After a heated, intense argument that left the entire hallway heavy with tension, my grandfather finally took me with them.
My father could only watch silently as we departed, unable to override my grandfather’s absolute authority.
During the journey, my grandmother held me tightly in her lap, wrapping her arms around me to keep me safe and warm.
As I rested against her, a subtle, captivating fragrance drifted from her, soothing my senses and filling my nose with every gentle breath.
It was a unique, comforting scent—like rare midnight flowers mixed with a hint of herbal essence.
Sitting in her gentle embrace, surrounded by the mysterious aura of my terrifyingly powerful grandparents, I stared out the window as the main estate faded into the distance.
“Are you sitting comfortably, my sweet boy?”
My grandmother’s soft, soothing voice broke the quiet inside the car.
She looked down at me with gentle, loving eyes, wrapping her arms loosely around my tiny frame to make sure I was completely secure in her lap.
I didn’t say a word, still processing everything that was happening around me, and simply nodded my small head up and down in silence.
Sitting in her gentle embrace, surrounded by the mysterious aura of my terrifyingly powerful grandparents, I stared out the window as the main estate faded into the distance.
‘Where are they taking me?’ I thought to myself, feeling the dark, hungry power deep within my soul twitching in anticipation.
My grandfather led me deep into a secure, heavy-set building until we reached a stark, isolated room.
The chamber was split directly down the middle by a thick sheet of reinforced glass.
On the other side, a man was violently bound to a steel chair, a gag stuffed tightly into his mouth so he couldn’t utter a sound.
Sharp, gleaming blades hung suspended directly above his head and torso, held back only by a mechanical trigger.
My grandfather stood behind me, his heavy hand resting on my shoulder.
He pointed to a small console right in front of us.
“Look closely, my boy,” my grandfather’s deep voice echoed in the quiet room.
“You see these two buttons before you?
One red, one green.
Now, the choice belongs to you.”
He leaned down slightly, his sharp eyes locking onto mine.
“If you press the red button, the man on the other side of that glass dies instantly.
If you press the green button, he walks away alive.
But let me make one thing crystal clear to you right now—that man is a vicious enemy of the Shen Clan.
He has plotted and tried to destroy our family.”
A heavy silence settled in the room as my grandfather’s hand tightened on my shoulder.
“So tell me, Shen Hao…
what is your choice?”
I looked down at the bright, glowing buttons, and then stared through the glass at the trembling man.
Are you freaking kidding me?!’ I screamed internally, staring at the glowing buttons in front of me.
‘I’m literally only five years old right now!
What kind of crazy, serial-killer family did I reincarnate into?!’
Behind me, I could hear my grandmother’s anxious voice breaking the heavy silence.
“Dear…
I really think we made a mistake bringing him here today.
It’s far too early for this…”My grandfather slowly shook his head, his face solemn and unyielding.
“No, it isn’t,” he replied in a stern, heavy tone.
“Every single child of our family’s core bloodline must face this choice the moment they turn five years old.
Have you forgotten how it was in my day?
It was ten times more brutal back then—I had to take a life with my own bare hands!”
He stepped forward, his cold gaze shifting back toward the glass panel.
“This is the trial of our bloodline.
It determines whether our new generation has what it takes to protect the Shen Clan, no matter the cost.
Only by passing can one prove their worthiness to claim the family inheritance.
This is merely the first test at age five…
the second, far more ruthless test awaits him when he turns ten.”
I stood there, sweat dripping down my neck, looking back and forth between my terrifyingly calm grandfather and the trembling man behind the glass.
Suddenly Instead of fear or hesitation, a terrifyingly familiar sensation began to pulse deep within my veins.
For the past four years, I had been squashing insects, drinking in their fading lives, and feeling an indescribable thrill every single time their memories flooded my mind.
And now, looking at the bound man behind the glass, that exact same dark addiction flared up—a hundred times stronger.
To me, he was no different from an ant trapped under my boot.
His frantic, shallow breathing, his desperate, muffled struggles—it didn’t disgust me.
It thrilled me.
My heart raced as the hunger deep inside my soul screamed to devour his life.
I quickly forced my face into a calm, emotionless mask, burying the dark excitement beneath a quiet exterior.
‘Besides,’ I reasoned with myself, my five-year-old mind calculating cold logistics, ‘he’s already an enemy of my clan.
If I kill him, I pass the test.
Grandfather just said this trial leads to the family inheritance.
If power and mysterious secrets exist in this world, I need to get my hands on them immediately.
Who knows what kind of lethal dangers are waiting for me in the future?’
I took a slow breath, locking eyes with the terrified prisoner behind the glass.
My trembling hand reached out and slammed down onto the red button.
CLACK!
The mechanical locks instantly disengaged.
With a sickening, metallic screech, the razor-sharp blades suspended above released, plunging downward into the glass chamber.
The screams of the bound man were cut short as his body was brutally torn apart right before my eyes.
It was the most graphic, blood-soaked carnage I had ever witnessed in both of my lives.
THUD.
The very second his life vanished, my vision went pitch-black, and my physical body collapsed onto the cold floor.
But I didn’t care about my unconscious body outside, nor did I worry about how my terrified grandmother would react.
Floating silently right in front of me was a new black orb—larger, darker, and radiating a far more potent energy than any insect’s soul I had ever collected.
Suddenly A sickening wave of disgust welled up inside my chest, twisting my heart like heavy iron chains.
‘What the hell am I turning into…?’
My heart hammered against my ribs with pure, unadulterated thrill.
I stepped forward, extending my shaky fingers toward the dark orb.
‘An insect’s memories were already mind-blowing…
but a human’s?
A powerful enemy entire life experience, memories, and techniques?’
The second my skin made contact, the orb burst into a cloud of violent black smoke, rushing directly into my soul.
I relived his entire existence from the very beginning.
I saw the day he was born in a cold, dirt-poor alleyway…
his ruthless rise through the criminal underworld to become a notorious gangster…
and every blood-soaked contract he took on his way to the top.
Finally, the deepest, most critical memories surfaced—his bitter vendetta against the Shen Clan, the secret faction that hired him, and the hidden routes he used to infiltrate our family’s perimeter.
Every technique he had mastered, every brutal fight he had survived, and every secret he possessed was now violently etched into my own brain.
After absorbing every single memory from that dead gangster, my eyes finally fluttered open a full day later.
I found myself resting back in my familiar family bed.
My mother was sitting by my side, silently crying into her hands.
Right across the room, my father was in a heated confrontation with my grandfather, screaming at him for taking me to that brutal chamber.
“He is only five years old!” my father snapped, his voice shaking with pure fury.
“How could you force him into something like that?!”
My grandfather remained completely unbothered, attempting to calm my father down with an unyielding glare.
“Calm down,” my grandfather replied coldly.
“He passed our inheritance trial.
He is no longer just a naive child…
he has officially stepped onto the path of becoming the true successor of the Shen Clan.”
The moment my mother noticed me opening my eyes, she burst into tears and pulled me tightly into a protective hug.
But deep inside my head, every stolen memory, dark secret, and martial technique of the man I just executed was flashing like a permanent blueprint.
Aside from the flood of memories, I suddenly felt a strange, surges of power coursing through my body—an energy I had never experienced before.
It felt as if my physical body had become exponentially stronger than it was just a day ago.
‘It didn’t just give me his mind…’ I realized, a dark, hidden thrill running down my spine.
‘I absorbed some of his physical strength too.’
‘What am I becoming…?’
Even though my mental age is that of an 18-year-old boy I was only five years old right now, yet I had just ended a human life without blinking.
I felt my mother’s warm, pure love, but deep down, I felt filthy.
If she knew the dark joy I felt as that man’s life faded away, would she look at me with horror?
Would she realize that her sweet little boy was turning into a monster?