Skinning

The three men, including General Manager Zhu, were dragged into a room to one side. In the few seconds the door stood open, a thick stench of blood wafted out.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

The sound of chopping with a knife rang out several times in succession, and the three men fell silent.

The red-nosed man came back out and opened the door. Looking at the fat pigs huddled together and trembling, he smiled with satisfaction and continued herding them outside.

A few minutes later, everyone had been locked in the pigsty, where they came face-to-face with the people next door, who also looked like pigs.

The red-nosed man poured out a bucket of pig feed and cheerfully muttered to himself, "Eat up, eat your fill, and grow nice and fat. The better you look, the better your meat will taste."

"Too bad there aren't any piglets. We have to pick out the old pigs, too. Their meat's tough, so let's mince it up and make dumplings."

The pigs crowded and shivered together, the stench of incontinence spreading through the air.

The red-nosed man wrinkled his nose and laughed loudly. Then, as if he had heard something, he turned to glance left, slammed the fence shut, and walked off, cursing under his breath.

Xu Huo heard him say, "They're back again," and "Why are these people so annoying?" He even smashed an empty pigsty as he spoke, revealing his violence and volatility.

Once his footsteps had faded into the distance, Xu Huo turned to look at the situation around him again.

The people next door should be the ones who had been taken away earlier. The numbers matched, and with the people on his side, there were exactly forty-one of them.

Apart from them, several piglets lay in a nursery pen some distance away. The sow pen wasn't empty either; three large pigs inside had greatly swollen bellies.

But unlike the people here, who were panicking, the piglets and sows looked as if they were dead. They paid no attention to the newcomers.

There was no doubt about it: they were people, too.

Xu Huo's gaze darkened. He backed away and squeezed into the middle of the herd.

Everyone who had turned into a pig had a line of stitches across their belly. On the people beside him, the crude stitches were clearly just a couple of haphazard tacks holding the skin together. But the piglets over there were different; their stitches had completely fused with the pigskin, as if they had grown into the flesh.

Ever since he had cut open the skin around his eyes, the pigskin on his body had grown tighter and tighter, as if it were about to fuse with his own skin. If too much time passed, he might not be able to take it off at all.

He flexed his fingers and used "Omnipresent Strings" to fish the fragment of the Head Chopper Demon's axe out of his trouser pocket.

After retrieving the fragment without a hitch, he cut through the pigskin at his wrist and reached his hand outside. Then he cut the stitches across his belly and pulled with both hands, successfully stripping off the pigskin.

The moment he took off the pigskin, a game notification appeared:

[Player Passerby A has entered "Good Taste Fresh Meat Supply Factory" and is automatically participating in this D-class random instance.]

[Background: Without buying, there can be no harm. As customer demand continues to increase, more and more underground meat supply factories have sprung up. To ensure a steady supply, these factories often appear at random in different worlds.]

[Good Taste Fresh Meat Supply Factory is one of them.]

[As a meat supplier popular with underground restaurants, the factory's owner, Red Nose Karl, can not only provide customers with fresh, delicious red meat right away, but also let diners serve it openly at the table. The name Red Nose is somewhat well-known in underground restaurants.]

[They say he was once a top-notch skin stripper. In his career, he has stripped no fewer than ninety-nine thousand skins. Beneath his crude exterior lies a delicate heart. He can tell from an animal's fur whether it is pregnant or sick, and his skills are exquisite.]

[But business at Good Taste Fresh Meat Supply Factory has been getting better and better, and Karl can't manage it all alone. With no other choice, he posted a recruitment ad, hoping to hire a few nimble workers.]

[Several young people have come to apply.]

[Instance tasks: ① The more precious something is, the easier it is to lose—steal one of Skin Stripper Karl's treasures;

② Piglets flying to freedom—save at least three children;

③ Diligent, hardworking employee—complete a task given by Factory Boss Karl.]

[Instance duration: Unlimited]

[Players can leave the instance after completing any one of the tasks.]

The instance was inside the factory. The applicants were either Players or had Players among them. Although there was no time limit, none of the three tasks would be easy...

"Oink! Oink!" The big pigs beside him shoved him desperately, and those in the pigsty next door tried to jump over as well, their eyes full of longing and pleading.

Xu Huo noticed one of them jumping with particular enthusiasm, but he merely glanced at it before looking away. He tossed the pigskin he had taken off into a corner and lowered his voice. "I'm going to look for a way out. As long as you don't let that man from earlier catch me sneaking away, I'll find a way to come back and save you."

The big pigs hurriedly nodded. Two of them ran to the corner and lay directly on top of the pigskin, covering it with their bodies. The others crowded over too, jostling and scrambling until they had formed a small mound.

The people in the neighboring pigsty imitated them and crowded together. Only one pig kept bellowing furiously, refusing to give up.

Xu Huo pressed it back down and slipped out of the pigsty, keeping low.

He went to the pigsty where the piglets were kept nearby. The six piglets lay quietly inside. When they saw him, their eyes brightened, but they didn't come closer or make a sound.

He beckoned to them, but they only backed away in fear. A large, pregnant pig in the next pen came over and struggled to tap its belly with a front hoof. The stitches there had completely fused into the skin.

"Can't you just cut this open with a knife?"

"Have you grown together with the pigskin?"

"Would you die if someone forcibly skinned you?"

The big pig nodded each time he asked a question.

"How long does it take for the skin to grow together with the flesh?"

"Three hours? Five hours?"

The big pig chose five hours.

"Do you know how to get yourselves out?" he asked again.

This time, the big pig shook its head.

He had no leads on the second task for now, so Xu Huo could only try the other two. Skin Stripper Karl should be interviewing applicants at the moment, so he wouldn't be back just yet.

He crossed the pigsty and headed in the direction the skin stripper had gone.

The pigsty seemed to be at the very back of the factory. The light was fairly bright, and through the windows he could see a wide stretch of woods nearby. Beyond the pigsty was the main part of the factory, with an integrated assembly line for slaughtering pigs, removing their hair, and washing them.

But the place was the complete opposite of the clean pigsty at the back. The floor was covered in black mud and sludge, and even the machines were caked in blood. Flies, cockroaches, and rats were everywhere. A mop in the corner had dried into a hard lump. It didn't look like they were too busy to clean; it looked like they had never cleaned at all.

Xu Huo tried to walk only on the dry patches.

There were two rooms nearby. One was where he and the others had fallen in. A conspicuous pipe opening had been welded into the middle of the wall, its dark interior leading to who knew where.

He paused there for a few seconds, then backed out. After glancing at the two headless, rotten pigs hanging upside down from iron hooks nearby, he opened the other room, which reeked of blood.