Chapter Fifteen: Transformation into a Demon

At eleven o’clock at night, Su Tong finished his broadcast without extending it. Tonight, he had only sung three songs—two renditions of “Brother Sleeping on My Top Bunk,” and one of “Childhood.”

Xiao Yu was so sleepy she could barely keep her eyes open, her eyelids drooping in exhaustion. Su Tong escorted her back to her room.

As soon as he returned, he saw his phone buzzing with messages.

He opened them and saw they were from two administrators, “Martian Pioneer” and “Dillon.”

“Brother, two people messaged me privately asking for your phone number. Both said they’re from the Showroom. Should I give it to them?”

“Brother, someone DMed me asking for your number. Apparently, they’re from another Showroom, seems like they want to poach you. Should I give it to them?”

Both were informing Su Tong about the private messages.

Before Su Tong could reply, another administrator, “Winter Trip to Mount Huang,” contacted him—not by text, but by a direct phone call.

The senior admins all had his number, but usually didn’t contact him directly.

“Annyeonghaseyo!” A cheerful female voice greeted him. Despite the late hour, “Winter Trip to Mount Huang” seemed full of energy. As soon as Su Tong answered, she rattled off a string of compliments before getting to the point: “Brother, someone messaged me asking for your contact info, and even left their own number. Said they’re a talent agent from another Showroom. Hee hee, looks like someone’s got their eye on you!”

Su Tong paused, realizing these people must be desperate—they’d probably messaged every admin.

Desperation was a good sign; Su Tong’s fighting spirit soared.

At last, someone wanted to poach him. He could almost burst out laughing.

At Kuku, he’d felt stifled—a whole year, and only one written promotion, with his handler barely paying attention to him.

Still, leaving by his own volition and being courted by another platform were entirely different experiences.

What comes to you without effort is never as cherished as what you’ve fought hard to obtain.

He chatted with “Winter Trip to Mount Huang” for a while before hanging up. Logging into his personal center on the Kuku streaming platform, he checked his private messages and discovered several unusual ones.

He rarely checked his DMs—most were from overzealous fans or bored troublemakers, and he couldn’t be bothered.

“I got it. I’ve already given them my contact info. Let’s see if they reach out. Haha.” Su Tong was quite pleased. To those who didn’t know him, he might appear arrogant and unruly, but in truth, he was brimming with ambition.

With the Heavenly King System, Su Tong didn’t worry about being overlooked—it was only a matter of time.

Tomorrow, the system would issue a new task. According to the Little Devil’s predictions, it would likely be something like “gain a certain amount of faith within a set time.” Failure wouldn’t mean annihilation, but there’d certainly be punishment.

Just thinking about the punishments—testicular pain, hemorrhoids, and the like—made Su Tong’s skin crawl. They were simply inhumane.

In the middle of the night, Su Tong was jolted awake by the sound of crying. He froze, then his expression darkened.

Climbing out of bed, he opened his door to see Xiao Yu and Xiao Xiao in the empty living room, huddled together and sobbing. A middle-aged man with a sallow brow and drunken, beady eyes rambled incoherently.

“You two, orphans with no parents, out of the goodness of my heart I took you in. You eat my food, wear my clothes, and I work myself to the bone to send you to school. Do you know that? The Great Qin royal family—what are they? Dominated two thousand years ago, so what? Gone in a few short decades. Then came the Three Kingdoms, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing—none of it matters! If the world hadn’t entered the Imperial Era and needed a royal family for show, they’d still be toiling in the dirt like fools. I used to be somebody too, got rich by my own skill…” The middle-aged man with the beady, drunken eyes was none other than Su’s father, once again drunk.

He had once been a handsome, charismatic man, but with drink, his eyes shrank to beads and his face and lips turned a ghastly, ashen hue.

“Brat, you sleep like a log. You see your old man come home and don’t even get me a glass of water. I raised you for nothing. Get over here!” Seeing Su Tong emerge, Su’s father flung the glass of water Xiao Yu had poured for him at the two crying girls, drenching them, then tossed the cup onto the table.

It rolled across the table, clattered to the floor, and shattered into pieces.

Xiao Yu and Xiao Xiao cried even harder, their bodies trembling.

Su Tong’s face was thunderous. In his memories, whenever his father drank, he transformed into a villain straight out of a story, spewing mockery everywhere.

The original Su Tong had been beaten countless times by his drunken father—not because he didn’t dare resist, but because he couldn’t; he simply wasn’t strong enough.

Su’s father was a strange one—the more he drank, the stronger he seemed to get.

Su Tong had tried to fight back, but ended up beaten half to death, coughing blood.

His mother had suffered the same abuse, even being hospitalized. Once, she’d barely returned from the hospital for two days before his father, drunk again, sent her right back.

Su Tong felt his mother was right to leave. Otherwise, who knew when she’d be beaten to death.

So, when his mother left for good, he never blamed her.

“Xiao Yu, Xiao Xiao, come here.” Su Tong, arms crossed, called to the crying girls.

The two had been startled awake by their father kicking in their door in the middle of the night. Xiao Yu, upset, obediently poured water for her father and sat by as he cursed them out.

Usually, this would have passed, but Su’s father would also shout and smash things, terrifying the two young sisters into tears.

At least when drunk, he still had a shred of restraint—he’d only splash water at them, never actually hit them.

“Well, aren’t you bold now.” His drunken eyes glazed, Su’s father sneered. “Think I won’t punish you? I could cut you off completely, see how you keep going to school.”

Su Tong couldn’t be bothered with his father’s madness. He comforted the still-weeping Xiao Yu and Xiao Xiao, “It’s nothing. You cry every time—no need. Let him do as he pleases; just ignore him.”

Su’s father stood up, kicking aside the shards of the broken cup as he strode toward Su Tong. “Brat, you’re still in school, living in a house I built, eating rice I paid for. What are you so cocky about?”

“Ah—”

Xiao Xiao let out a cry and burst into even louder sobs. A shard from the broken cup had been kicked by their father and sliced her calf.

Though it was only a small cut, bleeding a bit, a child’s pain tolerance is nothing like an adult’s. Startled and hurt, she wailed in agony.

Xiao Yu, frightened again, started crying even harder.

“Get the bandages—they’re in the second drawer of my desk. Hurry!” Su Tong ordered Xiao Yu, pressing a finger to Xiao Xiao’s wound as he cradled her.

Xiao Yu ran to fetch the bandages in a panic.

“So noisy! If you keep crying, I’ll throw you out on the back hill!” Their father’s drunken grin vanished, replaced by a cold glare.

“Get out!” Su Tong’s face was livid. How could someone be like this?

His father sneered. “Brat, you dare talk back to me? Haven’t you learned your lesson?” He swung a kick at Su Tong.

Su Tong’s expression shifted; he clutched Xiao Xiao tightly, but the kick landed hard, sending them both sprawling.

Xiao Xiao screamed, crying hysterically. Xiao Yu, just returning with the bandages, saw this and ran over, wailing as she clung to their father’s leg, “Please, Daddy, don’t hit him anymore!”

Su Tong put Xiao Xiao down. “Xiao Yu, take care of Xiao Xiao’s wound.” He stood up and turned to face his father.

His father tried to kick Xiao Yu away, but seeing Su Tong approaching, changed tactics and aimed a slap at him.

But Su Tong was no longer the same—he caught his father’s arm with one hand.

“Go help Xiao Xiao,” Su Tong ordered Xiao Yu, who was still clinging to their father’s leg. Then, dragging his father, he hauled him toward the door.

His father struggled. “So, you’ve grown some balls, have you?” He tried to swing again.

With a violent tug, Su Tong yanked his father to the ground.

Then, without hesitation, he grabbed his father’s arm and dragged him out the door.

In the yard, there was a large washbasin for laundry, still filled with water. Gritting his teeth, heart full of rage and sorrow, Su Tong seized his father’s head and shoved it into the basin.

Xiao Yu and Xiao Xiao, terrified by Su Tong’s actions, forgot all about tending the wound and came running out. Seeing Su Tong forcefully holding their father’s head under water, they began wailing even louder as their father thrashed desperately.

Suddenly, Su Tong let go and looked up at the sky, tears streaming down his face. “Why does it have to be this way?”