After the thumping drum sounds came from the tree hole, the humming sound of a flute followed. Based on the tone, it seemed that the new flute had been picked up too.

  Mu Jingzhe smiled and squatted down with her back against the tree. She had known that Xiao Wu wouldn’t really give up. Look, he had secretly come here to practice.

  She didn’t make a sound. Xiao Wu, who was inside, was quiet for a while before he started blowing again. Mu Jingzhe’s eyes lit up when she heard that, and she even smiled, but that smile soon vanished from her face.

  The more she listened to the flute, the more depressed and sad it sounded. It made her want to cry. It was completely different from Xiao Wu’s music in the past, which had made people smile.

  Mu Jingzhe’s emotions were inexplicably stirred up. Her mood suddenly became heavy as she thought of many unhappy memories. She felt depressed. She wanted to adjust, but when Xiao Wu suddenly started to drum inside, not only did the sorrow not decrease, but she felt increasingly awful. The music was accompanied by thumping sounds, and it sounded like someone was roaring in anger, wanting to vent his rage on impulse.

  In the end, that person couldn’t vent no matter what.

  Mu Jingzhe’s heart pounded in sync with the sound of the drum. Then, the drum stopped.

  Mu Jingzhe suddenly let out a breath of relief. She finally came back to her senses and looked in the direction of the tree hole, her eyes flickering.

  Xiao Wu had changed. His musical style had completely changed.

  From warm and joyful, it had become depressing and sad.

  No wonder he’d suddenly said that he no longer wanted to learn. No wonder he had been hiding.

  \r \r \r

  Mu Jingzhe finally knew the reason for Xiao Wu’s abnormality. Because of Shao Qiyun, there were now knots in his heart. He’d also unlocked his new ability and shocked himself.

  Mu Jingzhe couldn’t help but think of Shao Zhong’s ending in the original book. Because of Shao Bei’s accident, the five siblings had broken up and had each taken revenge for Shao Bei. Their lives had ended up being a mess.

  Each of them had their own strengths and specialties, and the same applied to their revenge styles. Shao Zhong had also embarked on a path of no return to take revenge. His method was something that ordinary people couldn’t think of, and that was using music.

  He had been living a very depressing life to begin with. Later on, it became increasingly gloomy, and the music he produced became increasingly dark and terrifying. It gave people goosebumps when they heard it, to the extent that after listening to it, people would start having nightmares that evoked the fear deep in their hearts.

  This was still considered good. Nightmares weren’t so bad, but what was even more terrifying were his sad, depression-inducing songs. At first, no one noticed, and they only felt like they wanted to cry when they heard this music. However, as they listened on, their mood became worse gradually, and some people started to feel increasingly depressed.

  Normal people would be affected by hearing this, let alone people who were mentally fragile or had depression tendencies to begin with. Some people would walk down a path of no return after hearing his music. At first, it didn’t arouse any suspicion. It was only later on, when more and more people were influenced and a female celebrity was also implicated, that this matter started attracting attention.

  Later on, after careful investigation, they found out that the people involved in the incident had a unique characteristic. They either insulted Shao Bei on the Internet or held a grudge against her and the people who were related to Shao Bei in some way. Reporters, industry insiders, and online keyboard warriors all forced Shao Bei to walk down a path of no return. Later on, they didn’t let her off even when she was dead. They exposed bad things about her and refused to let her rest in peace even after her death, bent on pinning her to the pillar of shame.

  That female celebrity was one of them. The celebrity was saved later on, but her condition didn’t improve. Furthermore, what she had done was also exposed.

  The reason these people had fallen for it was because someone had recommended Shao Zhong’s tunes to them online, and the person who had recommended them was Shao Zhong himself. Step by step, he silently completed his plan and made them die in pain like his older sister, Shao Bei.

  Shao Zhong didn’t understand why the world was so unfair. Why did the five of them always have to be tormented like this? His indignant shouts and suppressed hatred were all in the music he composed.

  He had used his music to avenge his sister and kill people. He had also triggered the resonance of many people who’d had similar encounters and suffered an unjust fate. These people either felt that life was pointless and wanted to end it, or their hatred was triggered, leading them to take revenge, dragging the people they hated the most down with them.

  Shao Zhong stirred up a storm with his music, wanting to drag everyone down with him. Anyone who heard it would feel lingering fear. Besides, no one knew just how many people it affected and how many potential dangers it could bring.

  After the abnormality was sensed, although Shao Zhong’s music was removed in time, the authorities couldn’t control people who had already downloaded it and stop them from sharing it. Furthermore, in order to avert panic and prevent this music from becoming a killing tool, this matter couldn’t be made public yet. They could only investigate in secret, which only added to the difficulty of the task.

  In the end, it was uncertain how many people had been affected. Shao Zhong’s music was like a virus that couldn’t be seen. No one knew where it had spread.

  The police found Shao Zhong, but he didn’t defend himself or say anything. He had killed people with invisible means, but all he had done was make music. There was no law in the world that could convict people who killed with music.

  People were helpless against Shao Zhong and were extremely vigilant, afraid that he would continue. However, later on, it was unknown if it was because Shao Zhong had already taken revenge or because he eventually found it boring, but he directly disappeared.

  No one knew if he was dead or alive. Many people said that he was dead, but his corpse was never found. However, his influence remained. As time passed, some rumors slowly spread and became unsolved mysteries.

  To be honest, Shao Zhong’s lethality wasn’t inferior to Shao Nan’s at all, nor was he inferior to Shao Xi, who later used his media influence to take revenge through his cyber influence.

  Actually, it should be said that Shao Zhong was the most uncontrollable and dangerous person among them.

  At the thought of Shao Zhong’s ending in the book, Mu Jingzhe looked at the tree hole and frowned in frustration. What should she do next?

  Currently, Xiao Wu wasn’t like the repressed, sensitive, hatred-filled person he had been in the original book after growing up. Now, even he was afraid of this depression and sadness. He didn’t want to be like this at all.

  It was just that he was in a bad mood and he was too talented.

  At the end of the day, she still had to properly guide Xiao Wu out of his gloomy state. It had never occurred to Mu Jingzhe to stop Xiao Wu from ever touching music again to nip the danger in the bud, as this wouldn’t be fair to Xiao Wu and this method was very stupid.

  Xiao Wu wasn’t the same person he had been in the original novel. He wouldn’t need to take revenge or anything in the future. Naturally, he wouldn’t think of killing people with music either.

  But how could she guide Xiao Wu? She wasn’t a psychiatrist, nor was she talented in music.

  Mu Jingzhe didn’t know what to do for a while. As she was feeling conflicted, she heard Xiao Wu come out and quickly hid.

  Mu Jingzhe lay on the ground and watched Xiao Wu leave with a sigh, like a little adult. However, although he sighed and looked troubled, she felt that his mood wasn’t as heavy as when he had come. His depressed mood seemed to have dissipated a little.

  So Xiao Wu could also vent his frustration with music? That was a good idea.

  Mu Jingzhe followed Xiao Wu home and quickly informed everyone that they should stop staring at Xiao Wu so closely in the future. They should just pay attention to him out of the corner of their eyes. When he occasionally made up an excuse to run out, they should just let him go out.