Chapter 49: Heads

What the hell, did I enter the world of Journey to the West? How did even Bajie show up...?

Though he thought this, Zhou You made no response.

He simply hung there upside down, silent and motionless, like a genuine corpse.

The pig-headed monster noticed nothing unusual.

With its enormous head, it sniffed around among the corpses.

From time to time, it prodded the hanging bodies and carefully inspected every inch of flesh with its eyes.

It looked exactly like a chef selecting ingredients for the day’s meal.

Fortunately, Zhou You’s physique was a bit too far from what anyone would call plump and juicy.

After searching for a while, the monster gave up on him and eventually hoisted up a corpse that had been split in half.

Then, grunting heavily, it carried the body away.

Only then did Zhou You finally have time to observe his surroundings.

At first glance, this was a small room of roughly twenty square meters.

There were no windows.

Only a few dim candles provided illumination.

Seven or eight corpses hung neatly inside the room.

Zhou You was one of them.

The only difference was that he was not completely dead.

The door was not locked.

But in his current condition, there was no way for him to reach it.

“So the biggest problem right now is figuring out how to get off this hook.”

Tilting his head upward, Zhou You first tried relying on a single hand to free himself.

A wave of agonizing pain immediately stopped him.

Because of the angle at which he was hanging, unless he was willing to sacrifice the right hand impaled on the hook, there was no way he could get down by himself.

And in a place where he knew absolutely nothing, losing one hand was practically the same as losing his life.

His gaze swept around again, searching for a useful tool or something he could use as leverage.

Unfortunately, after a long search, he still found nothing of use.

So he turned his attention back to the corpse staring at him with open eyes.

Looks like this is the only thing I can borrow.

“...Sorry, brother.”

Zhou You silently offered an apology.

Then he bent his waist slightly, took a deep breath, and suddenly exerted force with his lower body.

Driven by momentum, his hanging body instantly swung forward.

Accompanied by a tearing sensation, intense pain exploded from his hand.

Yet Zhou You did not even grunt.

His body shot directly toward the corpse.

Unfortunately, he fell just short.

Zhou You was not discouraged.

Enduring the pain, he gripped the hook embedded in his right hand to prevent the wound from tearing further.

Then he kicked backward.

As his foot struck another corpse, the amplitude of his swinging increased even more.

After repeating the attempt two or three times, he finally drew close enough to the corpse in front of him.

His legs wrapped around its waist and locked tightly.

Then Zhou You took a brief rest to recover some strength.

Using the corpse as support, he exerted force with both legs and thrust his body upward.

At last, he reached a height where he could touch the hook.

Grabbing hold of his already pale right hand, he endured a horrifying scraping sound and forcibly pulled his palm off the hook.

By then, every bit of strength had been exhausted.

Even so, Zhou You did not allow gravity to drop him to the ground.

Instead, he hugged the corpse and slowly slid downward bit by bit.

Only then did he land on the dust-covered floor.

From beginning to end, he had not alerted anyone.

Only now did he finally let out a long breath.

Wiping away the bean-sized beads of sweat on his face, he spat on the ground.

“System, you’re getting more and more excessive.”

“Raising the scenario difficulty is one thing, but now you’re even starting people off half-crippled.”

Even so, he struggled to take out the Yungu Ointment and apply it to the wound in his palm.

A slippery yet cool sensation gradually seeped into his body.

The wound visibly stopped bleeding and began closing.

It was far from healed, but at least he would not completely lose the use of the limb.

“This stuff is great.”

“Too bad I extorted so little of it from that old woman.”

Looking at the few portions of ointment he had left, Zhou You sighed softly and put them away.

Then he crouched down and carefully approached the doorway to peek outside.

There was no sign of the pig-headed monster.

However, faint chopping sounds echoed from somewhere else.

As for who was making those sounds and what exactly was being chopped up, Zhou You could guess with his backside.

Without hesitation, he moved in the opposite direction.

The place he currently occupied seemed to be some sort of underground cavern.

The air was unbearably stale.

A lingering moldy odor hung everywhere.

The tunnels showed no signs of construction or refinement.

Bare rock walls were exposed on all sides.

Only torches mounted on the walls provided faint illumination.

Before long, Zhou You groped his way to another stone chamber.

Unfortunately, this was not an exit either.

Judging from its appearance, it was much larger than the corpse storage room.

It seemed to be a dining hall.

A massive stone table occupied the center of the chamber.

There were no decorations upon it.

Only large patches of grease and grime covered the surface.

Rotten leftovers filled the cracks.

Countless flies buzzed overhead as though feasting at a grand banquet.

The hygiene conditions looked atrocious.

The place was rapidly approaching industrial-strength filth.

The problem was...

What kind of dining table displayed three severed heads?

Looking over, Zhou You saw three heads arranged neatly at the far end of the table.

They looked like ordinary household decorations.

Starting from the left, the first belonged to a young man wearing his hair in a topknot.

The second belonged to a vicious-looking middle-aged man.

The third belonged to an elderly man with a full head of white hair.

For some reason, despite the differences in age, all three heads were almost identical in size.

Even their facial structures looked remarkably similar.

“Could the owner of this place actually be some obsessive-compulsive patient?”

“To be this obsessed with uniformity...”

Zhou You himself felt little reaction.

After all, he had already grown accustomed to this sort of thing during previous scenarios.

Just as he was preparing to examine them more closely, those heavy footsteps suddenly sounded again behind him.

At the same time, the bronze bell on his wrist began vibrating rapidly.

The monster was coming back!

Hurriedly glancing around, he spotted a cabinet in the corner and immediately squeezed inside.

Several dozen seconds later, the footsteps entered the room.

The creature seemed not to notice anything unusual.

It merely placed something on the table before leaving once more.

Only then did Zhou You breathe a sigh of relief.

Climbing out of the cabinet, he raised his eyes.

And instantly saw something.

A human corpse roasted to a golden brown, glistening with oil and looking perfectly crisp?