The black anaconda coiled beside Han Fei’s leg, it could feel the praise from Han Fei. Even though it was weak, it wagged its tail happily. The female butcher was still close by. Han Fei did not dare to speak lest it attracted her attention. He listened to the sound outside the door. After the heavy footsteps and awful smell faded away, he sighed in relief. ‘I’ve managed to survive after all.’
Hugging the anaconda’s surprisingly gummy body, the man and pet relied on each other inside the dangerous Cattle Alley. Both of them were reminded of Xu Qin. “Based on the hairdresser’s comment, Xu Qin should still be somewhere around Cattle Alley, perhaps we’ll finally find her here.” With Xu Qin’s face in his mind, Han Fei no longer felt that afraid. He took out the paper doll from his inventory. The face that resembled Xu Qin slowly turned towards a fixed direction. The paper doll probably sensed the location of the actual Xu Qin. After all, Xu Qin had once soaked her blood onto the doll and infused her curse into the doll.
‘I better deal with my injuries first before I go looking for Xu Qin. After I reunite with Xu Qin, we can try picking off the straggling pig monster.’ Struggling up from the ground, Han Fei held the wall and looked around. Only now he had the chance to examine the house he had sought refuge in. Han Fei had no idea what happened to the black anaconda after he logged off but the snake was lucky to have found a place like this. The cracked bluestone garden tiles were covered in dried blood. Perhaps due to the overabundance of ‘fertilizer’, the small garden was overgrown with plants that Han Fei couldn’t recognize. Han Fei crossed the garden to push open the wooden door of the lobby. The room did not have any human trace. Inside, situated at the centre of the room was a coffin. The coffin lid was chopped through by knives and axes. There was no dead body inside the coffin, instead it was filled with many bloody clothes.
‘A ceremonial tomb?’ The blood stains on the clothes had oxygenized, the owner of the clothes should be dead for a long time already. Han Fei wished to explore the place further but his physical condition did not allow it.
“Come, help me bite on this end of the needle.” Han Fei hid inside the innermost corner of the room and then took out the suturing set from his inventory. Replaying the tutorial video in his mind, Han Fei started to operate on himself. He had practiced suturing on dead bodies at Happiness Neighbourhood before so he was not that worried. Biting a piece of fabric to silence any possible screams, Han Fei’s hands sewn the thread through his own skin. His handiwork was cleaner than most doctors. With the snake’s help, Han Fei used about 10 minutes to complete the simple suture. The lines on the wounds were crooked at places but at least the bleeding had stopped.
‘That solves one problem but what about the bone dislocation?’ Han Fei tore off the clothes, found some twigs in the garden to make a simple crutch to stabilize his left arm. When he was done with everything, the man whose color had drained from his face collapsed next to the coffin.
‘The food that Xu Qin cooks can rapidly recover my Life Points and they come with many different special effects. After we return to the Happiness Neighbourhood, I’ll need her to cook more for me so that I can take them with me.’ In the cryptic world, Han Fei’s body recovered faster than normal. However, the man did not really quite grasp the rules of this world yet. Then again, this was not really his fault. Han Fei had been too busy surviving to test out other things. Han Fei took a quick rest inside the dilapidated room. However, it was not safe inside the room as a few minutes later, he could hear footsteps passing the door twice. Perhaps a pig-faced monster was patrolling the nearby area.
‘The doors at Cattle Alley are mere decoration for those pig-faced monsters. They can barge in any time they wish, the original owners of this place were probably killed by them as well.’ After regaining some strength, Han Fei climbed up from the ground. He reached his movable right arm into the coffin. He found a clan record book underneath the pile of clothes. The names were crossed off in red, it looked quite frightening.
‘Each of the name crossed out represents a life lost?’ At the last page of the book, Han Fei came across the only name that was not crossed out—Wang Sheng. ‘Could that be the boy that I saw yesterday?’ He placed the book in his inventory and to his surprise, it triggered a system mission. “Notification for Player 0000! You’ve found a mission object—The Wang’s Clan Records!
“The Wang’s Clan Records: The existence of this book proves that Cattle Alley was once a place of vibrant lives. Find out how the place turned from Human Alley to Cattle Alley, it might prove helpful to your escape.”
The hint provided by the system was quite cryptic. Han Fei had no idea what good the book was for so he kept it for now. Exploring the rest of the house, Han Fei noticed a lot of nail scratch marks on the bedroom walls. The marks on the cement walls were mixed with blood. It suggested that each bedroom once housed a crazy person. Even if they scratched until their nails bled, they needed to escape from this place. ‘None of the houses at this alley appear to have windows, each of the houses is like an isolated box. Once the door is closed, no one knows what happens inside the building.’
Han Fei entered one of the bedrooms and being surrounded on all sides by scratch marks, the feeling of claustrophobia grew. The small room had witnessed immense pain and despair. ‘Who was trapped here? A man or a monster?’ None of the furniture inside the room was undamaged. Han Fei frowned as he searched for useful items among the broken paraphernalia. When he glanced under the bed, his eyes narrowed. At the corner of the bed, there was a hand that was chopped off cleanly at the wrist. The decayed hand gave off a horrible smell. The skin was dark from decomposition but even so the five fingers were still tightly clutched around a fractured bone-paring knife.
‘A knife?’ Cold steel was a unique presence at Cattle Alley. All the blades inside this hidden map appeared to be cursed. ‘Could this be an ownerless cursed object?’
Taking out the paper doll as insurance, Han Fei had the black anaconda dragged the knife out from the bed. With great unwillingness, the snake wiggled towards the hand. When it was about to reach the hand, the large body shivered as if it was stimulated by imminent danger. It slithered back to Han Fei’s side. No matter how hard Han Fei tried to persuade it, it refused to go near the hand anymore. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be able to consume everything?’
After consoling the snake, Han Fei resisted the pain and used his dislocated left arm to reach for the knife. His thought was simple. His left arm was already half-incapacitated, even if it was fully incapacitated, it made not much of a difference. He needed to preserve his unharmed right arm. His fingers slowly approached, Han Fei planned to use the system to determine whether the knife was still usable or not. But when his fingertip touched the blade, it was like 10 pairs of hands kneaded harshly at his brain. Indescribable pain squeezed at his soul. Han Fei was close to fainting. His instinct was to pull the arm back but his body was out of control. He could not even put this simple order into motion.
Even using all his might, the only thing he could manage was to open his eyes. Inside the scratched room brimming with terror and pain, 6 Lingering Spirits dripping in blood stood around Han Fei. Their faces were merciless and their bodies misshapen. Part of their souls was trapped inside the bone-paring knife.
‘All the knives at Cattle Alley are trapped with souls.’ The pair of hands intended to tear Han Fei apart. They could no longer be reasoned with. ‘They appear to be a family. Are they the original owners of this place?’
At the brink of death, Han Fei couldn’t afford to hesitate, he took out the clan records from his inventory. The tattered book fell to the ground and it flipped open to a random page. The 6 Lingering Spirits’ attention was temporarily distracted. Han Fei grasped that opening to scan the 6 faces closer, he noticed one of them looked like the female carcass which shielded the boy in the alley.
“Wang Sheng! I’ve saved Wang Sheng!” Han Fei shouted since he had nothing to lose. The pain in his brain lessened as the 6 spirits pounced at him. They appeared to wish to see something from within Han Fei’s mind. Several seconds later, the 6 spirits stopped attacking Han Fei. They phased out of Han Fei’s body and returned to the bone-paring knife. At the same time, the robotic voice announced, “Notification for Player 0000! You’ve found a Broken Grade G Cursed Object—Knife!
“Knife (Broken Grade G Cursed Object): This blade was responsible for the death of a family of six, it was meant for a massacre.”
