XG 124 - A test to see if you are useful

In these new memories, she experienced his first experience of being bullied, which he had retaliated but he was punished by his own parents when the young master's parents complained. After knowing the hardship of his parents, he tried to be empathic by ignoring the bully, reminding himself that his parents also needed to feed their grandparents.

Every time he was beaten by the young master, he would always think that he had the strength to defy, yet the burden of the ugly reality made him weak, killing off his aggression. He could only submissively take the beating and humiliation, just so his parents could protect their jobs that feed their family.

But after his grandparents passed away, he thought maybe his parents would resign and find another job. Then he would finally be free of the bullying. But his father told him to suffer for one more year, as he was too afraid to suffer the hardship of doing lower salary jobs again.

As a son, he remembered their kindness, their love and their worry. He thought he could do many things for his parents, but the pain, humiliation and suffering he experienced easily unbalanced the scale in his heart.

How could he not hate his parents, even for a little bit?

Since then, he grew to have the obsession to have others feel what he felt too, to be suppressed by their own fear. That led to his ability to take shape according to what he desired strongly.

Believing she had seen enough before she witnessed more murder, she forced her conscious to get out only by thought alone, which she successfully did.

She increased her strength around Woojin's throat to grab his attention and dropped another insult while laughing mockingly. "Your parents choose to sacrifice your body to secure the entire family's daily expenses. Don't you ever feel proud of yourself for helping your parents work?"

"You... how did you do it!" The rattled Woojin stared at Wong Xue Guo as if seeing a monster.

The sharp throb of pain in her head cut off her sarcastic laugh and she pushed him until his back hit the floor. "Then what about Teacher Jang? Don't you hate him? A useless teacher that acts concerned about you, but actually never did anything to help you."

Woojin coughed and his pupils shook. His words came out brokenly, "Teacher Jang-"

He hated his own parents, his grandparents, the young master and his heartless parents, but never Teacher Jang.

Teacher Jang was the only one that cared about him and even got himself beaten up to rescue him from that trash. He even went to report to the police, but Woojin's parents intervened and scolded Teacher Jang for minding their family's private business. Teacher Jang tried to get the principal to help out, but the latter had received money from the young master to look away from this case.

What Teacher Jang had done was much more than what his parents had done for him!

"Don't... hurt him..." Woojin's backlash of his ability grew stronger and crumbled his tough front until he lowered himself to beg.

Unable to withstand more of this dizziness from being swarmed by Woojin's emotions, Wong Xue Guo let go and stepped away from him. A set of drums was already playing in her head and she had to spend some effort to stand upright properly.

Grabbing onto her upper arm, Kang Xunsu helped her to stand upright and his face was as dark as a rain cloud. "Are you bloody out of your mind? If you want to torture him, you can do it without touching him."

"I need to touch him..." Wong Xue Guo's words were slurred like a drunk person. She does not know if she would feel this way when drunk, but it should definitely not include headaches.

The reason why Wong Xue Guo would be this crazy, to fight hands on with Woojin and expose herself to his ability, was all for a single bet. She would risk her sanity to bet that his ability would help awaken her genes.

From her health report, she was actually shocked to find that the gene section showed its activation. The researchers could not find anything other than believing she was naturally activating her gene and would take its own time to activate the rest of the gene.

There were people with mild activation rates from experiencing traumatic experiences, so it was not a surprise she would be the same.

But she does not think so.

The first health report showed her gene had activated fifteen percent. The second report showed her gene had activated another six percent. The only similarity between both events was her exposure to people's abilities.

Vihaan's ability was too dangerous to be used on her. There was no way she would allow unpredictable Yuna to toss her into her storage. Grandpa Song's ability only worked on himself, and she definitely was not going to have Do Eunhyuk shoot her. Unfortunately, Miu's ability only works on objects and not living beings.

I guess reading other people's futures and history is too much of a cheat.

This was a risky experiment, and she would need to be quite cruel to Woojin, but unless some sort of cooperation formed between them, there was no way Woojin would use his ability on her without him thinking it was a trap for him.

If this experiment was a success, Woojin would have a good reason to stay in their base in exchange for giving Teacher Jang a safe place to stay.

As for not telling Kang Xunsu the truth?

She did this after accepting she would get an hour of scolding after this because she knew he would not let her do it if he knew the truth. He might even rope in other people to do it in her stead.

Not feeling embarrassed, Wong Xue Guo hugged Kang Xunsu's arm to hold herself up, since he was relatively stable while holding both of them upright. She waited until the world no longer shook as bad before looking at Woojin's unmoving body. He would have resembled a dead corpse if not for his moving chest.

There was a small guilt sprout in her heart when she saw his blank, traumatised gaze and the redness around his neck. She was careful not to use her full strength, as she only intended to scare him. But as his ability grew stronger and messed with her mind, she could not control herself not to increase the strength of her grip.

Thus, she opened her mouth to say, "Not killing your parents is enough as their dutiful son. Killing that 'young master' is just protecting the survivors from a lawless pervert. I thank you on behalf of the innocent people that do not get the chance to be that young master's target."

It would be better for him not to go crazy when he might be useful.

Woojin's backlash had stopped not long after Wong Xue Guo released him, but he still needed time to adjust his state. He finally moved his blank gaze to her direction and stared up at her with his face wet with tears. "You have an ability too."

He sounded so sure of himself that Wong Xue Guo was almost convinced by his absurd statement for a second. "I'm a normal person. Can't you see my black hair?"

"What? That's not-" Woojin's pupil shook and he cut off his own sentence.

"Did you dye your hair only to avoid people mistaking you as a zombie?"

Woojin took a deep, ragged breath. His fists clenched tightly, rattling his handcuffs that were slightly out of shape. "You want me to use my ability. Why did you do that?"

If she wanted revenge, there was a better way to do it than getting herself hurt as well.

"A test to see if you are useful. If you are, we will make sure you and Teacher Jang are able to stay here safely."

Woojin slowly sat up. "What are you saying?"

"Confidential." With a pat on Kang Xunsu's arm, they made their way to the door, with her still needing his help to walk without embarrassing herself. By the time they reached the door, she could already stand properly.

"Bullshit confidential-"

"We will meet again," Wong Xue Guo cut off Woojin's words as Kang Xunsu knocked on the door to tell the guard to open up.

"Wait! Did you work with Duljjae?" Woojin yelled, effectively stopping them.

Can't wait to read what happens next? You can find out from my early release chapters on Patreon!

www.patreon.com/chocolily