"Weekend" Begins!

Wu Pifu opened his eyes but did not immediately roll over and get up. Instead, he silently observed his surroundings, listened to the sounds, and assessed the situation.

During the previous two "weekends," he had both been killed because he suddenly sat up. Death came without warning here; any abrupt movement could bring death.

As he secretly looked around after opening his eyes, he saw only darkness. It was a long while before he gradually made out some things.

This seemed to be a factory, a workshop, or somewhere similar.

Seeing this, Wu Pifu relaxed slightly.

During his first two "weekends," he had once directly arrived in a field of graves beneath an absurdly huge full moon. Corpses crawled out from the graves, while ghosts filled the skies. He had been incredibly fortunate to resurrect in an empty coffin after dying twice, then survive until the "weekend" ended.

The second "weekend" had brought him to a "small" town.

The reason he placed special emphasis on the word small was because the town was not small at all. Not only was it not small, it was unimaginably huge.

By then, Wu Pifu had already practiced the Tiger Demon Art. Though he had perhaps only touched the threshold of overt force, his stamina and mobility already surpassed those of ordinary people. He had climbed a tall building in that town and looked down. As far as his eyes could see were countless densely packed buildings and alleys...

It was a town that constantly proliferated, constantly changed, and was "alive"—an enormous maze. Nor was the town itself the only maze. Every building that was even slightly large had become a maze as well.

After confirming the town's situation, Wu Pifu had initially been bold enough to try leaving it. But he quickly regretted it, because once he left the town center and entered any alley, he would be unable to find his way back within ten minutes at most. What awaited him was an endless, shifting maze, and the deeper he went, the more horrors there were.

During the second "weekend," he had not merely died three times. He had also been corrupted. One-third of his body had mutated, and many of his past memories had vanished.

His survival through the second "weekend" had truly been sheer luck. As long as he stayed in the town center, his chance of survival greatly increased. The maze's changes and horrors were the fewest there, though it was still like gambling with his life.

And this was the third "weekend" he had to endure. It seemed to be a closed area, so based on experience, as long as he hid quietly in some corner without moving, there was a high chance he could last through this "weekend."

So Wu Pifu slowly pushed himself up from the floor, keeping his movements as small as possible. Only then did he make out his surroundings more clearly.

This seemed to be a food processing plant. He saw some employees sorting chunks of meat along an assembly line, while another line in the distance processed the meat into canned goods.

It looked perfectly normal... if not for the other scene unfolding before his eyes.

The entire factory instantly changed from neat and orderly to filthy and chaotic. Even its appearance changed. It no longer looked like a modern assembly-line factory, but more like an ancient—or perhaps rural modern—slaughterhouse. An old slaughterhouse, like something from a horror movie.

Every employee had turned into monsters with bull heads, pig heads, sheep heads, bird heads, and the like. They were tall and muscular, with even the shortest standing over two and a half meters tall. As for the meat they were handling and selecting, it all bore obvious human characteristics—hands, feet, even half of a human torso with the head still attached...

But this... was not the true reality yet!

Wu Pifu forcibly restrained his urge to peer further, because behind that horrifying image, he could vaguely see an even hazier, blurred scene...

Dozens of bizarre machines, piled together from wires, metal, miscellaneous components, and chunks of flesh, were wielding chainsaws, hammers, and all kinds of messy tools to cut apart living beings. Humans, as well as many things Wu Pifu had never seen before—every living thing was cut up, smashed apart, dismantled, then thrown into some enormous container that looked incredibly advanced.

But!

Even that was not the deepest truth. Wu Pifu had an intuition that something truly real was hidden behind that most blurred image. Unfortunately, he could not see it at all.

At that moment, the Yellow Lotus Fragment hanging around Wu Pifu's neck stirred slightly. Then, in an instant, every "employee" he could see turned to look at him.

Previously, Wu Pifu would have been preparing to run by now. But because he had the Yellow Lotus Fragment, he forcibly suppressed the urge to flee or strike first and simply stood up as if nothing had happened.

The core rule of inspiration was this: when you sensed "reality" or the bizarre, reality and the bizarre would sense you in turn.

Two of his inspiration attributes had now been lit up: Bizarre Perception 2.2 and Barrier-Breaking Perception 1.4. This meant his bizarre perception was sixty-four times that of an ordinary person, while his barrier-breaking perception was four times greater. That was already enough for him to see countless truths that ordinary people could never see.

But this was not entirely a good thing, because when you saw reality, reality saw you as well. For example, in the previous dream world, the reason the Unborn Mother had noticed him and branded him was most likely because he had "seen" the Unborn Mother, which had caused her to notice him.

Given his level of inspiration, when these "employees" looked at him, what he would have had to face might not have been attacks from those beast-headed monsters, but attacks from the even more horrifying machines made of countless wires, parts, and pieces of flesh.

But none of that happened. After staring at him for three or four seconds, the employees turned back to continue their work. Only one moderately fat employee walked toward Wu Pifu and said as he went, "New guy, go to the slaughter section. Who knows what they're doing over there? Their output is getting slower and slower. We only have twenty-three hours left. The consignee will be here soon!"

As he spoke, the fat employee who seemed to be a supervisor thoughtfully pointed out the direction.

Without saying a word, Wu Pifu lowered his head and headed toward the slaughter section.

Beneath this calm surface, everything depended on the miraculous effect of the Yellow Lotus Fragment.

It directly ignored the most fundamental rule of inspiration. He could perceive "reality" up to a certain extent unilaterally, yet reality could not perceive him in return. That was a god-tier ability in any situation. It had instantly turned inspiration, once a double-edged sword, into a god-tier ability with nothing but benefits!

For example, Wu Pifu felt he could bluff his way through this "weekend." As long as he did not reveal any flaws, he could completely pretend he knew nothing of the truth.

Based on his experience from the previous two "weekends," the environment and living beings around him would become increasingly bizarre and horrifying as time passed. But this could at least buy him more than half the time.

The "weekend" lasted twenty-four hours!

There were probably a little over twenty-three hours left now. In other words, it would likely end when the consignee mentioned by that fat supervisor arrived!

Wu Pifu kept his head lowered as he walked toward the slaughter section. He tried his best not to look at those "employees" or the meat.

Although the Yellow Lotus Fragment's effect was heaven-defying, it had limits. It could only conceal the "truth" at baseline reality levels 0.9 and 0.8. His inspiration was extremely strong, and he did not know whether the Yellow Lotus Fragment could withstand it. So as he walked, he neither dared look around nor stopped suppressing his urge to peer into reality.

Like that, he reached the entrance to the slaughter section with steps that looked normal but were actually slightly slow. Before he even opened the door, a thick stench of blood rushed into his nose.

(I'm sorry. I'm only an ordinary person struggling to survive too. Maybe I have a little strength, but compared to these terrifying aberrations, I'm just an ant as well. I'm sorry, I'm sorry...)

Wu Pifu stood before the slaughter section's door and exhaled. Only then did he push it open. Beyond it was another series of assembly lines, but these were slaughter lines.

There was a cattle slaughter line, a pig slaughter line, and a sheep slaughter line. Their outer ends connected to outside the factory building, where pigs, cattle, and sheep were continuously fed in by conveyor belts. But these lines were not fully automated, and there was no process like electrocuting them first. They were first blasted with high-pressure water, then sent forward, where "employees" outside the conveyor belts used various tools to stab them to death and dismember them. The chunks of corpses were then placed on the conveyor belts, washed with water, and transported out of the slaughter section. That was the whole process.

In Wu Pifu's eyes, all the cattle were strong or very fat humans, the pigs were men, and the sheep were women. Their expressions were blank, like puppets, and they were completely naked as they were conveyed in from outside the factory.

There was nothing he could do at that moment. He could only keep his head lowered and try not to look.

Then one of the "employees," a tall and sturdy man, said, "New guy, go help in the sheep section."

Wu Pifu silently nodded. He casually walked to one of the "sheep" slaughter lines and watched the numb humans pass below. His heart was filled with sorrow and fear, so he lowered his head and merely pretended to work.

Suddenly, he noticed some commotion near the end of a conveyor belt. Yet all the "employees" ignored it. He slowly walked over and saw a little girl, around thirteen or fourteen years old, with emerald-green hair. She was trying to climb out through the conveyor belt entrance and escape the factory.

The moment Wu Pifu saw the little girl, his heart stirred. But he did not do anything more. He merely bent over the conveyor belt, bringing his head as close as possible to where the girl was, and whispered, "Dog Egg?"

The girl's body stiffened. She suddenly turned around and leaped up, smashing her forehead into Wu Pifu's head. At the same time, she tried to jump up and bite him.

This naturally drew the attention of several "employees." Two of them began walking over, while Wu Pifu held his forehead and said, "Jiujiu, how did you get in here too? And why are you here?"

Wu Pifu naturally knew who she was.

That spiritual little bird, Jiujiu. He simply had not expected her to follow him in here as well, much less become human...

Jiujiu looked at Wu Pifu through tear-filled eyes, then looked in terror at the approaching "employees." Then she did something... she stopped struggling entirely and followed the blank humans toward the next stage of the conveyor belt, as though she did not know Wu Pifu at all.

Wu Pifu shook his head. He walked up to one of the two arriving "employees," looked at the steel fork in its hand, then reached out and tore out its throat along with its spine. Before the other "employee" could react, he stomped the ground and arrived before it, smiling.

"What are you thinking? Dog Egg... no, Jiujiu."