Shortly, the pig-headed brute walked out of the kitchen carrying two bowls of hot, fragrant meat soup.

He made his way to Feng Bujue and Si Yu's table and set the two bowls down. Then he said, "In these two bowls, one is human meat soup, and the other is pork soup." His gaze swept across their faces. "Each of you pick a bowl. The one who drinks the pork soup gets to leave alive. The one who drinks the human meat soup… goes into the freezer, to become my next bowl of soup."

The shadow cast by Oink's massive body blocked the light from the kitchen. In the dim glow of the lantern, the two bowls of golden soup on the table looked very tempting, and the aroma was intoxicating.

"Let me state this beforehand: no leaving any soup, and no pouring it out or spitting it out. Otherwise, both of you go into the freezer together," Oink added.

Neither of the bowls on the table contained any solid ingredients; Oink had only ladled clear broth into them. The two bowls of soup were the same color, both with a layer of oil floating on the surface, but the soup itself looked very clear. Visually, the two bowls were indistinguishable.

And judging by the smell, it was equally impossible to tell the difference. Both pots of soup were seasoned in the same way; the rich, mellow fragrance of the seasonings, spices, and red wine completely masked the greasy taste of the meat. Human sense of smell is not very sensitive in nature to begin with, and in this situation, relying on smell to distinguish them was also unreliable.

So, there was only one way… to taste it.

Although Thriller Paradise had a very high degree of fidelity in recreating the smells of disgusting substances such as blood, internal organs, and sewage, players could eat basically anything as long as they overcame their psychological barriers. Things like chewing glass and swallowing nails could also be done, but they would cause esophageal damage, decrease in survival value, bleeding, disease, and other chain reactions…

After more than ten seconds of mental struggle, Feng Bujue seemed to have made up his mind. He casually picked up a bowl of soup, didn't say a word, didn't even mind the heat, tilted his head back and drank, glug glug glug, emptying the whole thing in less than ten seconds.

Si Yu looked at him, thinking that she didn't seem to have a choice either, she could only finish the remaining bowl, the worst that could happen was death.

Who knew that Feng Bujue, after drinking his bowl, grabbed the other bowl on the table without a word, brought it to his mouth and poured it down, emptying it in less than ten seconds as well.

Si Yu was completely stunned. She hadn't understood at first, but after a few seconds of blankness, she suddenly realized… the first bowl Feng Bujue drank must have been pork soup. After drinking it, he knew that the bowl on the table was stewed with human meat, and in order to protect her, he snatched it and drank it…

Feng Bujue's thoughts were indeed like that, but things were not that simple.

Before drinking, he was indeed thinking: No matter what, he couldn't let a girl taste human meat. So he had to strike first and drink quickly. If the bowl he picked was human meat soup, then so be it, it would just be death. But if he picked pork soup, he would just snatch the bowl of human meat and drink it too.

However, plans are just plans… after he started drinking, the situation changed.

The first bowl of soup, to be honest, tasted quite good. Even in this terrifying atmosphere, for a moment, Feng Bujue even felt a slight sense of satisfaction from enjoying the food.

So he determined that this bowl was not made of human meat. If it was, then his problem might not just be losing fear, he probably also had the same嗜好 (shìhào, proclivity) as Professor Hannibal…

But when he tasted the second bowl, Feng Bujue was stunned. The taste of this bowl… seemed to be the same as the previous one.

He didn't care about anything else and drank it down in one breath. After drinking both bowls, he was instead puzzled… which bowl was human meat and which was soup?

"What do you think you're doing?" Oink looked at Feng Bujue and said in a deep voice, "Protecting your companion? Hmph… Do you think I can't just ladle out two more bowls?"

Hearing this, Feng Bujue slammed the table and immediately stood up, glaring at Oink with a very arrogant look in his eyes. The unspoken line in his heart was: "You wanna bet I won't trip you!"

Oink remained unmoved, calmly turned around, and walked towards the kitchen, saying as he walked, "You come with me." This sentence was obviously addressed to Feng Bujue.

Si Yu quickly grabbed his arm, looked into Feng Bujue's eyes, and shook her head. She felt that Oink's invitation was just to cut Feng Bujue up and use him as food.

But Feng Bujue smiled, waved his hand, and handed the ownership of the lantern on the table back to Si Yu. Before turning to leave, he wrote "Wait for me" in her palm with his finger, and then gestured for Si Yu to just sit still.

For some reason, Feng Bujue's actions made people feel very at ease, as if he was really just going and coming back.

…………

After following Oink into the depths of the kitchen, because Si Yu was not present, Feng Bujue could lower his voice and speak. He said, "Neither of those two bowls were made of human meat, right?"

"Of course not," Oink said. "But that doesn't mean I can't make it… I invited you in here to show you my inventory." He walked to the freezer, opened the door to forty-five degrees, stood in front of the door, and pulled out a U-shaped piece of meat, more than a meter long, hanging on an iron hook, and tossed it onto the counter.

A closer look would reveal that this should be the lower half of a human…

"The kid in the well, he was a coward in life, but after death, he not only killed his enemies, but also killed many hooligans who had no grievances with him," Oink said. "After being injured by that Onmyoji, he was still restless, so I cut him in two to make him behave."

As he spoke, he dragged out an armless corpse from the huge freezer and said, "This is a ridiculous music teacher. He was very self-righteous in life, thinking that being a teacher was a waste of his talent, and always wanted to become a composer, but what he wrote was garbage. Until one day, he had a heart attack while creating garbage alone in the music classroom and became a ghost who forced others to listen to his performance."

Seeing this, Feng Bujue had roughly guessed what was about to appear next: "Let me guess… there's also a dead child in the freezer?"

"The dead child was killed by you," Oink replied, as he took out a female corpse with empty insides from the freezer, "This is its mother. As you guessed, she resentfully cut open her pregnant belly before committing suicide."

Then, Oink closed the door of the freezer and took out a glass bottle from a cabinet. The bottle was filled with blood, and two human eyeballs were soaking in it: "This is a beautiful girl, especially her eyes, which are very attractive. She was very vain and knew how to use her beauty to achieve her goals. She dated several boys at the same time, making each of them buy expensive things to please her. One day, some girls who were jealous of her behavior pressed her head into a sink filled with water. They just wanted to 'teach her a lesson,' but they were blinded by jealousy, and evil overflowed from their thoughts and bodies… When the blood in that girl's lungs dyed the pool red, they realized that a tragedy had already occurred." He paused for a moment. "This ghost has a strong resentment and has killed many people. Even if I dug out her eyes, I couldn't stop her behavior, but instead made her develop a癖好 (pìhào, habit) for collecting eyeballs."

Feng Bujue said, "So… the other dimension accessed via the thirteenth step also has something to do with you?"

"Where do you think the people killed by those ghosts went?" Oink replied.

"Uh… you created that space and use it as a trash can to discard the dead spirits?" Feng Bujue said. "But what's going on with the ghosts outside right now?"

"That's what I should be asking you," Oink retorted. "Why are the ghosts outside of the school gathering here to hunt you down?"

These words made Feng Bujue understand that the ghost hunt assigned by the system after violating the rules was unrelated to the Seven Unbelievable Tales of Ye Jie High School.

"I don't know either…" he replied perfunctorily, and quickly changed the subject, "You're telling me this to illustrate that you're like the caretaker here, right? Then I want to ask, why are you putting on this human meat soup act here? Also, what does that last nursery rhyme mean?"

"I'm here to help you, of course," Oink said, "Or rather, to help those who have the courage to drink the soup."

Hearing this, Feng Bujue suddenly realized something. He opened the game menu and knew that things were bad… he had done a good deed and made a mistake. It turned out that the two bowls of soup could restore survival value. At this moment, his survival value was already full. Although it was impossible to judge how much a bowl could restore, it was definitely wasted.

Thinking about it carefully, this task was quite meaningful. It was not only testing whether the players dared to try, but also seeing who would drink first and what the reaction would be after drinking.

If only one person arrived here to trigger the task, it would be a simple test of courage. But if there were two players here, there would be various variables. If the two had ulterior motives, then definitely neither would be willing to drink first, fearing that they would drink the so-called human meat bowl, while at the same time hoping that the other would drink that bowl…

"As for the last nursery rhyme," Oink continued, "You will understand when you go to the school gate."

"Hmm… I see…" Feng Bujue replied thoughtfully. He understood that Oink's words were a direct hint about the triggering location of the last task in the Seven Unbelievable Tales.

Feng Bujue then tentatively asked, "Excuse me… can I have another bowl of the soup you gave me earlier?"

"Want to give it to your companion?" Oink replied. "Okay…" After a two-second pause, he blurted out the second half of the sentence, "But the third bowl is an extra offering, what are you going to exchange with me?" His eyes suddenly became ferocious, "An arm? A pair of eyes?"

Feng Bujue felt that the situation seemed to be a little off. This Butcher of Paradise was both righteous and evil, and no one could guess whether he was an enemy or a friend in the next second. Upon hearing words like "arm" and "eyes," Feng Bujue instinctively took out the kitchen knife from his knapsack and was immediately ready to use [Bear Child's Downward Whip Kick] to protect himself.

"Kitchen knife?" Oink snatched the weapon from Feng Bujue's hand, so fast that the latter didn't even have time to react. "Looks pretty good…" He weighed it in his hand a few times, tried to grip it tightly and waved it, glanced at Feng Bujue out of the corner of his eye, and said, "Go get the soup."