That night, in the Lin'an district of Hangzhou, the rain fell as if the sky wanted to erase everything wash away sins, pain, and betrayals buried beneath the earth for far too long.The cemetery was drowned in torrents of water, each drop hammering the tombstones, bouncing off the slabs, mingling with the distant rumble of thunder and the lightning that slashed the horizon in fleeting, violent flashes. One could swear that even the heavens were crying or screaming with a fury as old as the world itself a silent rage directed at injustice, at the inevitable.Among the drenched gravestones, their engravings half-erased by time, and the shadows twisted by the blinding flashes of lightning, a man stood alone, still, upright like a mourning statue.He was dressed in black from head to toe his shoes, his coat, his upturned collar barely shielding his soaked neck. His hair dripped under the relentless rain, sticking in cold strands to his forehead, but he didn't flinch, unmoving, immune to the cold and the storm.In his left hand, a half-empty bottle of soju, the icy glass dripping against his clenched fingers. In his right hand, he held a human head, still fresh, its pale skin glistening with moisture, its eyes wide open, frozen in a silent expression of horror, as if etched for eternity.This man was named Mó Wúqióng.But in the underground circles where justice is just an empty word and laws are chains easily broken, he bore a name laced with dread: The Sleeping Reaper.They had given him that name because, despite the swiftness and precision of his kills, he always appeared calm, almost distant as if his mind were elsewhere, lost in a dark dream at the very moment death struck.His victims, when they had the strength to speak, murmured the same thing, hypnotized by his coldness:"I didn't see him coming. He killed me like in a dream."A morbid dream, where death glides in silence, inevitable, impossible to resist.That name, to Mó Wúqióng, was not a source of pride. It was a burden. A mark of how far he had drifted from the world, from his own humanity, slowly fading away.Now he was staring at a grave, right in front of him.Raindrops crashed against the smooth, cold stone, against his skin, against his drowned memories but he didn't move an inch.He seemed empty.More than sad. More than broken.He was disconnected from the world, as if floating above it, suspended by a fragile thread still tying him to life a thread stretching all the way to that stone where everything that mattered to him now rested.Then, with ceremonial slowness, he knelt.Without a word, he placed the fresh head against the stone, with chilling gentleness, almost reverently like a final gesture of betrayed love.He raised the bottle to his lips and drank a long gulp cold, bitter, scraping his throat. Another. Then finally, he spoke, his voice hoarse, cracked, heavy with contained pain, as if each word tore a piece from his already wounded soul.
"Forgive me…"A breath, a pause, as if searching for words, aware that nothing would be enough."What I did… surely isn't what you would have wanted."He lowered his head, clutching the bottle like an anchor."But I couldn't do otherwise."His voice grew quieter, almost a whisper, a painful confession:"You left… and I stayed behind."A murmur, almost a breath."I told you."Regret burned in his eyes."You didn't listen to me."Silence took over, heavy, as if even the wind was holding its breath.It was neither hatred… nor revenge."He slowly raised his head, his dark eyes plunging into those of the dead."It was karma."An implacable truth, cold like the stone beneath his hands.I did what you refused to face.A bitter admission.What cost you your life.
Beneath the stone, the engraved names glowed faintly, barely readable under the rain: his father, Mó Zhì, a righteous man, proud, blinded by honor to the point of not seeing the evil growing under his roof.His mother, Ruò Bāng, gentle and resigned, keeper of silences and silent wounds.His brother, Mó Jīng Lì, ambitious and protective, who would have given his life for them all.And his sister, Mó Zhīlì, strong but eaten away by a fragile hope that was never enough.
And the head he had just laid there, at the foot of the stone, belonged to Kuáng Pàn, Zhīlì's son.His nephew. His nightmare. Kuáng Pàn.
Ten years earlier, he was a boy like any other, bright, helpful, smiling. The kind of child one believes immortal, one imagines tracing a clear and straight path to a shining future.Teachers praised him, neighbors liked him. But behind this perfect mask, something dark was growing.
One day, without warning, Kuáng Pàn disappeared. He was found three weeks later, emaciated, dazed, his eyes lost in a bottomless void.He claimed to have wandered, to have forgotten everything, but the truth was elsewhere.
In his room, Zhīlì discovered entire notebooks filled with dark thoughts, bloody drawings, precise accounts of murders and imaginary tortures.He did not write to heal. He wrote to plan. He had meticulously detailed how to annihilate his own family, how to kill slowly, leaving no trace, without remorse.Then he wanted to go further. Kill others. At random.
Kuáng Pàn was no longer a child. A cold monster, without fear, without pity, without emotion.Doctors spoke of dissociative disorder, psychological shock. They called it a disease. They said he needed to be loved, understood, treated.I told them they were wrong. That the danger was real. That he had to be kept away.But they accused me. Of lacking heart. Of rejecting a lost child.
So, I was silent. I let them do as they pleased. But I stayed away.Because a monster who writes his crimes before committing them… is already a murderer.
Three years passed.Life slowly resumed.We laughed at the table, celebrated birthdays, believed in miracles.We clung to hope, fragile and naive.
Then, one evening, everything collapsed.Kuáng Pàn killed his stepfather with a rusty screwdriver, slowly, methodically.Metal screeched on skin, flesh tore under pressure.Blood flowed, black and thick, while screams filled the house.He tied up his mother, prisoner of her own bonds, her screams echoing through the night.His little brother, drugged, was nothing but a hungry beast, a monster unable to control his actions.Kuáng Pàn forced him to devour his own mother, piece by piece, in a spectacle of unspeakable horror.Then he killed the brother. And the others. All of them.He left behind only blood, an indelible mark of madness and desolation.And a freezing silence, heavy with death.
I was abroad that night.When I received the call, I knew I hadn't dreamed the horror.I had anticipated it, felt it coming deep inside me.And yet, I had done nothing.
He was arrested. Institutionalized. But soon released.Released.Because a psychiatrist said he was not responsible.That he had acted in a moment of madness.
And that's when I understood.This world… did not punish monsters.It excused them.
So I disappeared.For two years, I died to the world. No address. No contacts. No face.I went to the mountains of Guizhou, where even the gods seem to forget themselves.I found there an old monk, a former Langya unit soldier who had renounced killing.I begged him to teach me.He refused.
So I stayed.Silent. Motionless. Without eating.For three days.On the fourth, he handed me a stick.He said, simply:"First learn to endure. The rest will come."
I learned.To breathe. To listen.To strike.To break silently.To kill without hatred.
I immersed myself in human anatomy, deciphered criminal psychology, studied every expression, every blind spot.I became the void.A tool.A blade without a sheath.
I trained until I lost my nails.Until I bled from my knees from meditating under icy waterfalls.I became a shadow.
Then one day, I came back down.But I was no longer the same.
For five years, I became a hitman.Not an ordinary assassin.I chose my targets carefully.Rapists, traffickers, corrupt judges.Monsters disguised as men.I did what justice refused to do.What families could not dare.I was karma's arm.
My reputation grew.People whispered in the slums and plush salons:The Sleeping Reaper comes for you.
My name was feared, even in the shadows. I appeared at night, without noise, without trace.Those I targeted… never got away.
But despite this reputation, despite this controlled violence, there remained a shadow to hunt.Kuáng Pàn.
I tracked him. Slowly. Precisely.I found his trace in Nanning, Guangxi.He had changed his name. His face.He lived in a shabby building, worked in a cybercafé.He laughed with customers. He breathed.He lived. I observed him for weeks.I wanted to understand. To know if he ever felt the slightest regret.But he regretted nothing. At night, he still wrote. Stories of massacres. Tales of chaos. He signed his texts "The True Me."
One evening, rummaging through his apartment searching for evidence, I found what he had hidden.An old USB key, hidden under a floorboard. I plugged it in. Videos played. He had filmed everything. Every scream. Every torment. Every face twisted by terror.His crimes frozen in time. I watched, heart tight. His icy laughter echoed in my ears. Kuáng Pàn lived on the fear he sowed. I wanted him to feel that fear, that despair.
So, the day of our meeting, I handed him a photo of his chained mother. I described her screams. The torn flesh. The look of his little brother, forced into horror. Then, I showed him the video.
His acts, immutable. His own reflection in the terror he had sown. His hands began to tremble. His smile collapsed. In his eyes, I saw despair settle, slow and implacable.He understood. Finally. I left him no escape.No forgiveness. No salvation.
With a precise, cold, calculated movement, I slit his throat. Under the left mandibular angle. Quick. Clean. He fell without a cry, without a breath.I cut off his head. And I brought it here.
Now, I am here. In the rain. In front of the grave of those I lost. With the head of the one who destroyed them. I feel nothing.No joy. No sorrow. No relief. Only an immense emptiness.
Because all that kept me alive, all that pushed me to continue, was this. This mission. This end. And now… it's over.
I look up at the sky. It still cries.Maybe for them. Maybe for me.I have no more tears. No more hatred. Nothing left.
I am free.But being free… might be dying another way.