Chapter 231: Anonymous Warning

In the oppressive darkness, Li tended to the wound on his calf. Rising to his feet, he pounded on the walls of the drywell, desperately seeking for an escape route.

His heart pounded with a need to flee this nightmare. Ever since he had thought of the eyes staring him down, he was plagued by those eyes that chilled him to his core.

Li had faced numerous challenges throughout his years, but none had instilled such fear within him. His past opponents were motivated by predictable motives, so he could formulate plans against them, but…

The most terrifying ones were the unpredictable ones.

After a long search, Li discovered a potential exit from the room – a square hole approximately one meter in length and width, in the corner discreetly blocked off by corroded iron bars.

With a kick, he shattered several of the rusted bars, realizing that this cellar was probably used to oversee the movement of livestock – the pigs, to be exact.

The gnawing fear of imminent death bit at his aura of bravado.

He hesitated for a moment before steeling himself and crawling into the hole. As his hands brushed against something sticky, he instinctively brought them to his nose, immediately, a wave of nausea washed over him.

The stench was overpowering – a nauseating blend of rotting flesh, urine, and petroleum.

The darkness flooded within the hole, and the claustrophobic, suffocating walls pressing against him were gloomy. Wind drafted into the hole, reflecting off the walls to tease his mind with horrific images that teased at his brain.

Leaning against the wall as he crawled out the other end, he swallowed hard as he began chanting a spell underneath his breath, “O’ Spirit of the Dharma, strengthen me.”

These spells he inherited were unlike any recorded in the Night Division Records – they were modifications of Taoist techniques that were sourced from electricity, developed by his ancestors over generations.

However, since his grandfather, nobody in his family were able to master the spells until he was born.

There were rumors that he could be a “half-immortal,” or potentially, an Immortal.

He couldn’t help but lament over the conditions of his hometown, and believed that money was the key to all things.

As he chanted the spell, crackling like static electricity emanated from his fingertips, illuminating the dimly lit corridor.

The corridor stretched endlessly, winding its way into the darkness, its end obscured from view. Rooms lined both sides of the passage – no doors, replaced by square holes like the one he had entered.

Driven by an instinctive urge, Li ventured towards the corridor’s end. His journey seemed effortless, and nothing seemed to creep in the darkness.

Despite this silence, he felt uneasy. The corridor seemed to stretch on infinitely, like a labyrinth.

After an eternity, he found himself losing his sense of direction. I must be a maze… if I continue walking, I’ll just become lost…

However, a strange sense of bravery filled him, “Hmph! Something is trying to trap me in here forever, but when a dragon encounters a mountain, will it stop in its tracks? Absolutely not!”

Muttering to himself, he extinguished the faint light at his fingertips and closed his eyes.

The best way to confront urban legends, he believed, was to rely on instinct. By trusting his intuition instead of his senses, he could navigate his way out of the labyrinth.

With his eyes closed, he emptied his mind, allowing his mind to guide him. After taking twenty or thirty steps forward, he abruptly collided with a solid wall.

Bingo! Am I out?

Li opened his eyes and quickly surveyed his surroundings. Looking back behind him, there laid a corridor spanning only ten or twenty meters, with four rooms aligned on either side.

Looking forward, he noticed an opening in the grimy concrete wall, similar to the one he entered, but larger. Peering through it, a flickering firelight danced at the other end, accompanied by the faint hum of machinery.

Li stared at the entrance, and crawled into the narrow passage.

As he squeezed through the cramped tunnel, the hard concrete walls exuded a strange odor, making him feel as if he was trapped inside a beast’s stomach.

“Damn it, what the hell is wrong with this place?”

Li cursed under his breath, covering his mouth and nose with one hand, and crawled faster to the exit. Just as he was about to emerge from the tunnel, the sight that greeted him left him stunned.

It was a huge factory. There were roaring sounds and the loud noises of countless machines operating in the factory. Black sludge piled on the ground that was covered with cracks. From time to time, fire spat out, illuminating the entire factory.

An assembly line that looked like hell-on-earth, rotated endlessly. Rows of rusty iron hooks dangled from the ceiling, impaling countless naked figures; their jaws pierced by those gruesome implements.

These unfortunate souls, still clinging to life, struggled ceaselessly. Their screams and howls echoed through the air as one-by-one, they were fed into the machine.

Amidst the cacophony of the crushing and the steaming of the boiler, their chilling cries would suddenly fade, leaving only the hum of machinery.

Witnessing this horrific scene, Li’s mind raced, recalling the urban legend surrounding the slaughterhouse.

Rumor has it that screams could be heard in the middle of night, and some would claim to see a hulking figure roaming the slaughterhouse grounds.

The slaughterhouse’s director had mysteriously vanished, leaving no trace behind, with some speculating that he was still lurking within the slaughterhouse’s confines.

And then there was the chilling rumor – the slaughterhouse was home to a group of human-eating animals.

Li’s gaze swept across the factory walls, revealing numerous openings identical to the one he had just emerged from.

He immediately realized that the rooms he had passed were the slaughter pens, where pigs met their ends. And the factory building before him was the slaughterhouse’s assembly line…

A sudden sound like thunder jolted Li from his thoughts. Before he could regain his composure, a monstrous head emerged from the tunnel entrance; its black hair matted and its skin wrinkled.

A pair of bulging eyes with no emotion stared intently at Li. The creature grinned, revealing a row of razor-sharp fangs.

The indifferent smile, laced with a hint of mockery, like a human observing an trapped animal, sent shivers down Li’s spine.

A buzzing filled Li’s ears, and his body felt numb, as if he was injected with an anesthetic. His limbs no longer responded to his commands, and a swirling vortex seemed to engulf his mind, spinning rapidly, pulling his consciousness into its depths.

Panicked, he bit the tip of his tongue, jolting him back into reality. Summoning every ounce of strength, he scrambled backward, desperately trying to escape the creature’s clutches.

As he retreated, rusty iron hooks shot out from the tunnel entrance as they scraped against the walls, causing sparks to fly relentlessly.

The flickering sparks obscured Li’s vision. In the blink of an eye, a searing pain erupted in his chest and shoulders, accompanied by a terrifying pulling force. A large chunk of flesh and blood was ripped from his body, leaving a gaping wound.

With a final burst of energy, he tried crawling away, collapsing onto the ground. Hot blood gushed from his wound, clouding his consciousness.

He sensed those prying eyes once again, their invisible gaze watching his every move. However, he knew the source of those eyes now.

It was the very something that surrounded the legends of the slaughterhouse.

In a daze, he heard footsteps that echoed in the darkness. A figure soon stopped beside him, and he wore a black coat and a fisherman’s hat.

“Help… me…” he pleaded, but as the man squatted down, he produced a butcher’s knife from his coat.

“I’m afraid not – I’ve made a deal, and only one person leaves this place alive tonight. Me.”

With a swift motion, he raised the butcher’s knife and plunged it into Li’s chest.

…

In the distance, on the hills outside the slaughterhouse in the southern suburbs.

“Oh my god, Levi showed up! But he…”

The cat-eared girl stumbled and turned her head – she saw the lanky man staring at the phone and giggling. Her face darkened, and she raised her hand and gave him a slap in the face.

“Stop watching her! Is it really that interesting to watch somebody run their mouth for 20 minutes straight? Help me figure out why Levi just killed Li!”

“It wouldn’t be interesting if she wasn’t pretty.”

As the man spoke, he suddenly caught a glimpse of the cat girl raising her claws, and hurriedly changed his words, “Uh, I think it’s a simple enough explanation regarding Levi…”

“Spit it out!”

“The fact that Levi was able to survive before this was weird in itself, and now, he’s attacking the other group chat members. Therefore, he must’ve struck a deal with the urban legends in the slaughterhouse.”

“A deal?” the cat girl frowned slightly, “But the urban legends in the slaughterhouse don’t treat regular humans… like humans! At all! How did he…?”

“…maybe it’s because he didn’t see himself as human, and they recognized him as one of their own? Think about it, if you have livestock, and one of them was particularly outstanding and complacent, wouldn’t you want to keep them?”

The cat girl didn’t answer. He implied ‘pet,’ and she wasn’t comfortable with the term.

While she was thinking, the man’s words suddenly interrupted her thoughts.

“Vaccaria has a lot of talent, by the way.”

“What talent could she have?”

“She’s eloquent. She could be a news anchor. A sexy news anchor. With those siren glasses that everyone is wearing these days.”

…

Meanwhile, the Witch took very, tiny, miniscule, small steps on the slaughterhouse grounds.

According to the rules, as long as I walk a little, I should be fine.

There are no rules on how far each step needs to go.

She walked forward while holding up her mobile phone, and in a sinister tone, introduced various urban legends about the slaughterhouse that she had read from the Internet.

“Although these urban legends frighten me, sometimes I wonder – if humans aren’t the only creatures with sentience, what relationship would the other creatures have with humans? Logically, wouldn’t they see humans as food?”

Looking at the screen, it seemed that her viewers exceeded 20,000 in just half an hour.

However, those viewers didn’t seem to like her.

[HAPPY ASSASSIN: Another urban legend broadcast, another person courting death.]

[CHALDEA: The slaughterhouse? Boring. You should’ve went to the Lucky Community, or Wollongong for something more exciting.]

[36 HEADS, 72 ARMS: I just came online, where the urban legends at?!]

[FOX KING: Is this an ASMR broadcast? Her voice is nice, I could fall asleep to it.]

[TAOIST MI: Are you an urban legend?]

Seeing the barrage of messages, she scratched the back of her head, “Aren’t you all scared of this slaughterhouse?”

[INTERNETVETERAN048: Oh, I am scared! Chat, type fear if you’re scared!]

Tons of [fear] stream-emotes popped up on her screen.

Are they making fun of me? These people suck.

While thinking, Lu Yibei glanced across the screen of her phone and answered one of the questions nonchalantly.

[HAPPY ASSASSIN: Aren’t you going to enter the building?]

“Ah, well, I’m scared.”

[36 HEADS, 72 ARMS: Whatever. I’m done here.]

[CHALDEA: You’re scared? Want me to invite some friends over to protect you? I’m familiar with the slaughterhouse!]

[ANONYMOUS: I suggest not going into the slaughterhouse tonight. Something big might happen.]

With this anonymous message, the chat stirred.

[HAPPY ASSASSIN: Oh, you’re weird-weird. Are you the streamer’s mole? I get it now!]

[CHALDEA: What’s happening tonight? It can’t be that scary.]

[TAOIST MI: That’s true – according to my divination, everyone should stay at home tonight, and find a dog to sleep with…]

[WIDOW: I only have a teddy bear, is that fine?]

[ANONYMOUS: Listen to me! Somebody from the Eclipse Society will appear at the slaughterhouse tonight!]

[CHALDEA HAS LEFT THE STREAM.]

[HAPPY ASSASSIN HAS LEFT THE STREAM.]

…

The Eclipse Society? What are they going to do here?

Wait, when I was fixing the seal, I found a damaged area… could it be that…

Turning back to read the chat to check on this anonymous user, she found that her stream had fell into a dead silence at some point.

Her viewers also dipped sharply from 20,000 to just over 500.

Fuck you, Eclipse Society! They haven’t even sent me my gifts yet, and you scared them all away! My profits! Money is life-and-death to me, and if you little rats come between me and my money…

Oh, I’ll show you if you appear tonight…

With her viewers leaving, she lost interest in streaming and put Li’s phone aside. Taking off the guitar bag, she pulled out her kitchen knife and held it in her hands.

At this moment, a lonely message floated across the screen of the mobile phone.

[TAOIST MI: What a nice knife! Are you selling that?]

She didn’t notice the message however, putting the phone in her pocket and looked up at the building before her.

Since the people from the Eclipse Society may appear, she wanted to notify the others, and well, at least let that other girl know – who cares if she’s actually Jiangli or Mew Mew, girls should stick together!

And, there is a real danger looming over them. If something goes wrong… strangely enough, she felt as if she was responsible.

Her eyes narrowed slightly as she clenched the kitchen knife, taking big strides forward.

TRANSLATOR NOTES:

STORY DISCUSSION: Our little Witch might be a little cowardly, but when it comes to protecting her (new) friends, she certainly doesn’t hold back! Go Yibei!

As always, if you’d like to support me, feel free to donate any amount or commission your very own freshly baked translations at /slicedbreadsbakery <3