“By the way, I’ve been curious, what is your relationship with that scary woman? I noticed that when you first left Happiness Neighbourhood, it was with her too.” Lee Zai still remembered the details. “She walked you to the gates of the neighbourhood and then stopped. It felt like a mother sending her son to school for the first time. Both of you looked quite nervous.” Seeing the veins popping on Han Fei’s forehead, Lee Zai quickly changed the subject, “I’m just saying you two have a very good relationship, are you two actual siblings?”
“We’re just neighbours, she has once saved my life.”
“That’s all?” Lee Zai looked simply disappointed, he pressed. “You ventured into such a dangerous place for her and she purposely went out to search for us for you. Even though she emits scariness, she has a good heart. But most importantly, she is incredibly powerful, is a good cook and is pretty on the eyes.”
“What are you getting at?”
“If I encounter such a perfect woman in this despairing world, I would do anything within my power to be with her, to latch onto her and never let go.”
“Have you eaten too much curse from the pig-faced monsters?” Han Fei believed Lee Zai was just joking. The brothers had completely different personalities. The older brother, Lee Zai was quite a chatterbox and carried misfortune like a badge, he had once expressed the interest to have Huang Yin as blood brother; The younger brother, Lee Huo Han Fei had lesser interaction with. Han Fei’s only impression was that Lee Huo preferred to use fists than words. Either he’d die or the enemy would.
“I’m only saying this for your own good. Perhaps this solution might lessen the despair on both of you…”
“I’d suggest you to focus on healing your wounds.” Before Lee Zai finished, Han Fei looked around, “Is Xu Qin not here?”
“Do you think I dare to say these things if she’s here?” Lee Zai crawled up from the ground. “After she brought us back here, she was summoned away by a kid. He was a stutterer and had a hunchback; he didn’t look like a good person.”
“Dreamer?” Han Fei had no idea why Spider’s sub persona would come to find Xu Qin but he had a feeling that something big was about to happen.
“The kid came with a drawing. Xu Qin left after she saw the drawing.” Drake offered. Compared to Lee Zai, Drake was less frivolous. For example, he kept the drawing for safekeeping. He took out the drawing from his pocket and handed it to Han Fei. There were many stick figures on the painting, two of them were red, the rest all black. One of the red stick figures held 2 table knives and the other red stick figure wore a chef’s hat. They were surrounded by the black stick figure who attempted to yank the woman with the chef’s hat out of the other woman’s body.
‘After Xu Qin killed Spider’s chef persona, she inherited her curse and mask. Dreamer’s drawing is trying to say that someone wishes to yank the chef’s curse out of Xu Qin?’ The meaning of the drawing wasn’t that important, the important thing was someone was trying to harm Xu Qin. “We can’t stay here anymore, we need to go and find the Dreamer.” Han Fei had seen Spider’s family portrait in real life. In that picture, Han Fei believed that the personas other than the reader, the doctor and the teacher were innocent. Thus what Han Fei needed to do now was to gather the other personas around him and prevent the tragedy from happening again.
“Are you sure we should go out? Before Xu Qin left, she warned us to stay inside this room no matter what. She even stressed that we should definitely make sure that you stay put.” Lee Zai turned towards Weep and Drake.
“She has indeed said that.”
“Xu Qin has gone with Dreamer once before but that time she didn’t give such warning. This means that something must have spooked her to say something like this. That’s all the more reason for me to go find her.” Han Fei strode towards the exit without much hesitation. Seeing this, Lee Zai sighed. “For clarity, I’m not trying to stop you, I’m just hoping that you understand that even if we did manage to find her, we might be of no help to her.”
“I understand the monsters at this building better than most and that is the reason why I must go and find her.” Han Fei pressed on the door handle. “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing, I won’t end up a burden for her.” He pushed the door open and the world that greeted him was different from yesterday. It was eerily quiet. “Something’s not right!” Han Fei looked around. The blood and broken flesh in the corridor had disappeared. The maze-like corridors had changed as well. There were now corridors when there were walls and the previously open corridors had been cut off by doors.
“All the passages inside the building have changed, we might not be able to find her. Let’s be realistic.” Lee Zai was still nursing his wound.
“The House of the Butcher is the Spider’s heart. Only the manager will be able to control the layout here. This can only mean 2 things.” Han Fei’s darkened. “1, the manager has awakened; 2, one of the personas has stolen part of the manager’s power. We need to move, if a malicious persona becomes the manager of Cattle Alley, the consequences will be unimaginable.”
“Personas? Stealing the manager’s power?” Lee Zai and Drake had no idea what Han Fei was talking about.
“Before he died, the 6th persona once said, the person who collected all the masks would become the new manager. Someone inside the building must have targeted Xu Qin for those masks.” Han Fei analyzed calmly. “Xu Qin knew about that, so she left with the Dreamer. She knew that staying with us would cause us to become collateral damage.” Seeing the molds on the wall, Han Fei strung all the clues together. “In the cryptic world, the writer who was the killer had disappeared so they needed a new ‘writer’. To become the Midnight Butcher, the system required me to come to the House of the Butcher, it is a profession unique to Cattle Alley. But Spider did not want to become a Midnight Butcher, he needed to become a butcher who could kill the other butchers.”
Ever since he entered Cattle Alley, Han Fei felt like there was a pair of eyes following him. The profession reviews, the choices, the salvations and the murders that he did were all captured by that pair of eyes. With Han Fei’s arrival, he had given a new meaning to the profession of Midnight Butcher. For Spider, Han Fei had done something even he failed to do. When faced with the same despair, perhaps Han Fei might be able to perform a new miracle.
‘I will try my best, if I end up as the manager of Cattle Alley, it’ll be perfect.’ While Han Fei contemplated, footsteps came from the quiet corridor. The group turned towards the sound. A thin and hunchbacked boy was running this way. His expression was terrified and full of anxiety. He waved a roughly drawn painting in his hand. The painting featured a crazy woman, 13 sharp table knives were stuck into her body.
