Chapter 158: Secret Recipe Meat Sandwich
"Bang!" Blocking the cleaver with his shield, Xu Huo lowered his head and stepped on the head of the puppet that was holding his legs, pulling out a lighter: "Burn!"
A great fire immediately ignited on the puppet's body. It struggled silently, then reassembled into a human form, twisting and stumbling downstairs.
Xu Huo didn't give chase. Instead, he manipulated the flying arrow to force back the person trying to escape upstairs.
Placing the cube in his waist pocket, the man reached behind his back and pulled out two narrow swords over a meter long. With a single slash through the air, a series of sword shadows flew out from beneath the blades, splitting to both sides mid-flight and curving toward Xu Huo's left and right!
Xu Huo slashed twice in succession, but the crimson sword's energy passed straight through the sword shadows, striking the tables and chairs behind!
He immediately retreated, simultaneously raising the lighter toward the player charging from the front!
"Burn!" A great fire engulfed a chair, while the player leaped ahead to the side of a table, spinning his longsword as two more sword shadows flew out horizontally.
Adding to the previous ones, there were now two vertical and two horizontal sword shadows hovering in the air of the second-floor restaurant. They couldn't cut through objects; when they hit tables, chairs, or walls, they bounced back like boomerangs, and their speed was not slow.
Xu Huo noticed that the player was also avoiding the sword shadows. He simply took out the lighter and kept setting fires!
In a narrow space lacking cover, setting fires held an absolute advantage. The player couldn't get close to him and was instead exhausted from dodging the flames and his own sword shadows.
Xu Huo predicted his evasive direction. After another round of fire-setting, he used his sword to cut off his escape route in advance, then struck from a blind spot, kicking him hard in the lower back!
The player was sent flying, right in Tao Chengxin's direction. Tao Chengxin, who had taken an antidote after waking from the hallucination, had her vomiting blood symptoms alleviated. She glared at the man who had been fighting Xu Huo, her eyes burning with hatred. Seeing him coming toward her, she let out a "gurgle" and released a frog the size of a human head, which lunged at the man's face and bit down!
"You bastard, trying to mess with your grandma!"
Half of the player's face was engulfed by the frog's mouth. He screamed in pain and pulled the frog off, but he didn't expect the frog's mouth to have two rows of sharp teeth, which tore off his lips and nose entirely!
"Ah!" He screamed and stumbled backward, smashing the frog to the ground.
The frog that was thrown split into two, and after jumping up, they bit his arm and crotch respectively. As he howled, Tao Chengxin whipped out her fishing rod, using the line to bind him and drag him toward her.
Struggling and seeing no way to escape, the player instead used the momentum to crash into Tao Chengxin, pinning her to the ground and biting her shoulder!
Xu Huo rushed over and grabbed him by the back of the collar, but the bastard was using all his strength. Even when his clothes tore, he didn't loosen his grip.
Seeing the red number on his shoulder, Xu Huo raised his sword and cut his throat.
Blood sprayed all over Tao Chengxin's face. She pushed the corpse away with all her limbs, stood up, and was about to thank him when she saw the puppet reappear. On its back was a large box, filled with all kinds of knives!
"Run!" Xu Huo grabbed the cube and smashed through the second-floor window, jumping out. Tao Chengxin tried to pull the swords from the corpse's hands but failed. Seeing several blades flying toward her, she quickly rolled out the window to escape.
On the silent, dark street, Xu Huo and Tao Chengxin ran one after the other, dodging the puppet's flying knife attacks. Xu Huo tried setting fires, and Tao Chengxin attempted to entangle the puppet with her fishing line, but neither succeeded. Whenever it caught fire or was bound, the puppet's body would automatically disassemble, discarding unusable parts and forming a new body from whatever was nearby.
The two of them and the puppet chased each other for several streets. The puppet, originally made entirely of wood, now had half its body composed of iron bars, wine bottles, and even knife handles.
"What the hell is that thing!" Tao Chengxin, exhausted, shouted to Xu Huo ahead, "We have to shake it off!"
Xu Huo estimated their position. Deciding they were far enough, he suddenly stopped after turning a street corner, intercepted Tao Chengxin who was following, said "Don't make a sound," and grabbed the strings to fly into the air.
The puppet chasing them rushed into the alley but lost its target. Its head spun rapidly like a top, and the two wooden strips hanging down from its face began to lift upward. However, with a scream from not too far away, its mouth suddenly drooped downward again, and it ran off in the direction of the sound with an angry expression.
Once it was far away, Xu Huo and Tao Chengxin came down. Tao Chengxin pressed her hand against her shoulder wound and said, "That sounded like Sun Jirou. What's over there?"
"Block Bread Bun Shop," Xu Huo said. "Let's go check it out."
Tao Chengxin nodded and followed him.
The storefront of Block Bread Bun Shop wasn't large, but the area was full of alleys. The shop backed onto residential houses—narrow in front, wide in back. Behind the bun shop was a three-story villa.
The two climbed over from the neighboring shop and immediately saw a large chimney in the courtyard. The chimney was connected to the ground, and the rolling smoke carried a fresh smell of blood.
Xu Huo's expression darkened. The girl in the white dress had used herself to lure him to the Bear Claw Restaurant, and then led the several groups who had interrogated her to "Block Bread Bun Shop" and "Fresh Meat Sausage Shop." Judging by the situation, whether it was these three shops or "Long Nose Nut Pie," they were all places that killed people for food, not the target he was looking for.
The sounds of fighting and roaring from the villa grew louder. He lightly patted Tao Chengxin's shoulder, preparing to leave, when Sun Jirou's voice came from below the chimney, "Save me... I found the mission clue..."
Tao Chengxin immediately showed a suspicious expression, waving her hand to signal Xu Huo to ignore her. However, Xu Huo didn't even glance at her and jumped straight into the chimney opening.
Below the chimney was an underground kitchen. Directly opposite was a large pot, with meat slices and bones rolling in boiling red soup. Xu Huo circled around it. When he landed, he stepped in a pool of blood. Following the direction the blood was flowing, he looked back and saw a two-meter-long wooden plank placed diagonally in front of him. The blood was flowing from under the plank.
He walked over and found a bloody, mangled mass sandwiched inside. The plank wasn't a single piece but consisted of two thin boards drilled with steel spikes pressed together.
His gaze swept over something that looked like an eyeball hanging from a corner. Xu Huo then saw a bloodstained recipe sheet placed on a nearby chair, with the words "Secret Recipe Meat Sandwich" clearly written on it.
Frowning, he turned and pried open another identical clamp board beside it, pulling Sun Jirou up from inside.
Sun Jirou was lucky. The board hadn't been pressed down tightly, so she only had some wounds from the steel spikes, none fatal.
She glanced at the clamp board beside her, tears streaming down her face, and tried hard to suppress her sobbing as she said, "Shen Tai is dead."
Xu Huo said nothing, leading her out of the underground kitchen.