Chapter 178 Swallowing the Soup

After releasing the vampire bats, Xiao Ling and Xiao Tan hid together in the shadows of a building, quietly observing the movements in the kitchen.

Less than a minute later, the kitchen door was opened by a "person," and a burly man with a pig's head walked out.

Just as the two players were about to quietly discuss how to deal with the situation, suddenly…

"You two…" In an instant, Oink appeared in front of Xiao Tan and Xiao Ling, calmly asking, "How about coming to the kitchen to chat with me?"

This sudden and unexpected turn of events caused the two players' scare levels to soar. How Oink found them and how he moved in front of them… they couldn't figure it out at all. All they were sure of at that moment was… this NPC was ridiculously strong.

"What if we don't want to go?" Xiao Ling didn't explicitly refuse, but tentatively asked.

"Hmph…" Oink sneered, continuing, "Although the content of my previous sentence seemed like a question, I don't think you have a choice." He paused. "Of course, if you insist on refusing me, I suggest you consider 'can you' instead of 'want to.'"

"Uh… that…" Whether it was from the opponent's skill, aura, or words, Xiao Tan strongly felt… it was time to back down. "I think…" he said to Xiao Ling in a low voice, "Let's go…"

"Fine, fine," Xiao Ling drawled, shaking her head and sighing. She knew in her heart that if they didn't do what this NPC said, they would likely face another instant death event, and this time… there might be no turning back.

So, the two of them reluctantly followed Oink towards the Xiangji Kitchen.

A distance of only a few dozen meters, a few steps and they were there…

As soon as they entered the kitchen door, Xiao Tan and Xiao Ling saw Fei Kou Wei Wang crouching in the corner. Their eyes met, and each of them felt a bit suspicious.

"Looks like we're not the first ones invited in…" Xiao Ling muttered, looking at Fei Kou Wei Wang, then glanced at the soup pot on the stove. "Your teammates… couldn't he have boiled them all?"

"He boiled… the little boss I just killed…" Fei Kou Wei Wang glared at the two Hell Frontline opponents, forcing a tough attitude as he replied, "Hmph… if I hadn't been entangled with that little boss for so long, I wouldn't have been caught by him…"

As soon as he finished speaking, Xiao Tan asked, "Hey? I don't see any restrictions on your movements?" He pointed to Oink. "When Second Brother ran out to catch us just now, why didn't you run?"

"Nonsense… if I could run, wouldn't I have run?" Fei Kou Wei Wang snorted. "That guy's speed is like instant teleportation, how could I…"

"I say… you two…" At this point, Oink couldn't listen anymore and interrupted, "One moment it's 'Second Brother,' the next it's 'that guy'… that's so rude!" He paused for half a second, adding, "My name is 'Oink'… remember it."

"Oh?" Hearing this, Xiao Ling suddenly understood. "So you're Oink."

Regarding this Pighead Brother's affairs, Feng Bujue and Li Ruoyu had mentioned them to their teammates a long time ago (in the early stages of the game, everyone often discussed the characters or events encountered in the scripts in more detail to share their strategies). Later, after Jue-ge experienced the Cedar County Hospital script in the Monster Kingdom, he learned that Oink was a unique data, so he mentioned it to his teammates again.

Xiao Ling had a very good memory. Even though she had never seen this NPC in person, she immediately recalled the various descriptions of Oink she had heard when she heard his name.

"Hmm… that name sounds a bit familiar…" On the other side, Xiao Tan also remembered something and muttered softly.

"Hearing my name is useless…" Oink didn't care. He continued, "…once you're here, you have to follow my rules."

"What rules?" Xiao Ling asked, seizing the opportunity. "'Here' means what? Is it referring to the Liuhe Temple? Or He Yue Town? What exactly happened here?"

"Hehe…" Oink smiled. "Your questions…" He glanced at Fei Kou Wei Wang. "…that kid asked them all before." He shook his head and shrugged. "Let me talk about the rules first…" He opened the soup pot and stirred it a few times with a large spoon. "If you want me to answer your questions, you must first drink my soup."

"Huh?" Xiao Tan was stunned, squinting his eyes. "These rules… seem pretty polite…"

"Hmph… if you had seen the little boss's appearance… you wouldn't say that," Fei Kou Wei Wang replied from the side in a rather strange tone.

…………

On two separate fronts…

At the same time, in front of the Abbot's room at the Liuhe Temple.

"Huff… pay attention… I'm going to push the door open…" Xian Ye Wei Wang took a deep breath in front of the door and reminded his teammates, turning his head.

"Don't worry, I'll cover you," Zhong Cui Zhong Qiang Xi, standing not far behind the captain, responded.

These two from Corpse Blades were, after all, professional players, and their thinking when exploring was very clear. After entering the temple, without saying a word… they went straight to the Stone Courtyard Pagoda in the center of the Liuhe Temple. Since Xiao Tan had cleared the entrance to the temple and eliminated the red-clothed female monster guarding behind the Three Gates Hall, Xian Ye Wei Wang and Zhong Cui Zhong Qiang Xi arrived at their destination with virtually no obstacles.

However, when they arrived at the Stone Courtyard, they found that the gate at the entrance to the Stone Courtyard was sealed and required the [Stone Courtyard Key] to open. According to Captain Xian Ye's speculation… the key to this kind of place was ninety-nine percent in the abbot's hands, so the two of them made their way to the abbot's room…

"Okay, if there's a situation after pushing the door open, you…" Xian Ye Wei Wang said, placing his hand on the door.

Unexpectedly…

"Ah… uh…"

Suddenly, a series of urgent moans came from the darkness behind them. In this foul-smelling, dim, and silent temple… the sound was extremely jarring.

"Tch… they really caught up." Xian Ye Wei Wang was a bit angry out of extreme fear at this moment, and his tone of voice and the expression on his face were rather impulsive. And his behavior… was undoubtedly affected by this kind of psychology, becoming somewhat reckless.

"There's no choice, you go in and find the key first, I'll be responsible for luring away this group of monsters," Xian Ye Wei Wang said, pushing open the wooden door of the abbot's room.

Behind the door was deep darkness.

And…

"Amitabha…" A figure, chanting the Buddha's name softly, slowly walked out of the door.

The two from Corpse Blades reacted quickly as well, regardless of the situation, they took a big step back and adopted a defensive stance.

Two seconds later, a purple-faced monk in a black monk's robe, wrapped in a scarlet cassock, walked out of the abbot's room.

Leaving aside his skin color, looking at his appearance, this monk was very young and handsome. No matter how one looked at it, he was only around thirty years old, not the age to become the abbot of the temple. But the zen staff he held in his hand and the style of the cassock he wore showed that his identity was not that of an ordinary monk.

"Two benefactors…" The purple-faced monk stepped out of the room and looked at the two from Corpse Blades with a smile that was not a smile. "This is a pure and quiet place of Buddhism…" His gaze turned to the weapons that the two players were already holding in their hands. "What do you two intend to do here, holding fierce weapons?"

The sentence spoken by this NPC obviously contained some very dangerous flags… If the answer was not good, the consequences could be imagined.

"This…" Xian Ye Wei Wang was, after all, the captain of one of the Corpse Blade teams, and was by no means a brave but reckless person. Even without the aid of drugs, he wouldn't fall into such an obvious trap. Therefore, after a brief moment of thought, he immediately put on a friendly expression, clasped his fists and cupped his hands (he still held the knife in his hand, not daring to put it away). "Master, this brother and I… for some reason, we were hunted down by evil spirits and accidentally broke into the temple. If there is any offense… I hope you will forgive us."

"Oh? Evil spirits?" When the purple-faced monk heard these two words, the smile on his face became even stronger. In the dim light, the shadows on his face fluctuated and flickered, making his expression appear strange and unpredictable. "Is the benefactor referring to… those behind you?"

Before he finished speaking, several ghosts had already passed through the wall and appeared in the courtyard outside the abbot's room. When Xian Ye Wei Wang and the others looked back, the monsters floating in the front were only a dozen meters away from them.

"Yes, yes…" Xian Ye Wei Wang quickly responded. "I wonder if the master can help us drive away those ghosts?"

"Hehehe…" The purple-faced monk smiled in a swaying manner. "The benefactor is joking. Monks are compassionate and cherish all living beings. Now that the two of you have come here, how can this humble monk sit idly by?"

As soon as he said this, the two players immediately exchanged glances and breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that Xian Ye Wei Wang's negotiation with this NPC was successful.

But they never expected… that the other party had not finished speaking.

"This humble monk will help the two of you…" The next second, the purple-faced monk's smile turned cold. "…ascend to the Western Paradise early and be spared from this suffering of purgatory!"

…………

Returning to the Xiangji Kitchen.

At this moment, three players were sitting side by side at a rectangular wooden table, from left to right: Gu Xiao Ling, Wang Tan Zhi, and Fei Kou Wei Wang.

And that Oink… was at the stove, ladling soup into three large bowls.

The Pighead Brother skillfully ladled out three bowls of meat soup with plenty of ingredients, placed them on a wooden tray, and carried them over with one hand.

He placed the three large bowls in front of the three players, then stood still, crossed his arms in front of his chest, and looked down at the three of them with a condescending gaze. "The three of you… try my cooking, then we'll talk."

"Uh… although I don't want to be too blunt, but…" Xiao Tan looked at the bowl of soup in front of him with a troubled expression, muttering half a sentence.

"This bowl of soup looks and smells very suspicious…" Xiao Ling said the second half of her teammate's sentence.

Of course, their statements were relatively euphemistic, while Fei Kou Wei Wang said directly, "What 'suspicious'… it's clearly 'disgusting'… just having it placed in front of me makes me want to vomit."

Fei Kou Wei Wang's evaluation… was still relatively pertinent. The soup cooked by Oink was blackish-gray and greasy in color, and the smell was indescribably unpleasant. Calling it dark cuisine was already being polite… If one had to make a comparison, boiling a pot of pure feces and urine would probably be no more disgusting.

"Hmph…" Oink didn't care about their reactions. He smiled and continued, "If you think it's disgusting, you don't have to drink it."

"Really?" The naive Xiao Tan immediately asked with bright eyes.

"Really," Oink replied crisply. "However, not drinking the soup… doesn't mean you can leave."

Anyone could hear that there was a story branch here… Whether or not to drink this disgusting thing would largely determine the next development.

Just as the players were carefully considering this, suddenly…

Squeak—

Accompanied by the sound of wooden shafts rolling, the kitchen door was actually opened from the outside. Then, a figure appeared at the door.

"Holy crap?"

This curse was obviously not from any of the players, because their use of such exclamations would be censored by the system.

So, the one who said these two words was… Oink.

"Yo~ long time no see," Feng Bujue looked at Pighead Brother with a smile, and walked towards the table where the other three were sitting with brisk steps.

"What are you doing here, kid?" Oink's tone of voice when talking to Jue-ge was obviously different. In short, it was as if they were very familiar…

"Well… hehe…" Feng Bujue said, walking to the table. "It's a long story…" Before he could finish speaking, he casually picked up the bowl of soup in front of Fei Kou Wei Wang. "Let me have a sip of water and tell you slowly."

"Holy crap?" This time, Fei Kou Wei Wang exclaimed in his heart.

Although Xiao Fei had heard about the words and deeds of the character "Mad Feng Bujue," when Jue-ge really appeared in front of him and nonchalantly picked up a bowl of extremely disgusting meat soup and put it to his mouth… Fei Kou Wei Wang was still shocked.

Glug… glug… glug…

Feng Bujue tilted his neck, shaking his Adam's apple, and swallowed the whole bowl of meat soup in one gulp. Not to mention the soup… even the meat, bones, and ingredients inside… were all swallowed by him.

This time, not only Fei Kou Wei Wang, but even Xiao Tan and Xiao Ling were stunned by him.

And that wasn't the end of it…

Clang—

After drinking every last drop of the soup in the bowl, Jue-ge swung his arm and smashed the bowl on the ground, in the style of a hero of the Green Forest drinking a wine of brotherhood.

The sound of the bowl breaking was still echoing, and Feng Bujue wiped his mouth with his sleeve, looked at Oink, and said, "Hmm, the taste is not bad, just a little hot."