Dishes

Ten minutes later.

Ji Xiting fiddled with the stereo beside him, signaling Dragonfly to hurry down to the Kitchen.

He ran a dismissive hand through his neat, jet-black hair. "I don't want to miss the show."

From the speakers came the rasp of a military knife slicing through staff uniforms, the interrogation—vaguely Hunter-like, yet with no real connection to an actual Hunter—and the faint hum of the conveyor belt.

Dragonfly dawdled for a few extra seconds; after confirming the equipment here wouldn't give anything away, it enunciated the floor-change command crisply and vanished from the office in an instant.

A few seconds later.

One of the monitor feeds suddenly showed Dragonfly scurrying along, its silver leg flashing as it hurried down the corridor.

Ji Xiting perked up with interest.

His eyes locked onto the ugly, three-legged bug.

It swung its silver leg, dashing across the pristine white tiles of the hallway, the clatter of its steps ringing out clearly.

Dragonfly soon rapped on the door of the head chef's workstation.

"Open up!" it shouted through the door. "It's Dragonfly. I'm back!"

Zhu Yan was carefully scooping a black flesh fruit out of a pot of soup.

After boiling, the thing had turned a translucent ruby red, and the curled, embryonic human shape curled up inside was plainly visible.

He plated the red thing, spun around quickly, and shot a wary glance through the peephole before opening.

It was indeed only Dragonfly—one of its arms was gone, and a fair amount of blood and flesh had leaked from the wound. Zhu Yan could see the honeycomb-like soft tissue inside.

He opened the door and stepped aside to let it in.

"You're back?" Zhu Yan asked. "How are things upstairs?"

In the office.

Ji Xiting could hear the chef's voice clearly through the feed.

"What are you doing back?" the chef asked. "Didn't you finish installing the monitors?"

In the kitchen.

Dragonfly waved its insect leg toward Zhu Yan.

"Done," it said. "That Ji Xiting ripped off one of my legs. I'm here to deliver the uniforms and to tell you two things."

In the office.

Through the monitor, Dragonfly's voice was clear and precise.

"All installed," it said. "The boss showed me mercy. Very generous of him. I'm here to relay his orders, and there's one more thing I need to tell you."

The chef's reaction was perfectly normal: "What is it?"

In the kitchen.

Dragonfly explained without hesitation: "In the monitor footage, the fake Hunter is about to be sent over. Two minutes at most."

"Your room's image is special. It's highly correlated with your actions."

"For example, if you walk over to the conveyor belt and make chopping motions as if cutting meat, what Ji Xiting sees is you hacking at the Hunter."

In front of the monitor.

Ji Xiting leaned forward with a bucket of popcorn, listening with great relish to what Dragonfly had said.

"I checked the monitor feed. The Hunter is about to be sent over. Two minutes at most."

"That room of yours is special. The Hunter's survival is highly correlated with what you do."

"Now—head to the conveyor belt and wait, ready to chop meat. The next thing you cut will be the Hunter!"

In the kitchen.

Zhu Yan didn't dare slack off: "What do I use to chop the meat? If I use a military knife, will Ji Xiting see a cleaver instead?"

"Yes," Dragonfly nodded. "I've never made a mistake. Trust me. Just use the military knife and chop!"

In the monitor feed.

The chef asked Dragonfly cautiously: "What do I use to kill him? If I use a cleaver, can it cut through the Hunter's defense?"

"Absolutely," Dragonfly assured him. "I've never misjudged anything. Trust me. Just use the cleaver!"

Ji Xiting tossed two popcorn kernels into his mouth. "What level is the chef's cleaver, anyway?"

The Fake Person beside him shrugged.

"No idea. But aren't all the ingredients in the Kitchen cursed?"

"Anything that can handle those curses—it can't be ordinary stuff, right?"

Ji Xiting narrowed his eyes and said nothing.

Cursed flavor.

True enough.

That cleaver's got to be at least level eight. When it comes to the Hunter, it definitely won't be outmatched!

In the kitchen.

Zhu Yan strode toward the conveyor belt.

To be safe, he only picked up the cleaver that had always been in the kitchen, leaving the military knife untouched.

First time working together—he didn't fully trust Dragonfly.

There was no reliable spy at that horror creature called Ji Xiting's disposal, so caution was the better part of valor.

The conveyor belt rumbled forward, delivering a headless corpse that the porcelain doll in Workshop One hadn't had time to process.

Zhu Yan silently apologized to the dead player.

He stepped forward into the scattered chunks of meat, raised the cleaver high, and brought it down with force into the corpse's chest!

THUNK.

In the monitor feed, the Hunter raised an arm to block. Steel clashed against steel, sparks flying.

But the Hunter's strength was clearly lacking—

After one swing from the chef, his arm was already trembling.

THUNK.

A second impact rang out. The Hunter seemed to strain with everything he had, but he still slipped inexorably into the losing side, jaw clenched, face twisted in agony.

"Beautiful!" Ji Xiting laughed heartily. "What did I say! My chef's got some serious power!"

In the kitchen.

Zhu Yan split the ribs open on the partial corpse, but he didn't stop.

Even after seeing so much, human bodies cleaned and processed like slaughterhouse pork, with the smell of raw meat, the exposed fascia and the grain of the ribs, still gave him a subtle wave of nausea.

He steadied his wrist and kept swinging downward, hack after hack, as if cutting into a real, resisting enemy.

In the monitor feed.

The chef adjusted his wrist with perfect steadiness, seized a split-second when the Hunter was distracted, and brought the cleaver down with precision, burying the blade deep into the Hunter's chest.

The frame seemed to stall for a beat; two seconds later, the chef yanked the blade out, and scarlet blood gushed out like a fountain, spilling down the Hunter's body and pooling onto the conveyor belt.

The Hunter lay rigid on the belt, twitching like a dying fish.

"Did it die?"

Ji Xiting's face was practically pressed into the monitor.

The military knife slipped from the Hunter's slack hand and clattered to the floor.

Meanwhile, his chef swung downward without any hint of fatigue, chopping over and over, until the Hunter was completely dead—lying motionless on the belt, never moving again.

In the kitchen.

Zhu Yan finally stopped, flexing his numb hand.

"That should be enough now, right? I swung so many times."

"Another chop and my arm's going to give out. Can't have that."

In front of the monitor.

Ji Xiting set down the popcorn bucket and burst into laughter.

"Great!" he clapped his hands like a child. "Perfect!"

"With the Hunter dead, my feast is complete."

"With a dish this precious—those people from the Abyss's Eye, they'll take me seriously now, won't they?"

"Definitely, definitely," the Fake Person sidled up. "You'll get promoted for sure... or at the very least, you'll become a D-class member!"

Ji Xiting was raring to go.

"When is that Dragonfly going to notify the kitchen about the dishes?"

"The head chef still needs time for the plating!"

"Just one more hour, and my grand feast is about to begin!"