Secret Room

Secret Room

Red Hair—Sima Xiao Er—shook his head at first, then went berserk and tried to bite Xu Huo. This man clearly knew he was a player, yet he'd pretended nothing was wrong and hadn't even planned to let him out!

Xu Huo clamped a hand over his pig snout and said coldly, "If you want the skin stripper to find you, by all means, keep making a fuss. The one who slaughtered the pigs just now was the skin stripper. Want to know how he got that title?"

Sima Xiao Er froze, then began frantically scratching at the ground with his front hooves.

Xu Huo didn't need to look to know what he wanted to say. "I can't let you out yet. The incomplete stitches might slow down your fusion with the pigskin. Those people outside are ticket-holding players. They won't care whether anyone in the Pigsty lives or dies. If you want to help the others escape, do as I say."

After hesitating for two seconds, Sima Xiao Er finally nodded.

"You too." Xu Huo glanced at the pigs crowding around him. "If you want to get out alive, you can only listen to me."

The pigs nodded wildly.

"The later they find out I'm here, the better our chances of getting everyone out." He patted Red Hair's pig head. "Stay here and cooperate with me."

"I'll go out first. I'll come back tonight."

Then he slipped silently out of the Pigsty and into the orchard.

Good Taste Fresh Meat Supply Factory sat on a relatively high hillside, with plenty of fruit trees around it. Below the hill, to the left of the Factory, there was also a river.

The area around the river was open, while a forest began where the orchard ended.

Xu Huo glanced that way, then went around the Warehouse and slaughterhouse to the front of the Factory and entered the office there.

There was a desk inside, with a bookcase behind it. One side held books on philosophy and anatomy; the other had erotic gossip magazines and photo albums.

He casually pulled out a couple of books, flipped through them, and put them back where they belonged. Then he turned to examine the things on the desk.

A stack of account books sat on the left, with stationery, a pen, and a small knife arranged neatly beside them. On the right, a Radio, a water glass, and a landline phone had been left lying about.

Two fine leather sofas faced the desk, with a fragrant solid-wood coffee table between them. The tea set was exquisite. There was no tea in the teapot, and the cups sat evenly spaced around it.

A portrait of the skin stripper hung on the wall opposite. Beneath it, a vase filled with fresh flowers stood on a shelf.

The office was neat and meticulous, and the whole scene felt out of place.

Time was short, so Xu Huo didn't linger. He switched on the Radio, turned the volume down as low as it would go, and listened while flipping through the account books.

The account books listed orders from at least twenty restaurants and small shops, with delivery dates spanning three months. The earliest order was due in three days: Bauhinia Restaurant wanted six six-month-old piglets. The skin stripper was to skin them alive and leave the skin wrapped around them, without spoiling the customers' appetites.

Xu Huo's gaze fell on the word "appetite," which had been circled for emphasis. Two seconds later, he closed the account book.

By then, the Radio had finished the weather report and moved on to the news.

"...It is understood that the highest-ranking administrator in this district stepped down a few days ago. His successor is Carroll Field, the grandson of Carmen Field, known as the 'Morning Star of the Fielder family.' He arrived in the district at 1 p.m. local time today, accompanied by his seven wives."

"...Miss Kim Seol, who is to become his eighth wife and hails from the district's most distinguished family, the Kim family, personally welcomed him and his seven wives, expressing her warm greetings to Carroll Field and his party..."

"...Carroll Field's arrival has prompted numerous personnel changes..."

Xu Huo's expression shifted several times as he listened to the news.

As expected, the Dimension Rift game didn't just use Dungeons to invade the real world; it had also built its own social system. Someone managed that society, and it had money and consumer spending. The game's administrators, players, and even ordinary people could all be part of its social order.

He was beginning to believe what Professor Han had said on the Preliminary Train. Perhaps the game came from an advanced civilization.

Thud! A sound came from the inner room, followed by a woman's muffled voice. "...Stop looking... Get to work first..."

Xu Huo stood at once, put everything he'd touched back as it was, and left the office the way he'd come.

As he passed the slaughterhouse, he saw that the other two players had returned to the Workshop. All four of them were cleaning.

He glanced at the sky, picked up the sack, and headed out toward the orchard, finding a hidden place to lie low.

The skin stripper returned soon after. Yang Can came back with him, his face so swollen that he could barely open his eyes. The players didn't dare ask what had happened, because the skin stripper was in a furious rage.

"You useless bunch! You can't even sweep the floor properly!"

"You think you're fit to apply for a job here? Anyone who hired you must have rocks in their head!"

"No dinner tonight! You'll work through the night!"

He slammed the door on his way out and locked the front entrance to the Workshop.

"Are you all right?" Xian Dazhi asked Yang Can.

Yang Can opened his mouth and pointed inside. "He knocked out two of my teeth just because I didn't bait the hook properly."

The others fell silent. After a long while, Qin An finally said, "If we don't get this place clean tonight, we'll probably all get slapped tomorrow."

The thought made everyone's teeth ache. Yang Can asked, "Did you find anything?"

"Ask Tang Pei." Zou Weichang gestured toward the female player with his chin.

"Down the hall, the cold storage and office are on the right. The entrance on the left leads to a huge Fur Room, filled with rare animal hides. Some are polished until they gleam. They must all be part of the skin stripper's collection."

"The bedroom is at the very back. Qin An and I measured it. It's only half as long as the Fur Room, so there should be a Secret Room on one side. Compared to the hides outside, the real treasures must be in there," Tang Pei said.

"Did you get inside? What's in there?" Xian Dazhi hurriedly asked.

Tang Pei shook her head. "We couldn't open it. We tried every mechanism we could think of, but nothing worked."

"Don't you have a universal lockpick?"

Tang Pei let out a breath. "Qin An used his X-ray vision to check. That Secret Room is almost as secure as a bank vault. The door alone is half a meter thick, and there isn't even a keyhole. There's no way to pick the lock."

The other three looked visibly disappointed. Yang Can said, his mouth crooked, "We thought this would be the easiest mission. We didn't expect it to be so difficult."

With a door as sturdy as a bank vault's, almost every brute-force option was ruled out. They were D-class players, but they didn't have any powerful attack items.

"We have to find a way to open it," Qin An said. "Otherwise, even if we force the door open, the skin stripper will deal with us before we can get the treasures."

"Ask Peng Fengnian."

Tang Pei nodded and held a Paper Phone to her ear. She hadn't even had time to explain the situation when her expression changed. After a moment, she turned to the others and said, "Peng Fengnian says there's another player here."