The Only Question and Answer

The freezer sat there quietly, reflecting the light from the overhead fluorescent tubes.

The cool tones of the metallic hue are amplified to the extreme here and now, making them not only cold but also sharp.

Yu Xing reached out and touched it. The box had no lock; all she had to do was insert her fingers into the groove next to the lid and then use a little force to lift it up.

A snap.

A thin layer of ice was shaken off, Yu Xing opened the lid of the box to its widest extent without any expression. Instantly, a truly pungent smell of decaying corpse wafted out.

A person, or rather, a strange man, was dismembered into many pieces and stored in this special box.

His head sat atop the jumbled pieces of flesh, his pale cheeks frozen stiff, his eyeballs long gone, leaving only two black holes through which remnants of flesh and tendons could be seen.

This was the only human face Yu Xing had seen since entering the instance, besides the deducers.

At this moment, this human being was piled up like pork, neatly categorized and displayed in a market.

"..." Yu Xing looked at the limbs under the head, which were cut into pits and craters, and couldn't help but want to know who had carried out the dismemberment.

Was the knife not sharp enough? The cut looks so ugly.

Furthermore, why cut the clothes along with the clothes?

The thought that "the dismemberer lacked common sense" quickly flashed into Yu Xing took the head out with both hands and put it aside, then began to rummage through the pieces of flesh in the box.

His goal, of course, was the clothing that would be separated from the human body.

The clothes were already in pieces, soaked in blood and stained with an indelible red, but the identity of the corpse could still be identified by the fabric and distinctive features such as the collar and cuffs.

A few seconds later, Yu Xing confirmed that the corpse was wearing a suit—the kind worn by the supervisor and cashier at Zhang's barbecue restaurant.

In other words, this man used to work at the barbecue restaurant?

Speaking of this...

The man's body was found in such a secluded place, and he was the only native with a face in the entire place. Clearly, the reason for the establishment and rules of the barbecue restaurant were inextricably linked to this man.

If he's not mistaken...

Without changing his expression, Yu Xing reached into the blood and, sure enough, quickly found a small metal object.

Before she even took it out, Yu Xing recognized what it was—it was an employee's name tag.

While the deducers and ordinary employees don't seem to have this, the Sheep-faced leader does, which suggests that important characters are likely to have something that can prove their identity.

Yu Xing pulled her arm out of the box, clutching the metal badge, but before she could even look at it, a loud bang was heard!

"You're here."

A wood-chopping axe suddenly cleaved open the door of the cold storage room; the heavy door was as fragile as foam under that blow.

Yu Xing out from behind the mountain of corpses, and the massive, over two-meter-tall figure of the Sheep-faced leader came into view.

At this moment, the sheep's face was twitching, and thin streams of bloody tears flowed from its dark eyes. Its mouth was slightly open, revealing sharp teeth that did not belong to a sheep!

I've been looking for you for so long!

The axe struck the door again, and the fragile door immediately began to shake precariously.

Yu Xing raised an eyebrow.

When I first saw it, the foreman was holding a kitchen knife. I don't know where it got this even more intimidating-looking weapon in such a short time.

The massive body cast an even larger shadow. The Sheep-faced leader's two blows shattered the mountain of corpses that had barely quieted down. Several bodies rolled down and then staggered to their feet.

The corpses were trembling, but just as they had prevented Yu Xing from going around to the back, they were also preventing the Sheep-faced leader from getting close to the freezer.

Even when Yu Xing withdrew the suppressive force of the curse aura on the corpses, the corpses became even more agitated than before, rushing towards the Sheep-faced leader one after another.

Yu Xing, who had returned to the freezer, was instead ignored.

"What did you do to my ingredients?" The Sheep-faced leader chopped a headless corpse to pieces with an axe, his footsteps unwavering, his gloomy and vicious voice echoing in the semi-enclosed space.

The distance between the foreman and Yu Xing continued to shrink.

Yu Xing was naturally not afraid.

He glanced at the corpses that were completely unable to stop the Sheep-faced leader but were still rushing forward, and spread his palm.

The metal badge lay quietly in my palm.

The name on it was blurred by blood. Yu Xing glanced at it and gave up trying to make it out. Instead, she used the pad of her thumb to feel the direction of the raised and recessed lines.

Based on the engravings, he could feel out several Chinese characters.

Open...

Small...

Wei.

The man in the freezer also had a name tag that read "Zhang Xiaowei".

Peng!

The Sheep-faced leader had already approached Yu Xing.

With its jet-black leather shoes and imposing appearance, and its suit and tie, once its head is removed, it is no different from a human.

It lifted the axe with its human hands.

"Zhang Xiaowei?" Yu Xing suddenly spoke.

These were the first words he uttered after the door was chopped open, and the axe that was about to smash down on his head stopped abruptly halfway.

The foreman stared at him, then suddenly grinned.

The sheep's smile is really strange.

Strands of blood and flesh seeped from between the teeth. The Sheep-faced leader said in a strange tone, "You noticed it all."

The human body of Zhang Xiaowei was scattered in pieces, laid out on the cold floor of the cold storage room.

"You're the same person..." Yu Xing's eyes flickered with a complex expression. "I really couldn't tell."

Peng!

The axe came down.

Yu Xing dodged the attack with a quick movement. He was pondering whether to eliminate the foreman here or let him live a little longer to extract more clues.

Just then, a white figure appeared in her peripheral vision, Yu Xing turned her head to look.

A woman in a chef's uniform was standing outside the door. Her familiar face was expressionless, but she raised an eyebrow when her eyes met Yu Xing's.

Qu Xuanqing reached out and beckoned to him, mouthing, "Come over here."

It seems like he has something to say.

Yu Xing decided to Sheep-faced leader off the hook.

He darted out of the cold storage room with lightning speed, Sheep-faced leader chased after him, only to be blocked by twisted branches that had sprung up from the ground.

The thick branches, impervious to axes, effectively blocked the cold storage room completely, acting as a doorman.

The foreman seemed caught off guard by this turn of events; in his stunned silence, Yu Xing had already reached Qu Xuanqing's side.

Qu Xuanqing grabbed Yu Xing's sleeve and led him down the corridor without a word, saying as they walked, "The chef who works with me in the kitchen is also named Zhang Xiaowei, just like the one on the supervisor's name tag."

"I suspect that this is the only name used in the entire barbecue restaurant, or rather, that it's run by only this one person."

Zhang Xiaowei, from human to non-human, from being dismembered to eating other people's faces, has always been the only question and the only answer.

Yu Xing had an extra clue— the Qu Xuanqing more comprehensively.

He looked at the gleaming fruit knife at Qu Xuanqing's waist and asked, "Where are you taking me?"

Qu Xuanqing glanced back at him and replied seriously, "Women's restroom."