15 The Man-Eating Hot Pot Restaurant (Part 4)

◎I know the secret of the hot pot restaurant owner◎

The power of this gun is about ten times that of an air bullet. After the shot, the pig-headed man's entire head exploded and his head shattered, but he did not die. It turned out that the pig-headed man was not the source of pollution.

The scene seen in Danger Premonition, there is a tentacle monster in this trash can.

Zhu Ning also shot at the trash can, without even looking at the result of his shooting, he turned around and ran away. The killing power of the pig-headed man and the tentacle monster was very strong, completely different from the level of the fishman.

In the danger warning, it only took them thirty seconds to deal with Zhu Ning's body. Zhu Ning didn't want to confront them head-on.

The backyard was also enclosed, so Zhu Ning couldn't get out and could only return to the hot pot restaurant. The pig-headed man struggled to get up and cursed, "You actually, don't want to eat."

Zhu Ning ignored his nonsense and went straight into the house. As soon as he entered, he heard screams coming from the lobby of the hot pot restaurant. A monster squirmed out of the hot pot, its long tentacles crawling up the chopsticks, and then dragging the diner into the hot pot along the arm.

For a moment, the spicy beef butter was rolling, and screams and blood enveloped the hot pot restaurant. They were too lazy to even pretend.

I can’t go to the lobby of the hot pot restaurant. The pig-headed man behind me got up and was still adapting to the fact that he had no head.

He is coming after me.

There are eight doors in front of you. One is for the food preparation room, one is for the freezer, and one is the back door leading to the trash can. How do you choose the remaining five doors?

Zhu Ning took a quick glance and saw five words written on the door of one of the rooms: Female Employee Dormitory.

Do seemingly normal things in abnormal places.

Zhu Ning's identity is a cashier, that is, an employee of the hot pot restaurant. She should live in the female employee dormitory.

With a bang, Zhu Ning locked the door quickly and efficiently.

There are some basic rules inside the contaminated area. This is the female employee dormitory, and the pig-headed man is a man, so he has no reasonable reason to come in.

Zhu Ning moved a cabinet to prop up the door. Without turning on the lights, she relied on the night vision function of her helmet to survey the entire dormitory. This was a double room with two beds, both with a desk underneath.

One bed was covered in dust, while the other looked like someone was still living there. Zhu Ning quickly searched the dormitory and found a work logbook hidden in the corner of a cabinet.

clue.

Zhu Ning opened the bright red logbook. It was originally a work logbook that many companies would issue, but this cashier used it as a diary.

January of the 50th year of the new calendar.

The first line of words.

Zhu Ning frowned. The year 50 in the new calendar was the year when the hot pot restaurant disappeared.

Zhu Ning remembered that the store closed down in April of 1961, and the post was made on April 13, 1961. This diary entry was made earlier than the time of the "crime."

January 2, 50 years in the Gregorian calendar.

I've been working as a cashier at a Haozailai hotpot restaurant for three days, but this restaurant is so weird. I need to write something down in my diary, or I'm afraid I'll lose my mind.

Business at Hao Zai Lai was booming, and standing at the cashier every day was so tiring I was thinking of quitting. But the staff meals were so good I couldn't bear to leave.

Our staff meals are made with leftovers from preparing meals for guests, pretty much the same as what guests eat. I don't know what kind of meat it is, but maybe it's a secret recipe that got them to open this place.

January 10, 50 years in the Gregorian calendar.

I can't take it anymore. I've had so many nightmares and I'm so anxious every day. Lately, I've even been in a trance. I thought I was just too tired and that I just needed to rest for a couple of days.

But I took a day off today and my condition didn't get better, but got worse. Should I see a doctor?

January 14, 50th year of the Gregorian calendar.

I'm losing my mind. Today, when I was checking out, my drawer was filled with fingers. What could it be? Am I hallucinating?

No, I can't do this anymore. I'll go crazy if I continue.

January 19, 50th year of the new calendar.

I told the store manager I wanted to quit and go home to recuperate, but he disagreed and told me to reconsider. What was I thinking about? He was becoming more and more like a pig-headed person, and I couldn't stand it any more.

But the manager wouldn't let me go. He said I'd love this place. Love it, bullshit! I've been feeling weak lately and feel like I'm dying. There's definitely something wrong with this store. I keep hearing strange noises coming from the basement.

The boss is sick. Something must have happened to the sick boss. They seem to be researching a new medicine.

January 30, 50th year of the Gregorian calendar

Today I finally knew what I ate. It was so disgusting. How could they feed such things to their customers?

I wanted to call the police, but I didn't dare. I couldn't even protect myself, so I wanted to run away.

I want to run away! Run, run, run!

February 15th, Gregorian calendar year 5.

I made a detailed escape plan. Every Wednesday, the store manager and the boss would have meetings, which was the best time to escape. I was almost dying, and this was my last chance.

You must succeed, you must succeed.

Zhu Ning flipped through the pages again, but unfortunately there was nothing further to read, the diary came to an abrupt end.

Chila——

Suddenly, there was a dragging sound outside. It should be the pig-headed man who was resurrected. Zhu Ning took the diary with him.

The cashier's experience was similar to his own; it seemed this was a common tactic used by hot pot restaurants. There was a peephole on the dormitory door, and when Zhu Ning looked through it, it distorted the entire corridor.

Yang Tao was dragging on the ground with an axe in his hand, and a new "head" grew on his broken neck - if that could be considered a head.

Apparently, his parasites were too impatient to grow a new head, only something that resembled a head. A pair of eyes, a mouth, and an ear sprouted from his neck, and they didn't even give him a nose because it wasn't needed.

"Why," Yang Tao made that strange sound again, "don't you want to eat hot pot?"

Zhu Ning: “…”

Is there something wrong with him that forces him to eat hotpot?

"Why..." Yang Tao was checking the rooms one by one. He suddenly opened the first room and didn't see Zhu Ning. "You don't want to pay?"

She collected it, she opened the cashier drawer, counted on her fingers, and even her mental level dropped by 1%.

Bang!

Yang Tao pushed open another door. His patience was running out, exhausted by Zhu Ning. He spoke viciously, "Why don't you look in the garbage bag?"

Yang Tao slashed the wall with his axe, making a sharp sound. "Why can they do it, but you can't? What's wrong with you?"

Zhu Ning: “…”

She suspected this idiot was using PUA on her. His accusatory tone made him sound like a scumbag, saying if she didn't obey, there was something wrong with her. Was it all her fault?

Eating hot pot, paying the bill, and even asking her to throw away the rotten meat were all ways this polluted area tried to contaminate Zhu Ning.

But Zhu Ning was unmoved. The polluted area could not wait any longer and decided to strike first. The pig-headed man wanted to kill her directly with an axe and put an end to Zhu Ning, the outlier.

The internal logic of the polluted areas is the same. When they see that mental pollution is useless, they choose physical attacks.

"Why?" The pig-headed man stopped in front of the female staff dormitory. "Are you disobeying me?"

The pig-headed man's voice came through the door, and the next moment, there was a loud bang, and the pig-headed man swung his axe and suddenly smashed the door.

Crack, wood chips flew everywhere on the wooden door, and he smashed a big hole in it. Is this a cosplay of a horror movie?

The pig-headed man had no legitimate reason to enter the female employee dormitory, but he could use an improper reason. Behind the door, Zhu Ning held the gun coldly, with the hole pointing directly at the door.

As long as the pig-headed man wants to come in, Zhu Ning doesn't mind shooting him again. There's no need to waste time talking to this scumbag who breaks into the girls' dormitory.

Bang!

The pig-headed man swung his axe again, and the fragile wooden door would be scrapped with just one more blow. The pig-headed man raised his axe and was about to strike for the third time.

Zhu Ning inside the door applied slight pressure with her fingers, ready to shoot.

Ding-ling-ling——

At this moment, a bell suddenly rang, vibrating wildly, like the bell for the end of get out of class, which was very abrupt in the hot pot restaurant.

What's that sound? Why does a hot pot restaurant ring a bell?

The polluted area must conform to basic logic. The fact that the bell can ring proves that the hot pot restaurant had a bell installed before.

Who has nothing better to do than wait for the bell to ring at a hot pot restaurant? This isn't a hot pot training school, so you can't be told when classes start and end on time.

But after the bell rang, the pig-headed man outside the door stopped moving. He was tall and looked like a mountain when he blocked the door.

He was silent for two seconds, then turned and left, as if he had received some kind of call.

Not only that, but everyone else in the hot pot restaurant also moved: the waiter, the diners who had been half-eaten by the hot pot, all did the same thing. They stumbled to their feet and walked straight in one direction—the stairs at the end of the corridor.

They were going to the basement.

Zhu Ning recalled the diary entry: the store manager and the owner would be meeting in the basement, which would be their only chance to escape. Was the bell ringing to announce the meeting? What was being kept in the basement?

Were they summoned?

Based on limited clues, we can summarize the rules within this polluted area and find that the power structure of hot pot restaurants seems to be a pyramid. Employees have more authority than diners, and diners must eat hot pot if they are told to.

The Pig-Headed Man, Yang Tao, has more authority than the other employees. He can order other waiters around and maintain order in the store. The bell has more authority than the Pig-Headed Man. Whenever the bell rings, Yang Tao must stop whatever he is doing.

Don't know what the next level up is?

Zhu Ning tentatively pushed the door open. A minute later, the corridor was empty; they had all gone into the basement. The ringing continued, and it was unclear how much longer it would last.

But Zhu Ning assumed that she would be relatively safe while the ringing continued. She planned to take this opportunity to take a closer look at the other rooms.

Now that she had the ability to foresee danger, she could search boldly. She already knew what was behind four doors, and there were only four left.

The pig-headed man smashed open two doors. Behind the fifth door was the cleaning room, which was full of dishes to be washed and cleaning tools such as mops.

Behind the sixth door is the male staff dormitory.

Zhu Ning wanted to go in and look for clues like a diary, perhaps Yang Tao was still living there, but he searched around but found nothing. Zhu Ning opened the second to last door, which was a public restroom, used for showers and toilets.

The conditions of this hot pot restaurant are not very good. There is water dripping inside the bathroom and there are some messy marks on the walls.

To be on the safe side, she didn't want to miss any blind spots, so she opened every toilet and bathroom stall to check.

There was something on the toilet lid of the second toilet cubicle. Above the toilet lid, a waterproof bag was fixed with tape. It seemed that it was specially hidden by someone.

Inside was a very old voice recorder.

It is too old and does not match the speed of technological development in this era. It is still more advanced than the recorders of Zhu Ning's era. The shell is hard and the overall design is smaller, about the size of a thumb.

The recorder has a plug at the bottom, which can be plugged into some device. Zhu Ning's new work clothes have an interface on the inside of her wrist. Her helmet is still running, so Zhu Ning herself can barely be considered a "device."

This thing may be a spiritual pollution like the previous fishman’s mobile phone, but her spiritual value is high and can withstand artificiality.

Zhu Ning inserted the recorder into his wrist, and the helmet announced: [Importing audio data. Audio data import completed.]

First, I heard a crackling sound of electricity and someone running and panting. It took a long time before I got to the point.

Zhu Ning listened to the recording, intending to search the room as she listened. She had already reached the last door, which had a sign saying "Restricted Area, No Trespassing."

Zhu Ning had just grasped the doorknob and was about to push it open when a voice suddenly rang out from the recording: "I know the secret of the hot pot restaurant owner."

"He, he is a defective product."

The author has something to say:

A horror movie is "The Shining"