Flickering candles cast a soft, warm glow over the dining table draped in snow-white linen. Nine chairs had been neatly arranged along either side of the long table; at each place setting sat an identical set of silver knives and forks, along with a plate of food hidden beneath a cloche.
"All right, take your seats..." the host gently urged from the head of the table.
Whether the players had an appetite or not, they had to sit down as the host instructed.
"Did you all sleep comfortably last night?" the host asked with a smile, making small talk as he lifted the silver cloche in front of him.
A rich, meaty aroma immediately spread through the dining room. A piece of meat, still streaked with blood, lay in the center of a white porcelain plate. Its surface was lightly browned, and the greasy smell of seared fat lingered in the air; the grain along its sides was clearly visible, and bloody juices trembled as they trickled down the vivid pink flesh, pooling in the middle of the plate into a pink "broth" with fat floating on top.
The host inhaled deeply over the meat, his expression blissful. "How delicious!"
He eagerly cut off a piece and put it in his mouth. Crunch, crunch came the sounds of his chewing; with a squelch, abundant meat juices mixed with pale red blood splattered onto the snow-white linen... The all-too-familiar sight inevitably reminded the players of the eyeball Wang Xing had crushed in the corridor not long ago.
"Urgh-"
Tian Xiuyun, who sat closest to the host, was the first to lose her composure. She covered her mouth and doubled over, retching violently, no longer able to worry about whether she might anger him.
The other players looked equally sick, especially Wang Xing, who sat utterly frozen in his chair.
Fortunately, the host was very forgiving of Tian Xiuyun's rudeness. He merely set down his knife and fork and smiled at the players, bloody juices still lingering at the corners of his mouth. "Why aren't my guests eating? Is it not to your taste?"
Under the host's unrelenting stare, the players could only lift the cloches in front of them, their faces ashen.
An even richer aroma of meat wafted into their faces, but the smell that would ordinarily have made their mouths water now felt like a death warrant.
Especially since they had no idea what kind of meat lay before them.
And yet, they had no choice but to eat.
No one wanted to test the consequences of disobeying the host on themselves.
Still, their hands hovered in midair, knives and forks poised, unable to make the first cut.
They had only just seen a fellow player's corpse that morning. Now, the sight of any meat made their stomachs churn, let alone these almost entirely raw chunks before them.
Screech. The grating sound of a knife scraping against a plate made every player turn.
Bo Yi was calmly putting a piece of meat into his mouth.
The other players were stunned. !!! How could he eat it without the slightest hesitation! They didn't even know what kind of meat it was! How could he just put it straight into his mouth!?
With several pairs of eyes fixed on him, even Bo Yi lost his appetite. He set down his knife and fork, wiped his lips despite not having gotten any juices on them, and looked up. "What?"
"None of you like beef?"
"B-bee... beef?!" Zhao Wen Shan craned her neck, desperate to confirm with Bo Yi, who sat opposite her. "You're saying this is beef?!"
"What else would it be?" Bo Yi raised his eyelids slightly. With such obvious muscle grain, shouldn't one glance have been enough to tell what it was?
The other players let out heavy sighs of relief.
As long as it's beef, as long as it's beef... At last, they began cutting into the meat before them.
The host picked up his knife and fork again, and the atmosphere at the table finally eased a little.
Just as the players thought they had made it through this danger, the table suddenly jolted, and a scream came from its far end. "Aaaaaah-"
It was accompanied by the clatter of cutlery and then a chair hitting the floor.
Wang Xing panted heavily, his eyes wide as he stared at the plate in front of him.
"What is it now?!" Even Zheng Rong, the good-natured man sitting beside him, was getting fed up with Wang Xing's constant outbursts. He tugged at the hem of Wang Xing's clothes, trying to pull him down. "Hurry up, pick up your chair and sit down!"
"You're knocking an NPC's things onto the floor right in front of him! Do you have a death wish?!"
Then he kindly bent down to pick up Wang Xing's fallen knife and fork and set them beside his plate. "All right, sit down already! Can't you see the host is starting to look upset?!"
Wang Xing grabbed Zheng Rong's hand. "Didn't you see it?!" He pointed urgently at his plate. "An eye! An eye!"
"There's an eye in my piece of meat!"
"What nonsense are you talking about?!" Zheng Rong shook off his hand, gave his plate a cursory glance, then scolded him in a low voice. "What eye?!" It's just an ordinary piece of meat!
"There is! Look!" Wang Xing snatched up his knife and fork and pried the meat apart to show Zheng Rong. "Look, it's right here-" His cutlery scraped against the plate. "Impossible, impossible! Where's the eye! Where's the eye!"
He frantically turned the piece of meat over with his knife and fork. "I clearly saw it in here just now!"
He couldn't possibly have been mistaken-
Inside that half-cut piece of meat, there had clearly been a bloodshot eye, hidden in the center of the pink flesh, staring fixedly at him with malicious intent.
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