Chapter 861: The Chef's Gift
Exsanguination.
This player had no obvious external injuries. Judging by the blood flow traces, it would take at least five to ten minutes for a player to die from blood loss. For such a long time, ordinary items and traits usually couldn't achieve this, unless someone had been restraining the player the entire time. But if that were the case, the people in this car shouldn't have been completely wiped out; at least one should have survived. Otherwise, this player wouldn't have died from excessive blood loss.
Yet that's exactly how he died.
His mouth and teeth were completely clean, whereas the skinned player had a small amount of blood and human tissue in their oral cavity.
Xu Huo tested this player with the Identification Fork and concluded that he wasn't poisoned, nor did his body contain any anesthetic components.
"This cannibal player actually died from overeating!" The female player who arrived later cut open a corpse's clothing. "I thought she was pregnant."
The people nearby showed some disgust at her actions, glancing over before looking away.
Xu Huo walked over and saw two teeth in the ruptured stomach.
The situation was now very clear.
"Were they killed by the people in the front cars?" Xiao Xianglin counted the heads. "Not a single one escaped."
"I don't think so," Xu Jinfeng said. "Wasn't someone overstuffed? How could a normal person not know when they're full? Most likely, they fell into an illusion and kept eating until they literally burst."
"You're not going to blame me again, are you?" The female player flicked her hair.
Xu Jinfeng looked at her with suspicion, but didn't make a move. Instead, he stepped back several paces to create distance.
The female player snorted with laughter, seemingly unconcerned about anyone else, and turned back to her car to rest.
"No one entered or left my car last night," said the player who had come from the front. He paused, then added, "Everyone, be careful."
Watching him return to his own car, Xu Huo said, "What should we do? Should we split into two cars? There's no one here anyway."
"I'd rather go back!" Xiao Xianglin quickly waved his hand. "All the other cars are fine, but this one is completely wiped out. It's obviously bad luck!"
The remaining players didn't express their opinions, but after inspecting the car, they all left.
Xiao Xianglin dawdled at the back, feeling around the corpses. After a while, he said with frustration, "So many dead, and not even a single item to pick up!"
Xu Huo glanced at him and was the last to step out of the blood-soaked car, pulling the door shut but not locking it.
After coming out, he went to the restroom to wash his hands, then detoured to the attendant's aisle and asked if the dining car would be available today.
"Of course, sir. Would you like to reserve lunch?"
"Is the set meal from the day before yesterday still available?" Xu Huo asked.
"No, it's not," the attendant said. "That was a special dish for the chef's birthday. It's not sold regularly."
"I thought it was quite tasty. Do you have any similar recommendations?" Xu Huo handed over a thick stack of White Notes.
This time, the attendant didn't take his money but said, "I can ask the chef for you."
"Thank you."
Xu Huo returned to his car, closed his eyes to rest for a while, and waited until noon. When the attendant still hadn't appeared, he knew there would be no follow-up.
The events on this train were chaotic.
First, there was the players' inexplicable drowsiness, followed by the decapitation incidents in three cars after they fell unconscious.
Second, there were the collective hallucinations. What he saw on the first night was likely an illusion. Last night, Xu Jinfeng immediately experienced a corresponding hallucination after listening to the ghost story, and the players in the car ahead were all dead.
Just considering the drowsiness and decapitations, the culprit might be someone in the last three cars.
But Xu Huo had seen a figure, and even during the second day, he still felt a lingering sense of crisis. Whether Xu Jinfeng's hallucination was real or not was uncertain, but at least two players in the front cars had died from illusions.
Nothing happened the night before last, but last night, everyone was wiped out.
On one hand, the hallucinations might have intensified. On the other hand, it could indeed be a dietary issue.
Most players had eaten the same things since boarding. Yesterday, Xiao Xianglin and the others discussed that the deaths of the blonde female player and the old man were unrelated to whether they bought the set meal. In fact, the biggest difference in the players' meals wasn't the set meal itself, but the complimentary pudding.
Most people ordered the set meal, but only those who received gifts got the pudding.
The plates had already been collected, so he couldn't confirm whether any players in the front cars had eaten the pudding. But judging by the situation in the front and back cars, his car was in the best condition.
If the train hadn't provided special food, then the current situation might be caused by an advanced player. Using items or traits to cover such a large area wouldn't be a problem.
And if the pudding really was the chef's "gift," then the events on the train might have another cause. Besides internal player conflict, there could be a major external factor causing everyone to fall into "sleep" or "hallucinations" simultaneously.
This wasn't hard to understand. It was like being in a special magnetic field environment where you might see past images or hear past sounds. If the train passed through a similar place, the situation would be worse than just seeing or hearing things. Then, cases of "overeating to death" and "bleeding to death" wouldn't be impossible.
However, the latter speculation lacked solid evidence, and the attendant was no longer easy to talk to, so Xu Huo leaned toward the former.
Assuming there really was such a person on the train, whether they relied on items or traits to make players kill each other, or did it themselves, they could be in the front or the back. The best course of action now was to stay away from the crowd.
Similarly, if this player didn't exist, being alone would be relatively safe.
Of course, the worst-case scenario was a combination of both: an advanced player on the train killing people, and a special situation that only the train staff knew about.
Lacking evidence for his speculation, Xu Huo walked through the empty cars to the fourth car.
A glance through the window told him that this car hadn't suffered many casualties. On the first day, after Xiao Xianglin returned from his sales pitch, he mentioned that the train had quite a few passengers. The fourth car showed few signs of fighting, and the number of people exceeded half the seats.
His appearance at the door drew the attention of several players, but the player he had seen before stood up voluntarily. After he came out, the other players averted their gazes.
Xu Huo raised an eyebrow and stepped back two paces.
The male player, who had been meditating cross-legged in the station, opened the door and came out, asking with concern, "How are things in the back cars?"
"People died," Xu Huo said. "Your car seems fine."
The man shook his head. "Last night, the situation in the fifth car almost repeated itself here, but everyone stayed calm, and nothing irreversible happened."
Seeing that he was easy to talk to, Xu Huo asked, "Did anyone in your car eat the pudding yesterday?"