Task: Kill Xiong Er

"Roasted Bear Paw??"

Qi Liang's mouth twitched slightly. He had no objection to those three words, but looking at the blackened paws, he really could not bring himself to take a bite.

But Zhao Ke did not care about that. He truly was hungry. After all that running around, he was not made of iron. His stomach had long since been pressed flat against his back.

"But... isn't there meat in that pot? I thought it tasted pretty good."

Seeing Zhao Ke holding two bloody bear paws, Qi Liang got goosebumps all over just imagining Zhao Ke eating those things.

He hurriedly pointed to the large pot on the stove. The chunks of meat stewing inside were still giving off a rich aroma.

"Bleurgh!!"

Instead of getting any appetite from Qi Liang's words, Chen Jing's face darkened. She had no time to explain as she bent over by the door and began vomiting again.

Zhao Ke rolled his eyes. He honestly did not know whether Qi Liang was genuinely stupid or simply naive.

Zhao Ke picked out some firewood from the woodpile outside, started a fire, and sat alone in the yard to prepare the two bear paws in his hands.

Bear paws were not easy to prepare. If handled improperly, they could end up so fishy and foul that they were impossible to swallow.

But that was nothing to Zhao Ke.

With practiced motions, he used his knife to remove the tendons and membranes, skin them, and pull out the bones. The movements looked as though he had performed them thousands of times.

"You knew all along?"

Chen Jing came outside as well. The cold wind eased her nausea somewhat. Seeing Zhao Ke seated before the campfire, her face turned cold as she walked up and questioned him.

Zhao Ke said nothing. He simply placed the prepared bear paws onto a rack over the fire.

"I'm talking to you!"

Chen Jing immediately grew angry at Zhao Ke's indifferent attitude. Zhao Ke set the bear paws beside the fire and patted the nonexistent dust from his hands.

Seeing him put down the bear paws, Chen Jing impatiently waited for him to apologize. Then Zhao Ke raised his hand.

Slap!

The loud slap caught Chen Jing completely off guard. The burning pain on her face made her mind go blank.

"Idiot!"

Zhao Ke stared at Chen Jing and spat out the word coldly, unable to hide his disappointment at the psychologist's lack of vigilance.

Yes, he had chosen to travel with them, but that did not mean they were his companions. Nor did it mean he had to look after them like a nanny.

On the contrary, Zhao Ke valued their usefulness. If they had no value—or worse, became deadweight and a burden—then she would become the next white-collar woman left in the bushes.

"You call yourself a psychologist? Since you accepted what the scar-faced man said earlier, you should have known this place could not possibly be some rural guesthouse.

"This place is in the middle of nowhere. There are no vegetable gardens nearby, no pigsties either. Yet she cooked such a huge pot of meat. Even an idiot would know something was wrong. Don't ask me why I didn't warn you. If you don't even care about your own life, what right do you have to blame someone else? I'm not your father."

Zhao Ke had been suspicious from the moment he entered. Half of that was thanks to his powerful sense of smell, which had picked up the concealed scent of blood.

But even without relying on his nose, as a chef, he could tell at a glance what kind of ingredients something was made from, what it smelled like, and exactly what the meat in the bowl was.

"You!"

First, she had been slapped for no apparent reason. Then Zhao Ke had pointed at her nose and berated her like this. Chen Jing felt as though a stone had been lodged in her chest.

But when she looked up and saw the disappointment in Zhao Ke's eyes, her heart suddenly clenched. She quickly realized something, and an icy chill washed over her as if someone had poured ice water over her head. Chen Jing shuddered unconsciously.

"Bleurgh!"

At that moment, Qi Liang crawled out of the house. Seeing the bear paws blackening over the campfire, their fur burned away and giving off a pungent scorched smell, his stomach churned again.

However, the scorched smell was soon replaced by another fragrance as Zhao Ke took down the blackened bear paws.

After finding some seasonings in the kitchen and rubbing them over the paws, he continued roasting them over the fire. Golden oil soon began dripping onto the coals, filling the air with a rich aroma.

Although Qi Liang and Chen Jing had no appetite, the scent still made them stare hungrily at the pair of roasted bear paws in Zhao Ke's hands.

"Phew, phew..."

Zhao Ke blew on them, then pulled them apart with his hands. Thick joints, tendons, and meat tore open. When he bit down, fatty oil spurted out from both sides.

Perhaps because the bear paws were too old, the meat was somewhat tough. But to Zhao Ke, who was already starving, they were still delicious.

"Not bad. The meat's just a little old."

Zhao Ke nodded. If the meat of these bear paws had not been so old, they would have tasted even better.

Watching Zhao Ke eat with relish, Qi Liang and Chen Jing could only stare helplessly. They had thrown up nearly everything they had eaten earlier, and their stomachs were already protesting.

But even if they were told to eat, they could not. Forget that they had eaten that meat before—just seeing the entire process was enough to make them sick. If they could still eat anything at a time like this, that would be truly unbelievable.

"Pervert!"

Watching Zhao Ke cleanly finish both bear paws in no time, Chen Jing could not help conducting a psychological assessment of him. Her final conclusion was that the man before her was either a simpleton or a pervert. Naturally, she leaned toward the latter.

"Damn it, how do we get out of this place? Didn't that scar-faced man say that as long as we found the key, we could leave?"

Qi Liang sat on the ground, clawing at his messy hair with both hands. They had been struggling from daytime until nightfall and still had not found the so-called mission. He was growing frantic with anxiety.

"I'll go take a look."

Chen Jing could not remain calm either. She stood, forced herself to endure the nauseating smell of meat, and walked into the room. The moment she entered, she instinctively lowered her head to look at the old woman's corpse. What she saw made her heart seize.

"Ah!"

Hearing Chen Jing scream, Qi Liang froze for a moment before scrambling to his feet and rushing inside. But he was clearly a step too slow. Before he could even get up, Zhao Ke had already dashed into the room ahead of him.

Zhao Ke gripped a gleaming fruit knife in one hand as he strode into the room. Chen Jing stood there, pointing at the old woman's corpse on the floor.

"The moment I came in, I... I saw that line of bloody writing on the floor."

Following Chen Jing's finger, Zhao Ke's expression stiffened. In front of the old woman's corpse, a line of bloody words had appeared at some point.

Mission: Kill Xiong Er!

Mission Hint: Xiong Er is like his mother, but Xiong Er, in the prime of his life, is stronger than his mother. Kill him, or... be killed by him.

No one knew when those words had appeared, but one thing was certain: this was the mission they had been looking for.

"Xiong Er? Who's Xiong Er?"

Qi Liang entered as well. Seeing the line of blood writing on the floor, he asked in confusion.

"He's her son. Did you forget what she said earlier? She said she had a son too. The mission is almost certainly referring to him," Zhao Ke reminded him.

"But... we have to kill someone again?"

The moment they heard that they had to kill again, Chen Jing and Qi Liang looked uncomfortable. Normally, they would not even dare kill a cat or dog, much less a person. Qi Liang had only grabbed that stool and smashed the old woman because he had been pushed to the brink. Now that they truly had to kill someone, they felt deeply conflicted.

"They aren't human! Have you ever seen a person who could turn into a bear? They're more like monsters."

Although the old woman was vastly different from the monsters in his imagination that could summon wind and rain, one thing was certain: she was not human.

Zhao Ke then pointed at Li Hongbing in the pickle jar beside them. "If you don't want to end up keeping him company, you'd better not cling to any fantasies."

"We understand that, but what are we supposed to do? Don't forget, that old woman nearly killed us just now. If her son is coming, can the three of us really kill him?"

Qi Liang was worried. He had struck with all his strength before and shattered the stool, yet it had only dazed the old woman for a moment. If her son came, the three of them probably would not even be enough to fill the gaps between his teeth.

Zhao Ke glanced at the large teapot on the table. He walked over, picked it up, and sniffed it carefully. Then he looked at the old woman's corpse, and his eyes lit up. "Then we'll take a gamble."

"A gamble?"

Qi Liang walked over, wanting Zhao Ke to explain himself more clearly. He reached out and patted Zhao Ke on the shoulder. "Explain it. How... pfft!"