a brief glance at them before turning his attention back to the priest.
He noticed something interesting: neither the nuns nor the priest had looked outside the classroom.
Even when the children ran out, they deliberately averted their gaze.

And the children who managed to escape weren’t immediately killed after stepping outside. There was a delay of two or three minutes before they were attacked.
During this time, the children made no sound of fear.
So, running into the hallway wasn’t the real trigger for death—the real trigger seemed to be encountering something in the hallway.

Yu Tong speculated that, during the class today, there must be a monster wandering the hallway. It would attack anyone who saw it, regardless of whether they were children or staff members of the orphanage.
The priest and the nuns' expressions were calm; they must have known there was something in the hallway, and they surely knew exactly what it was.
Reviewing everything that had happened after entering this world in his mind, Yu Tong suddenly had a rather absurd guess.

These nuns and priests weren't setting the rules—they had already known where the danger would be that day and which actions were forbidden.
They had compiled these into a set of rules to inform the orphans, ensuring that most of the children could avoid the dangers and not be killed by the monsters that would appear in the orphanage that day.
The nuns and priests acted more like protectors and guides.

But if that was the case, why were they beating the children? Why was the priest, knowing they couldn't make a sound, still asking questions during the lesson?
There were no monsters in the classroom—why was the priest torturing the children?
Helpless?

No.
No matter how Yu Tong looked at it, he felt that they seemed particularly joyful while torturing the children.
The practical lesson had begun, and the screams and cries filled the room, turning it into a chaotic, horrific place.

Even the future villain, under such brutal circumstances, clenched his little chick nervously.
Yu Tong almost cried out, but several thoughts passed through his mind.
First, the monster in the hallway might not have ears—only eyes. So no matter how loud the screams in the classroom were, it wouldn’t rush in to eat anyone.

But this didn’t explain why, despite being able to see all the people in the classroom, the monster didn’t come in to feast.
Surely, the orphanage didn’t have rules for both the children and the monsters.
The first guess was unlikely and could almost be ruled out.

Second, the monster outside had all its body parts in place. It didn’t enter because it was afraid, not because it couldn’t see.
There must be at least two monsters in the teaching building, and the one in the classroom was stronger. So the monster in the hallway couldn’t come in.
The third possibility was that the monster in the orphanage was actually being controlled by someone.

It could be some kind of mechanical puppet or a killing machine that had been trained and tamed by someone.
This would explain why, even though there were so many prey in the classroom, it still refused to enter and feast on them.
The one controlling its actions wasn’t its hunger—it was the hidden figure behind the scenes.

Yu Tong wasn’t sure which possibility was correct, but both the second and third theories seemed plausible.
Compared to these possibilities, he was more interested in figuring out the purpose of the person who painstakingly created this orphanage.
A psychopath, simply torturing children for the sake of it?

Or were they using these children to feed the monsters?
Before Yu Tong could come to a conclusion, the noisy room suddenly fell silent.
He poked his head out, confused, and looked outside.

Three slightly stronger boys, with some newfound courage, stole a dagger that the priest had left on the side and stabbed it into a nun’s chest.
The nun collapsed to the ground, dead on the spot, with bright red blood pouring from the wound.
Yu Tong was familiar with the color of blood, and he felt that the nun’s blood seemed unusually red.

The surrounding nuns stopped what they were doing, and the priest’s calm face showed a hint of surprise.
No one had expected this turn of events.
As Chenxi, who was in the middle of the dissection practice, quietly watched the scene unfold, he pretended to lose focus and dropped the knife in his hand, even "accidentally" kicking the knife under one of the boys’ feet.

The boy, desperate to avoid being dissected alive, was already pushed to the limit.
He was about to grab a chair and fight the nun when suddenly, a knife appeared by his foot. Without thinking, he picked it up and charged at the nun closest to him.
The nun, towering at nearly two meters, only had her chest reachable if the boy jumped, but he ran at her like a madman, shouting, “You thieves! Bad people! My parents used to run a fruit shop! We were never thieves! If it weren’t for you, our fruit shop would never have burned down!”

“You made my parents become thieves, and now you punish us! What did we do wrong! Give me back my parents! Give me back my parents!!”
The boy’s words seemed to stir the hatred in the hearts of the other children. The children about to be dissected leaped onto the nearest nuns, scratching, biting, and tearing at them.
“My dad was killed by you! My mom couldn’t survive, so she turned to the streets! My mom didn’t do anything wrong! She just wanted me and my sister to have enough to eat!”

“Give me back my grandparents!”
“I want to go home! I want to find my mom!!”
The children’s cries and screams echoed throughout the classroom.

Little candies, little candies, and a few children who shared the same dormitory as Chenxi were also among them.
Some of the children who hadn’t answered the questions were now looking around, hesitating about whether to join in.
Only Chenxi, standing quietly in place, kept his eyes fixed on the ground.

His hands, tucked into his pockets, were tightly gripping the little yellow chick, as if afraid it might rush out to help the other children.
Yu Tong sighed silently.
The nuns and priests were much stronger than the children, with a huge gap in strength. And with a monster roaming outside, even if the little yellow chick and all the children joined forces, they wouldn’t escape the orphanage.

Chenxi, just like in Yu Tong’s memories, was a very rational person.
He knew resistance was useless, so he didn’t participate.
He also knew that, whether they resisted or not, those children would die today.

So he gave them his knife, so that they could vent their anger before they died.
————
At exactly 12 o'clock, the priest standing at the podium calmly said, “Alright, class is over.”

The children, led by the nuns, walked past the bodies scattered on the floor and left the classroom.
There had been 53 children in the classroom when the class began. By the time they left, only 17 remained.
The situation in the other classrooms was similar. Each nun coming out of a classroom had a pitiful number of children following her.

The once tidy hallway was now stained with blood.
It seemed there were more children trying to escape than just the few.
The atmosphere in the line was heavy, with each child's eyes dull and numb.

Yu Tong glanced at them again, then refocused on Chenxi.
He noticed something—the children who had been in the same dormitory as Chenxi were now down to just Lily, who was covering her mouth with the little bear warrior’s hand, the little mushroom who had been imitating his brother throughout, and the little coalball who had fainted earlier.
When the system returned, the children were already eating lunch.

Seeing the empty dining hall, it couldn’t help but hiss, "So many died?"
Yu Tong sighed and recounted what had just happened.
The system hadn't gotten the pain blockers and was already in a bad mood. After hearing about the children’s ordeal, it almost choked on its own rage.

Chenxi was very clever and didn’t need Yu Tong to worry.
His soul entered the system space, gently rubbing the little light ball to calm it down.
The system, regaining composure, asked an important question.

【Xiao Yu, do you think they will bring in new children after so many have died?】
‘Possibly.’
【Those kids were shouting some strange things in the classroom. It almost sounds like the people in the orphanage ruined their families.】

Yu Tong paused for a moment, then reopened the original text.
In the original story, the villain who would become the father of the orphanage, Chenxi, had exactly the same orphanage.
He targeted Ye Yong, a handsome boy who had crossed over, planning to sell him to the nobility.

To get Ye Yong, the villain killed his parents, burned their house down, and forcibly threw Ye Yong into the orphanage.
The villain’s process of snatching children in the original story matched the children’s accusations before their deaths.
The system glanced at the original text, then at the brooding Chenxi, suddenly realizing something.

【Now Chenxi, who hates the orphanage and wants revenge, will become its master and expand these disgusting practices?】
‘Mm.’
【What?! Why!】

‘Maybe he just started out to survive, but over time, he forgot his hatred and lost his true self.’
Before he could finish, Yu Tong suddenly froze.
A man’s disappointed voice echoed in his mind, “Yu Tong, how did you become like this?”

It was Chenxi’s voice.
The sentence appeared out of nowhere, and Yu Tong was left confused.
Chenxi, who had been quietly eating, pulled a piece of cilantro out of his meal.

When he raised his hand to ask the nun to help with the cilantro, he felt a gaze fixed on him.
He turned around, only to meet the little mushroom’s eyes.
Their gazes collided, and the boy quickly lowered his head, nervously picking at the remaining food on his plate.

At noon, the little mushroom had to go to the confession room to report to Sister Ai.
Only Chenxi, Lily, and the little coalball remained in the dorm, and the room, which had once been cramped, now seemed particularly empty.
The little coalball sat on the bed, wiping away tears. "When will this end? I’m so scared."

Lily hugged her toy bear tightly and silently sobbed.
The atmosphere in the room was suffocating. After a long while, Chenxi hesitated and spoke up, "What did they mean by what they said in class?"
Yu Tong, who had been napping in his blanket, looked up in surprise.

He didn’t know either, but now the villain seemed just as confused.
The little coalball asked in a daze, "What do you mean?"
Chenxi recalled faintly, "They said things like, 'We’ve become like this because of you,' and 'We had a house, but you burned it down.' What do those mean?"

The little coalball looked down, gloomy. "Our little town used to be very peaceful. My dad was a blacksmith, and my mom was a flower farmer. The priest in the church was a nice person. But one day, a group of robbers appeared, killed the mayor and the priest, and became the new mayor and priest."
"My parents said the newcomers weren’t good people. They always demanded money from the townspeople and did some really excessive things. I’ve seen it. They’d strip the pretty boys and girls on the street and beat their butts with sticks."
The little coalball demonstrated as he spoke: "If the villagers tried to stop them, they’d kill anyone who stopped them and keep beating the boys and girls. After beating enough people, they'd either take them away or kill them and toss the bodies anywhere."

Seemingly recalling a painful memory, the little coalball started crying.
"Later, more and more strangers came into the town, all dressed luxuriously and looking rich. My dad said we couldn’t stay here, or we’d end up dead one day."
"We were planning to move to the city nearby, and we had already packed our things. I don’t know how, but somehow the news got out that we were leaving secretly. That night, a group of them barged into our house, burned it down, and killed my dad."

The little coalball couldn’t continue and burst into uncontrollable sobs on the bed.
Bed 10’s Lily, clutching her toy bear, spoke up, "The money in little coalball’s house was taken by them, and the flowers her mom grew were trampled. It will take a long time to grow them again. To keep her son from starving, little coalball’s mom started stealing."
"After stealing a few times, she was caught and beaten to death. Little coalball was sent to the orphanage for confession because her mom was a thief. She had to try to become a good child under the priest’s guidance."

Yu Tong was left dumbfounded.
From what he gathered from the heart-to-heart items, the little villain seemed just as confused.
Lily’s small head wasn’t like a normal person’s.

She mistook this for a self-introduction session and proudly began telling her story.
Lily's mother was a witch, and her father was an orc shaman. She was a mixed child.
She was born in an orc tribe, not from this little town.

A year ago, her mother brought her to the town to visit an old friend she hadn’t heard from in a long time. But because she was so pretty, she caught the attention of the people in town.
Lily’s mother was chased by a group of people, and when she finally broke through the siege and found her missing friend, she discovered that her friend had turned into a monster.
She was caught off guard and seriously injured by her deranged friend, then caught by the pursuers.

Lily fiddled with the toy bear in her hands, her eyes turning red.
"A few bad uncles bullied my mom and then tied her to a pillar to bake in the sun in the name of witch trial. I don’t know if my mom died from being baked or from starvation. But she just died, and her body was burned."
After Lily finished speaking, she turned to Chenxi, "

What about you? Why did you come here? Don’t you know what’s going on in this little town? Are you also from outside?"
The last two remaining children in the dorm, along with the little chicken under the blanket, were all staring at Chenxi.
Chenxi remained silent for a while, pursed his lips, and said, "I’m not from the little town."

Afterward, no matter how the two children questioned him, he didn’t say another word.
The little villain was hiding his identity, and Yu Tong suspected his secret was most likely related to the golden brooch hidden under his pillow.