Chapter 34: Flesh Eating |
"No guides, terrible food... I have no idea who, besides a bunch of suckers like us, would ever come to this godforsaken place..."
After leaving the table, Zhang Licai muttered his complaints under his breath.
Qi Si leaned in with a smile. "Maybe this trip wasn't meant for the living in the first place. The dead aren't picky eaters."
His voice was exceptionally soft, almost a whisper, with an eerie quality to it.
Zhang Licai shivered. "Don't try to scare me," he cried out. "I'm a coward. Frighten me enough and I'll piss myself."
His dark humor satisfied, Qi Si lowered his eyes innocently. "Sorry about that, Zhang. I was just talking off the cuff..."
"I was chatting with Su Po a moment ago, and she became very evasive whenever I mentioned the western part of the village. My father's a geographer who dabbles in feng shui, and I've picked up a thing or two. If I'm right, there might be something valuable out there. If only we could take it out of here..."
He was lying through his teeth, letting just the right amount of greedy eagerness show on his face.
Zhang Licai, none the wiser, clapped him on the shoulder. "You're overthinking it, kid. You can't take anything out of the game unless it's a specific reward, like having a wish granted. Otherwise, there's no way."
Qi Si's eyes narrowed.
Items from the game couldn't be brought into reality. So how had he managed to bring the Rose Heart out with him?
Facing Zhang Licai's questioning look, he gave an embarrassed laugh. "I honestly had no idea, Zhang. I was scared out of my wits in my first instance, so I never even considered it. It was only later, after I'd calmed down, that I started thinking about these odds and ends."
"Well then, kid, let me tell you how it works..." Suspecting nothing, Zhang Licai launched into a lengthy explanation of the Weird Game's mechanics as he understood them.
Qi Si plastered a grateful expression on his face and endured the stomach-churning lecture, listening to Zhang Licai drone on about the same old tired fundamentals.
At that point, he completely abandoned any thought of turning Zhang Licai into a useful pawn.
That "friend" back in the real world—the one he had to tolerate for his usefulness—was already more than enough trouble. To be saddled with another one inside an instance... He just wanted this fat bastard to drop dead on the spot.
Only after all the players had left the table did Su Po tie on an apron, return with a bucket and a rag, and begin to clear away the dishes.
After finally extricating himself from Zhang Licai's monologue, Qi Si approached the table laden with leftovers. "Su Po, let me help you clean up," he offered. "You've already worked so hard cooking such a feast. Please, go and rest."
His voice was laced with just the right amount of concern, and his expression was one of perfect sincerity.
It's hard to turn away a friendly face. Su Po's expression softened. Picking up a plate with her right hand, she turned and grinned. "You're too kind, child. I can handle this myself."
"I couldn't possibly," Qi Si insisted, reaching for the plate in her hand.
His fingertips brushed against the slick, repulsive grease, and he flinched instinctively, but he still gripped the edge of the plate firmly.
Su Po was weaker than he'd imagined; a gentle pull was all it took for Qi Si to take the plate from her grasp.
The next moment, as if his grip had slipped, he let go. The plate crashed to the floor and shattered into a dozen ceramic shards.
He apologized profusely and bent down to pick up the fragments, only for his foot to "slip." He staggered, his upper body lurching forward as if he were about to fall.
As he stumbled, he conveniently caught Su Po's left hand to steady himself.
The hand was icy cold and inelastic, with the distinct feel of decay. Its owner had clearly been dead for a very long time.
"I'm so sorry," Qi Si said, his performance flawless. His voice and expression radiated embarrassment and regret. "How much was the plate? I'll pay for the damage."
Still holding her left hand, he pushed himself upright, subtly lifting her sleeve in the process.
The arm beneath was covered in lividity and bruises, the kind of injuries one might get from a fall. Judging by the discoloration, the body had been left in a cold, damp place for years.
As she began to clean up the mess, Su Po said politely, "You are a guest. I couldn't possibly ask you to pay."
Qi Si had already obtained the information he needed. He nodded in agreement. "Alright, then I won't pay."
Su Po was speechless.
Night fell quickly in the countryside, the darkness descending like a drawn curtain.
In the cold, faint moonlight, only the vague silhouettes of the houses were visible. Clumps of trees swayed gently in the silvery haze, resembling restless spirits from a distance.
Qi Si went to the washstand in the corner of the courtyard and rinsed the grease from his hands with warm water. His eyes lingered on the sealed ancient well nearby for a moment before he looked away.
He returned to his room, slid the bolt across the door, and set the cloth bundle containing the divine meat on the table. After wiping the dust from his bamboo sleeping mat with a clean rag, he finally settled in.
Lying on the bed, he pulled out his pocket watch and set the hands to nine o'clock, marking the time that darkness had fallen.
Drowsiness washed over him quickly, and his consciousness sank into a heavy, restless sleep.
Later that night, Qi Si's eyes snapped open. He could hear his heart pounding in his chest and was bewildered to find himself gripped by fear.
The long-dormant emotion had materialized out of nowhere, an unwelcome and forceful guest settling deep in his heart before spreading through every limb...
He felt like a wild animal cornered by a predator, every cell in his body shivering. A primal terror, etched into his very DNA, screamed at him to run, to escape...
The dream itself had vanished from his memory. Qi Si slipped a hand behind his head, his palm coming away damp with cold sweat. His gaze drifted, unfocused, to the system interface.
His Identity Card was flashing erratically, its icon of tentacles and gray mist churning like a chaotic tide. Blood-red text burst onto the panel, like a frozen interface suddenly jolting back to life and spitting out delayed notifications:
[Warning! God-tier NPC (Data Redacted) has appeared. The instance's trajectory has changed in an unknown way... Data error...]
[The authority of a God-tier NPC is second only to the rules of the world. It can appear in multiple instances simultaneously and shares memories across them. Players are advised to proceed with extreme caution and choose their actions wisely!]
[The last player to gaze upon its true form was driven to madness. Suicide before an encounter would be a wise choice... No, wait. You are already mad...]
A God-tier NPC? "Already mad"?
Qi Si stared at the fragmented sentences—the ruins of his dream, he supposed. After a long moment, he muttered, "What the hell?"
The moon had climbed higher in the sky; lying in bed, he could only see a sliver of it through the window's lattice. By the moonlight that trickled into the room, Qi Si checked his pocket watch.
The hour hand pointed directly to twelve. He had slept for three hours, at most.
A wave of hunger, from some unknown source, washed over him. He was starving. He needed to eat something... anything.
The sweet, fresh scent of meat drifted through the air, stirring a latent desire deep within him. Qi Si's eyes fixed on the white cloth bundle on the table.
He knew what was inside: the two pieces of divine meat he'd taken from the table. Even wrapped in thick cloth, the strange food radiated an irresistible allure.
Still, the thought of its soft, gelatinous texture was as disgusting as... snot.
Lost in thought, Qi Si tapped his finger against his teeth. Just then, a clamor of voices erupted from a room down the hall. It sounded like a fight.
He rose and went to the window, straining to hear.
Shouts, screams, and the crash of breaking objects blended into a chaotic symphony—a verbal dispute that had clearly escalated into a physical brawl.
From the direction of the noise, he guessed the fight was in the room of the tattooed woman and the scrawny man she'd forced to be her roommate.
The other players had likely woken up starving, too. But not all of them had thought to bring some of the divine meat back with them.
In a crisis, people will do anything to survive.
"So it's started," he murmured.
Qi Si was relieved he hadn't given in to peer pressure and impulsively found a roommate. At the same time, he was curious to see how this sudden drama would conclude.
In less than thirty seconds, the shouting and scuffling died down. A victor had apparently been decided.
With a loud *thud*, a figure came stumbling out of the doorway. It was too dark to make out their features, but their sorry state was easy to imagine.
Qi Si peered through the paper talismans pasted on his window lattice. In the cold, white moonlight, he could just make out that the figure was a man.
Blood streamed from the man's forehead. He was kneeling on the ground like a beast, issuing guttural, pained noises. Amid the sounds, Qi Si could just make out a single, mumbled word: "Hungry..."
After several long moments of groaning, the man began to claw at the ground like a lunatic, scooping up handful after handful of soil and shoving it into his mouth.
Qi Si watched the spectacle for a moment before dropping his gaze to the travel brochure on his table.
The poem on the front page now seemed particularly grim:
[When the granaries are empty, what can soothe a starving gut?]
[For miles around, the people eat soil, and with bellies pierced by wood and stone, they die.]
So, the hunger was lethal. And the only way to overcome it was to eat the divine meat.
"I'll just pretend it's gelatin," Qi Si muttered, his face a mask of resignation. He reached for the white bundle and unfolded the cloth.
The pale, gelatinous chunk of meat was translucent in the moonlight, like a drop of cold autumn dew. But the crimson veins that swirled faintly within gave it a horrifying quality. Perhaps amber, with something trapped inside, was a more fitting comparison.
Feeling the hunger clinging to him like a shadow, Qi Si grimaced, picked up a piece of the divine meat, and forced it into his mouth, swallowing it down.
A chilling sensation spread from his mouth down to his stomach, leaving a slick, slimy trail in its wake, as if a live slug were crawling down his throat.
He raised a hand to his throat. The muscles under his fingertips twitched and squirmed, and he could feel the morsel of meat struggling within, as if he had swallowed a live eel.
A faint, foul odor tickled his nose—it seemed to emanate from his own skin—but it vanished as quickly as it came, like a phantom scent.
He looked down at his right hand. For a fleeting moment, the outline of his skin blurred, becoming indistinct, as if some viscous fluid were roiling just beneath the surface while faint wisps of black smoke dissipated around it.
The choice was clear: not eating the divine meat meant facing the immediate, short-term crisis of death. Eating it meant facing a long-term crisis with an unknown, but likely terrible, outcome.
Survival was never easy. Both paths led to peril; every choice was a gamble for the highest stakes.
Unless, of course, a new variable was introduced to the equation, or one of the players managed to step outside the established paradigm.
Qi Si's gaze fell once more upon the cryptic red text on his system interface.
What in the world had happened in that dream? He couldn't shake the question...
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