After that one strange text message, no other players sent any more information.
Zhou Qi’an thought quietly. If it were truly a critical situation, why was there no related explanation, or any mention of the barbecue shop? Could it be that the players’ phones only allowed them to send messages related to the barbecue shop?
Following the phone’s location, the two of them passed through several small alleys and finally turned onto a relatively deserted street.
The moment he truly saw the Gluttonous BBQ Shop, he thought he had gone to the wrong place.
The barbecue shop had two floors with a pointed roof, built in an ancient, quaint style with red pillars drenched in paint. Each floor had windows with wide, dark black frames. The contrast between red and black was stark, and the words “Barbecue” were written very artistically. At first glance, it looked quite pleasant.
What Zhou Qi’an found strange was not the incongruous architectural style, but the fact that directly opposite the barbecue shop was the No. 33 Swimming Pool!
Convenient for a double kill.
A bronze lock was fastened to the barbecue shop’s door.
Since they were invited, prying the lock or climbing the wall didn’t seem appropriate.
Shen Zhiyi said, “Let’s use the back door.”
“We are currently on the Yang path,” he said, leading Zhou Qi’an back a few steps and looking at a towering tree further behind. “The direction the branches are swaying is opposite to the direction of the wind, and the dark clouds are all gathered in one place… The heavens and earth are interacting, moving against the breath. We need to take the ghostly path arranged by the spirits.”
Zhou Qi’an had a strange expression.
This wasn’t just being well-rounded in a particular subject; it was more like having a specialized expertise.
After some time, they finally made their way to the other side.
It was another deep-red archway, with two large stone lions standing outside.
The lions’ manes were thick and had the appearance of succulent plants, with petals clustered on their bodies. At a glance, it just felt uncomfortable from the inside out.
As Shen Zhiyi had predicted, the back door was unlocked.
As he stepped inside, Shen Zhiyi paused briefly, turned his head, and saw that his shadow was actually blocked outside the door.
He quickly retracted his gaze and continued inside.
After being injured for breaking the rules at the Others’ Experience Center, his disguise ability had weakened. The shadow, which sealed most of his power, was being invisibly targeted by the rules.
He would have to find a chance later to replenish through eating.
Shen Zhiyi discreetly glanced at the mountain that could be seen from anywhere in the distance. The ghost temple on the mountain stood high above, as if looking down on everything.
“Challenger, please follow me.”
On this gloomy day, a woman in a long gown suddenly appeared.
She carried a lantern and had a deadpan face. After checking their tickets, she walked inside with hurried steps.
At the same time, a system prompt sounded:
【Welcome to the Gluttonous BBQ Shop】
【The King of Gluttons competition has entered its fourth day. During the competition, multiple challenges will be held daily, and a King of Gluttons will be determined in each match. Come and challenge your eating limits! Becoming a King of Gluttons will earn you a mysterious grand prize.】
【After passing the advanced version of the King of Gluttons competition, you will have a chance to meet the boss.】
【Note: Contestants cannot withdraw mid-competition.】
The moment the prompt ended, the two of them had just followed the woman in the long gown into the building.
The interior was even larger than they had imagined.
A circle of paper lanterns hung in the first-floor hall. Below was a long table over twenty meters long. Not only its length, but its width was also ridiculous, as if some super-luxurious flowing banquet was being held.
There were already a dozen people at the long table, none of whom were players.
The contestant next to Zhou Qi’an was a monk with a fleshy face and red beads on his wrist. The other contestants further down also had their own unique characteristics. They looked like some local experts who had come here to achieve some purpose.
He had just reached his seat when plates of roasted whole lamb were brought out.
The lamb’s head had not been discarded; even the horns were still there. The entire head was propped up on the tender meat and bone frame, giving it a sense of freshness, as if it wasn’t completely dead.
In front of each contestant were a total of ten such small roasted whole lambs. The lamb’s body was small, deformed and atrophied, less than half the size of its head. In terms of the King of Gluttons’ appetite, it wasn’t too exaggerated.
“Each challenge lasts fifteen minutes. This is the preliminary round. Eating two full plates will qualify you for the advanced King of Gluttons competition. Each contestant can only eat the food on their own plate.”
After the woman in the long gown finished speaking, she stood aside.
Zhou Qi’an checked his phone; it was now 10:04.
More than the food, his gaze first wandered over the woman in the long gown and the surrounding environment. This floor was even more spacious than Hao Hui Sha’s large flat. The players weren’t on this floor, so he would have to go to the second floor to check.
Just as Zhou Qi’an retracted his gaze, he happened to see a middle-aged man push the plate on the table closer to a young man, as if saying something.
The distance was a bit far, making it impossible to read his lips.
The young man ate it without any defense.
In this world, there’s still trust between people?
Before Zhou Qi’an could finish his感慨, he heard a loud bang. The young man suddenly bent over with difficulty.
“Ah—”
He painfully kept hitting his chest, as if he had choked. The man kept撞ing the edge of the table, seemingly trying to vomit out what he had eaten.
“Full, so full…”
The man repeated this word, feeling as if his stomach were filled with lead, expanding crazily. He could even clearly feel the process of expansion. The man cast a pleading gaze at the middle-aged man, hoping he could save him.
This time, Zhou Qi’an read his lips; it seemed he was calling him something like “cousin-uncle.”
Bang.
The middle-aged man jumped back in shock. Not just him, but several others nearby also heard the sound of the explosion.
The man’s internal organs had burst open. He stared with wide eyes, dying a tragic death on the floor.
The woman in the long gown said, “Attention all contestants. Five minutes after the start of each competition, any contestant who has not started eating will be considered a passive participant.”
The man who had died first had only had an accident after eating the second plate with a decorative border. A certain female contestant who had been paying close attention first tasted the food from the first plate.
The same tragedy occurred.
With just one bite, the woman clutched her chest, her head lowered, dry heaving crazily.
Zhou Qi’an retracted his gaze and looked at the roasted whole lamb in front of him.
The first man who died had eaten the gilded-edge plate on the side without any problem, but when it was the woman’s turn, something went wrong. This meant the death rule was not related to the order of the plates, nor to the color of the plate’s edge.
As he continued to survey his surroundings, Zhou Qi’an glanced at the woman in the long gown, as if he had thought of something.
Before he could figure out how to hint at it, Shen Zhiyi had already stepped out.
His long, powerful fingers randomly picked up a corpse, threw it onto an empty table, then picked up a corner of a shattered plate from the ground and slashed it across the stomach.
This series of ruthless actions left people dumbfounded.
Unexpectedly, the amount of bleeding was far less than imagined. The corpse’s stomach was mixed with other things.
The contestants’ attention was completely drawn away. They all stretched their necks, trying to get a clear look at the inside of the corpse. The texture of the soil was very strange; it was not soaked in blood, but was instead distinct and white in color.
“It’s grave soil,” Shen Zhiyi said coldly.
Some of the roasted whole lambs were made from grave soil. Eating them would cause one to die from being overstuffed.
While the contestants were all observing the corpse, Zhou Qi’an quietly left the table and walked forward.
When he had walked about ten meters, someone finally noticed him. The cunning middle-aged man looked over. “Where are you going?”
Zhou Qi’an didn’t pay him any attention. He immediately summoned his white silk ribbon and wrapped it directly around the beam above.
Under his will, the length of the white ribbon shortened bit by bit. Since it had been damaged at the Others’ Experience Center, the white ribbon was now far from as sturdy as before, but it was more than enough to pull a person.
As Zhou Qi’an climbed up using the pillars and the white ribbon, everyone instantly understood his intention—to get a lantern.
To match the ancient-style decoration, the building’s windows were all made of a special paper, making it dark even during the day.
Besides the thin daylight, this space was entirely lit by lanterns. However, if one looked more carefully, one would find that only some of the lanterns were lit.
And near the long table, where the competition was being held, the place that needed the most light, strangely not a single lantern was lit.
The woman in the long gown had been carrying a lantern all along, which seemed to be a hint.
A guess immediately popped into everyone’s minds: by using the light of a lantern to illuminate the food, one could perhaps identify the problematic dishes.
Almost without a second thought, everyone rushed towards the lanterns.
“Get out of the way!”
The middle-aged man had a surprisingly stable stance. He kicked away the person blocking his path.
At this moment, Zhou Qi’an had already reached the first lantern. He had observed earlier that there were fewer than ten lit lanterns in total, and excluding the two who had died, there were sixteen contestants in total.
The number of people who could get a lantern was destined to be very limited, which was why he needed Shen Zhiyi’s help to distract the others.
The surface of the lantern was bone-chillingly cold. Zhou Qi’an bent his stiff fingers and forcibly took one down.
The moment he landed, he started running to the other side, preparing to get a second one.
The distance between each lit lantern was quite far.
Just as he was running swiftly, Shen Zhiyi’s clear voice came from ahead: “Come back directly.”
Zhou Qi’an then also noticed that the light from the lantern in his hand was weakening.
He frowned. The lantern’s wick could only burn for a very short time. He had to make a decisive decision to go back.
Shen Zhiyi’s position was at the very edge. When he passed him, the lantern only had a faint glimmer of light left.
Some of the light had previously fallen on his plate, and the light had immediately dimmed. It was clear that one lantern could not be used by two people, which was also a rule.
Zhou Qi’an hurried to illuminate the food with the lantern.
A cold white light poured down from the lamb’s head. His lamb’s head immediately showed two completely opposite signs. Most of them were ferocious-looking, with their mouths wide open like life-claiming evil ghosts, while a few others had no change. It was clear at a glance which ones were edible.
Out of the ten plates, only two were fine. No wonder the results of the first two rounds were not counted.
After confirming, Zhou Qi’an did not start eating directly. He nodded at Shen Zhiyi, and the two of them ran out.
By now, some of the faster contestants had returned with lanterns, the middle-aged man being one of them.
The contestant next to Zhou Qi’an, who had just returned from a detour on the other side, saw the two of them leaving and showed a malicious smile. He was after the final prize. There was only one King of Gluttons in each match, and this was a good opportunity to eliminate strong competitors.
“Contestants can only eat their own food.”
Thinking of the rule, the monk moved quickly to swap Shen Zhiyi’s and Zhou Qi’an’s food.
Almost at the instant he raised his arm, a white silk ribbon flew across the air. The monk reacted quickly, pulling out a dagger to stab it. The blade and the white ribbon collided, gaining no advantage.
The next second, the blade was repelled, and the white ribbon fiercely tightened around the other’s neck.
Zhou Qi’an walked back at this time, snatched the lantern from his hand, and seamlessly passed it to Shen Zhiyi.
“You big idiot, didn’t you notice I was running a bit slow?”
That middle-aged man was a bit far away, and very cautious. He had already taken out various strange items to protect himself. Dealing with him would take time.
He just wanted to see if there was anyone nearby he could feel at ease taking a lantern from.
“You…” He seemed to want to say something, but couldn’t make a sound.
Seeing that the monk seemed to want to manipulate his red beads to do something, Zhou Qi’an took out his cane and struck him hard on his arm and leg.
The beads smashed onto the ground. The monk’s knee was injured, and he was forced to kneel on the ground.
Zhou Qi’an tore off a lamb leg, and while chewing, walked to the other side.
The middle-aged man still had a kind face. Seeing him come over, he was constantly on guard.
Zhou Qi’an took several plates of roasted whole lamb from the tables of the first two deceased and returned, pouring them all onto the ground along with the monk’s roasted whole lamb.
Then he squatted in front of the monk and, while eating, asked, “Do you want to first distinguish which lamb is yours? Or crawl over to participate in the lantern snatching.”
Looking at the mixed, dusty food on the ground, the contestant only felt an unprecedented level of humiliation.
Zhou Qi’an withdrew the white ribbon. The monk, who had regained his mobility, concealed the gloom and resentment in his eyes and ran back to snatch a lantern.
He didn’t go to destroy anyone else’s food.
Only Zhou Qi’an was so bold. The others, before snatching a lantern, had more or less left behind some backup plan, like the pot-bellied man nearby who had left a pottery jar on the table, with no one knowing what was inside.
Zhou Qi’an profoundly realized that the native inhabitants and ghosts in this instance were quite dangerous factors.
“Not working a proper job, earning so much from shady side hustles, and still daring to compete with me for treasures.”
How dare these people?
His evolved teeth had greatly increased his bite force and swallowing ability. Zhou Qi’an ate very quickly. When he was almost finished, he wiped the grease from his hands with the tablecloth and walked towards the second floor with Shen Zhiyi.
When passing by the middle-aged man, Zhou Qi’an’s footsteps paused.
The middle-aged man had deliberately left a little, wanting to find someone to go to the second floor as a touchstone. Seeing Zhou Qi’an waiting with his arms crossed, he knew he couldn’t pretend anymore. Time was running out. He had to quickly finish the last few bites and prepare to go upstairs together.
Shen Zhiyi actually took the initiative to talk to this middle-aged man. “Excuse me, what do you think about the grave soil matter?”
Not expecting him to take the initiative to communicate with him, and with such a humble tone, the middle-aged man said, “This kind of situation is also unheard of for me.”
The distance at the top of the stairs was a bit narrower. As the two of them talked, they walked in a relatively forward position.
Midway, Shen Zhiyi stopped without any warning. Zhou Qi’an almost bumped into his hard back.
“I’ll carry you,” Shen Zhiyi said.
The middle-aged man was originally puzzled by his actions. Seeing something, his expression suddenly changed drastically. Looking at Shen Zhiyi again, he wished he could just stab him.
Just then, the cold voice of the woman in the long gown came from behind: “Contestant No. 7, Contestant No. 9, Contestant No. 13… passive participation, will be disqualified.”
This was aimed at those who had not started eating by the ten-minute mark.
Shen Zhiyi bent down slightly. Zhou Qi’an thought for a moment and still jumped onto the other’s back.
Throughout the process, Shen Zhiyi didn’t even sway, as if inertia had no effect on him.
The shop had put a lot of effort into its decoration; even the stairs looked heavy and solid.
The dark black stairs were somewhat arched in the middle. Normal stairs would never be built like this. A slight carelessness on the raised part would cause one to slip and fall.
There were also several black dots on the side of the stairs. To get a better look, Zhou Qi’an leaned his head forward, his cheek brushing against the cold skin of his neck. Shen Zhiyi’s body swayed slightly.
“Nails,” Zhou Qi’an was sure he hadn’t seen wrong. That black dot was a rivet head.
He finally knew what the stairs looked like; they were clearly coffin planks.
Roasted whole lamb made from grave soil, stairs made from coffin wood. This shop was trying to reach for the heavens.
“What happens if you step on the coffin wood?” Zhou Qi’an asked in a low voice.
Shen Zhiyi shook his head. “I don’t know, because nothing will happen to me.”
“…”
Next, Shen Zhiyi’s next sentence almost made the middle-aged man rush up and fight him to the death.
“So I found you a reference subject.”
Previously, because he was talking to Shen Zhiyi, the middle-aged man had been distracted and hadn’t paid much attention to his footing. With a pat, he had stepped firmly on it. Now he could only try to mend the situation, muttering strange incantations, his knees bent deeply, walking up in an awkward posture.
Zhou Qi’an was stunned for a moment.
This reference subject was indeed crucial. He could even kill his own relatives, so he had no psychological burden using him. Whether the middle-aged man could survive, what would happen to him—from these, one could deduce what the previous players might have encountered.
“Thank you.”
“Qi’an, don’t be polite with me.”
The middle-aged man: “…”
You two bastards!
Perhaps considering that this design was really easy to make people fall, the entire staircase was built with a very gentle slope, with each step not even as high as a normal threshold, resulting in the stairs to the second floor having dozens of steps.
Finally reaching the second floor, the color of the floor transitioned from the black of the stairs to red.
Because Zhou Qi’an was on Shen Zhiyi’s back, he had a higher viewing angle. The ceiling and walls above were all stone carvings. In the paintings, ghost women played the pipa behind their backs, and tusked ghosts played instruments.
He lightly patted Shen Zhiyi, and the latter reluctantly put him down.
In front of them stood several waiters, all with their backs to them. Hearing footsteps, they began to process ingredients.
Just as Zhou Qi’an walked to the table, the waiters had just finished their actions and stood neatly to one side.
“Please enjoy your meal.”
The last waiter to walk was speaking in a stiff, formal manner, and exuded a strong smell of mutton.
She was wearing the same attire as the woman in the long gown, and even her hairstyle had been changed, all neatly combed back. With her facial features completely exposed, her widow’s peak was clearly defined, and the more one looked, the more her face resembled a sheep… It was Yuan Nianshu!
__
Author’s Note:
Boss: Enjoying my own beauty. Do not disturb.
