Chapter 177 Kitchen 2: The Dog is So Cute
The moment you were swept in by that evil black wind, you felt a sticky, sweet-smelling damp heat enveloping your entire bodies—just like the dream you had in your meditation class last week.
Losing your balance in a daze, you feel yourself plunging headfirst into darkness. When a little light returns, you are the first to wake up. Looking down, you see that the once gleaming, sacred decorations are now covered in thick grease, turning a murky copper-black.
The beautiful patterns, the sacred spires, the earrings and armlets—all were covered in something greasy, and in some places even there was a sticky substance that was hard to tell if it was minced meat or hair stuck to them.
You woke up the girls who were still in a daze one by one.
"Ah!!" A girl next to me reacted quickly, screaming and running towards the sink in the corner. She wanted to wash off the grease on her body.
But the moment you wash your hands, you find that the faucet is only dripping a trickle of rusty water, cloudy and yellowish. If you apply that to your body, it's better not to apply it at all.
"Stop washing, it's useless," you called out to her.
She turned her head blankly, and you had already taken a step closer, saying in a low voice in simple Cantonese, "You can't clean it. It's not just ordinary oil and smoke, it's... some kind of barrier. This means we're 'inside'."
You turn around and look around.
This is the food preparation area in the school cafeteria kitchen, and the space is surprisingly large. The light shines down from the old-fashioned light tubes overhead, but it's never bright enough. I don't know if there's something wrong with my eyes or the air itself, but it feels like I'm covered by an invisible old plastic sheet. It's dim, stuffy, and has a musty feeling from the mixture of moisture and cold air, making it hard to see clearly.
The white tile floor was covered with blackened grout lines, and a faint smell of rust wafted from the drainpipe close to the ground—but even stronger was a faint, lingering stench of blood.
"So... what are we doing here..." Minte's voice trembled, but he still managed to ask.
You scan the room: three rows of wide stainless steel food preparation counters, several large vegetable baskets on the floor, and several gray storage cabinets, just the height and width of a person, scattered in the corners, some with their doors ajar, others tightly closed.
You have finally entered the scene.
So now you should teach them how to survive.
"Listen to me, everyone." You walk into the middle of the crowd.
This feels a bit strange. You've taught many newbies how to survive in dungeons, but this is the first time you've personally guided a local through a dungeon.
“The gold jewelry hasn’t lost its power; it’s still protecting us, but it’s now also suffering from… the pollution here.” You raise your arm to show them the black oil seeping from your armlet, trying to sound less like an outsider treating this place as a game, “It shows that we’ve really ventured into a rather deep area this time.”
“We are currently in the food preparation area of the kitchen. There will most likely be slaughtering area, cooking area, storage room, and so on, one after another—like,” you paused for a moment, then thought it wouldn’t hurt to say it, “like the levels in a dungeon.”
There's no external force stopping you, that's good.
You paused, glanced at everyone, and your eyes were firm.
"We have only one goal: to find the secret of this place before we find the exit. That was also our original objective."
“This place has never been open to students; from the outside, you can only see the food serving window. In other words, we know nothing about the ‘rules’ of this kitchen. It’s not as clean and steamy as it appears on the surface—can you smell it?”
Everyone subconsciously took a deep breath.
“It’s air conditioning,” Meiling said first.
“It’s blood,” Huimin said more accurately.
You nodded: "So you must always be prepared to face unclean things."
You walk up to the lockers, place your hand on the dusty door, and whisper, "These lockers... there are too many. They're so clean."
"You think this is a hiding place?" Meiling asked sharply.
You nodded: "It's not that this is a game, but we can try to treat it like a horror game. So the closet is a place we can hide, but what does that mean? It means that the 'enemies' here may appear at any time. Everyone remember: if you hear strange noises, your breathing becomes cold, or the lights flicker—hit the closet immediately, don't hesitate."
They all nodded nervously.
You demonstrate by opening a cabinet door, which is completely empty, just big enough for one person to stand in.
“We need to stay calm. When we’re safe, I’ll signal to everyone. Don’t come out of the closet until you hear my signal,” you said.
"good."
"Now, let's begin the search."
You lead everyone in a thorough search of the current food preparation area.
It's very spacious and empty here, but thankfully you have plenty of manpower. Soon, we found a hair under the sink; it was thick, grayish-white, and the tip looked like blood. We also saw a line of dried brownish-red seeping out from the cracks in the wall and floor tiles. There were obvious scratch marks on a cutting board, not like knife cuts, but like claw marks.
Claws? Is it a chicken's claw?
"Is it pig bristles?" Huimin frowned as she pinched the bristles.
You squeezed it, and it felt a little too soft. This is definitely not bird down.
The group exchanged glances, and the atmosphere suddenly became heavy.
Just as you were about to speak, suddenly—
*Smack*
A crisp sound cut through the air, like a knife falling on a chopping board, but even more slippery.
Then came the soft scraping of claws against the tiles, one after another, like something carefully walking on the cold ground.
You immediately raise a finger to signal them to be quiet, and then slip into a cabinet as nimbly as a cheetah.
The next second, everyone moved almost simultaneously.
The moment the cabinet door closed, you heard the thing outside stop. The silence was oppressive, making your chest feel heavy.
You hold your breath, lean against the cabinet wall, and can only hear the faint swallowing sounds of your companion and the echo of your own heartbeat.
Scrape—scrape—scrape.
The sound was getting closer.
It smells.
It's looking for you.
You feel the air outside the cabinet is compressed. The light flickers for a moment, and the shadow is pressed against the cabinet door, looking like some kind of animal but not quite—hair standing on end, the shadow is long and narrow, and the mouth is extremely large, almost taking up half of the face.
It froze for a moment.
The next second, it was gone.
The tension in your heart quietly eases.
You have escaped the first wave of probing.
But you know, this is just the beginning.
Once it was completely quiet outside, you extended your knuckles and gently knocked on the metal cabinet door three times. Each knock felt like a tap on the tip of your heart.
Everyone emerged from their hiding places, trembling with fear.
The search continues here.
First, confirm that this is the food preparation room.
You look around: the cutting board, the spice rack, the dried blood on the knife and cutting board, several half-empty buckets of cooking oil, and small oil stains on the floor... You've already searched through all of these repeatedly.
But that's not right, it's incomplete.
A strange unease welled up inside you.
—Where's the refrigerator?
You remembered.
It's unreasonable for a food preparation room not to have a refrigerator, especially in a high-temperature environment like Thailand.
You subconsciously reach out to touch the back wall. The surface is rough with signs of peeling coating, but on the tile in the far corner, there is a tiny seam, like a scratch made by someone.
“Here,” you pointed.
A girl crouched down and felt around, quickly finding a protruding metal object. It didn't look like a traditional handle; it seemed more like some kind of disguised component. With a push, the door creaked open and slowly swung open towards you.
A blast of icy air hit me.
It's a cold storage facility.
As you step inside, the chill feels like countless fine needles, piercing from your ankles all the way down your spine.
The walls here are frosty white, and a thin layer of frost has accumulated on the floor, making a soft "squeak" sound when your shoes rub against it. Several exposed iron pipes at the top are covered in frost and dripping water.
At first glance, all kinds of frozen ingredients were piled up in a mess: buckets of half-melted ice cream lay on the ground with spoons stuck in them; scattered frozen curry cubes were broken into yellowish-brown ice crystals; several half-open bags of frozen fried chicken nuggets were scattered all over the ground, as if someone had kicked something over while rushing away; large amounts of unsealed butter and frozen vegetables were piled up haphazardly against the wall.
Everyone felt somewhat uncomfortable with the messy environment.
As you walk deeper in, you see that the innermost part is piled high with chunks of meat.
But these chunks of meat—something's not right.
They didn't look like pork or beef; each piece had joints, and some even had remnants of fur. You bent down and carefully peeled back the plastic wrap of a frozen bag, revealing a bent, segmented bone, long and thin, with a fingernail at the end.
"Aaaaaah!" It's that girl again. You've noticed she's a little too perceptive, which is both a good thing and a bad thing.
She must have a very strong mind to possess such skills without having learned to adapt to such an environment.
You turn around and see her pull a section of what looks like a human arm from a bag of meat. But upon closer inspection, you see thick fur beneath the cracked frost. And upon even closer inspection, it completely loses its human-like appearance, revealing only the structure of an animal's claw.
"It's a dog...it's a dog, not a person," she said, trembling.
But her eyes were filled with a horror more terrifying than seeing human flesh—you understand, what she saw was not "human flesh," but murderous intent.
"Woof...woof..."
A low growling sound suddenly rang out from the deepest part of the cold storage, as if some huge creature was chewing and swallowing, or as if a low bark came from behind a wall tens of meters thick.
You suddenly turn your head and find that the innermost door—the deepest storage room in the cold storage—is shaking slightly.
Is anyone there?
No, it's a thing.
A series of knocking sounds followed, "thump...thump thump thump..."
That wasn't the rhythm of a rational person knocking on a door; it was more like some kind of behemoth ramming its body against the door.
Without time to think, you shout, "Get out! Get out!"
The group stumbled and ran back.
You were the last to come out and closed the cold storage door, but in that instant, you saw a dark figure stand up from the pile of frozen meat.
You dared not look closely, slammed the door shut, and pulled on the latch. The chill still lingered on your fingertips.
The next second, you all rushed back into that row of cabinets and closed the doors tightly.
Your heart feels like it's stuck in your throat, about to jump out.
This time, it wasn't a phantom that came.
You peek through the crack in the door and see a foot walk in from outside, dragging a heavy leather shoe, making a thud as it lands.
It was a person, a kitchen lady who looked very unfamiliar.
Was she dragging a mangled—dog carcass? She slammed it to the ground like a bag of old clothes, the bones cracking and popping.
Then she turned on the meat grinder and slowly stuffed the half-rotten corpse into it, the muscles, fur, bones, and blood mixing together, making a nauseating churning sound.
You forcefully suppress the rising stomach acid and press your entire body into the deepest part of the cabinet.
But that's not all.
The woman suddenly stopped what she was doing and looked around.
She lowered her head, her gaze falling on the open door of the cold storage room.
Wasn't it already closed?
Or is it—
You don't have time to think it through; you can only accept the situation—she has noticed something is wrong.
She stormed toward the cold storage, muttering incomprehensible Taiwanese dialect.
You hear her footsteps as she goes inside, and then…
A girl started to cry. This girl was also the first to discover the frozen meat.
She was probably traumatized by that scene, which is why she's breaking down now. But she has to be strong... you think to yourself, feeling helpless.
She cried very softly, but in this quiet space, every sob struck your heart like a hammer blow.
You bite the back of your hand.
Does the cabinet door provide sound insulation? I don't know.
Will she stop on her own? I don't know.
Will the old lady come back? I don't know.
You can only gamble.
You can only wait.
Then--
"Bang--"
She's back.
Through the crack in the cabinet door, you see the middle-aged woman storm out, her face gleaming oily in the light, but her eyes are empty, devoid of any emotion. She begins to patrol the room like a ghost, circling it again and again.
Then she stopped in front of a cabinet.
Without a doubt, it was that girl's closet.
Did she really hear me?
The girl clearly covered her mouth, but this only made her body tremble, causing her to bang on the cabinet with a loud clanging sound.
You think you heard Moon gasp. Yeah, that's her best friend!
The old woman stared at the cabinet for a long time, so long that you all thought the girl was doomed.
She continued walking.
She stopped in front of your cabinet.
You saw her toes just in front of the door crack.
She bent down.
You can almost feel her face breathing on you, the hot, sticky moisture seeping through the metal, like it's licking your skin.
You force yourself to open your eyes, try to see all her actions clearly, and then make as many predictions as possible.
One second, two seconds, three seconds…
Then, she suddenly smiled, stood up, and walked away.
She went outside.
You didn't dare to move immediately. Only after counting to a full hundred in your mind did you slowly push open the cabinet door a crack and peek out.
Nobody's here.
You knocked on the cabinet door three more times and whispered, "Come out."
The crowd poured out like a tidal wave, each person's face extremely pale, as if they had just been pulled out of an ice cave.
You finally caught your breath, but as you exhaled, you realized that your entire back was covered in cold sweat, and your underwear was completely soaked.
Meiling and He exchanged a glance, and almost simultaneously rushed to the meat grinder to check on the pile of fresh minced meat, with the other girls following closely behind. Several of the girls were already pale, covering their mouths and gagging; even Went turned her head away, unwilling to look any longer. But you knew someone had to verify the authenticity of the meat.
So you force yourself to suppress your nausea, lower your head, and approach the still-warm meat grinder. The pungent smell of blood and fat hits you, mixed with a familiar yet nauseating stench.
You took a gentle sniff, but your heart suddenly sank.
You weren't exactly a "foodie" before, so you naturally didn't cook at home. In college, you either ate in the cafeteria or ordered takeout, and even after you started working, you often relied on fast food because of overtime.
But the dungeon changed you. During those five months in the dungeon, you not only became a master chef, but also learned to distinguish the smells of different meats before they were heated because of your familiarity with the ingredients—chicken, pork, beef… and the pink meat paste in front of you clearly exudes the aroma of pork.
"This doesn't taste like dog meat..." you whispered.
“But we saw her stuff the dog carcass inside with our own eyes!” Meiling said in a trembling voice.
Yes. You frowned.
Just then, an idea struck her, and she turned to rummage through the trash can. After searching through a pile of blood-stained wrappers, she finally found a used, torn-open spice bag—
"Pork flavor enhancer".
You hold that bag, feeling both ridiculous and disgusted.
This means that dog meat, which should be something to be avoided at all costs, tastes like pork after being processed in this way. This not only suggests that the canteen may have been using dog meat to impersonate pork for a long time, but more frighteningly—if seasoning can change the taste of meat, then those bent-joint "human-shaped chunks of meat" you just saw…
You shuddered, forcibly stopping yourself from thinking any further.
At this point, the local girl who had been crying finally broke down. She shouted something in Tariff, roughly meaning, "There's a main entrance, why don't you use it?! I've had enough!"
She ran out of the room crying, and Mind couldn't stop her; he hurriedly chased after her. You had no choice but to follow; after all, she was your companion.
To be fair, she had already pushed herself to her limit, and she had done a very good job within that limit.
But as soon as they stepped out the door, the girl's foot touched the delivery door leading to the "outside," and her figure vanished as if into thin air.
You can never catch up with her again.
"How could this be?" Minte collapsed to the ground, her eyes blurry with tears.
"Don't be sad." That's all you can say. You forcefully pull her up and shake her shoulders. "We have to find a clue quickly—we don't have much time left."
You will now proceed to the next room.
This kitchen, compared to the previous preparation room, felt more like a "kitchen on the move"—the stove still had flames burning, and the soup pot was bubbling with bloody broth. On the cutting board, pieces of skinned meat were arranged on a plate, and the white spots next to them were clearly not pig hair... Upon closer inspection, they were dog skin.
Without a doubt.
The whiteboard on the wall had "Tomorrow's Menu" scrawled in Thai and English:
Pork curry rice
Pan-fried pork chops
Spiced sausage
You stare at those few lines of text, your mind going blank.
If you take a closer sniff, isn't that the smell of these dishes? So, out of sight of you, there's a group of cafeteria ladies preparing for tomorrow.
"Where are the older women? Where did they all go?" Meiling asked in a low voice.
A thought flashed through your mind, and you finally pieced together all the previous details into a coherent whole—
This is a space where the surface and the interior intersect.
The time in your kitchen overlaps with but does not intersect with the time in which "they" exist. They only appear at certain points where the time intersects—and you must avoid those moments of intersection.
Let's continue the examination then!
You quickly lifted the lid of each pot, checked what was inside, and immediately covered it again to prevent anyone from noticing. You were very fast, and finally you lifted the lid of the last large pot. The first thing you saw was a complete human head!
It's the head of a master! You can even see those bulging eye bags!
Your heart stops, but upon closer inspection, you discover that it is actually a dog's head.
Just as you're about to breathe a sigh of relief, you notice—the dog seems to be chewing on something.
You hesitated for a moment, then finally reached out and pulled out the object. It was a yellowed, wrinkled piece of paper with strange handwriting. You couldn't understand it. You called over a few Thai girls to help you read it.
“This is the ‘Guardian Dog Sacrifice’,” they whispered, then began to tell a legend:
"Legend has it that in the old days, temples kept guard dogs, and thus a rule was established that the flesh of a guard dog should not be eaten after it died, otherwise retribution would be incurred. Because the dog is a guardian, eating it is tantamount to desecrating the 'gatekeeper,' and one would be forever trapped in the same place, unable to leave..."
“That’s why we’re so opposed to eating dog meat…” Went’s expression was grim. She was still immersed in the anger and sadness of possibly losing a friend. Not to mention that she had unknowingly eaten dog meat multiple times.
As you are deep in thought, a clear sound of "chopping meat" suddenly comes from deep within the kitchen!
Here we go again! How did it happen so quickly??
"hide!"
You had already reached an understanding, each heading towards the metal storage cabinet. You crawled into the cabinet you had used before, curled up, and pulled the door shut.
A moment later, the sound grew closer.
This time you can't see anything and can only rely on your hearing: Cluck...cluck...cluck...
This wasn't the first monster; it was more like a person carrying a long butcher's knife, dragging the tip along the ground to create a metallic, sawing sound.
The sound would stop and start, as if you were "listening" or "smelling".
You hold your breath, cold sweat pouring down your forehead.
Thump—
A cabinet door was bumped so close! Was it someone else's? Or yours?
You're experiencing some sensory confusion because you can't see a single shadow this time!
No, that's not right, she's gone...
The next second, you feel that the sound is right outside your cabinet door—you can even smell a mixture of blood and cooking fumes right outside the crack in the door!
You bit your lower lip hard, controlling your breathing, afraid to blink.
creak—
You hear the sound of the doorknob being gripped.
What? The cabinet is malfunctioning??
Oh no.
Your heart is about to explode, but just then—snap.
Someone gently taps you on the shoulder from behind.
You almost screamed!
But your back is clearly against the wall! How could there be someone in the closet?
You remain motionless, your pupils contracting violently.
Should we go out? This...no, no, since I can't see it, and there's definitely a wall behind you, then it doesn't exist! Never mind, it doesn't exist! Anyway, the one outside the door definitely exists...
That hand didn't move again, but you could still feel its presence.
The next second, the sound of a knife being dragged outside the door stopped.
"Giggle giggle..."
It was laughter—the kind of low, hoarse, dry laughter that came from the throat.
"Keep hiding...keep hiding...you wretched, lazy brats who don't study hard enough..."
Then, the sound gradually faded away.
You remained motionless until the footsteps completely disappeared in another room.
As you count the beats, your breathing slowly returns to normal.
You gently knocked on the cabinet door three times to indicate that it was safe.
“Come out…” you whispered.
Although everyone trusts you, this time, they are obviously coming out much slower.
You stopped Meiling and asked her to check your shoulder.
She glanced at it and gasped: "There's... a handprint here!"
Just as I suspected. That thing really does exist.
You suppress your fear and continue reasoning: with each time time and space intersects, the stronger their interference becomes, while the less you observe them.
What does this tell us?
This means your time is running out.
“We have to find a way out now,” you say. “Next time… there might not be any ‘safe cabinets’ anymore.”
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