Chapter 44: The Mission
The impact in this room was far greater than outside. The stone tables and countertops were piled high with chunks of meat, a sea of crimson, impossible to tell which animal or which body part they had once belonged to. The thick, cloying stench of blood was like breathing solidified air for anyone with a keen sense of smell, a suffocating pressure that shot straight to the top of the skull.
Xu Huo walked in without changing his expression. He rummaged through the piles of meat for a while and actually pulled out a piece with a number on it—though the skin had been stripped away, the digits seemed to have grown into the muscle tissue, clearly visible.
"Bang!" A loud door-slamming sound came from outside, followed by the voice of the Skinner, Carl. "Five-day probation period. Meet my requirements, and you can stay and work!"
"And the pay..."
"You want pay during probation?" Carl roared irritably. "Clean this place up. If I come back in three hours and see a single cockroach, you're all out!"
Another door slam followed, and then the sound of a car engine fading away from the factory. After a moment, someone inside the workshop spoke up: "Yang Can was taken by the Skinner. Will he be okay?"
"The Skinner's just going fishing. Yang Can should be fine for now," another voice said. "They'll be gone for three hours. This is our chance."
"Qin An is right," a female voice chimed in. "Let's split up as planned."
"I'll go with Qin An to find the collection room. Xian Dazhi, you and Zou Weichang stay and clean up. We'll be back within an hour at most. We can't let the Skinner find an excuse to kick us out."
"Fine, fine, whatever you say," a fourth voice said impatiently. "Just go already."
Two sets of footsteps left the workshop, leaving two people behind. The one who had spoken first said, "We'd better get to work."
"They're idiots, and so are you if you actually think we're cleaning!" the impatient voice said. "They go looking for the collection, and we're stuck with the grunt work."
"There's no helping it. Peng Fengnian said the Skinner's collection is definitely hidden somewhere hard to find. Our traits aren't suited for this kind of thing."
"He's got a nerve talking like that. This crappy factory is only so big. Cellars and secret rooms aren't that hard to find. Who couldn't find them?"
"But Peng Fengnian said the survival rate for this Skinner instance is almost zero. It can't be that easy, right?"
The other person snorted coldly, and footsteps moved from the front of the workshop toward the back door.
"Zou Weichang, where are you going?"
"The pigpen," Zou Weichang said with a strange laugh. "Maybe we'll get lucky and find a few little pigs that have been wearing skin for less than six hours."
"Peng Fengnian said that's impossible, didn't he? The little pigs are specially supplied. The Skinner must have been raising them for a long time..."
"Everything is 'Peng Fengnian says.' Use your brain for once."
"Hey!" The moving footsteps stopped. "There are a few rooms over here. Want to check them out first?"
Zou Weichang ignored Xian Dazhi and went straight into the pigpen. Xian Dazhi hurried after him.
The workshop fell silent. Xu Huo stood in the room, not in a hurry to leave.
These applicants were different from him. They were ticket-holding players who had already discussed their strategy before coming.
The known individuals were Qin An, Zou Weichang, Xian Dazhi, Yang Can, and Peng Fengnian.
Among them, Yang Can had been taken by the Skinner for fishing. Zou Weichang and Xian Dazhi were in the pigpen. Qin An and another female player had gone ahead to find the Skinner's collection room.
Whether the female player was named Peng Fengnian was uncertain, nor could it be ruled out that some players hadn't entered the Good Taste Fresh Meat Supply Factory.
From their conversation, the ticket-holding players' instance mission should be the same as his: steal the treasures collected by the Skinner, rescue the three children, or complete the work assigned by the Skinner—choose any one of the three.
Three missions. The third one seemed the least risky, but that wasn't the case.
The Skinner likely knew that the people applying for the job were players, but for some reason, he had to let them in to work. That's why he resented the applicants, and the filthy workshop outside seemed deliberately left that way.
Under these circumstances, it was almost impossible for players to complete the work he assigned. Getting kicked out and failing to clear the instance would be lucky. Most players probably ended up as a pile of minced meat in the slaughterhouse.
As for the second mission, it should involve rescuing the three children. Leaving the instance or clearing it to get a return ticket only worked for a single person. The prerequisite for completing the mission was being able to take the three children away, at least freeing them from the pigskin. Without special props, it was nearly impossible for a player to complete this mission unless the Skinner voluntarily let them go.
The most feasible mission was the first one, which was why these players had almost directly abandoned the other two.
His brow furrowed slightly. Xu Huo used a burlap sack to catch a few rats, then used a cleaning agent to wash the blood off his shoes before climbing out the window and returning to the outside of the pigpen.
Inside the pigpen, the honest-looking Xian Dazhi felt the belly of a little pig and shook his head at Zou Weichang. "The stitches are almost invisible. If we take them out, they'll spend the rest of their lives as pigs."
Zou Weichang wasn't surprised. He lit a cigarette, blowing smoke rings with a dazed expression. "I figured as much before we came."
Xian Dazhi said sympathetically, "They're just a few years old. Poor kids."
"What's there to pity? It's fate. They can only blame their bad luck." Zou Weichang crushed out his cigarette and turned back toward the workshop. "But we're not much better off. We might die before them."
Xian Dazhi followed him, but suddenly a large pig in the pen pressed its front hooves against the railing and bit Zou Weichang's sleeve, pulling hard.
"Is this pig crazy?" Zou Weichang kicked it away, not treating it like a person at all.
I am a person! I am a player!
Sima Xiao'er was knocked to the ground. He screamed desperately, but the sound that came out was a loud pig's squeal. He stared angrily at the two men, got up, and tried to charge again, only to be kicked back before he could get close.
"They can still be saved!" Xian Dazhi quickly stopped him.
Zou Weichang shook off his hand. "So what? If we save them, can they run out? This is a game world. Players can barely survive. Ordinary people going out is a death sentence!"
"Don't drag me into your overflowing sympathy. If the Skinner finds out we secretly let people go, we're all dead!"
Xian Dazhi had no rebuttal. He turned his head away, refusing to look at the pigs in the pen.
"Being a pig might let them live a few more days." Zou Weichang turned and left.
"Oink! Oink!" Sima Xiao'er stood at the railing, squealing desperately, but the two men still walked away without looking back. He slumped back in defeat, his eyes more despairing than anyone else's.
At that moment, Xu Huo jumped into the pigpen and knocked on the railing. "Redhead?"
Sima Xiao'er scrambled up and charged at him.
Xu Huo grabbed his pig head. "Don't want to get out?"
"Oink?" Sima Xiao'er looked at him with confusion and anger.
"What those two said made sense. Even if you get out, you won't survive. Too many people missing will draw attention."
Xu Huo cut the two stitches under his belly and asked, "Did you get a game notification?"