If this had been a few years earlier, back when the tastes of the Upper City nobles were still relatively mild, the protagonists in those super films could just barely find some way to survive.

But now... for those protagonists, forget about a way out, even a quick, clean death is a luxury.

All you can say is, those gangs really do have a lot of "games." When it comes to tormenting their own kind, they're even more skilled than the creatures of the Death Domain.

The show they arranged for Shen Ye's family was a competition against another family of three, where both sides had to dig out their own internal organs to fight for points. Whoever had the higher score would be allowed to walk out of the basement alive.

The rules were very simple, but so brutal they made your scalp go numb.

Humans are selfish. The vast majority want to live. So in shows like this in the past, the one who survived among a family of three was usually the strong "father." After all, the father had the strength to pin down the mother and child, cut them open, and take their organs to rack up points.

Shen Ye's opponents did exactly that... That man, a drunk and gambling addict, after hearing the rules, didn't hesitate at all. He drew his knife, stabbed open the bellies of his wife and child, and then pulled out their organs.

This was the first time Shen Ye had ever been so close to such a bloody scene. He was terrified... and he also thought his own father would do the same thing to him and his mother.

After all, in his impression, his father had always been a stern man who never joked with him, never showed the slightest hint of "affection."

So back then, he had already prepared himself to die and closed his eyes.

But when the sound of a blade piercing flesh rang out, the pain he'd expected never came.

Shen Ye opened his eyes in a daze, and what he saw was a scene he would never forget for the rest of his life.

His father and mother, as if they shared some silent agreement, raised their knives at the same time and stabbed themselves.

In the end, they chose to die themselves and... trade their lives for Shen Ye's.

Fathers in the Eastern Hemisphere have never known how to express their love. They only know how to keep their heads down and work for money, to give their children the best material life they can manage.

Their love isn't absent, it's just as heavy as a mountain. Until they're old, you can hardly feel it at all.

A mother's love, on the other hand, is as gentle as water. She will always go out of her way to make up for the tenderness the father cannot give.

But no matter what, they both loved Shen Ye.

So in the end, when the other man was full of confidence, certain he would be the one to survive this show, the gang members cheerfully announced that the winner... was Shen Ye.

And so the fourteen-year-old Shen Ye survived, while his opponent, in a daze and in despair, was subjected to an even more cruel execution.

Shen Ye was simply let go like that. The gang even "thoughtfully" prepared some money for him, calling it his "appearance fee" for the super film.

By then, Shen Ye had completely lost any normal emotion. His head was empty, and there was only one feeling left in his heart.

Revulsion.

A nausea so strong it made his stomach churn.

He couldn't understand how a human being could be this vile, how someone could torture their own kind like this for profit.

He understood even less how those lords of the Upper City could be so cold-blooded, treating human lives as weeds and disposable goods, just for a momentary thrill.

Shen Ye had no way to make sense of it. It utterly shattered the worldview he'd held up to then.

He wandered the streets in a daze. The so-called "appearance fee" in his pocket was quickly taken by pickpockets and robbers.

All he could think at the time was that the world shouldn't be like this, and people shouldn't have to live in such a twisted way.

Shen Ye remembered what his parents had taught him. That couple who had followed the rules their whole lives had told him countless times that if his rights were ever violated, he should go to the officers stationed in the district.

At that moment, Shen Ye thought about it and realized he really had no other options. So he dragged his heavy body to the Z District police headquarters.

But after he finished sobbing out what had happened to him, the police impatiently told him to go home and wait for a notice. When they had time, they might help him deal with it.

And when that officer turned around, Shen Ye clearly saw him immediately change his face, fawning all over a gang member and then taking a few bills from the man's hand.

At that moment, Shen Ye finally understood.

Why the gang members were never afraid of police investigations; why so many people filed reports, yet almost none of them ever got a good outcome.

The reason was simple— even the police, who were supposed to represent justice and order, had been corrupted into the gangs' white gloves here in Z District.

They also took part in producing the super films. They just didn't handle the filming itself; they were responsible for covering up the atrocities and opening up channels to sell them upward.

In Z District, aside from the civilians who knew nothing, there wasn't a single innocent person.

This place was rotten to the core.

Seeing this memory, Yun You couldn't help letting out a soft sigh and shook her head with a hint of emotion.

No wonder Shen Ye said he and her were alike. The things the two of them went through in childhood were almost identical.

Back when the citywide massacre happened, Yun You had also tried to seek help from the police. But before she could even step inside the station, she saw dozens of officers bowing and scraping to the black-robed Death God. Their obsequious faces were exactly the same as the officer Shen Ye had seen.