Mu Tianbai: “The chef is missing.”
A dry and abrupt change of subject, but an effective one.
Zhou Qi’an glanced around—sure enough, the sterilization suit chef was gone.
Dong.
The midnight chime rang out, its echo hollow and eerie, making the entire building shudder faintly in the darkness.
Before the sound had even faded, a piercing scream erupted outside.
But the wretched cry barely lasted three seconds before weakening into nothingness, dissolving like mist.
A moment later, the sterilization suit chef reappeared in the cafeteria.
He was still holding his bloodstained dining knife, and beneath his mask, his grin stretched almost to his ears.
“Welcome, everyone, to this delightful birthday banquet.”
Aside from the boss, only one player had missed the invitation—simply because they hadn’t made it to the cafeteria in time.
In that player’s mind, skipping the birthday banquet at worst meant missing a key piece of information.
After weighing the risks, they chose to spend the night on security duty, just as they had the previous night—staying awake to survive the danger before resuming their efforts in the daylight.
One wrong decision. A life lost.
Bai Chanyi shook her head. “What were they even thinking?”
The elevator keycard was a starting clue.
Ignoring any elevator-related hints?
That was practically a death sentence.
Zhou Qi’an stretched his muscles slightly, positioning himself close to the door—so he could grab something and bolt when the time came.
A reasonable prediction.
The cake’s ingredients had been plainly visible at noon—a condensed essence of countless monster corpses.
Eating it would empower the female ghost.
Now that the birthday girl was absent, the players were most likely about to be tasked with making deliveries.
The sterilization suit chef, still thrilled, eagerly showcased his masterpiece to the players.
“It’s been so long since the building had an event! On this special occasion, let’s play a little game—
—a game of finding the cake.”
Some players had brought fresh heads, and the sterile suit chef had specifically extracted the hippocampus from one, embedding it into the cake and drizzling brain fluid over it as a glaze.
His eyes, fixated on the cake, were filled with obsession, and his grin stretched wider and wider as he kept murmuring:
“Tonight, I have prepared two cakes.
The second cake is my true masterpiece, made with all my heart.
Whoever finds it first within the time limit will receive a precious gift from me.”
Zhou Qi’an, having just finished warming up, had been ready to make his escape like a fledgling eagle taking flight—
—but now, he froze slightly.
A cake hunt?
Red Cloak had been just about to sneer at his wasted preparations—
But suddenly, she held back.
Every time he made this kind of overconfident smirk, something bad always happened.
Zhou Qi’an wasn’t the only one who had guessed wrong.
Several other players also looked confused.
But before they had time to think, the game’s system voice chimed in:
【Side Quest: The Last Birthday Banquet】
- Objective: Find the second cake within the time limit.
- Search Area: Inside the cafeteria.
- Time Limit: One minute.
- Hint: After finding the second cake, immediately take the escalator to the 18th floor to celebrate the birthday girl.
【One-minute countdown begins—】
59s.
58s.
With each passing second, the countdown rang clearly in their minds.
Snapping out of their shock, the players shot to their feet.
The employee dining area was an open space—
So in an instant, everyone swarmed toward the cafeteria’s interior.
The best strategy should have been to split up, using the first few seconds to divide the search zones.
But who could guarantee that others wouldn’t miss something in their haste?
And with the sterile suit chef’s “precious gift” on the line, the players all unleashed their unique abilities.
One of them even pulled out a Treasure-Seeking Rat, letting it sniff through every nook and cranny in a greedy search.
Zhou Qi’an also went to the area in the cafeteria where meals were prepared. He first planned to check the freezer, as the cake base for lunch had been taken from there.
Just as he walked over, he was immediately shoved aside by a strong-built figure.
Zhou Qi’an frowned. This person had ridden the same bus as him and had behaved properly after entering the instance, remaining inconspicuous.
The strong-built man had never drawn attention to himself, silently observing the situation. He had determined that Zhou Qi’an had some skills, so the moment the latter looked toward the freezer, he immediately rushed over to steal the prize.
Zhou Qi’an’s gaze shifted to the area where the rice sacks were stored. Upon seeing this, the Origami Boy moved ahead of him, getting there first before Zhou Qi’an could take a step.
Two flowers blooming, each representing a branch—copycats, were they?
The two of them paid no mind to his thoughts and continued searching on their own.
Trusting Zhou Qi’an’s judgment, the strong-built man carefully inspected the freezer. Inside, it was mostly filled with large and small bags of frozen wontons. To be safe, he prepared to open and check them one by one. But the moment he tore open a bag, his arm instantly went limp.
“Wha—” Before he could finish his exclamation of shock, his limbs began melting like February’s thawing snow.
First, his arm liquefied into a thick, white substance. Then his shoulder followed, his bones softening and evaporating in an instant.
Zhou Qi’an abruptly took a step back.
In the blink of an eye, a living person had turned into a pool of cream before his very eyes.
The last part of the strong-built man to melt was his head. As he opened his mouth to scream, the vibrations formed small bubbles on the surface of the cream.
This scene caused the others, who were still rummaging through the supplies, to freeze in their tracks.
The Origami Boy was momentarily stunned, then suddenly said, “You planned this on purpose.”
“Is there something we’re not supposed to touch…?” Several gazes turned toward Zhou Qi’an. The earlier scene had indeed looked like a deliberate setup.
A female player was just about to ask a question, but before she could utter a word, her entire face abruptly lost its elasticity and stretched infinitely. Her fat-free muscles barely clung together, held by sticky strands of blood. Moments later, they all collapsed to the ground.
Like a human-shaped wax figure, she burned away in an instant.
Another pool of cream appeared on the floor, exuding a sweet and fragrant scent.
Two people had died in quick succession. Amidst the false sweetness, everyone felt as if they had fallen into an icy abyss.
“Is it time-based?” Bai Chanyi quickly calculated, soon ruling out that possibility. The first player had died after about ten seconds, and the second followed five seconds later.
Setting aside time, was there any commonality in the order of deaths?
She rapidly reviewed everything that had happened since they entered the cafeteria: first, they had submitted their invitation letters, then their gifts, and finally, the game had begun.
Bai Chanyi’s pupils shrank. Could it be…
“Birthday gifts,” Zhou Qi’an said in a deep voice.
The stronger players had chosen to hunt down shop monsters to obtain fresh brains and skulls. The smarter and bolder ones—those whose superiors had once carried out large-scale massacres on the top floor—had access to ready-made monster corpses or could try their luck searching for existing coffins.
Those carrying fresh gifts would die later in the sequence.
He remembered that there was still one person who hadn’t brought fresh materials.
Zhou Qi’an looked at the Origami Boy. The red-cloaked girl had brought a fresh head for herself but had not given one to the boy.
The moment Zhou Qi’an uttered the words “birthday gifts,” the Origami Boy’s expression changed drastically.
As if he had foreseen his impending death, he clenched his fists tightly. Countless paper cranes took flight, fluttering their wings gracefully—but before they could fully rise, they were instantly buried in a shower of dissolving fragments.
The Origami Boy vanished from his original spot, reappearing a meter away, coughing up blood in exhaustion.
“I’m not dead,” he stared at his own hands in disbelief. “I didn’t die.”
He suddenly looked at Zhou Qi’an. “You knew all along, didn’t you?”
“…Being afflicted with a scapegoat’s curse can delay the inevitable death curses from other monsters.”
He had sensed the shadow of death descending upon him much earlier than the two who had died before him. Betting everything he had, he struggled with all his might—and survived.
The Origami Boy wasn’t arrogant enough to believe it was solely his own ability that had saved him.
Nearby, the college student overheard this and swallowed nervously, recalling how Zhou Qi’an had mentioned “blessing” the dance studio.
Now, the gazes directed at Zhou Qi’an were filled with shock, fear, hatred, and an indescribable complexity… Among them, one stare was particularly hostile.
A uniquely chilling aura made Zhou Qi’an shiver.
The man in the sterilization suit stood at the doorway, coldly observing the scene inside.
From the moment Zhou Qi’an had successfully spoken with the female ghost, he had been marked as a potential rival.
The sterilization suit curled his lips into a sinister smile. “You’re next.”
With that, he turned and walked away, leaving only a cruel silhouette behind.
Aside from the lucky escape of the Origami Boy, all the players without fresh gifts had now perished. The next person to melt into cream would likely be chosen at random.
Zhou Qi’an also carried the scapegoat’s curse, but that alone wasn’t enough—he lacked the Origami Boy’s means of escape.
If he wanted to survive, he had to find the second cake as soon as possible.
The cabinets, the rice sacks… Almost everything had already been searched. Zhou Qi’an could feel a burning heat searing his internal organs.
For the first time, he had no leads. It was just a cake—where could it be hidden?
“Thirty seconds…”
The countdown continued.
Zhou Qi’an’s expression darkened.
The red cloak had been watching all this intently, as if waiting to personally witness him melt into a puddle of cream.
All these distractions compounded together, and the discomfort in his body clouded Zhou Qi’an’s mind.
Wait. He suddenly looked at the red cloak, as if realizing something.
That moment of sudden clarity made the red cloak’s smile freeze.
Zhou Qi’an’s heart pounded like a drum. He abruptly sped toward the exit.
They all wanted to see him dead—so why had the sterilization suit left? He should have stayed to witness his demise.
The essence of the cake was that it was made from corpses.
The second cake should be the same. The previous players’ bodies had all turned into cream, making them unrelated to any corpse material. That left only one answer—
The ingredient was the sterilization suit.
He had walked away to avoid drawing attention to himself. If he lingered too long, someone might make the connection.
In the span of a few seconds, both the red cloak and Bai Chanyi had come to the same realization, stopping their frantic searching.
The sterilization suit’s figure in their field of vision had begun to blur. Zhou Qi’an sprinted toward him. The scapegoat’s curse hadn’t turned him into cream yet, but he felt like a fish being roasted in the desert, his body drying out.
Time was running out.
“Naïve.” The red cloak sneered as she stepped forward, releasing a toxic mist to slow Zhou Qi’an down.
The treasure was hers!
She was just about to seize the advantage when her smirk suddenly froze.
Something thin and dark had tripped her foot. Before she could react, a figure appeared behind her, wrapping a soaked tie tightly around her slender swan-like neck.
When did this happen?
The red cloak’s eyes widened, more in shock that she hadn’t noticed the intruder’s presence than at the attack itself.
“Were you just releasing a virus?” Her superior’s voice carried a hint of displeasure. “Miss, what if the strain mutates? That wouldn’t be ideal.”
An employee bringing an unknown virus back to the country?
That would ruin the company’s reputation.
Bai Chanyi had been about to slip past them to head outside but happened to lock eyes with the superior—his delicate yet eerily sinister gaze.
Recalling how the man had butchered the conjoined old women as easily as slaughtering chickens, Bai Chanyi hesitated for a moment.
Then, she abandoned the idea of racing outside to claim the cake first.
Zhou Qi’an stumbled slightly but finally managed to get close to his target.
He didn’t know if the sterilization suit had any tricks left, but with the shadow of death looming over him, he couldn’t afford to worry about exposing his sacred artifact. He had to end this in one go.
He just wasn’t sure if he could hold out after losing another 400 milliliters of blood.
A voice stopped him—
“Don’t rush.”
It was soft yet cold, but strangely reassuring.
As Zhou Qi’an got closer, he realized that the sterilization suit was lying motionless on the table, his limbs bound by slender strands of black mist.
The mist originated from the long hair of a shadow.
Mu Tianbai, who had never left the employee dining area, handed over a dining knife and said softly, “Here, go ahead and kill him.”
The shadow nodded heavily. Yes, kill him.
If they killed the sterilization suit, no one could blame them for mistaking the wrong person again.
“…”
__
Author’s Note:
Mu Tianbai: Special NPC-exclusive apology blood pack, please accept.
Zhou Qi’an: ……
