Chapter 44: The Mission

The visual impact of this room was far greater than that outside. The stone slabs and cutting boards on the ground were piled high with chunks of meat, an expanse of vivid red, rendering it impossible to tell which part of which animal they originally belonged to. To someone with a sensitive sense of smell, the thick, viscous stench of blood was indistinguishable from stagnant, suffocating air, and a feeling of breathlessness struck straight at the crown of the head.

Xuhuo walked in without changing expression, rummaged through the pile of meat for a moment, and actually fished out a piece bearing a number—although the skin had been stripped away, these digits were as though embedded directly within the muscle tissue, clearly visible.

"Bang!" A heavy sound of a door being forced open came from outside, followed by the voice of Carl the Skinner, "Five-day probation period! You can only stay and work here if you meet my standards!"

"Then the salary..."

"You still want a salary during the probation period?" Carl shouted irritably, "Clean this place up for me. If I come back in three hours and see a single cockroach, all of you can get the hell out of here!"

With that came the sound of another slammed door, immediately followed by the sound of a car engine fading away outside the factory. After a while, someone in the workshop spoke up, "Yang Chang was taken away by the skinner. He'll be all right, won't he?"

"The skinner is just going fishing, Yang Chang should be fine for now," another voice said. "They're going to be gone for three hours. This is our chance."

"Qin An is right," a female voice chimed in. "Let's split up according to what we discussed earlier."

"Qin An and I will go look for the collection room. Xian Dazhi, you and Zou Weichang stay behind to clean up. We'll be back in an hour at the latest; we can't give the skinner any excuse to chase us out."

"Fine, fine, fine, you guys call the shots," a fourth voice said impatiently. "Let's get moving."

Two sets of footsteps left the workshop, leaving two people behind. The one who spoke first said, "We'd better make good use of our time."

"Are you as stupid as them? You're actually going to clean up!" the impatient voice said. "They went to look for the collection, yet they left us to do the dirty work."

"There's no help for it. Didn't Peng Fengnian say the skinner's collection is definitely hidden somewhere hard to find? Our traits aren't suited for this sort of thing."

"It's easy for him to talk while standing on the sidelines. This lousy factory is only so big, what's so hard about finding a cellar or a secret room? Who couldn't find it?"

"But Peng Fengnian said the survival rate for players in this skinner instance is almost zero. It certainly can't be that easy, right?"

The other person gave a cold snort, and footsteps moved from the front door of the workshop toward the back door.

"Zou Weichang, where are you going?"

"The pigsty." Zou Weichang let out a strange laugh. "Maybe we'll get lucky and run into a few little pigs that haven't been skinned for six hours yet."

"Didn't Peng Fengnian say that's impossible? The piglets are all specially supplied, the skinner must have raised them for a long time..."

"Everything is according to Peng Fengnian. Use your brain a bit."

"Hey!" The moving footsteps paused. "There are a few other rooms nearby, shouldn't we check them out first?"

Zou Weichang ignored Xian Dazhi and walked straight into the pigsty. Xian Dazhi hurriedly chased after him.

The workshop fell silent again. Xuhuo stood in the room without rushing to go out.

These applicants were different from him; they were ticket-holding players who had discussed their strategies before arriving.

The known individuals were Qin An, Zou Weichang, Xian Dazhi, Yang Chang, and Peng Fengnian.

Among them, Yang Chang had been taken fishing by the skinner; Zou Weichang and Xian Dazhi were in the pigsty; Qin An and another female player had gone to the front to look for the skinner's collection room.

Whether the female player was named Peng Fengnian was hard to say, and the possibility that some players had not entered the Good Taste Fresh Meat Supply Factory could not be ruled out.

Judging from their conversation, the instance tasks for the ticket-holding players should be the same as his: steal the treasures collected by the skinner, rescue the three children, and complete the work assigned by the skinner. They could choose any one of the three options.

Out of the three tasks, the third one seemed to carry the lowest risk, but in reality, it was not the case.

The skinner most likely knew that the people coming to apply were players, but for some reason, he had no choice but to let them in to work. That was why he resented the applicants, and the filthy workshop outside also seemed to have been left that way intentionally.

Under this premise, it was virtually impossible for the players to complete the work he assigned. Being chased away without clearing the instance would be considered lucky; most players probably ended up as a pile of minced meat in the slaughterhouse.

As for the second task, it should be to rescue the three children. Escaping the instance or clearing it to obtain a return ticket only provided for a single person. The premise of completing the task was being able to take the three children away—at least rescuing them from their pigskin husks. Without special props, it was practically impossible for players to complete this task unless the skinner voluntarily released them.

The most feasible task was the first one, which was why these players had directly abandoned the last two.

Frowning deeply, Xuhuo used a sack to catch a few rats, then used detergent to wash the blood off his shoes before climbing out the window and returning to the outside of the pigsty.

Inside the pigsty, Xian Dazhi, with his honest appearance, touched a piglet's belly and shook his head at Zou Weichang, "The stitches are almost invisible. Even if we take them out, they can only live as pigs for the rest of their lives."

Zou Weichang was unsurprised. He lit a cigarette, blew out a cloud of smoke, and said with a dazed expression, "I expected this before coming."

Xian Dazhi said pityingly, "Babies only a few years old, truly pitiful."

"What's there to pity? This is fate; they can only blame themselves for having bad luck." Zou Weichang stubbed out his cigarette butt and turned to walk toward the workshop, "Though we aren't much better off. We might even die before them."

Xian Dazhi followed him. Suddenly, a large pig in the pigsty pressed its front hooves against the fence, bit Zou Weichang's sleeve, and pulled desperately.

"Is this pig crazy?" Zou Weichang kicked it away, completely failing to treat it as a human.

"I am human! I am a player!"

Sima Xiaoer was kicked to the ground and screamed frantically, but the sound he emitted was a shrill, piercing squeal. He stared angrily at the two people before him, climbed up, and tried to charge over again, only to be kicked back down before he could get close.

"They can still be saved!" Xian Dazhi hurried to stop him.

Zou Weichang brushed his hand away, "So what? Even if we save them, can they run out? This is a game world, players themselves are hanging by a thread, ordinary people going out will only find a dead end!"

"Don't drag me into your overflowing sympathy. If the skinner finds out we secretly released people, we'll all fucking die!"

Xian Dazhi was speechless and looked away, refusing to look at the pigs in the pen.

"Living as a pig might let you live a few more days." Zou Weichang turned and walked away.

"Oink! Oink!" Sima Xiaoer stood pressed against the fence, shouting with all his might, but the two men left without even looking back. He retreated despondently, his gaze more despairing than anyone else's.

At that moment, Xuhuo jumped into the pigsty and knocked on the fence, "Redhead?"

Sima Xiaoer scrambled up instantly and lunged toward him.

Xuhuo pressed down on his pig snout, "Don't want to get out?"

"Oink?" Sima Xiaoer looked at him with confusion and anger.

"What those two people said makes sense. Even if you get out, you won't survive. Too many missing people will easily attract attention."

Xuhuo cut the two stitches across his belly and asked, "Did you receive the game notification?"