Restraint

A pure white giant spider slowly crawled down on a silk thread, holding a stack of clothes in its two forelegs.

It descended in front of Liu Zheng, its eight eyes glaring at his four.

The giant spider impatiently tossed the clothes onto the floor and scuttled away.

"Hey, isn't that attitude a little too lousy?"

Liu Zheng swung his tentacles, nearly smacking the giant spider on the rear.

"It's perfectly normal for someone handling logistics to have a bad attitude. But you, kid, your temper's gotten worse."

Cow-Horse said.

"Can't help it. I have Irritability now."

He shrugged.

"I'd advise you to rein it in. The cafeteria isn't like outside."

"I'll try."

Liu Zheng nodded.

He picked up the new uniform and put it on.

The new uniform was a cloak, with openings on both sides for his tentacles.

It was quite spacious and perfectly concealed his figure.

"You really look like one of those cultists from the old district."

Cow-Horse remarked.

"Do I? I think it looks pretty good."

He sat cross-legged on the floor, placed his notebook on a small stool, and began practicing calligraphy again.

Liu Zheng kept a straight face, like a stressed deep-sea fish.

The tip of a long tentacle wound around the pen again and again, as if it were strangling prey.

"Heaven."

He wrote the first character in his notebook.

As expected, it was crooked and uneven. Fountain pens had never been invented for octopuses or jellyfish.

"Earth."

Liu Zheng wrote the second character.

The strokes were much straighter this time, though every turn had become rounded.

"There is righteous energy, mingling in countless forms. Below, it becomes rivers and mountains; above, it becomes the sun and stars."

Ignoring the bizarre-looking characters, he continued writing one after another until he had copied the entire piece.

"Isn't it strange for a monster without a face to write the Song of Righteousness from memory?"

Liu Zheng asked himself.

"Although I don't know what the Song of Righteousness is, anything you write would look strange right now."

Cow-Horse looked up and added the finishing blow.

"Fair point."

He looked at Cow-Horse's huge face and suddenly asked.

"Boss, have you ever eaten people?"

"Kid, just because you're no longer human, you think you're something special? Want to test your strength against me?"

Cow-Horse sneered and stood up.

The muscles all over its body gradually bulged, while the fur covering them gleamed with a metallic sheen.

"Listen up, even the executive chef and head supervisor don't dare talk back to me. I've eaten people—men, women, old people, children. So what?"

Cow-Horse stomped a hoof, instantly leaving a shallow pit in the ground.

Flying shards of stone sliced Liu Zheng's tentacles. Before even a trace of blood could seep out, the wounds had already healed.

Cow-Horse snorted. An immortal body was nothing more than a durable chunk of meat.

"That fur of yours must be hard to take care of, right?"

"Obviously. The grooming solution alone costs me a third of my salary every month."

Cow-Horse stroked its fur, looking pained.

"Then you definitely wouldn't want this thing stinking you up, would you?"

Liu Zheng took out the Fecal Sea Mad Maggot Fossil.

"Hmph, at worst I'll take a few more baths."

Cow-Horse's pupils shrank slightly, but it stubbornly kept talking tough.

"Then what would you do if I took this out as well?"

He took out a lighter.

"Fuck!"

Cow-Horse violently shuddered.

The explosion might not kill it, but it would definitely burn off all its fur.

"Are you fucking insane? What did I ever do to you that you want to risk your life with me?"

Cow-Horse asked, half frightened and half furious.

"Because I'm sick."

"You really are sick."

Cow-Horse nodded.

"I'm actually sick. Irritability."

Liu Zheng said seriously.

"I just want to survive, but the moment I got here, you beat me half to death. Everywhere is full of monsters that eat people. Say one wrong thing and it's a death flag. Delivering food means being forced to eat things no human should eat, hearing strange Gospels, and eventually turning into an inhuman monster myself. The most ridiculous part is—"

"After working this hard, I still won't get paid in the end."

"Cow-Horse, tell me, should I be angry?"

He stared at the tuft of hair on Cow-Horse's head.

"Doesn't payday come at the end of the month?"

Cow-Horse asked strangely.

"What did you say?"

A small flame suddenly flared up.

"Angry. You absolutely should be angry. Anyone who isn't angry is a bastard."

Cow-Horse immediately said.

"Very good. Bring your head over here."

"What for?"

Cow-Horse looked wary.

"What are you scared of? It can't kill you anyway."

Liu Zheng said.

"Hmph, I'd like to see what trick you're trying to pull."

Cow-Horse made up its mind. If Liu Zheng dared try anything, it would kill him even at the risk of going completely bald.

Cow-Horse's huge head stretched out in front of Liu Zheng, while Liu Zheng rummaged around in his pocket.

He pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

"Want a smoke, boss?"

He asked with a smile.

"???"

Cow-Horse's face darkened.

"Sure."

It opened its mouth.

Liu Zheng stuffed three cigarettes into Cow-Horse's mouth at once, then lit one for himself.

Smoke curled through the air, and the break room was soon filled with a cloyingly sweet scent.

"Jiaxin Candy 1916? Where did you get those?"

Cow-Horse blew two smoke rings from its nostrils.

"Same place as the lighter. I searched them off the security guards at First-Class Sky Villas."

Liu Zheng inhaled the smoke, savoring the burning sensation in his throat.

Before, he would have nearly coughed his lungs out by now.

Flesh Mutation had not cured his illness, but it had reconstructed his atrophied respiratory muscles.

"Hmph."

Cow-Horse smugly raised its chin.

Liu Zheng ignored it.

Finding no response, Cow-Horse swung its tail hard.

"In this world, it's eat or be eaten. Forget people—I've eaten Cow-Horses too."

It took a deep drag.

"But I've never deliberately eaten a person, and those delivery workers who died weren't killed on purpose by me."

"Just smoke."

Liu Zheng said flatly.

The man and Cow-Horse stopped talking and quietly finished the entire pack.

"Besides Ascension Hair Moss, what else can you get to drink?"

He tossed the cigarette pack into the air, then smacked it away with a snap.

"You want to make a deal with that tree?"

"You know it?"

"Obviously. How many days have you even been here, kid?"

Cow-Horse said disdainfully.

"Boss is mighty."

Liu Zheng offered neither too much nor too little flattery.

"Don't. When you praise me now, my skin crawls. I always feel like you're plotting something nasty and want to kill me."

Cow-Horse repeatedly waved its hooves.

"I can get some good stuff, enough to trade for at least half that tree's fortune."

It thought for a moment.

"Still, the agreed condition was Ascension Hair Moss. If you want to exchange it for something else, that depends on whether the stage-clear reward is worth it."

"Okay."

Liu Zheng nodded and took out his phone.

He held the phone between his knees, while four tentacles stood ready.

"Start."

He pressed continue.

In Stage Twenty-One, Snake Game sped up again, and there were far more obstacles.

Yet Liu Zheng found it easier instead.

Leaving aside the fact that he now had four eyes and four hands, the attributes boosted by Flesh Mutation had nearly doubled his dynamic vision and reaction speed.

Soon, Liu Zheng reached Stage Twenty-Five, the final stage.

"How did that person reach Stage Twenty-Four before?"

He panted lightly.

The difficulty of the later stages rose exponentially. If he had still been human, Stage Twenty-Two would have been his limit.

"I never said a human cleared it."

Cow-Horse shrugged.

"Heh."

Liu Zheng rolled his eyes at it.

Cow-Horse chose to ignore him.

"Save."

He took out the Copper Finger.

It gradually disappeared, and the words "Next Stage" on the screen became coated in gold.

"Whew."

Liu Zheng let out a long breath and pressed confirm.