◎Peel off your skin—it’ll make a fine pocket.◎
Nangong Yu had just been outside the wall when she heard Huang Hu mention her—a high-ranking NPC had called her by name!
Naturally, she had to rush over.
Eating a steamed bun as she went, Nangong Yu hurried after him. “My lord, you’re walking too fast. Could you slow down a little?”
Huang Hu, however, thought her legs were ridiculously short and that she was moving at a snail’s pace. He was extremely impatient. “Shut up.”
With that, he clamped one hand around her shoulder and simply carried her off!
The scenery on either side of Nangong Yu shot backward. She could barely make out anything!
“Waaah—”
She waved her arms and legs in terror, taking the opportunity to open her lightbrain and activate the tracking and recording functions.
“Stop yelling!” Huang Hu snapped impatiently.
He had an unfriendly-looking face. His features were handsome, but he radiated a murderous aura.
Nangong Yu stopped flailing and clamped her mouth tightly shut.
The scenery ahead blurred past at incredible speed. After flying for several minutes, they came to an abrupt halt.
Thud.
Nangong Yu was thrown to the ground, landing hard on her backside.
She grimaced in pain, but her eyes swiftly took in everything around her.
Apparently, Huang Hu wasn’t worried about her seeing the place. He hadn’t blindfolded her.
Before her was an ordinary-looking courtyard, with neat rows of buildings standing side by side.
She couldn’t tell where they were, but they should still be near the Spirit Beast Garden, because she could hear the lazy roars of beasts.
“Come in.” Huang Hu entered first, his hands clasped behind his back.
Nangong Yu hurried after him.
Once inside, Huang Hu pushed open one of the rooms on the left. Then, right in front of Nangong Yu, he twisted a mechanism.
A hidden door appeared before her. Huang Hu gestured for her to follow. “Come on.”
Nangong Yu nodded like a pecking chick. “Yes, my lord.”
She quickly stepped inside, but Huang Hu clicked his tongue impatiently.
These mortals were truly stupid and clumsy. He was sick of them.
But even if he was sick of them, he still had to put up with them. Huang Hu was in a foul mood. Once he entered, the hidden door closed automatically behind him.
“Lower your head.” The young man’s voice was gloomy yet offhand.
With the hidden door cutting off the sunlight, the passage was extremely dim. However, luminous pearls were embedded in the walls, so it wasn’t completely dark. After her eyes adjusted, Nangong Yu followed his instructions and lowered her head.
There was a long flight of stairs below.
No wonder he’d told her to lower her head, she thought as she followed Huang Hu downward.
At the bottom of the stairs lay a vast, open space. The heavy stench of blood filled the air, making her feel like vomiting.
Nangong Yu quietly raised her eyes. Huang Hu was still walking ahead, but the sticky sensation beneath her feet made her pause.
“Keep up!” The noise behind him made Huang Hu turn around impatiently.
Nangong Yu stamped her shoe against the ground and said, “My lord, something is eating my shoe.”
The veins on Huang Hu’s forehead bulged. A cold laugh slipped between his teeth. “Get down and see what it is.”
Nangong Yu did not get down. Instead, she caught up with him again. “Brother Ruo Zhu told me not to do anything unnecessary.”
Don’t do anything unnecessary? Then what had you been doing just now?
Huang Hu had absolutely no patience for these mortals, but this place happened to be impossible to manage without them.
“Thud.”
As he passed an obstruction, he casually kicked it aside.
A glinting object appeared in Nangong Yu’s field of vision. It was an identity token. She lowered her head and saw three words engraved on it: Spirit Beast Garden.
She looked beside it.
The identity token was still attached to half a human body, split cleanly down the middle. Organs and intestines spilled from the severed torso, strewn across the floor.
Not far away lay the other half of the body. That half still had its head attached, its eyes wide open in a death stare.
A thin strand of intestine connected the two halves, disappearing into the dark, muddy blood.
“Did you get a good look?” Huang Hu had somehow settled against the wall. With his right hand, he pulled out a piece of unidentified beast meat and tore into it greedily. “That’s what happens when you do unnecessary things.”
Nangong Yu bent slightly, examining the two halves of the corpse. “The lord who tore him apart was a little weak in the left hand.”
“What?” Huang Hu continued wolfing down the spirit beast meat, his voice muffled.
Nangong Yu pointed at the floor. “The right side has the head, but the left side doesn’t. The split isn’t even.”
Huang Hu frowned and glanced toward the two halves.
“What a shame,” Nangong Yu said, shaking her head regretfully as she examined the corpse.
Unlike her. One slash of her sword, and both sides would be perfectly even.
Huang Hu’s expression darkened.
Why hadn’t this mortal been frightened into trembling? He had shown her a corpse, and this was what she had to say?
A vague but powerful irritation rose in Huang Hu’s heart. His voice turned ominous. “Get to work!”
Nangong Yu looked up. “Please give me your instructions, my lord.”
“Are you blind? Clean this place up!” Huang Hu said angrily.
He was about to take another bite of meat when his gaze fell on his right hand. For some reason, it suddenly felt wrong, so he switched the meat to his left hand.
He ate with gusto, like a tiger pouncing on its prey. Grease smeared his face, but he didn’t care.
Nangong Yu looked at the bloodstained floor and began to complain. “My lord, why not use a Cleansing Spell or Dusting Technique? Wouldn’t that clean everything right up?”
It was so simple. All it took was forming a hand seal. Why make the players do it?
“Are you teaching me how to do my job?” Huang Hu raised his head, fixing Nangong Yu with a dark, brooding stare.
Nangong Yu said, “I wouldn’t dare. I just think this would be faster.”
A thought rose in Huang Hu’s mind.
Was this girl an idiot?
Who did she think she was talking to? Where did she get the nerve?
“I can’t,” Huang Hu said flatly, too lazy to argue with a mortal.
Nangong Yu knew there was no escaping the task. She pursed her lips and began searching the dark chamber.
There was a broom, a rag, and two entire vats of clean water.
She took a pair of work gloves from her inventory, bent down, and dragged the two halves of the corpse up. “My lord, where should I throw these?”
There wasn’t even a trash bin. How was she supposed to clean anything?
Huang Hu had nearly finished eating the meat, leaving only the bone. He crunched it loudly between his teeth. When he looked over, he froze.
Last time, the time before that, and every other time Huang Hu could remember, the newcomers who came to clean this place had been terrified. Their legs shook so badly they could barely stand, and some had even wet themselves.
But this mortal girl hadn’t cried, screamed, or begged for mercy.
She was holding half a corpse in each hand as casually as if they were two pieces of wood.
“Feed them to the spirit beasts,” Huang Hu said offhandedly. He stuffed the last section of bone into his mouth. Somehow, even a bone the length of a palm vanished inside. “Drag them outside first.”
Nangong Yu said, “My lord, don’t test me. The cuties in our Spirit Beast Garden don’t eat things like this.”
Huang Hu grew annoyed at once. “Drag them wherever you want. Just don’t bother me.”
As long as she didn’t throw them back into the chamber?
“My lord, give me a pocket,” Nangong Yu said.
Huang Hu’s temper flared. Why did she have so much to say? Couldn’t she just do her job properly, like all the mortals before her?
“A pocket?” he said coldly.
His eyes glowed green in the darkness, giving him a sinister appearance. “Peel off your skin. It’ll make a fine pocket.”
Nangong Yu noticed the color of his eyes.
As expected, this was an infinite-flow instance. No matter how convincingly he wore human skin, his true nature was still something unnatural.
She said nothing more. Dragging the two halves of the corpse behind her, she went to the bottom of the stairs at the entrance and tossed them there.
She turned back, picked up the broom, and began cleaning the trash scattered across the floor.
Strips of cloth, broken pieces of iron, charred wooden sticks, overturned wooden buckets, flattened pieces of flatbread…
“My lord, who was that person?” Nangong Yu asked as she cleaned, speaking to the NPC resting against the wall with his eyes closed. “I saw that his identity tag said Spirit Beast Garden.”
Huang Hu kept his eyes closed and replied lazily, “He’s the next you.”
Nangong Yu let out a laugh and looked up. “Did you mean to say that I’m the next him?”
Huang Hu froze and opened his eyes, pondering the difference between the two statements.
“Are you trying to die?” He failed to notice the distinction. All he sensed was that this lowly mortal was provoking him, and killing intent burst from his body.
Nangong Yu smiled faintly. “My lord, can’t you take a joke?”
Huang Hu sneered. “What are you, to joke around with me?”
Damn it.
I’m a player, okay?
If you have the guts, you weird monsters should stop drooling over players’ bodies!
“My lord, what do I have to do to become the next him?” Nangong Yu continued asking.
Huang Hu sat back down, folded his arms, and closed his eyes. “Keep talking, and you’ll become the next him very soon.”
He looked bad-tempered, but his mouth was pretty tight too.
As Nangong Yu swept the secret chamber, she gradually ventured deeper inside. Suddenly, she heard a clattering sound from the depths of the shadows, like an iron chain dragging across the floor.
“That’s right. Go farther in.” A wisp of cold air blew against the back of her neck. “Soon, you’ll become two halves.”
Nangong Yu turned around, only to find that the NPC who had been sitting motionless against the wall had somehow appeared behind her.
“Doesn’t that area need cleaning?” Nangong Yu pointed toward the depths.
The secret chamber was spacious, and luminous pearls embedded in the walls illuminated the visible area.
But farther in, there was no light at all. The deeper one went, the darker it became, until not even a sliver of light remained.
“No.” Huang Hu’s voice was cold. Then, as if he had thought of something, a bowl of porridge appeared in his hand. “You can go feed the person inside.”
Nangong Yu eyed him suspiciously. “My lord, are you testing me again?”
He had just said she couldn’t go inside, and now he was telling her to enter?
The veins on Huang Hu’s forehead bulged. Unable to stop himself, he licked his sharp fangs. His ten fingernails lengthened before he even realized it, and he fought the urge to tear something apart.
He said coldly, each word biting, “Get. In. There!”
Nangong Yu glanced at him and took the bowl. “It was you who told me to go, my lord.”
Behind her, Huang Hu’s sinister, bloodthirsty gaze seemed almost tangible.
Nangong Yu did not panic. In fact, her footsteps remained light as she pried a luminous pearl from the wall to light the way ahead, then headed deeper into the secret chamber.
[Hang in there a little longer: While this title is equipped, its target will suppress all emotions toward you. (Note: This includes killing intent—and love, too.)]
What a devious system. It refused to hand out any proper items and kept giving her these flashy, useless toys instead.
Still, since things like this did not take up inventory slots, Nangong Yu had not thrown it away.
“Clatter, clatter—”
The iron chain slowly scraped across the floor, producing a cold metallic sound.
Nangong Yu was filled with curiosity. What was being imprisoned here? Was the miserable howling she had heard last night connected to this secret chamber?
After walking for roughly a hundred meters, a hazy white shadow appeared ahead of her.
She removed the title and cautiously walked forward. The indistinct shadow in her vision gradually became clearer.
It was a person shackled in place.
