On the conveyor belt, the cleaned body had already been chopped beyond recognition by Zhu Yan.
He quickly turned away, refusing to look at the shattered ribs, and set the cleaver down on the large cart beside him.
The wooden handle of the cleaver was coated in grease, and Zhu Yan only realized it a moment too late—another wave of bizarre discomfort washed over him.
“It’s all part of the path,” Dragonfly remarked, studying Zhu Yan’s back as he furiously wiped his hands with wet wipes.
“Fragile mammals. They can never bring themselves to look directly at the corpses of their own kind.”
Zhu Yan tossed the soiled wipe into his ring.
“Hey, if you saw a headless dragonfly corpse—”
“I’m an insect.” Dragonfly buzzed its eyes. “Oh, little Hunter—we insects aren’t afraid of that. I’d eat it for the nutrients!”
Zhu Yan called it a freak under his breath.
Dragonfly hummed a simple, odd little tune, gave its insect leg a flick, and shook out a pure white uniform.
“Take it.” It stressed again to Zhu Yan, “You still remember the time limit, right? Don’t put it on now, because it only lasts for 30 minutes total.”
“Whoa.”
Zhu Yan let out a surprised sound.
The jacket was exquisitely crafted, spotless white, and there was even a pair of matching gloves tucked into the pocket.
It didn’t look like something a chef would wear—it looked more like formalwear.
“How did you pull this off?” he asked curiously. “I only placed the order with you a few dozen minutes ago.”
“And you didn’t rush back to the Lazy Craftsman Shop to finish it, did you?”
Dragonfly burst into loud laughter and shoved the heavy garment into Zhu Yan’s hands.
“That’s a secret,” it said. “I used a kind of spider silk that can change instantly. All such garments are pre-made—you’ll understand once you’ve seen more of them.”
Fine, then.
The Carnival Paradise was indeed full of all sorts of mind-boggling things.
What mattered now was that the uniform was in hand—he’d crossed another small hurdle—not what material the thing was spun from.
Zhu Yan accepted the heavy jacket and thanked it politely.
“I’ll pay you back for everything in full.”
Inside the office.
Ji Xiting was grinning ear to ear, watching the head chef on the surveillance monitor with an almost doting expression.
Crisp, clear dialogue crackled from the speaker, and at its base, a little lump of toad venom left a faint stain on the desktop.
“Take it,” came Dragonfly’s voice. “You still remember the theme of the banquet, right? Don’t wear it yet—you’re supposed to play an angel. Don’t get it dirty.”
Then came the head chef’s voice with a faint mechanical edge.
“How did you manage to make this? I love it—it’s too magnificent!”
The chef’s tone was somewhat distorted, not entirely natural, but it sounded deeply unsettling—very much like…
No, it basically WAS a horror creature.
“With a robe this good, I’ll definitely satisfy the lords and ladies.”
“I owe it all to you fine folks at the Lazy Craftsman Shop for rushing!”
A faint hum of static, then Dragonfly’s sly, gleeful voice came through.
“The craftsmanship is a secret… I used a shape-shifting spider silk… Don’t get it dirty—wait until the feast begins to put it on!”
Ji Xiting zoomed in on the frame, admiring that pure-white gown.
“It put real thought into this,” he mused offhandedly to the Doppelganger. “Now this is my kind of subordinate. I honestly thought—”
Ji Xiting relaxed back into his chair and pulled a phone from his pocket.
As he opened a game, he recalled the halo the chef had prepared earlier.
It hadn’t looked bad, but compared to this garment, it was leagues apart.
“I honestly thought it was going to strap on that bare, empty halo.”
The old monsters at the Abyssal Eye were exceedingly picky, to the point of absurdity.
Whether they were native horror creatures or foreign monsters, each one had its own strict standards.
The chef upgrading his attire was nothing but good news for Ji Xiting.
After all, relying solely on his own resentment—and his late father’s fanatical devotion to the Snowy Sect—wouldn’t be enough to win their favor.
Ji Xiting looked down at the loading game screen, Dragonfly’s voice coming through his speaker clearly.
“By the way, one more thing. You need to serve the Hunter as a dish.”
…
Dragonfly’s compound eyes fixed on Zhu Yan, refracting a riot of colors under the monotonous, stark white light of the workshop.
The light seemed grimy somehow, tinged with an indefinable gray and a murky, ill-intentioned haze.
“What?” Zhu Yan said warily. “What do you mean, served as a dish?”
On the conveyor belt lay only a pitiful body of unknown origin.
In Zhu Yan’s ring, he still kept the Thrill Delight he’d acquired from the Bartender in the last instance.
Could he mix the flesh of this body with a generous dose of Thrill Delight and pass it off as something believable?
“The boss’s meaning,” Dragonfly’s smile deepened, “is that he hopes you preserve the Hunter’s face, slice this corpse into sashimi as it is, and then platter it.”
“Otherwise, they have no way to confirm it truly is the Hunter…”
It sounded like the cruel taste of the Abyssal Eye—or Ji Xiting himself.
To take the Hunter—who had fallen in the kitchen, attempting to steal the Key Fragment—and serve him as a dish on the table, then feast upon him.
It was a form of utter humiliation, and the biggest problem right now was…
“Who do I send up?” Zhu Yan tilted his head, a faint smile curling at the corner of his lips.
If it truly came to that, the puppet he’d recently acquired would be quite fitting.
But a puppet wasn’t human after all—it would need some sacrifice. He’d have to dress it up, disguise it, and make it work.
Zhu Yan glanced at the big catering cart where he’d just set his cleaver.
The cart smelled unpleasant because its top shelf was piled high with Zhu Yan’s “handiwork,” and the odor wrapped around him so thick it made it hard to breathe.
“What are you planning?” Dragonfly asked eagerly. “Do you need to buy something from me?”
“You see, as I said, I can’t take sides.”
“But horror creatures all need to eat—I can still do a little honest business on the side.”
“Member, what do you say?”
Zhu Yan shot a glance at Dragonfly.
It seemed Ji Xiting had thoroughly pissed off this creature. Before, it would still put on airs in front of him, but now it was scheming to help him at every turn—not even bothering to pretend anymore.
“I need a catering cart.”
Zhu Yan couldn’t turn down such good intentions. “The cart needs to have a hole in it, so my puppet’s head can stick out… like this…”
He gestured with his hands: “You see, I need to put both the puppet and this body I’ve hacked to pieces on it.”
“The body laid flat, and the puppet’s head sticking out through the hole, raised upright like an exhibit.”
“Only the puppet’s head shows, but the head needs to look like it was severed and placed off to the side all by itself.”
Dragonfly understood Zhu Yan’s meaning and let out a strange, chittering laugh.
“No problem,” it said, and pointed to another cart that hadn’t yet been loaded with dishes.
“Making a new one right now would be a tight squeeze, dear chef.”
"I'll modify another car for you right here on the spot. I've got my tools on me—the full set."
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
for mindless slaughter, this isn't for you.] My name is Ye Shu, and I'm a transmigrator. It seems I'm supposed to be the protagonist, but that feels pretty unlikely. This world has been invaded by a system. The antagonists on the other side have suddenly become pure, flawless saints. The female leads have been force-fed the so-called "original plot," making them think they've been reborn. Now, everyone thinks I'm scum. Including the old lady in my ring. And here I am, in the Monster Beast Mountain Range, braising pork. To put my situation in perspective— It's as if, the moment Xiao Yan stepped into the Monster Beast Mountain Range, the Soul Emperor already knew he would become the Flame Emperor, and Yao Lao had been turned to the enemy's side. I have nothing right now. Oh wait, that's not true. I do have a white-haired loli child-bride who's the Heavenly Dao, and her only skill is acting cute. So, tell me guys... what are my chances of making it to the end?
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
