Chapter 51: Scent

This was the point Xu Huo had never been able to figure out. The Skin Skinner instance was not a closed instance; if players could simply hide outside the factory and refuse to enter, it could hardly be considered a mandatory participation.

Yet, everything happening before his eyes made him understand that even if one hid outside during the day, they would inevitably be driven into the factory at night!

If Peng Fengnian's information was accurate, the Skin Skinner at night was far more dangerous than during the day. Players who tried to take shortcuts by hiding outside might end up becoming the first targets, making it even more perilous.

Hesitating between the pigsty and the Skin Skinner's bedroom, Xu Huo chose the former.

Before the darkness completely closed in on the factory, he retrieved the rats he had hidden outside during the day, wrapped them with strips of meat, and tied them to the wires running along the ceiling of the workshop. After that, he sneaked into the pigsty, signaled Sima Xiao'er and the others to stay quiet, draped the stripped pigskin back over himself, and crawled into a corner.

The others were looking at his actions with a bit of bewilderment when they suddenly heard footsteps approaching from the front door of the pigsty. Terrified, they all crowded into the corner, naturally shielding him from view.

The heavy and slow footsteps did not belong to any player. Xu Huo was certain it was the Skin Skinner, but this was different from the Skin Skinner of the daytime.

"Creak..." The front door slowly opened. With a "click," the electric light turned on, and a figure gradually walked up to the front of the pigsty.

This person had the same face as the Skin Skinner, the same red nose, and the tall stature, but his messy brown hair was combed meticulously and slicked down with hair oil, every strand plastered flat against his scalp. His thick beard was smoothly braided into a small plait, with the tip neatly trimmed.

His blood-stained, dirty coat had been replaced by a clean white lab coat, over which he wore a leather apron. Tucked into the edge of the apron were two two-finger-wide, crescent-shaped black thin blades. The patterns on the edges of the blades reflected a faint glow, echoing each other like a pair of butterfly wings.

That was the skinning knife!

Through a narrow gap, Xu Huo looked at the Skin Skinner, whose mental state was completely different from the butcher version he had seen before, and a thought suddenly flashed through his mind:

He must absolutely not be discovered!

As if sensing something, the Skin Skinner turned his head, his calm and cold eyes gazing into the pigsty.

At that very instant, Xu Huo's limbs stiffened uncontrollably. The figure of the Skin Skinner kept magnifying in his field of vision. Looking at the outstretched hand, he even felt a despairing sensation that he could never escape!

The fear of death gripped his body and mind; thoughts of resisting, fleeing, or fighting to the death all faded away, and another realization rapidly invaded his brain—he was going to die right here!

"Oink—!" Right at that moment, in the pigsty a few meters away, a small piglet screamed wildly, stepping over other piglets to flip out of the enclosure, and bolted frantically toward the back of the living quarters.

The Skin Skinner shifted his gaze and strode off to chase the piglet. From a distance of a dozen meters, he extended his right hand toward the piglet. The frantic little piglet instantly grew quiet, trembling all over as it collapsed onto the ground, unable to move.

The Skin Skinner walked over, picked up the piglet, and gently stroked its head. "Running around and crashing about will ruin the hide. The color won't be even and pretty once it's peeled. Being so disobedient..."

He paused mid-sentence, grabbed the ear tag on the piglet, and muttered, "Ah, a guest has already reserved this one."

With a look of regret, the Skin Skinner threw the piglet back into the enclosure and looked back at the pen holding the large pigs. "There's still a strange smell here..."

Before he finished speaking, the lights inside the pigsty suddenly went out, and the darkness outside the factory stopped right at the windowsill.

In the pitch black, the Skin Skinner took a deep breath, then said in a delighted tone, "A new scent. So there was a disobedient little piglet hiding outside."

The footsteps walked out of the pigsty in a hurry, almost carrying a sense of eagerness.

In the darkness, the door of the pigsty was already closed, but Xu Huo could not calm down for a long time.

His reaction when targeted by the Skin Skinner just now had been completely abnormal. A person's aura and presence were limited; without external coercive force, it should never make someone so terrified that they were unable to resist. Was this a characteristic of the Skin Skinner?

After catching his breath, Xu Huo wrapped himself in the pigskin, climbed onto the windowsill, and jumped forward. Yet, passing through the darkness, he landed right back inside the pigsty. This happened several times in a row; the night outside acted like a barrier enclosing the factory. It seemed the factory would not return to its daytime state until a certain time had passed.

The one who had lured the Skin Skinner away must have been Peng Fengnian, who had just entered. If Peng Fengnian could not hold out until the darkness receded, the Skin Skinner would most likely turn back.

If possible, Xu Huo wanted to avoid a direct confrontation as much as possible, and he hoped Peng Fengnian could hold on a little longer.

Just as he was pinning his hopes on Peng Fengnian, Peng Fengnian, hiding atop the front wall of the workshop, was similarly hoping that Xu Huo would do something to attract the Skin Skinner's attention.

The route of hiding outside and refusing to enter the factory was unviable, and the consequence of violating the game rules to exploit loopholes was the backlash of the instance. He was certain the Skin Skinner would list him as the primary target. Knowing his own capabilities—physical combat would only serve as fodder—and recalling the various rumors about the Skin Skinner, his body trembled uncontrollably.

Inside the factory, aside from the pigsty at the back, the Skin Skinner's bedroom, the secret room, the slaughterhouse, and the adjacent warehouse whose walls reached all the way to the ceiling, the other rooms were mostly open-topped above the wiring beams. Therefore, as long as one's vantage point was high enough, one could more or less take in the situation of other parts of the factory.

He had been thrown onto this wall the moment he entered. After immediately concealing his tracks, he had no intention of changing his location. Entering the bedroom, office, or fur room ahead meant walking right into a trap; it was better to hide on the wall and wait for the Skin Skinner to pass before heading into the lounge shared by Tang Pei and the others.

Just then, the factory lost power again. He employed all his traits and stealth-enhancing props, hoping to fool the Skin Skinner.

Less than half a minute after the lights went out, the back door of the pigsty was opened, and the figure of the Skin Skinner walked in. Although he couldn't see his appearance clearly, judging from the footsteps, he had gone to the adjacent warehouse.

Peng Fengnian's suspended heart relaxed slightly. At this distance, if the Skin Skinner had discovered him, he would have struck first. The fact that he went to the warehouse proved he hadn't been spotted.

As he nervously waited for the Skin Skinner to reappear, a figure in the players' lounge opposite the warehouse suddenly climbed out of a bed and, without anyone noticing, silently walked out of the room.

At such a close distance, and with the players maintaining their vigilance, it was simply impossible for this to go unnoticed unless he used a trait or a prop. Before the six of them formed an alliance, everyone had briefly introduced their traits, and Peng Fengnian knew this was Zou Weichang's trait, "Black Under the Lamp."

What was he going out to do?

Zou Weichang, enveloped in the darkness, had no idea there was still a person hiding on the wall. He stealthily crossed the workshop, managed to avoid the Skin Skinner who was currently in the warehouse, and slipped out through the front door into the fur room.