Chapter 46: Carnivore (18) Falling into the Well

In the wing room, Lu Keliang sat by the desk, unable to sleep at all as the Tattooed Woman’s earth-shattering snoring echoed behind him.

He was forty-three years old. Since he went to the mountains to volunteer as a teacher at twenty-two, he had never left. He had spent nearly half his life in the mountains, teaching one generation of children after another to help them find a way out of the wilderness.

His parents were both farmers who had died long ago. He had finished university with funding from the Federal Foundation; his initial reason for teaching was to repay the Foundation’s loans, but he hadn’t expected to put down roots there over time.

During that period, many people looking to pad their resumes came and went. Some even claimed his deeds as their own, becoming famous, becoming officials, or getting promoted after leaving. He was well aware of this but didn’t care, simply because he had made up his mind never to leave for the rest of his life…

Three days ago, while he was on the night shift, several villagers suddenly came to him and said, “Teacher Lu, our children are missing. You’re familiar with them, please help us find them.”

The villagers all trusted him and turned to him whenever they encountered troubles they couldn’t solve. Naturally, he had no reason to refuse.

He threw on some clothes, grabbed a flashlight, and headed into the mountains. He searched and searched the places where the children often played, eventually finding himself by the stream as if guided by fate.

Under the moonlight, the bloated corpses of the children lay in the stream, their faces as white as snow.

As he walked over, a black metal card flew out from the chest of one of the children and burrowed into his heart.

He had entered the “Eerie Game.”

Lu Keliang was socially anxious and didn’t like to talk much. He even had to practice his lectures over and over again to perform well for the children.

Fortunately, his first instance was a solo puzzle-solving instance. Being a university graduate with a habit of reading, his knowledge base was decent, and he managed to achieve clearance without any major scares.

But this “Carnivore” instance was different. There were too many people, and there was a boisterous woman who insisted on staying in the same room as him. He felt awkward and uncomfortable in every way.

After seeing the clue in the Five-Character Poem today, Lu Keliang plucked up his courage and stammered a request to the Tattooed Woman to sleep in separate rooms.

The Tattooed Woman lay down on the floor and said nonchalantly, “Fine, go find another room then. Anyway, I’m not moving!”

Lu Keliang went to the wing room of Wu Heng and Zhu Dafu, but he hadn’t expected to be a step too late; Zhang Licai was already staying there.

Naturally, he couldn’t kick someone out, so he could only apologize repeatedly and return to his old room dejectedly, inevitably suffering a round of mockery from the Tattooed Woman.

Regarding the “Companion Slaughter” mentioned in the Five-Character Poem, it would be a lie to say he wasn’t afraid, but he wasn’t so terrified that he couldn’t accept it.

In his view, the Tattooed Woman had eaten the mucus from the Village Chief’s house, and her body was undergoing a mutation. She likely didn’t have long to live, so the one to die might not necessarily be him.

“Thud, thud, thud… Crack, crack, crack…”

In the middle of the night, the sound of a knife rang out in the courtyard again. The dark shadow on the wall held a cleaver, approaching step by step.

For some reason, it stopped three meters away from the wing room this time and advanced no further, pacing back and forth like a trapped beast, as if the area ahead was the territory of an even more terrifying monster.

“Splat… splat…”

There was the sound of saliva dripping onto the floor behind his ear. Lu Keliang saw the shadow of a woman projected onto the wall of the wing room, growing taller and larger.

“You look delicious…” the Tattooed Woman’s voice rang out. It wasn’t her usual tone; it sounded more like her body was being controlled by Ghosts.

Lu Keliang slowly turned his head and saw the woman’s wide eyes flashing with green light in the darkness. Her mouth was split to her ears, and sticky saliva dripped down her chin.

“Yin Lina! Wake up!” Lu Keliang shouted, while simultaneously grabbing the God Meat on the table and handing it toward the Tattooed Woman. “If you’re hungry, eat the God Meat. There’s plenty of God Meat…”

The Tattooed Woman seemed to regain a sliver of consciousness. She reached out to grab Lu Keliang’s extended hand, staring at the God Meat on it.

“So fragrant…” she murmured, the obsession in her eyes deepening. Suddenly, she opened her mouth wide and swallowed the God Meat along with Lu Keliang’s palm in one bite.

The “crunch” of breaking bones echoed in the room, and Lu Keliang let out a scream of agony.

He tried desperately to pull his hand back, raising his foot to kick the Tattooed Woman’s stomach, only to have his leg grabbed in turn.

The Tattooed Woman bit off his palm and swallowed it, then moved to bite his foot…

Lu Keliang was wearing shoes. The possessed Tattooed Woman’s mind was clearly muddled, as she actually bit down on the heel of the shoe.

Lu Keliang found his chance. His foot quickly slipped out of the shoe, and he limped toward the door.

He had to escape, or he would be eaten… He had to leave the room. As long as they weren’t in the same room, everything would be fine…

Lu Keliang’s entire right hand was gone. Blood trickled from the stump of his wrist, where muscle and white bone were faintly visible.

He pushed the door open with his left hand and stumbled into the courtyard.

The Tattooed Woman indeed did not chase him out. Lu Keliang clutched his injured hand, standing in the yard and bending over as he gasped for breath.

However, in the next second, a dark shadow loomed over him. The “thud-thud” of the knife sounded close to his ear, accompanied by a mumbled murmur: “Hungry… so hungry… give me meat…”

“I don’t agree to it; you can’t kill me,” Lu Keliang said to the Cooking Ghost.

The dark shadow retreated. Thick white fog rolled into the estate, and countless ghostly figures wandered around him but did not approach.

Lu Keliang suddenly remembered that Yang Yundong and Alan had gone out last night and slept outside all night without anything happening.

Yes, the Eerie Game wouldn’t set up a certain-death situation with no solution. If he had known, he should have slept outside the door…

Unfortunately, sleeping in the open in an Eerie Game infested with Ghosts required courage. At that time, he really hadn’t thought that he could sleep in the courtyard, and no one had reminded him…

Lu Keliang tore a piece of his clothing and tied a tight knot at his bleeding wrist, but blood still bubbled from the stump like a fountain.

At this rate of blood loss, he wouldn’t survive until tomorrow; he would be dead in another half hour…

Lu Keliang’s legs went weak, and he collapsed onto the ground, blood pooling beneath him like a spring.

His head was already beginning to spin, and he could faint at any moment. He tried his best to maintain consciousness, thinking about what to do.

He didn’t want to die. He hadn’t finished the lessons he’d prepared, and he hadn’t had time to say goodbye to the children…

How could he survive? How could he achieve clearance within half an hour?

‘Could this well be the exit of this instance? I’ve seen on the Forum that many instances have exits in wells and cellars.’

The young man’s voice echoed in his memory, like ghostly whispers heard by a night traveler in the woods, full of temptation.

Lu Keliang knew this was the last resort.

He propped himself up, staggered toward the dry well by the washstand, and leaped in.

A golden light suddenly flared in the darkness. All pain faded away, and his emotions felt as if they were immersed in warm wine, soothing and intoxicating.

Lu Keliang saw a blood-colored figure, bound by chains woven from golden vines, constituting the entire scenery between heaven and earth.

It was a long-haired man wearing a red robe embroidered with gold, as beautiful as a legendary… god.

He saw the god open his crimson eyes and look at him with a smile, revealing a mouthful of fine, sharp teeth.

He walked over step by step, the last thought in his mind being: He is truly beautiful…

The white bones missing a palm crashed to the ground. The red-clad deity swallowed the flesh and blood of the sacrifice and heaved a deep sigh:

“Tsk, so dirty.”

Qi Si looked down at his shirt covered in mucus and sighed listlessly.

After coming out of the kitchen, he had circled the entire courtyard but found no place to bathe or wash clothes. He could only drag his filth-covered body from the Village Chief’s house back to the wing room.

At the thought that the mucus on him would catch dust if it touched the floor and peel off the wall’s surface if it touched the wall, he lost all interest in even lying down.

Then he sadly realized that after eating the God Meat, he would have to lie down anyway…

In the middle of the night, one scream after another broke the silence. Qi Si knew that trouble had started in those wing rooms where two people stayed together.

He held up his lantern and stood by the window, looking out.

After a short while, he saw the door of the wing room where the Tattooed Woman was stay open. A thin, withered figure ran out in a panic and collapsed in the courtyard.

Qi Si had an impression of this person.

When he was checking by the dry well in the morning, he had originally wanted to reach out and push this person down, but because there were too many people around, he had to give up on the idea.

At that time, he had pretended to talk to himself: “Could this well be the exit of this instance? I’ve seen on the Forum that many instances have exits in wells and cellars.”

This person probably thought those words were meant for him and even politely agreed with him.

Qi Si watched intently, and then saw the man stand up as if he had thought of something and jump into the well.

A moment later, a crystal-clear skeleton flew out from the mouth of the well and crashed into the center of the courtyard.

Not a single shred of meat remained on the bare skeleton; it was as smooth and clean as if it had been licked clean by a colony of scavengers. The end of the right forearm was missing its metacarpals; it seemed it was indeed that unlucky man.

Under the cold white moonlight, the incomplete skeleton shimmered with a fresh milky white color, as if draped in a layer of translucent gauze. Even Qi Si, who was accustomed to seeing bone specimen art, couldn’t help but be captivated.

A wisp of black smoke swirled and lingered on the surface of the skeleton. After a moment, it split into two; one wisp flew toward the Tattooed Woman’s room, and the other flew toward Qi Si.

Qi Si instinctively turned to dodge, but the black smoke seemed to have locked onto him, making a turn and burrowing into his lips.

His fleeting image was reflected in the glass. The thick, ink-like black smoke almost enveloped every inch of his skin, with small trickles burrowing in and out from time to time.

But in just a blink, all abnormalities dissipated. In the reflection of the glass, his skin was fair and his features were dark; he looked for all the world like a most gentle and harmless young man.

“What exactly does the black smoke mean? There was black smoke on the menu, black smoke is produced after eating God Meat, and there is also black smoke after Lu Keliang’s death… Does it symbolize sin?

“Because Lu Keliang’s death involved my verbal manipulation, even if he was destined not to survive, a portion of the black smoke belongs to me? Interesting.”

Hunger arrived as expected. Qi Si grabbed the God Meat and took bite after bite, swallowing it into his stomach.

He watched his reflection in the mirror being enveloped by black smoke again and fell into deep thought.

“A-Xi threw a small piece of meat down and could obtain benefits. What will Yin Lina and I gain from driving a whole living person like Lu Keliang down there? It really makes one curious…”