Food

The diners watching from the sidelines saw this and didn't dare harbor any more ill intentions. Under Anya's threatening gaze, they all scattered.

"Well done, Anya."

"Anya... will protect Xiaoyou... to prove my value."

Seeing Anya say those words with such a solemn face, Xu Xiaoyou's brow furrowed slightly.

What was going on? Why would a child suddenly say something like that? Something about 'value'? Had someone been brainwashing her with some strange ideas?

But seeing the serious look on Anya's small face, Xu Xiaoyou didn't think too much of it and continued walking forward.

After finishing her meal, she planned to wash her face. She followed the signs on the wall toward a corridor.

The corridor ahead was very dark. The indicator light at the end illuminated the flickering outline of a corner. The restroom was at the end of this hallway, glowing with a white light. A refrigeration unit above sensed her approach and began to operate. The dust-caked fan blades slowly opened, and a cold wind blew through. Obscurely, it felt as if a cold gaze had landed on her. This feeling of being watched made her very uncomfortable.

She looked around but found nothing suspicious until her gaze followed the ink-thick darkness upward. She actually saw rows of bloody handprints on the walls!

The air also seemed to be permeated with a faint metallic scent of rust. Looking back, the main hall of the restaurant was not far away. She could still see the silhouettes of diners eating, and the faint sound of their conversation was audible.

Only a few steps away from where the patrons were dining was a place that looked like a crime scene.

There was no mistake. Her long life in the junkyard had made her sense of smell very keen. The faint metallic scent in the air was the smell of blood.

Xu Xiaoyou became alert.

Suddenly, Anya became vigilant, staring fixedly at a certain spot.

Following the little girl's gaze, Xu Xiaoyou saw a rusty iron door, like a cell door in a prison. A square hole was cut into the top, and it stood there somewhat abruptly. It looked as if it hadn't been opened for a long time. There were many such iron doors lining both sides of this corridor.

Xu Xiaoyou slowly approached.

Peering inside through the hole, she could vaguely see the outline of the room within the hazy darkness. The yellowed walls were covered in bloody handprints, and the bright red liquid on the floor looked like a fungal carpet...

A woman with a face covered in blood suddenly appeared!

Xu Xiaoyou's pupils constricted, and she reflexively took a step back.

In the dim light, the woman's bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at her through the square hole, as if she were seeing some novel food. Her mouth split into an eerie smile.

The woman had been watching her since she first stepped into the corridor. That gaze, like a little girl seeing a favorite doll, made her skin crawl.

"Are you here to play with me?"

"I'm a little hungry... heehee..."

The woman seemed to have gone mad, her mouth constantly muttering strange words.

Just as Xu Xiaoyou planned to leave this unsettling place quickly, someone tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey!" a young girl's voice came.

Xu Xiaoyou remained calm and used the faint light to see the other party clearly.

It was a petite girl with skin as pale and sickly as if she had been ill for a long time. She had short hair, and the two cat ears on her cat-faced mask twitched slightly. A long tail dragged on the ground behind her, gently tapping.

What made Xu Xiaoyou uncomfortable was that the girl's skin was covered in stitching marks, like a doll that was constantly being torn and sewn back together. The skin on her forearms was even held together with stapler staples.

"How strange. Are you lost? Why would you come to a place like this?"

The girl leaned in front of her, her tone full of curiosity. She looked up at her, the eye holes of the cat-faced mask as empty as two pits.

"This is the restaurant's storage passage, you know. Both sides are where the ingredients are kept. Guests aren't allowed here!"

"Honestly, how can every diner be so careless? Doesn't anyone read the warning sign? No diners allowed!"

As the cat-girl spoke, she turned to look at the entrance of the passage with an expression of sudden realization.

"Eh? Has the warning sign been taken away? Why is it gone?"

Xu Xiaoyou's brow furrowed tightly.

She had felt it was strange. She clearly remembered that she hadn't seen any warning sign when she entered the corridor. She only wanted to use the restroom but had stumbled into this place by mistake.

Just now, this girl said that both sides were where the restaurant's ingredients were kept...

Xu Xiaoyou discreetly glanced at the woman who was still staring gloomily at her from behind the square hole.

Someone had intentionally removed that warning sign in advance.

Was someone trying to harm her, or was it just a malicious prank?

"Oh dear, what a dilemma... A guest coming to a place like this is a violation of the rules. What should I do?"

The cat-girl in front of her wore an expression of troubled indecision. Her tone was innocent and cute, but her sharp fingertips were poking hole after hole into her own arm, the gushing blood a gruesome sight.

A lunatic. The cat-girl in front of her was yet another lunatic.

She couldn't see through the cat-girl's strength, but judging by Anya's vigilant stance, she could infer that this cat-girl was definitely not simple.

Xu Xiaoyou stared fixedly at the holes in the cat-faced mask, and Anya also assumed a defensive posture.

Finally, the cat-girl sighed.

"Forget it. I like cute girls the most. Normally, diners who come here have to be dealt with."

"Since you're so cute and came here by accident, I won't hold it against you. Hurry up and leave."

Xu Xiaoyou nodded silently and led Anya away quickly. At that moment, the woman behind the iron door's face became distorted, and she suddenly began to bang on the door with force, her voice shrill and hoarse.

"Don't leave! Don't leave! Take me away from here! Take me away!"

The woman banged the rusty iron door until it clanged loudly. Her thin, dirty arms erupted with strength that didn't seem to belong to her. The commotion was so loud that even the distant diners turned their gaze this way.

She seemed to have recovered a brief moment of sanity, a glimmer of clarity flashing in her clouded, bloodshot eyes as she screamed with all her might.

"They're a bunch of lunatics! A bunch of lunatics! Please, take me away from here! I have lots of money! Just take me away, and I'll give you as much money as you want! I beg you!"

"Eh, eh, eh!" The cat-girl hurriedly waved her hands and moved to the iron door. "You can't do that. You can't be like this. You have to be obedient."

The cat-girl took out a key and opened the iron door. After seeing the cat-girl enter, the woman appeared terrified. She shrunk into the corner in a crazed state, holding her head and muttering incessantly.

With the help of the light, Xu Xiaoyou saw the scene inside the room clearly. The floor was covered in severed limbs, and she could vaguely make out a rotting figure, with white, fat maggots wriggling in and out of the eye sockets.

"Good girl, be good~ Only obedient girls are cute and well-liked."

The cat-girl skipped over to the woman's side, squatted down, and pulled her into an embrace. She held the woman's head, her fingertips stroking her dry, greasy hair. Her voice was a gentle comfort, like a little girl treating her favorite toy.

The previously agitated woman actually began to quiet down. Xu Xiaoyou noticed the despair in those empty, lifeless eyes and the tear tracks crossing her face...

The woman's mind had long since broken. Even if she were rescued, she would only wander the streets and alleys of the city in a daze, like a masterless wandering soul.

She felt a wave of genuine revulsion from the bottom of her heart. She stopped looking in the woman's direction and lowered her head, walking away quickly.

Xu Xiaoyou didn't notice.

Beneath the cat-faced mask, a pair of crimson eyes stared fixedly in the direction she had left.

The noise behind her gradually faded. The image of the cat-girl and the woman in the room grew smaller and smaller, like a painting, until it was finally frozen in the darkness.