Xu Huo had hidden in the Pigsty for four hours before the darkness outside finally receded. He hid the pigskin, checked on the piglets, then circled around to the room where the other players were staying.
Tang Pei and the others sat silently in the darkness. The air was thick with the stench of blood and an oppressive stillness.
"Who died?" he asked.
"See for yourself." Qin An rubbed his face with both hands, then bent to stare at the floor.
Xu Huo opened the door. The candle on the workbench was still burning. The first thing he saw was Peng Fengnian, hanging on the wall with his eyes open in death. Only then did he notice the... person suspended in the middle of the Workshop.
It could no longer be called a person, only a strip of red flesh, stripped of its skin. Red muscle and blood vessels were exposed, and blood kept running down his body, dripping into the bucket beneath him.
He was hanging by the back of his neck, but his chest still rose and fell faintly.
In front of him hung an intact human skin, suspended in midair. Fishhooks pierced its entire edge, stretching it flat like a painting. It was so thin that candlelight shone through it...
The person who had been skinned was Zou Weichang. He was still breathing, but in this state, death was only a matter of time.
Xu Huo scanned the room and saw no sign of the skin stripper. He was about to take Peng Fengnian down when the "corpse" suddenly rolled its eyes, then leaped off the wall in a rage, his face covered in bluish-black veins, and swung a fist at Xu Huo's face!
Xu Huo dodged the punch and caught his arm as he turned sideways.