Mysterious Reward

On the other side.

Just as Zhu Yan was struggling to adapt to his new form, a cheerful female voice rang in his ears.

“Congratulations, player!”

It still maintained that same stiff kind of joy.

“Thirty minutes ago, you successfully obtained Fragment of the Key, number four, and managed to infiltrate the Kitchen.”

“Your viewers, who adore you, have deliberated and decided to grant you a special reward.”

Ah, why now?

Zhu Yan couldn’t help feeling stunned.

His current position wasn’t exactly convenient, was it?

Zhu Yan glanced down again.

Below the ceiling was a crowd of terrifying creatures in bright yellow uniforms, bustling about.

This place looked like some kind of factory workshop.

Black rubber conveyor belts snaked around like serpents, stretching in from the adjoining room, endlessly transporting intact human bodies and haphazardly piled organs, then carrying the “ingredients” that had undergone secondary processing by the creatures to the next room.

Apart from the sounds of chopping and hacking flesh, sinew, and bone, the rustle of stiff fabric, and faint crying from the source of the conveyor belt, the place was very quiet.

“Of course, this is quite convenient,” the female voice said cheerfully. “Please, player, be sure to collect your reward: Life-Sized Puppet That Cannot Be Detected as a Puppet.”

The term suddenly drilled into Zhu Yan’s mind, jolting his thoughts into a momentary freeze.

What was that?

“Life-Sized Puppet That Cannot Be Detected as a Puppet”...

Was it the Life-Sized Puppet he was thinking of?

Was it a puppet he could use while in Mist form?

Zhu Yan tried to swallow his saliva, only to realize he had no throat.

“That’s right,” the female voice said lightly. “Congratulations, player. A Life-Sized Puppet identical in appearance to player Zhu Zeyu has been delivered to your ring. Please collect it.”

“Also, your viewers sincerely wish you good luck.”

“Hope you have fun, player!”

The female voice disappeared again.

Even though the situation was urgent, Zhu Yan allowed himself a small moment of surprise.

No matter how you looked at it, that was a Life-Sized Puppet!

Zhu Yan could use it, and Tuxedo Cat could also use it in mist form.

With this thing, it meant that “Zhu Zeyu” and the Hunter could appear at the same time.

In short, it was a huge win.

Zhu Yan forced himself to pull his focus back together.

He lowered his altitude slightly and even spotted two or three vaguely familiar faces on the conveyor belt.

He must have crossed paths with them on the Boyang University cafeteria floor or the Xishan University cafeteria floor.

Now, they—their corpses looked gruesome in various ways, tossed onto the conveyor belt like freshly butchered fat pigs, waiting for the next stage of processing.

Blood dripped along the edges of the conveyor belt; the masked monsters swiftly inspected these torsos and organs, picking out intestines that were too hard to clean and tossing them into iron basins, while the torsos were roughly cut into chunks or halves.

The place was dirty and hot, and the stench of blood filled every corner.

Zhu Yan felt nauseated.

He watched as one of the things in the yellow uniform expertly chopped off a head and threw it into a basin by its feet.

“Something’s off,” it said, craning its neck to look at the black rubber strip curtain at the source of the conveyor belt, shouting hoarsely in the quiet workshop. “Don’t you think the ingredients are coming through slower?”

“What’s going on in that front room?”

“Are the rest of the players on break, or is Miss Xingzi resting?”

Oh ho ho, so the next room was Miss Xingzi’s workspace.

Zhu Yan was curious and split himself into two parts.

One part followed the conveyor belt toward the next room, while the other part squeezed through the curtain at the source of the belt.

How strange.

Why could he still hear crying over there?

Could there still be living players in there?

On the other side of the curtain was a black pipe about one meter long and one meter high.

The smell here was even stronger; Zhu Yan felt like every cell of his was being forced to blend with the hot air thick with the reek of blood, turning him into some weird, indecipherable monster.

Murmuring voices came from the far end of the pipe, growing clearer.

Zhu Yan suppressed his nausea and flowed out from the curtain on the other side of the pipe.

A wave of despairing noise immediately filled his ears.

Suppressed, anguished crying, wails, and shouts mixed together, along with the creaking sound of wire rubbing and scraping.

Zhu Yan couldn’t immediately pinpoint the source of the noise, because what greeted him was a mountain of flesh.

More precisely, it was a haphazardly stacked pile of corpses—roughly dozens of them at a glance.

They were still wearing clothes; some were missing arms or legs, and others had blotchy livor mortis on their exposed limbs.

In front of the “mountain,” a metal sign stood crookedly, with sharp, twisted letters reading “Inferior, Already Dead.”

They gave off a stench of excrement mixed with rotting flesh, so foul that Zhu Yan couldn’t help wanting to get far away.

He quickly rose in Mist form along the mountain and finally found the source of the voices.

The room was huge, covering at least two hundred square meters—about twice the size of the secondary processing workshop.

The massive mountain of flesh occupied about half of that area.

On the other half sat a giant square wire cage.

Zhu Yan had seen a cage of the same design in a market when he was a child.

Smaller versions of this kind of cage were often used to house quail, pigeons, or pet birds like budgies for sale, but the giant cage in front of Zhu Yan was packed full of players.

Zhu Yan couldn’t be sure how many people were in there, because heads were pressed against one another, and arms stuck out messily from the tightly woven mesh like a ring of thorns.

About half of them were in a dazed state, their bodies twisted awkwardly, forced to stand by the cramped space inside the cage.

The other half, or a smaller portion, had faces filled with despair or madness, many with fresh tear streaks.

The noise was coming from here.

Someone was crying out in fury, someone was releasing skills at a spot above the cage, someone was yelling, and someone was frantically shaking the edge of the cage.

“What do we do? Are we really going to die here?”

“Why can’t I even log into the Player Forum? Help...”

“Still no signal on my phone either.” In the corner of the cage, a girl remained relatively calm. “The creature hasn’t come back yet. Maybe we should try working together and attacking one spot on the cage?”

“No,” the boy next to her said in despair, shaking his head. “My ability lets me check item levels. This cage is level twelve. Unless we use a level-thirteen ability or item, there’s no way to break it.”

Someone started crying.

“Why level twelve?” he screamed in agony. “What’s the highest ability level among this group? Is it even level three?”

"Didn't they say the dungeon would match the players' abilities? If our abilities are only this weak, then why are the cages and the horror creatures such high levels?"

"Could it be that all we can do is wait here to die?"

Hmm.

Zhu Yan thought for a moment.

What was it he had just acquired again?

[A life-sized puppet that cannot be discovered to be a puppet]?

Doesn't that mean he can both observe things from the head chef's vicinity and boost Zhu Zeyu's reputation and favorability at the same time?