Chapter 46: Consuming Flesh (Part 18) – Falling into the Well

In the guest room, Lu Keliang sat at the desk, listening to the earth-shattering snoring of the tattooed woman behind him, unable to fall asleep at all.

He was forty-three years old this year. Ever since he went to the mountainous region to support education at the age of twenty-two, he had never left. He had spent nearly half his life in the mountains, teaching successive batches of children out of the deep valleys.

Both of his parents were farmers and had died early. He had managed to finish college relying on a grant from a federal foundation. Going to the mountainous region was originally just to repay the foundation's loan, but unexpectedly, he ended up putting down roots as time went on.

During this period, quite a few people looking to pad their resumes came and went. Some even plagiarized his deeds, becoming famous, taking official posts, and receiving promotions after they left. He knew it all clearly in his mind, but he 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 night duty, a few villagers suddenly came to find him and said, "Teacher Lu, our children are missing. You are familiar with them, please help us find them."

The villagers trusted him completely, and whenever they encountered trouble they couldn't solve, they thought of turning to him. Naturally, he had no reason to refuse.

He threw on a coat, grabbed a flashlight, and headed into the mountains. He searched everywhere the children often played, and on a whim, he went down to the creek.

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

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

He had entered the "Bizarre Game."

Lu Keliang was a social recluse who didn't much like talking. Even when giving lectures to the children, he had to practice over and over again to deliver a decent performance.

Fortunately, the first instance was a single-player puzzle instance. After all, he was a college student with a regular reading habit and a solid reserve of knowledge, so he managed to clear it without any mishaps, though with plenty of scares.

However, this "Carnivory" instance was different. There were too many people, and there was an overly boisterous woman who insisted on sharing a room with him. Everything felt awkward and thoroughly uncomfortable to him.

Today, after seeing the clue in the five-character poem, Lu Keliang mustered up his courage and stammeringly asked the tattooed woman if they could sleep in separate rooms.

The tattooed woman lay down on the floor and said dismissively, "Fine, go find another room then! Anyway, this lady doesn't want to move a muscle!"

Lu Keliang then headed to the guest room shared by Wu Heng and Zhu Dafu, only to find he was a step too late; Zhang Licai was already staying inside.

Of course, he couldn't kick the man out, so he could only offer repeated apologies and return crestfallen to the original room, inevitably enduring a round of mockery from the tattooed woman.

As for the "mutual slaughter within the same room" mentioned in the five-character poem, it would be a lie to say he wasn't afraid, but he wasn't scared to the point of being unable to cope.

In his view, the tattooed woman had consumed the mucilage from the village chief's house and undergone a mutation; her days were probably numbered, and when the time came, the one who died might not necessarily be him.

"Tap, tap, tap... Click, click, click..."

In the latter half of the night, the sound of the cleaver rang out in the courtyard once again. The black shadow on the wall brandished the kitchen knife, closing in step by step.

For some reason, this time it stopped at a distance of three meters from the guest room and advanced no further, pacing back and forth like a trapped beast, as if ahead lay the territory of an even more terrifying predator.

"Pitter-patter... Pitter-patter..."

The sound of saliva dripping onto the floor echoed behind his ears. Lu Keliang saw the shadow of a woman cast upon the wall of the guest room, growing taller and larger.

"You look like you'd be delicious..." The tattooed woman's voice rang out. It wasn't her usual tone, but rather sounded as if her body had been manipulated by a malevolent spirit.

Lu Keliang slowly turned his head and saw the woman's wide-open eyes flashing with a green light in the darkness, the corners of her mouth split all the way to her ears, and sticky saliva dripping down her chin.

"Irina! Wake up!" Lu Keliang shouted loudly, simultaneously grabbing the divine meat on the table and holding it out toward the tattooed woman. "If you're hungry, eat the divine meat. There's plenty of divine meat..."

The tattooed woman seemed to regain a sliver of consciousness. She reached out, grabbed Lu Keliang's outstretched hand, and stared intently at the divine meat upon it.

"So fragrant..." she muttered under her breath, the infatuation in her eyes growing even more intense. Suddenly, she opened her mouth wide and swallowed the divine meat whole, along with Lu Keliang's palm.

A sickening crunch of shattering bone echoed through the room, and Lu Keliang let out a piercing, agonizing scream.

He desperately tried to yank his hand back and raised his foot to kick the tattooed woman in the stomach, only to have his leg grabbed instead.

The tattooed woman had bitten off his palm and swallowed it, and now she went to bite his foot...

Lu Keliang was wearing shoes, and the demon-possessed tattooed woman didn't seem entirely clear-headed, as she actually clamped her teeth down onto the heel of his shoe.

Lu Keliang seized the opportunity, quickly slipping his foot out of the shoe, and 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, nothing would happen...

Lu Keliang's entire right hand was gone, and blood was trickling steadily from the jagged stump at his wrist, revealing hints of severed muscle and white bone.

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

True to his thought, the tattooed woman did not chase after him. Lu Keliang clutched his injured hand, standing in the courtyard with a bent back, panting heavily.

Yet the next second, a black shadow descended from overhead, and the "tap-tap" sound of the cleaver drew close to his ears, accompanied by a muffled murmur: "Hungry... So hungry... Give me meat..."

"If I don't give you my consent, you cannot kill me," Lu Keliang said to the culinary ghost.

The black shadow retreated. Thick white mist rolled into the residential compound, and countless ghostly figures wandered about his surroundings, yet none of them stepped forward.

Lu Keliang suddenly remembered that last night, Yang Yundong and Allen had gone out and slept outside for the entire night without incident.

That was right; the Bizarre Game would never set up a must-die scenario with no solution. If he had known better, he should have just slept outside the door...

It was a pity that sleeping in the open air within a ghost-infested Bizarre Game required courage. At the time, he genuinely hadn't thought of sleeping in the courtyard, and no one had reminded him...

Lu Keliang tore off a strip of his own clothing and tied a dead knot around his ceaselessly bleeding wrist, yet the blood still gushed from the stump like a fountain.

At this rate of blood loss, he wouldn't even survive until tomorrow; he would die in another half hour...

Lu Keliang's legs turned to jelly, and he collapsed onto the ground, the blood pooling beneath him like a spring.

His head was already beginning to spin, and he felt as though he could black out into unconsciousness at any moment. He tried his utmost to maintain his awareness, pondering what he should do.

He didn't want to die. He hadn't finished teaching his prepared lessons yet, and he hadn't had the chance to say goodbye to the children...

How could he survive? How could he clear the instance within half-life?

"Could this well be the exit of this instance? I saw on the forum that in many instances, the exits are wells and cellars."

The young man's voice echoed in his memory, like the ghostly whispers a night traveler hears deep in the mountain forest, brimming with a seductive allure.

Lu Keliang knew this was his last resort.

He propped his body up, stood on wobbly legs, staggered toward the dry well beside the washing sink, and plunged headfirst into it.

Golden light flashed abruptly in the darkness, and all pain drifted far away. His emotions felt as though they were immersed in warm wine, soothing and intoxicating.

Lu Keliang saw a blood-red figure bound by chains woven from golden vines, forming the entire scenery of heaven and earth.

It was a long-haired man wearing gold-embroidered crimson robes, so breathtakingly beautiful he looked like a god from legend.

He watched as the god opened his crimson eyes, smiling warmly at him while baring a row of fine, sharp fangs.

The handless skeleton crashed heavily to the ground, and the deity in red swallowed the flesh and blood of the sacrifice, letting out a soft sigh of satisfaction:

"Tsk, how filthy."

Qisi lowered his gaze to inspect his mucilage-soaked shirt, sighing with a languid expression.

After coming out of the kitchen, he had roamed the entire courtyard without finding a place to wash up or do laundry, forcing him to drag his grime-covered body back from the village chief's house to the guest room.

The mere thought that the slime on his body would pick up dust if it touched the floor or strip away plaster if it brushed against the walls drained him of any desire to lie down.

Followed by the sorrowful realization that once he ate the divine meat, lie down he would still have to...

In the latter half of the night, the successive waves of screams shattered the silence. Qisi knew that trouble had struck those guest rooms where two people shared a space.

He picked up a lantern, walked over to the window, and looked out into the night.

Before long, he saw the door of the guest room housing the tattooed woman swing open, and a lean, gaunt figure fled out in a panic, collapsing in a heap within the courtyard.

Qisi had an impression of this man.

When inspecting the dry well around noon, he had originally intended to reach out and push this man down, but due to the prying eyes of the crowd, he had no choice but to drop the idea.

At the time, he had put on an act and muttered to himself: "Could this well be the exit of this instance? I saw on the forum that in many instances, the exits are wells and cellars."

This man had probably assumed those words were directed at him and had even politely humored him in response.

Qisi observed without blinking, and then watched as the man seemed to recall something, stood up, and leaped straight into the well.

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

There wasn't a single shred of meat left on the bare skeleton, as clean and pristine as if it had been licked and sucked clean by a pack of scavenging organisms; the right forearm lacked any hand bones, precisely matching that unfortunate man.

Under the cold, pale moonlight, the incomplete skeleton radiated a fresh milky white, as if draped in a layer of translucent gauze. Even Qisi, who was well-accustomed to osteological art pieces, couldn't help his heart from yearning.

A wisp of black smoke lingered and coiled over the surface of the skeleton, splitting into two strands a moment later. One strand flew toward the tattooed woman's room, while the other drifted toward Qisi.

Qisi instinctively sidestepped to dodge it, but the black smoke seemed to have locked onto him, making a sharp turn and burrowing straight through his lips.

The glass pane reflected his instantaneous silhouette: ink-thick black smoke enveloped virtually every inch of his skin, with tiny trickles continuously burrowing in and out.

Yet in the blink of an eye, all the anomalies vanished. Reflected in the glass, his skin was fair and his brows deep black, making him look precisely like a gentle and utterly harmless young man.

"What on earth does the black smoke signify? There is black smoke on the menu, black smoke is produced after eating the divine meat, and there is black smoke after Lu Keliang dies... Does it symbolize sin?

"Because Lu Keliang's death involved elements of my verbal inducement, even if he was doomed from the start, a portion of the black smoke belongs to me? Interesting."

Hunger arrived right on schedule. Qisi grabbed the divine meat, bit into it piece by piece, and swallowed it down.

He watched as his reflection in the mirror was once again shrouded in black smoke, falling into deep thought.

"Axi threw a small piece of meat down and reaped benefits; what will Irina and I gain by driving a living human like Lu Keliang down there? It really makes one unable to help but care..."