Chapter 52: The Nape

Following the location Xu Huo had provided, Zou Weichang accurately found a leopard skin. After feeling it for a long while, he cursed in a low voice, then turned to a rhinoceros skin. After stroking it for a moment as well, he suddenly yanked the pelt off and slammed it fiercely onto the ground.

"Son of a bitch!" he cursed viciously, and directly barged into the skinner's bedroom!

As the bedroom door swung open and shut, Peng Fengnian mentally cursed him as an idiot while keeping his peripheral vision locked on the skinner who had just emerged from the storage room.

The skinner held a candle in one hand and a rusted, thick iron chain in the other. Casually tossing the chain up over a ceiling beam, he hooked it into place, tested the height, and lit an alcohol lamp underneath it.

The flame illuminated the metal hook dangling from the tip of the chain. Unlike the rust-covered chain, this metal hook gleamed like a mirror. Heated by the flames, it gradually turned red, casting a halo of crimson light that spread outward like a tangible substance, soon engulfing the entire workshop.

Sweat beaded on Peng Fengnian's forehead. Pressing the tip of his nose against the wall, he stared fixedly at the dust particles within arm's reach, not even daring to let his peripheral vision drift toward the skinner.

He was one hundred percent certain that the glowing red metal hook was a special prop. He didn't know its exact function, and could only pray that it had no searching capabilities. As for his own prop, "You Can't See Me," its effectiveness would be compromised whether he was staring at the skinner or in the presence of light.

"Two little piglets," the skinner muttered as he shuffled about, "one is very naughty, damaging my beloved pelt. The other is disobedient, hiding outside during game time."

"Which one should I deal with first?"

When he spoke the first sentence, he was still in the center of the workshop; when he asked the second question, his voice seemed to be right against Peng Fengnian's ear.

Cold sweat poured down Peng Fengnian's face, his eyes darting frantically, avoiding any focus on the skinner who had suddenly entered his field of vision. At the same time, a half-finger-long injection appeared in his left hand. With a squeeze of his fingers, the black serum was injected into his palm. A black vein bulged from his skin, rapidly slithering up his arm toward his chest. The exact moment it reached his heart, he slumped motionless against the wall, all signs of life extinguished.

"Dead?" The skinner stood beneath the wall, raising the candle to look at the person hanging crookedly overhead, shook his head in regret, and then walked out the front door and into the fur room.

Inside the skinner's bedroom, after jumping out of the window for the third time only to land right back where he started, Zou Weichang finally realized something was wrong.

He had originally wanted to bypass the others, obtain a pelt, and clear the instance ahead of time. But according to the location Xu Huo gave him, he had taken two skins in a row yet received no instance-clearance prompt. It was blatantly obvious that the information he had been given was false.

All that talk about joining forces to rescue people was just an excuse, meant solely to buy time so that Xu Huo could monopolize the good items in the skinner's secret chamber. Those few fools trusted him unconditionally, but Zou Weichang wasn't that stupid.

Finders keepers; whatever Xu Huo got, he deserved a share of too.

Therefore, he had immediately entered the skinner's bedroom. The bed was indeed empty, which went without saying—the person must have entered the secret chamber.

After receiving no response to his multiple negotiations, and failing in his attempts to push open the wall, he had planned to go back and wake up Qin An and the others, only to find he couldn't get out at all!

The instance had changed!

Zou Weichang suddenly recalled the drastic change in Xu Huo's expression during his previous call with Peng Fengnian. It seemed they had discovered the problem with the instance long before.

Cursing himself for his carelessness, he immediately turned back toward the bedroom door. But as he reached it, a beam of light also arrived at the threshold, and a pair of shadows stopped face-to-face with him outside.

"Knock, knock!" The person outside knocked on the door, singing in a brisk, cheerful tone: "Little piglet, open the door wide, gently open it, don't break it inside."

The odd little tune, neither foreign nor domestic, made one's scalp tingle. No matter how dull Zou Weichang was, he could sense that the skinner outside was different from the one during the day. No wonder he had shouted for so long in the bedroom without Xu Huo making a sound—it looked like Xu Huo had sneaked away and hidden long ago!

"Little piglet, open the door wide, if you don't open it, I'll come inside." The skinner's tone shifted again as he twisted the doorknob.

Do or die!

Hardening his heart, Zou Weichang whipped out a skateboard!

The bedroom door crashed inward with a bang. The instant the skateboard flew out, Zou Weichang leaped onto it, clearing the skinner in a single bound to jump out of the bedroom!

The flame of the candle remained completely motionless. The skinner stood beside the doorframe, first glancing down at the fallen door, then raising his gaze to look at Zou Weichang. A pair of bloodshot eyeballs twitched slightly, like a dead man looking at another dead man.

Zou Weichang felt a jolt of terror, cold sweat instantly breaking out. Past caring about anything else, he sprinted straight across the fur room toward the exit!

Just as he was about to rush out the door, he glanced back and saw that the skinner was still standing in the exact same posture, the edge of his face outlined by the candlelight slowly curving into a smile.

Zou Weichang's heart sank, and he immediately accelerated. But the next second, he crashed headfirst into the hanging pelts!

The pelts behaved like living creatures, wrapping tightly around his body the moment they brushed against him. Hands were hands, heads were heads—the fur molded completely to his contour. As he tumbled off the skateboard, he had already transformed into a four-legged tiger with closed eyes!

Unable to see or speak, Zou Weichang stumbled blindly toward the exit guided purely by his sense of direction. However, before he had taken two steps, he was paralyzed by another force. The fur wrapped around his limbs forcibly pressed him down to crawl on the ground, trembling uncontrollably—whether it was the pelt or his own body, both were shaking!

The skinner walked over to him, grabbed his hind legs, and dragged him toward the workshop.

Zou Weichang screamed for help, but the only sound that escaped his mouth was a muffled, distorted growl. He clawed at the ground with his hands, leaving a few faint, negligible marks in the dirt.

Yet the skinner noticed when he looked back. He walked over, snapped Zou Weichang's hands underfoot, and said coldly, "Disobedient piglets must be punished."

Screaming in agony, Zou Weichang was hoisted onto the metal hook, which had been baked red-hot by the alcohol lamp. Then, the skinner peeled off the tiger skin from him, examined his broken hands, and said regretfully, "They've turned bruised. This pelt won't look pretty enough once skinned."

With his nape pierced by the metal hook and suspended high above, Zou Weichang's eyes and lips trembled simultaneously. Unable to speak or move, sweat streamed down his entire body.

The skinner opened a leather case, sequentially taking out tweezers, a file, a dozen tiny blades of various shapes, and a fishhook tied with fishing line.

After meticulously sterilizing each of these items, the skinner checked the metal hook piercing the back of Zou Weichang's neck. Only then did he walk around to the front, took down the skinning knife hanging from his apron, and wiped it carefully.

"Some mammals, due to juvenile memory, dare not move when grabbed by the scruff of the neck. Whether it's a newly weaned kitten or an adult tiger and leopard, they all share the same neural reflex. You don't have to spend much effort catching them; they'll docilely behave themselves, remaining tame and obedient. When you skin them, they won't struggle, and it won't ruin the aesthetic of the pelt."

"Humans are the same. Hook that patch of skin on the cervical spine of the nape, and the muscles will relax completely. Though they can feel the pain, the nerves won't allow the flesh and skin to contract. Only when skinned this way will the pelt turn out even and smooth."

"I call it 'the scruff of fate.' It's currently wearing the 'conscious iron hook,' and we have two hours left." The skinner looked up at Zou Weichang, his facial features contorting into a "smile": "Let's begin."