Not long after that, the pig-headed uncle brought them two bowls of hot, fragrant soup from the kitchen.
He walked towards Feng Bujue and Like Rain’s table, placed the bowls of soup on the table, then said, “One of these two bowls is pork soup, while the other is human flesh soup.” His eyes shifted between the two players. “Each of you has to choose one of them. If you take the pork soup, you can leave here alive. If you take the human soup… Get into the fridge and become my ingredient for the next bowl of soup.”
The giant body of Oink shrouded the light shining out from the kitchen. Under the dim light of the portable lamp, the two bowls of meat soup reflected the yellow light that was utterly attractive. Moreover, the delicious aroma of the soup also came upon their nostrils.
“I am observing you. Do not leave any leftover. You are not allowed to trash or spit out the soup. If not, both of you will come to my fridge,” Oink added.
There was no other material in the soup as Oink had brought them only the plain broth. The appearance of the two bowls looked exactly the same. Besides a layer of oil floating on the surface, the soup was translucent. According to their visions, these two bowls of meat soup were identical.
And, according to their sense of smell, they couldn’t distinguish anything. The two pots had been cooked with the same recipe, and the dense fragrance of seasonings, spices, and red wine had completely covered the smell of meat. As human sense of smell is not very sensitive, they couldn’t trust it in this case.
So, there was only one method… taste it.
In Thriller Paradise, things that could nauseate people such as blood, organs or discharged water from sewer, etc., were absolutely realistic. However, if players could get over their mental barrier, there was nothing in the game they couldn’t eat.
For example, they could be able to chew glass or swallow a nail. However, it would cause esophageal injuries, and that would reduce their Survival Value: bleeding and sick… the chain reaction would appear then.
After 10 seconds of struggling mentally, Feng Bujue seemed to finally make up his mind as he casually picked up a bowl. He didn’t say anything or mind if he would scald himself, instead, he just gulped down the soup. He finished it in not more than 10 seconds after.
Like Rain looked at him and said to herself that she hadn’t chosen yet, so now, she had only one choice which was to drink the remaining bowl of soup. Well, death was the worst situation then.
Unexpectedly, after Feng Bujue had finished his bowl, he didn’t say anything. He used one of his hand to take the other bowl and brought it to his mouth. Similarly, it didn’t take him more than 10 seconds to drink the soup within one breath.
Like Rain was totally dumbfounded. Seconds later, she got it. Certainly, the first bowl Feng Bujue had drunk was the pork soup. After he had finished it, he knew the last one was the human soup. To protect her, he also took the other bowl and drank the soup. In fact, Feng Bujue had the same thought, but the situation wasn’t that simple.
Before he had consumed the soup, he had thought that no matter what, he would never let a lady taste a human flesh.
Thus, he had to move first and gain the upper hand. And, he had to drink them very quickly. If he got bad luck and chose the human soup, at most, he would die. If he chose the pork soup, he would then drink the other human soup too.
However, his plan… well, the plan…
After he had drunk it all, the situation would change.
Frankly speaking, his first soup wasn’t bad. Although he was immersed in this terrible atmosphere, he even felt satisfied enjoying a good dish for only just a fragment of time.
Thus, he immediately confirmed that this bowl didn’t contain human flesh soup… If digging further, his problem wasn’t as simple as just losing his sense of fear anymore. Perhaps he had a passion like Doctor Hannibal [1], however, when he tasted the second bowl, Feng Bujue was surprised recognizing that the taste of this bowl was pretty much similar to the first one.
Moreover, he didn’t care about anything since he drank it all within one breath. When he was done with both of the bowls of soup, he started to doubt which one was the human soup after all?
“What do you think you are doing?” Oink glared at Feng Bujue and said with his low tone, “Protecting your friend? Humph, don’t you think that I could bring you another two bowls?”
Having heard that, Feng Bujue slapped the table and got up. He looked at Oink arrogantly while his heart was saying, “Believe it or not, I will trip you!”
Oink wasn’t shaken. He just calmly turned around and headed to the kitchen, “You come with me.” Of course, this was to Feng Bujue.
Like Rain seized the time and clutched his arm. She looked at him in the eyes and shook her head since she had a feeling that Oink wanted Feng Bujue to come in the kitchen and become his preserved food.
However, Feng Bujue just smiled at her, brushed her hand off his sleeve and handed back the portable lamp to her. Before he left, he used his finger and wrote ‘wait for me’ on her palm, then gestured Like Rain to stay there.
She didn’t know why Feng Bujue’s moves had eased her mind, just like he was going for a while and would come back soon.
Afterwards, Feng Bujue followed Oink to a place deep inside the kitchen. Since Like Rain wasn’t there, Feng Bujue could speak again. He opened his mouth and said, “Those two bowls of soup weren’t made from human flesh, right?”
“Of course not,” Oink said, “but it doesn’t mean I can’t do that. I invited you here to see my stock.” He went to the freezer, opened the door in a 45 degrees angle, hauled out an M-shaped block of meat around one meter on a hook, then flung it onto the kitchen table.
With a closer look, Feng Bujue could see that it was someone’s lower body…
“The little boy in the well was a chicken when he was still alive, but after he died, besides his enemies, he had also killed other little bullies that didn’t have any resentment with him,” Oink said, “after the Ying Yang Master hurt him, he still continued doing bad deeds. I have halved him to make him quiet down a bit.”
Then, Oink hauled out another armless corpse from the fridge and hurled it onto the table. “That is a funny music teacher. He was very righteous when he was still alive. He thought that he was a genius, but no one respected him. He wanted to become a composer, but what he could write was just trash. One day, when he was sitting in the music class and composing his trash, he got a heart attack and turned into a resentful ghost who forced people to watch his performance.”
Upon reaching this part, Feng Bujue could guess the next thing the pig was about to take out from the fridge. “Let me guess… the child is in your fridge too?”
“You killed the child,” Oink answered and dragged out a female corpse that didn’t have any internal organs. “This is the child’s mother. As you have guessed, before she committed suicide, she resentfully took the baby out of her womb.”
Next, Oink closed the freezer door and picked up a glass jar from a cupboard. The jar was filled with blood, and there were two eyeballs soaked in the red fluid. “She was a bright schoolgirl. Especially her eyes, very attractive. She was fond of vanity, and she knew how to use her beauty to get what she wanted. She hung out with many boys at the same time, and let them buy her expensive accessories to please her.
“One day, a group of schoolgirls who hated her a lot shoveled her head into the washing basin. They just wanted to teach her a lesson, however, jealousy had covered their eyes as sins flowed out from their thoughts. When blood from the girl’s lungs dyed the water, they eventually recognized that they had just created a tragedy,” Oink paused for a while, “the resentment of this ghost was really strong. She killed a lot of people, and even though I have taken her eyes, I couldn’t stop her from killing. Quite the contrary, I’ve triggered her passion for collecting eyeballs.”
“So the 13th step leading to another strange space is related to you too?” asked Feng Bujue.
“Where do you think the ones who had the ghosts chased after them will go?” answered Oink.
“Ouch, you’ve created that space to dump the dead souls?” Feng Bujue said, “What about the bunch of ghosts out there?”
“I should ask you about that,” Oink asked him, “why is all the ghosts outside the school gathering to hunt you guys?”
This helped Feng Bujue understand that the ghosts chasing after them were sent by the system, and they weren’t related to the seven supernatural phenomena in Yousuke High School.
“I’m not sure,” he answered and changed the topic, “the reason why you told me all of this is that you are the manager here, right? Then I really want to ask why you have to play the human soup show here? And, what does the last verse of the folksong mean?”
“Literally, I’m here to help you guys,” Oink said, “or I can say that I’m here to help the ones who have the guts to drink my soup.”
Upon hearing his words, Feng Bujue suddenly realized something. He opened the game menu and knew that he had done the bad thing with his good intention. Indeed, those two bowls of soup had helped them recover their Survival Value as his Survival Value was full now. However, he didn’t know how many percent a bowl of soup recovered his Survival Value. Anyway, it was certainly a waste.
And, this task was somehow a literary work. It didn’t only test the players whether they had the guts to drink the soup, but also who would drink it first and their reactions after that.
If there were only one person who triggered the task, this would simply be a test of mind and courage.
But since it was a scenario of two players, bad things existed though. If both of them had a purpose that they had to achieve, everyone would definitely want to drink first. As he was afraid he would have to drink the human soup, he also hoped that his teammate would choose that bowl instead of him.
…
“About the last verse of the folksong,” Oink continued, “go to the gate, you will know.”
“Oh, so it is.” Feng Bujue said as if he was thinking of something else. He understood that Oink had prompted them the location of the last phenomenon in the seven inconceivable things of Yousuke High School.
Feng Bujue continued to probe, “Can I ask for one more bowl of the soup that I have just eaten?”
“For your friend?” Oink answered, “Maybe.” After two seconds of silence, the pig talked again, “But the third bowl is an extra one. What do you have to exchange for it?” His eyes suddenly became hideous. “An arm? A pair of eyes?”
Feng Bujue could feel the situation wasn’t right. This Heaven’s Butcher was both a good guy and a bad guy. No one could guess if he were your friend or your enemy after one second. When he heard the monster mention ‘arm’ and ‘eyes’, Feng Bujue instinctively took the chef knife out of his bag as he was about to use the [Lower Side Kick of a Brat] to defend himself.
“Chef knife?” Oink snatched the weapon from Feng Bujue’s hand with an impressive speed that left Feng Bujue no time to react. “Doesn’t look bad.” He held the knife and thought for a while. Later, the corner of his eyes swept to Feng Bujue. “Go get your soup.”
…
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Lecter