Chapter Forty: Kneel Before Me!

“So you want to play rough?”

Bang!

Mu You pressed Xuan Yao’s head straight into the ground.

But that was far from the end. To Hu Lei’s utter disbelief, Mu You proceeded to pummel and kick Xuan Yao mercilessly.

Xuan Yao struggled desperately to escape, but just as she tried to get up, Mu You stomped on her head and forced her back down.

“My god…” The condemned prisoners on the sixth floor were utterly dumbfounded.

Others might not know who Xuan Yao was, but they knew all too well. She wasn’t just a dangerous prisoner herself, but also the apple of Hu Lei’s eye—someone even the boss Zun Ye would go out of his way to please. That princess who always looked down on everyone was now being beaten senseless by a mere upstart, unable even to fight back.

Who exactly was this Mu You? In that instant, he had made enemies of all three dangerous prisoners!

No matter how impressive he was, taking down one of them was already remarkable, but if all three went after him, wasn’t he as good as dead?

The crowd grew more and more alarmed as they watched. While they admired Mu You for standing up for his subordinates, they also sighed at his youthful recklessness—sometimes, patience is the wiser path.

Like now, when the situation was clearly one-sided, and yet this kid was still bent on courting death.

The condemned prisoners shook their heads in secret, as if already picturing Mu You being torn limb from limb by Hu Lei and the others.

Impressive, sure, but this was his limit.

Hu Lei was so furious his lips had turned purple. He didn’t know whether to hit He Jing or let him go. Just as he was about to charge forward, Mu You shouted, “Don’t move!”

Hu Lei froze, not daring to take another step. He pointed at Mu You, his arm trembling with anger and pain. “Let her go and we’ll leave right now. I promise never to trouble you again.”

Mu You grabbed Xuan Yao by her hair and hauled her up, deliberately showing her disheveled face to Hu Lei, speaking with cold mockery, “You see? This could have been settled peacefully, but you just had to force me into violence.”

Hu Lei nearly spat blood at those words. It was clearly Mu You who had beaten his daughter half to death, and now he acted as if he were the aggrieved party.

He longed to wring He Jing’s neck in his hands to vent his rage, but he didn’t dare. If he made another rash move, this kid might really go for the kill.

He was sure of it.

Now, Hu Lei only wanted Mu You to let his daughter go, but to his surprise, Mu You suddenly changed his mind. Just as he seemed about to release Xuan Yao, he pulled her back into his arms.

“What are you doing now?!” Hu Lei felt as if an invisible hand was squeezing his chest, the unending agony threatening to drive him mad.

“I just remembered, Li Hao was horribly set up by you before he died. How do I know you won’t do the same to me? You’d better prove your sincerity,” Mu You mused aloud, gazing at the moon as if lost in thought.

“Fine… How?”

Hu Lei was nearing his breaking point, his teeth grinding audibly with every word.

Hearing this, Mu You slowly lowered his head to meet Hu Lei’s gaze and spat out two heavy words: “Kneel. Down.”

The room, packed with over two hundred people, fell instantly silent.

Everyone held their breath. Did this bald kid really just say that? Kneel? Kneel down?

He had to be insane!

Even Zun Ye, who was always grinning, dropped his smile and threatened Mu You coldly. “Are you looking for death, kid?”

“Haha, am I?” Mu You laughed, then made as if to gouge out Xuan Yao’s eyes.

“No! Fine, fine, I’ll kneel!” Hu Lei shouted, stopping Mu You at once.

“Kneel to the condemned prisoners on the thirteenth floor behind you—not to me!” Mu You snapped.

“Alright, alright!”

Hu Lei repeated himself, slowly turning around to face the prisoners on the thirteenth floor, all watching with anxious, excited eyes. A moment ago, they’d been resigned to death at his hands. Now he was to kneel to them!

He took a deep breath, and with his subordinates staring in astonishment, Hu Lei swallowed his immense humiliation for his daughter’s sake and knelt.

Just as Hu Lei was about to drop to his knees, Xuan Yao, barely clinging to consciousness, opened her eyes and summoned her last ounce of strength to cry out, “Dad, don’t kneel!”

Mu You immediately felt something warm drip onto his wrist—Xuan Yao’s tears.

Hu Lei’s body trembled, his back to Xuan Yao, but then he resolutely fell to his knees.

“You’re my daughter. For a father to kneel for his daughter—what’s there to be ashamed of, silly girl? And look at that—you finally called me ‘dad’ instead of ‘father.’”

He spoke gently with a smile, the sound of his knees striking the ground echoing in all directions.

Seeing this, Mu You’s playful smile faded completely. His eyes narrowed, their depths growing ever more profound, until they seemed bottomless.

Since entering the Condemned Prisoners’ Playground, this was the first time Mu You treated someone with such seriousness.

This man—he was a real man.

The moment Hu Lei knelt, Mu You immediately released Xuan Yao.

Though freed, Xuan Yao remained frozen in her previous posture, her eyes filled with disbelief.

This man who claimed to be her father had done all this for her.

“Dad… Dad, dad… dad…” Xuan Yao murmured, suddenly clutching her head in pain, forcing herself to piece together broken fragments of memory. She looked at Hu Lei’s solitary figure, and for the first time, her icy expression softened with a trace of longing. “I remember now. You really are my dad.”

Tears streamed down her face like strings of pearls, falling one by one from her delicate cheeks.

“You actually forced my dad to kneel…”

Her hands shot up, her hair instantly turning blood-red and shining with a ruthless, bloodthirsty gleam, whipping wildly in an invisible wind.

“I’ll kill you!”

Xuan Yao’s eyes snapped wide open, both irises now crimson, her eyelids studded above and below with flecks of burning gold, dazzling and fierce.

“Big brother, get out of the way! She’s lost it—she’s burning all her strength to unleash her powers!” Tong Yan warned urgently.

“Night’s Desire—Ecstasy!”

“No!” Hu Lei spun around, his eyes wide with terror, screaming.

The red-gold flecks on Xuan Yao’s eyelids shattered, dissolving into bloody golden mist that exploded outward from her, with Mu You at the center of it all.

At that moment, every male present felt an involuntary reaction, hastily covering themselves in embarrassment even as their eyes remained locked on the center of the battleground.

Zun Ye’s ecstatic moans mingled with Hu Lei’s anguished cries, soon drowned out by the cold, mechanical countdown of the system.

“Dangerous prisoner Xuan Yao. ‘Final Punishment’ has detected your use of supernatural abilities. Death sentence to be executed. Countdown: ten, nine, eight, seven, six…”

“No… no, no, no, please don’t!” Hu Lei frantically grabbed the climaxing Zun Ye, slapping him hard in a desperate attempt to wake him. “Do you have any spare candy? Please, I’ll pay you two hundred thousand points—no, three hundred thousand! Anyone here, if you have any spare, please help me save my daughter!”

But reality is often cruel. A hundred thousand points is a fortune even for dangerous prisoners, let alone the ordinary ones.

“Three, two, one. Death sentence executed!”

The icy countdown stopped.

“It’s over…” Hu Lei’s face filled with despair as he slumped to the ground.

But just then, at the heart of the blood mist, a shadow flashed. Mu You lunged and grabbed the injection port of Xuan Yao’s “Final Punishment” device.