119: Chapter 119 Hundred-Man Slaying

Sato Kenji's diary and that heavy cherry wood box were carefully placed into Chen Xi's system space.

To make room, he discarded some spare ammunition and medical supplies.

At this moment, this evidence took priority over everything else.

Professor Wen Yuanbo watched him, opened his mouth as if to say something, but ultimately it turned into a heavy sigh.

Chen Xi did not leave immediately.

He leaned against the wall and sat back down in the deepest shadow of the wine cellar.

He needed to calm down.

He also needed to process these scorching sins he had just obtained.

He first took out the wooden box he found in the darkroom.

Dozens of rolls of already developed negatives.

And even more undeveloped film rolls.

"System."

"Begin scanning and synchronize all image data to the 'Phoenix Action' exclusive channel."

["Instruction confirmed. Scanning initiated."]

In the next second,

Before the 'Great Wall' Command Center and billions of viewers, scenes of the frozen hellscape began to slowly unfold.

Skulls piled up, treated as spoils of war.

Civilians, their faces still etched with terror and covered in mud, buried alive.

Women, stripped naked and hung from trees after being arbitrarily violated.

One after another.

The bullet chat in the Livestream room was empty, as if everyone's throats were gripped by an invisible hand, rendering them unable to type a single word.

Chen Xi's face remained expressionless.

He mechanically examined these negatives, roll after roll.

Until he opened a small box wrapped in high-grade silk, which he found inside Sato Kenji's cherry wood box.

Inside the box were not negatives.

But several developed, eight-inch black-and-white photographs.

The texture and clarity of these photos far surpassed the previous ones.

Clearly, they were collected by the photographer as his most precious 'masterpieces'.

Chen Xi picked up the first one.

The photo showed two young officers in Second Lieutenant uniforms of the Japanese Army.

They stood on a street piled high with corpses, leaning on two blood-stained katanas, smiling contentedly, even with a hint of bashfulness, towards the camera.

Behind them, a tavern sign was torn, with the three characters 'Yipin Xian' still clearly visible.

["..."]

["...Holy crap."]

["They are smiling?"]

The Livestream room's bullet chat was finally broken by a few weak lines of text.

Chen Xi's hands did not tremble in the slightest.

He flipped the photo over.

On the back, a line of neat Japanese was written in fountain pen.

"Commemorating the achievement of the Hundred-Man Kill Contest by Mukai and Noda, in front of the Yipin Xian Hotel in Nanjing City."

He put that one down and picked up the next one.

It was a photocopy of the same newspaper.

The Tokyo Daily News.

The huge headline reported their 'heroic deeds' in an extremely fervent tone.

"Hundred-Man Kill Contest Record Broken! Mukai 115 - Noda 105! The Two Second Lieutenants Enter the Extension Battle!"

The smiling faces of the two devils in the photo overlapped with the glaring headline on the newspaper.

Forming an absurd terror that instantly collapsed the sanity of all normal human beings.

["I... I can't watch this anymore... My hands are shaking..."]

["Beasts! Beasts! Beasts ahhhhhh!"]

["Killing... In their eyes, it's just a game! A game worth showing off!"]

["My grandfather died in Nanjing! Damn your ancestors!!!"]

["These are not humans! They are devils wearing human skin! Devils!!!"]

The volcano erupted with a thunderous roar after the silence.

The entire Livestream room was submerged in a surging, blood-red fury.

Countless viewers wept uncontrollably in front of their screens or smashed the tables before them with all their might.

That sense of powerlessness, that bone-chilling hatred spanning across time and space, made every soul burn.

In the 'Great Wall' Command Center.

Qian Weiguo, the old man who had studied history his entire life, clutched his chest tightly, his face pale, trembling violently.

Medical personnel nearby immediately rushed over.

Elder Long stared at the two young, grinning faces on the screen without saying a word.

But the fists beside him were already clenched so tightly that they creaked. His fingernails dug deeply into his palms, and drops of blood fell one by one from between his fingers onto the cold floor.

In the wine cellar.

Chen Xi ignored all external sounds.

He just quietly looked at that photograph.

He brought the photo close to his eyes.

Using a cold gaze, almost like an autopsy, he meticulously studied every detail on those two faces.

Mukai Toshiaki.

Noda Tsuyoshi.

He silently repeated these two names in his mind, in a tone devoid of any emotion.

Then, on his system map, he created a new, blood-red folder.

The name was 'Death List'.

He placed these two names and their photos inside.

This was the first.

But it would absolutely not be the last.

After finishing this, he suppressed the murderous intent churning within him like magma.

He knew that pure anger was meaningless.

He needed more clues.

He picked up the diary that also belonged to Sato Kenji, the one imprinted with a cherry blossom pattern.

He quickly flipped through it.

The diary was filled with the demon's fervent praise for war and slaughter.

Finally, on one page, he saw a record that made his pupils contract sharply.

"... The great achievement of the 'Hundred-Man Kill' by comrades Mukai and Noda is truly the glory of the Empire. However, photos can never show even one ten-thousandth of their valor. In order to present the results of the Imperial Army's 'Holy War' more vividly to Division Commander Your Excellency and the citizens back home, I have already suggested that the film documenting the entire competition be uniformly submitted to the Division Headquarters Archives for special safekeeping, to be used for propaganda purposes..."

Division Headquarters.

Archives.

Chen Xi's gaze fell upon these words.

He slowly raised his head.

The last trace of human warmth in his eyes completely vanished.

Only absolute coldness, like a polar glacier, remained.