Humans were very complicated creatures, most could not be defined in pure good or evil. Everyone had their own goodness and evilness within them. Majority of occupants at Cattle Alley had chosen the latter while Han Fei had chosen the opposite path.
The factory manager was caught in a fight with Xu Qin. In terms of pure strength, it was several times stronger than Xu Qin but that was its downfall as well. Its large body made it slow and being at a managerial position for far too long had dulled its fighting capability.
The pig-faced manager was being forced back. It wanted to use the iron hooks inside the plant but the black scale had already sunk into the blood pool and the whole factory was crumbling. With more wounds on its body, fear started to seep into the manager’s heart. It wanted to escape but it couldn’t shake Xu Qin loose. The attempt to escape cost it one of its arms. Its moving speed slowed down and finally its large body crumbled to the ground. It had once brought endless souls pain and suffering, now endless wounds appeared on its body.
It growled with hatred. The large pig head crashed into the pool. The last thing that it saw was Han Fei who was holding the knife. It could not understand it... how could the man’s frail body manage to stand up against the overwhelming pressure again and again? Creatures who were stronger, scarier than him had fallen, so how could he still manage to stand tall in this world of red?
At Cattle Alley, only beasts could survive, humans were nothing but food. The red eyes bulged forward. Its murky eyes reflected Han Fei’s image. It saw the butcher’s knife in Han Fei’s grasp fall. The beauty of humanity morphed into a thin blade. The light dominated its eyes. In that moment, it believed it had seen the whole universe. It couldn’t remember the last time it had seen the sky. All the memory in its mind was filled with pain and despair.
Blood rained and the world turned upside down as the pig manager’s head rolled to the ground. The wind chime that hung around its neck was sliced through as well. ‘In the author’s memory, all the tragedies began with the sound of the wind chime. In real life, whenever the day was about to darken, the wind chime inside the author’s room would ring. When the old man who lived on the 4th floor heard the wind chime, his expression shifted immediately, he was overwhelmed by fear. From these observations, it is highly possible that the wind chime is a psychological terror that the Butterfly had planted in Spider’s mind. Whenever the wind chime rang, Spider would be brought to believe that something bad was about to happen. That would explain why the manager at this meat packing factory is wearing one around his neck.’
The factory had been fully ruined. The half heart at the bottom of the blood pool was dissected. Now Han Fei only needed to find the other half of the heart and he would know the whole secret behind Cattle Alley, he might even see Spider in person. Following the destruction of the heart filled with sin, the blood mist faded by a lot. The number of pig-faced monsters dwindled as well. They appeared to have escaped to the outskirts of the alley.
With Weep’s help, Han Fei reunited with Xu Qin. None of them said anything, they planned to leave Cattle Alley first. The black anaconda who had unloaded all of its negative energy into Weep had morphed back into a black tiny snake. It slithered out from the corner. It blinked piteously at Xu Qin. However, fearful that Xu Qin would stomp on it because it was still unrecognizable to its owner, it crawled and curled around Han Fei’s wrist after some hesitation. Xu Qin was more familiar with Cattle Alley than Han Fei and Weep so the two decided to follow her lead. After a temporary stop, Xu Qin led them out from the meat packing factory and headed towards the northern side of the plant. After they ventured for about 10 meters, the plant collapsed entirely. The blood pool gushed out to form a river and all the pig masks were buried under the rubble. At the same time, the robotic voice came incessantly in Han Fei’s mind.
“Notification for Player 0000! You’ve completed Grade F Main Mission—First Official Profession! You’ve obtained 3 free skill points!
“Congratulations for finding your first job in this city! A perfect career is an important step to achieve a perfect life!
“Player has acquired his first profession! Trading tab is now officially activated!
“You’ve completed another life goal! Now you can trade with others through the trading function!”
Han Fei glanced at the newly-acquired trading tab. He did not think much of it, after all, no one other himself was playing this version of Perfect Life. Who was he going to trade with? The ghosts?
Compared to the new tab, Han Fei’s attention was grabbed by the small blood cracks that appeared on his menu after he unlocked his first official profession. They looked like some kind of light pattern. It was also only then that Han Fei realized it had only been days since he left Happiness Neighbourhood. ‘Is it because my schedule at this place is so packed that it felt like years have passed since then?’ Shaking his head, Han Fei continued to read the system messages. “Notification for Player 0000! You’ve completed Grade F Hidden Mission—Cattle Alley!
“There are different ways to tackle a hidden mission, based on the completion rate, the player will be awarded different rewards!
“The original mission requires the player to survive. The aim is for the player to hold onto their humanity while in Cattle Alley, the mission will fail the moment the player gives up on that. The player has to escape from Cattle Alley while maintaining their humanity. The mission completion rate will be decided based on how long it took for the player to escape. Since Player 0000 has directly destroyed the foundation of Cattle Alley, the hidden mission was an unmitigated success! Mission completion rate is 100 percent!
“Congratulations for obtaining 2 free skill points, and double EXP! Since you’ve earned 100 completion rate, you’ll obtain the additional reward—Cattle Mask!
“Cattle Mask (Broken Grade F Item): A unique mask that can only be worn by Midnight Butchers! Wearing the mask will increase the wearer’s stamina by 1! It can hide the living presence of the wearer but wearing it will evoke the baser desire of the wearer! It is not advisable to wear the mask for a prolonged period of time!
“Warning! This item is currently broken, repairing it will grant it extra abilities!
“Notification for Player 0000! You have successfully reached level 11! Obtained 1 free attribute point!” Han Fei was quite shocked by the string of messages, he didn’t expect to clear the hidden mission just like that. Basically, the system notifications could be summarized as—I’ve only needed you to escape from the hidden map but you’ve uprooted the map from its core! What else can I do but to give you a 100 percent completion rate?
‘It’s a pleasant surprise to have completed the hidden mission, now I can focus on finding the House of the Butcher.’
Han Fei added the attribute point into stamina. Due to the profession ability of Midnight Butcher, Han Fei’s stamina rose by 2 points, now his stamina was at 15. If he was sent back in time to deal with the murderers from Happiness Neighbourhood now, they would be the ones running for their lives and there was a good chance they wouldn’t be able to escape. With the passive from hide and seek and now the buffs from Midnight Butcher, if Han Fei really wanted to hunt someone, the chance of him failing was very low. ‘It feels like I’ve gotten a lot stronger, unfortunately levelling up won’t heal my injuries, I still need to rest and recuperate.’
Sighing, Han Fei leaned weakly towards Xu Qin. Weep was too small, Han Fei was afraid that he might crush the boy... or at least that was what Han Fei told himself.
“Sister Xu Qin, do you still have more food with you? I miss the meals that you cook at Happiness Neighbourhood so much.”
