Pig's Head, Human's Head.

No, it was a pig's head.

Zhou You looked stunned.

--In fact, he wouldn't have been this surprised if it had actually been a human corpse dish.

After all, he had witnessed that monster carrying the corpse away with his own eyes, and the subsequent sound of chopping vegetables couldn't have been faked; he had already mentally prepared himself for a bizarre sight, but...

Who could have guessed that the dish served in the end would be a pig's head?

"...What is this? Am I roasting myself?"

Zhou You snuck forward and poked the pig's head slightly—his finger felt a certain springy smoothness, and one look told him it was roasted to perfection, soft and bouncy, neither raw nor dry.

But the problem was that, judging by the elasticity and thickness, this was clearly pig skin, not human skin.

To confirm once more, he changed angles, picked up a chopstick from the plate, and poked it into a crevice of the pig's head.

"The bone is also clearly a porcine skull; it doesn't look like a pig skin stretched over a human head. So, why did the system specifically arrange this..."

Before he could finish, a strange noise suddenly echoed.

"--Gurgle."

"...What was that sound?"

The words of confusion had barely left his lips when the strange noise turned into a continuous string.

"Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle-gurgle..."

It took three or four seconds for Zhou You to realize where the sound was coming from.

He lowered his head and looked at his stomach.

--That relentless rumbling was originating right from there.

The intestines and stomach of this body seemed to have gone without food for a long time, and at this moment, they were issuing an incredibly famished warning. Saliva secreted frantically in his mouth, and the desire to eat even suppressed the pain in his palm for a moment.

The only thought conveyed by his brain was one thing.

That was--

Eat it.

Driven by instinct, Zhou You's hand reached toward the pig's head involuntarily.

--It's not human anyway, so taking a bite of a pig's head... that should be fine, right?

However.

At this very moment, right by his ear.

A cold voice suddenly rang out.

"If I were you, I wouldn't touch that thing."

In an instant, Zhou You snapped awake.

The hand that had already reached out froze in mid-air, and he immediately furrowed his brows.

--Strange, is my willpower really that weak? Just because of hunger, I wanted to eat this thing of unknown origin?

--And, most importantly.

...Who was the one who spoke just now?

Zhou You's eyes became clear instantly. He slowly drew his blood-stained blade and looked toward the direction the voice had come from.

He had already confirmed earlier that there was no one else in this room besides him, so the speaker could basically be identified as...

Sure enough, within his line of sight, those three heads suddenly began to laugh.

Even though they had lost their bodies, they laughed incredibly brightly, their expressions as if they were still alive.

Zhou You took a sharp step back, held his dagger horizontally in front of him, and prepared to utter a True Word at any moment, asking the three heads in a low voice.

"Are you ghosts, or demons?"

The youth's head was the first to speak with a smile.

"It's not 'you all,' it's 'you'."

As soon as the youth's voice fell, the middle-aged man's head opened its mouth.

"Brother, the heads you see here are actually all one person, just separated for now."

The old man's head finally said coldly.

"Also, kid, I just helped you, and this is how you repay me? Not only are you not grateful, but you're pointing a knife at me?"

--The three heads spoke very normally, seemingly without any hostility.

But Zhou You did not lower his guard.

However... it was a fact that the other party had jolted him awake from that inexplicable state.

So, Zhou You didn't rush to attack, but continued.

"I was just thinking of tasting this piece of meat; I don't know what you three mean by saying you saved me. Could it be that this thing is poisoned?"

"It's one person!"

The middle-aged man snorted with emphasis, and then the youth spoke up immediately after.

"Poisoned? Ha, if only it were that simple. At least then you'd die a quick death without having to suffer any further torment. Unfortunately, if you had taken even a single bite, you would have ended up just like this pig's head."

The old man's head offered a mocking summary.

"--After all, this is human flesh mixed with the meat of Tai Sui."

A familiar term reached his ears.

In an instant, Zhou You connected it to the title of this script.

"Tai Sui."

--It was the exact same two characters.

Was it a coincidence, or...

He didn't rush to ask, but instead retreated cautiously, walking to the door first to glance outside.

He didn't see the figure of the pig-headed monster in the corridor, only the faint, rhythmic sound of meat being chopped nearby.

It seemed the creature wouldn't be coming over for a while.

Seeing Zhou You's behavior, the youth's head spoke again.

"Friend, you're a bit too vigilant. Don't worry, after that thing finishes one dish, the next one won't be ready for at least half an hour. Unless you burn down its nest, it won't even pay you any mind during that time."

The words were friendly enough, but paired with their grotesque appearance, it only made one's skin crawl.

However, Zhou You didn't show the slightest discomfort. Under the influence of his Basic Acting talent, he responded calmly.

"My apologies for my rudeness earlier, and thank you for the help. By the way, may I ask... er..." This "friend," could you explain what you just said in more detail? And what exactly is that Tai Sui?"

"What? You don't even know what Tai Sui is?"

The middle-aged man's head reacted with apparent confusion—then the old man's head chimed in.

"Kid, where on earth did you come from? That is the deity that guards the entire eastern region of Cangzhou. Countless things rely on its flesh to survive. You've made it this far, and you don't even know that?"

...A deity?

For some reason, Zhou You suddenly recalled the Jixiang Jimiao Guimu Bodhisattva he had seen a while ago, and his brows furrowed sharply.

--Wait, are they the same type of thing in this script?

A faint sense of unease emerged in his heart, but Zhou You forcibly suppressed it—now was not the time to consider such things—and asked the three heads again.

"I'm sorry, could you please elaborate on what exactly this Tai Sui is? And why would I end up like this just by eating it?"

But the three heads only laughed.

After a long moment, the middle-aged man in the center finally spoke.

But instead of an explanation, he recited a passage of classical text.

"The Tai Sui object resembles flesh. It attaches to large rocks, possesses both head and tail, and is a living thing. The red ones are like coral, the white like fat, the black like lacquer, the green like kingfisher feathers, and the yellow like purple gold; all are clear and luminous like solid ice."

"...I know this passage from the Compendium of Materia Medica. It says Tai Sui can be used as medicine or food, but the problem is, what does this have to do with that pig's head?"

"--It's very simple."

The old man on the right said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Because the pig's head in front of you isn't a pig at all. It is a human being who was fed Tai Sui and then forcibly matured through the method of Zaochu."

Looking at the golden, incredibly tempting pig's head feast, the youth's head suddenly laughed.

"So-called livestock turned into humans, so-called humans turned into livestock, beasts cooking, living people in the pot—the natural order is inverted, and the world is turned upside down. If you eat the meat of this Zaochu, you will eventually become another beast yourself. So, would you say I saved you or not?"

Zhou You ignored the sarcasm in those words and turned his head, staring blankly at the fragrant, delicious-looking dish.

--This is... a human?

He looked closely at the pig's head, unable to find any abnormalities, but he didn't question them or respond. Instead, he suddenly said.

"Then, my friend, since you've told me so much, you surely don't just want to stop me from eating. Let's lay our cards on the table: what exactly is your goal?"

At that, all three heads laughed in unison.

But they didn't make any pleas for help. Instead, they opened their mouths together and spoke in an incredibly sinister tone.

"My request is very simple."

"It is to ask you, brother/friend/kid, to kill the other two versions of me."