Chapter 34: Carnivore (6) Night Feed (Revised)

“The whole background is a tour, yet they don’t arrange a Guide, and the food is absolutely terrible. I really don’t know who else would come to this ghostly place besides us suckers…”

After leaving the table, Zhang Licai muttered under his breath, expressing his dissatisfaction.

Qi Si leaned in and smiled. “Maybe this tour wasn’t meant for the living in the first place. The villagers are all Ghosts; would tourists who enter a ghost village and can communicate with Ghosts still be human? Dead people might just like this way of traveling.”

His voice was extremely light and soft, sounding sinister.

Zhang Licai shivered. “Don’t scare me like that. I’m a coward; if I get scared, I’ll wet my pants.”

Having satisfied his mischievous streak, Qi Si lowered his eyes innocently. “Sorry, Brother Zhang, I was just speaking off the cuff.”

“Just now, I chatted with Granny Su for a bit. Whenever she mentioned the western part of the village, she became very secretive. My father was a geographer who enjoyed studying Feng Shui as a hobby, and I’ve picked up a bit over the years. If I’m not mistaken, there might be something valuable in the west of the village. If we could take it out…”

He spoke with apparent sincerity, a perfectly measured look of yearning appearing on his face.

Not understanding the underlying intent, Zhang Licai patted his shoulder. “Little brother, you’re overthinking it. Things in the game don’t work like wish-fulfillment; you can’t take them out even if you die.”

“If they could be taken out, the last instance had a mine in the mountains. Would I still be this poor?”

Qi Si’s eyelid twitched slightly.

If things in the game couldn’t be brought into reality, then why was he able to bring the Rose Heart out of the game?

Was it a bug of the same nature as his ability to bring his bracelet into the instance?

Under Zhang Licai’s strange gaze, Qi Si smiled sheepishly. “Brother Zhang, I really didn’t know about that. In my first instance, I was too busy avoiding Ghosts to even consider such things. It was only later that I started wondering about these possibilities.”

“Little brother, let me explain it to you then. The Eerie Game works like this…” Zhang Licai, suspecting nothing, began to explain the mechanics of the Eerie Game with spit flying.

Qi Si put on a grateful expression while listening to the man’s clichés with a metaphorical stomachache.

At this point, he completely abandoned the idea of developing Zhang Licai into a tool.

The ‘friend’ in reality that he had to keep around because they were useful was annoying enough. To be stuck with another one in an instance… he just wanted this fat guy to die immediately.

After all the players had left the table, Granny Su put on an apron and returned to the dining table with a bucket and a rag to clear the pots, bowls, and ladles.

After finally managing to deal with Zhang Licai, Qi Si walked toward the table covered in leftovers. “Granny Su, let me help you clean up. You’ve worked so hard making such a large meal; go rest for a bit.”

His voice carried just the right amount of concern, and his gaze appeared very sincere.

Since one doesn’t strike a smiling face, Granny Su’s expression softened slightly. She picked up a plate with her right hand and turned to grin. “You’re so polite, child. I can do it myself.”

“How can I let you do that?” Qi Si made a move to grab the dinner plate from her hand.

His fingertips touched the disgusting grease, causing him to stiffen slightly, but he still firmly gripped the edge of the plate.

Granny Su’s strength was less than he had imagined; with just a bit of force, Qi Si snatched the plate into his hands.

Immediately after, he let go as if he hadn’t held it securely, and the plate fell to the floor, shattering into porcelain shards.

He apologized repeatedly and bent down to pick up the shards. His foot happened to slip, and his upper body lurched as if he were about to fall.

He took the opportunity to grab Granny Su’s left hand.

This hand was cold and lacked elasticity, with a sense of decay. Its owner had clearly been dead for a long time.

“I’m so sorry. How much are these plates? I’ll pay you back.” Qi Si’s voice and expression were full of bashfulness and apology.

He used Granny Su’s left hand to pull himself upright, inconspicuously lifting her sleeve in the process.

On the hidden arm, large knife wounds that reached the bone were clearly distributed. Judging by the color of the lividity and bruises, the body had been kept in a cold place for many years after death.

While cleaning up the mess on the floor, Granny Su said politely, “You’re a guest, how can I let you pay?”

Having already obtained the information he wanted, Qi Si immediately nodded in agreement. “Alright, then I won’t pay.”

Granny Su:…Wow.

The sky in the countryside darkened quickly, and night fell in no time.

Under the faint light of the cold moon, the outlines of the houses were blurred and massive. Layered shadows could vaguely be seen shifting between the walls, and the protruding bushes swayed gently in the dim glow, looking like restless spirits from a distance.

Qi Si bypassed the sealed ancient well in the courtyard and walked to the sink in the corner. He washed the grease off his hands under the running water before unhurriedly returning to his wing room.

After entering the room, he slid the door bolt shut, placed the cloth bundle containing the God Meat on the table, wiped the dust off the bamboo mat with a rag, and gathered it into the corner of the room.

He lay down on the bed, fished the pocket watch out of his pocket, and set the hand to nine o’clock to mark the time it got dark.

Drowsiness quickly overcame him, and his consciousness sank uncontrollably, yet his sleep was not peaceful.

In the middle of the night, Qi Si opened his eyes from his dream. He heard “crack-crack” and “thud-thud” sounds coming from the courtyard, like a sharp blade cutting through bone and then hitting a cutting board.

Through the dust-covered glass window, he saw a long, narrow black shadow projected onto the wall. It held a kitchen knife, cutting down stroke by stroke with the stiffness of a shadow puppet play.

The sound grew closer, as if someone were walking over while chopping vegetables. The black shadow on the wall also grew larger, almost covering the entire surface.

The person’s footsteps were very, very light, only occasionally making a strange ‘patter’ sound. However, their gait stirred a breeze that made the paper talisman on the doors and windows rustle as they approached the wing room.

At a distance of just one step, the sound stopped approaching. It paced back and forth like a trapped beast, seemingly wary of those paper talisman.

Qi Si silently sat up from the bed, stood up on his shoes, and moved toward the wooden table at the head of the bed.

A sudden gust of wind blew from nowhere, and the wooden door was blown open with a’snap,’ hitting the wall with a loud ‘clang.’

As if some seal had been broken or it was discovered that the paper talisman had lost their effect, a black shadow flooded into the room, covering everything. Qi Si lost all vision in an instant.

“Thud, thud, thud…”

The sound of a knife hacking into the bedboard rang out nearby, each strike heavier than the last.

Qi Si gripped the Pocket Watch of Fate and moved toward the door with light steps.

He stepped into a small corner not yet covered by the black shadow and stood against the wall. The moonlight fell on his face, making his complexion as white as snow and his eyes as dark as deep pools.

The brass surface of the Pocket Watch of Fate reflected a golden glimmer. It wasn’t time to activate its effect yet; Qi Si intended to save it for tomorrow for the time being.

“Thud, thud, thud…”

The sound of the knife hacked from the head of the bed all the way to the foot, ending with a dull ‘thang’ sound.

The black shadow finally realized no one was on the bed and let out a low hiss.

“Hungry… so hungry…” it muttered, slowly and sluggishly backing out of the door, making a ‘gulping’ sound of swallowing saliva all the way.

“Patter… patter…” Large puddles of liquid fell to the floor, emitting the stench of fermented phlegm.

Qi Si could finally see the outlines of the scene again by the moonlight.

The stench flooded his nostrils; the monster had likely backed up right next to him. He held his breath, kept silent, and lowered his eyes, only to see a pair of bloodshot, turbid eyes.

The sound of wind rushed in as a blade flashed. Qi Si instinctively tilted his head.

A ‘thud’ came from the doorframe behind his ear as the kitchen knife embedded itself in the wood.

Most of the black shadow was outside the door now. Qi Si took the opportunity to retreat inside and slammed the wooden door shut.

The door bolt had already broken into two pieces from that gust of wind earlier, so he pressed his entire body weight against the door panel.

When the gap in the door narrowed to three inches, it could no longer be pushed, as if it were stuck on something hard.

The black shadow actually had a physical form. When Qi Si pressed the door panel hard with his shoulder, it let out a high-pitched, painful howl, just like a normal person getting their hand caught in a door.

Qi Si reached his hand through the gap to the outside of the wing room, grabbed a handful of paper talisman from the door surface, and stuffed them haphazardly toward the source of the sound.

The black shadow shook violently, and the light and dark areas on the wall fluctuated in size, flickering blindingly.

“Give me meat… won’t kill you… just one palm is enough…” A muffled voice rose from below his feet, intermittent but understandable.

It could actually communicate? Qi Si’s eyebrows rose slightly. “You mean, you ran over here in the middle of the night without sleeping, and just one palm is enough?”

“Yes… just one palm…” The voice was filled with a palpable urgency and expectation, like a beggar on the street grabbing a pedestrian’s leg, half-pleading and half-forcing for a handout.

“One is not okay… half is also fine… promise me…”

Should I say as expected of a rule-based horror instance? Even the Ghosts know how to haggle…

Qi Si tilted his head and thought for a moment, then shook his head helplessly. “Sorry, I’m a Specimen Maker; I’ve always cherished my hands. How about you just kill me directly instead?”

The black shadow: “…”

After a long silence, the black shadow receded like a tide without a word, slowly crawling toward the left.

Qi Si egged it on: “Are you really not going to kill me? My combat power is very poor; I’m very easy to kill.”

The black shadow’s movement speed increased. In a second, it retreated out the door, the wind it stirred making his clothes flutter and snap.

Qi Si successfully closed the door and blocked it with a chair.

The sound of a door being blown open by the wind soon rang out from the next room, followed by the “thud-thud” of a bed being hacked…

The moon hanging in the sky rose a bit higher. By the silver-white moonlight, Qi Si glanced at his pocket watch.

The hour hand landed exactly on twelve. By his count, he had only slept for three hours.

The bed behind him was covered in messy knife marks. The edges of the wood were hacked into uneven ridges, looking like they had been gnawed by a dog, remarkably similar to the damage on the surface of the wooden table.

Qi Si guessed that a stabbing incident had actually taken place in this room. It likely involved a struggle, where the victim stumbled over to the table…

As for why someone would be hacked, it was naturally to be eaten.

In years of famine, people eat people. In the face of survival, humans can do anything that violates public order and good customs.

In a chaotic and disordered society, rules exist in name only. That poorest and craziest era in reality was perhaps less safe than a rule-based horror instance of the Eerie Game.

At least here, killing required following rules.

“I refused to give it my palm, and it didn’t even want to try and kill me? Boring.” Qi Si shook his head to himself and threw the hacked-up quilt onto the floor to cover the pus-yellow saliva left by the monster.

On the bedboard, two lines of gray text quietly emerged:

【1. The Cook can only kill people lying on the bed, but can injure people located elsewhere;】

【2. The Cook can request any body part; after obtaining permission, they will not be restricted by rule 1.】