Highway 8

Bai Ci stepped through the door, and a rich aroma instantly washed over her. It was a mix of the crispy scent of fried food and the savory fragrance of some kind of meat, completely overpowering the aromas of all the other dishes.

But rather than the dazzling array of dishes, the first thing that caught her eye was the stamp station to the right of the entrance.

A friendly reminder sign next to the stamp station clearly outlined the rules for this stop.

[Dear tourists: Thank you for your hard work on this journey! If you are feeling tired, why not take a short break? We have meticulously prepared delicious meals for you. You are welcome to dine in the Buffet Restaurant. After finishing your meal, you can bring your tray to the stamp area. Follow the on-site prompts to complete the process and collect your second stamp. We wish you a pleasant trip and a wonderful dining experience! ~]

According to the sign, if she wanted to get the second stamp, she had to complete the dining task first.

Having confirmed this, Bai Ci looked toward the interior of the restaurant.

The restaurant's interior was very spacious, with over a dozen white dining tables arranged inside. Coupled with the warm lighting and plastic artificial flowers, it was clean and tidy while still maintaining a hint of warmth.

At the very back of the restaurant stood a row of buffet tables.

They were loaded with all kinds of food—golden, crispy fried items, brightly colored stir-fries, a luxurious and fresh seafood feast, steaming hot staple dishes, and various delicate, small pastries.

The dazzling variety made it look even more bountiful than some of the buffet restaurants in the real world.

Behind the tables was a transparent, semi-open kitchen.

Bai Ci couldn't quite understand the necessity of this setup. Was it perhaps to show how the food was prepared, thereby proving that they weren't pre-packaged meals?

Picking up a plate from the starting point on the far left, Bai Ci followed the arrows on the floor and walked forward. The first area she passed was the fried food section.

Corresponding to this section of the buffet table, inside the kitchen, was a large iron wok.

Unlike the other sections of the kitchen, which remained quiet and inactive, a blazing fire burned beneath the iron wok here.

It was clearly still in use.

The wok was filled with boiling hot oil, sending up plumes of steam. Although she couldn't hear what was happening inside, judging by the visual, it had to be sizzling furiously.

Looking closer, some human-shaped dough pieces, or perhaps something else, were being fried in the oil.

The items seemed incredibly difficult to cook; those in the wok showed no signs of burning at all, while the nearby pile of already fried food was golden-brown on both sides, though there were only a few pieces.

A large mechanical hand stirred the oil wok from time to time according to a pre-programmed sequence.

Unlike common foods like french fries or crispy pork bites, the human-shaped dough frying in the wok was given a special introduction.

A colorful introduction sheet was pasted on the side of the counter.

[Exquisite Cup: A unique specialty delicacy of Yefu District. Made from premium ingredients and marinated with a century-old secret recipe, it is deep-fried at high temperatures until golden and crispy. Crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, it bursts with juice in a single bite, offering a rich aroma that melts in your mouth. It is a delicious dish that no tourist should miss. Just one bite, and you will know the flavor of Yefu.]

Despite the extravagant praise, the more Bai Ci looked at the human-shaped dough being fried, the less she wanted to eat it.

Where the dough's head should be, something seemed to have outlined an expression akin to agony.

It was as if a real person were being fried in that wok.

First climbing a mountain of knives, and now being thrown into a wok of boiling oil—Yefu District sure knew how to put on a show.

Wait...

Bai Ci suddenly realized that there was something that could connect all the bizarre, abnormal phenomena and sights she had encountered along the way.

The Eighteen Levels of Hell.

It was a common theme in murder mystery games, though in most cases, she had only encountered loose adaptations, partial adoptions, or even haphazard references.

For example, the most common misconception was that the Eighteen Levels of Hell were sorted by the duration of punishment in each level, rather than being eighteen vertical stories like floors in a building.

Hmm...

Drawing a connection to the information she had specifically searched for on the forum, Bai Ci recalled that Anomalous Infection also borrowed and adapted these concepts rather than replicating them exactly.

She remembered a teasing remark from a thread, saying that Anomalous Infection was just trying to avoid copyright infringement.

Bai Ci couldn't help but smile, thinking in a good mood that the conceptually flawed scripts she had encountered before actually fit the habits of Anomalous Infection much better here.

Regrettably, she couldn't immediately recall what kind of sinners each level of Hell was meant to punish.

She only remembered the general concepts, but she hoped that would be of some help.

Calculated this way, the Mountain of Ten Thousand Blades corresponded to the Mountain of Knives Hell among the Eighteen Levels of Hell.

And the fried items in the boiling wok corresponded to the Wok of Boiling Oil Hell.

Bai Ci racked her brain to recall what she had read in the past.

She had forgotten the specific details regarding the Wok of Boiling Oil Hell, but she managed to remember the target of punishment for the Mountain of Knives Hell.

The Mountain of Knives Hell punished those who took lives.

This “killing” did not just refer to killing humans; killing animals was also considered taking lives.

Bai Ci finally realized what that unknown entity on the road through the ecological reserve had been trying to goad her into doing.

The frequently appearing obstacles and the faint, ghostly pursuit of the infant spirit were all designed to bait her into running over those animals, forcing her to commit the sin of taking lives.

When she was climbing the mountain of knives earlier, the blades had actively avoided her.

It made sense now. Because she hadn't run over those animals, she didn't trigger their punishment mechanism, which was why they couldn't harm her.

If she had really run over those animals under the influence of her emotions back then, would she have survived climbing this mountain of knives?

Furthermore, besides the Mountain of Knives, Bai Ci also recalled another Hell related to animals.

There was a level of Hell where those who abused animals would be gored or trampled to death by wild bulls, which perfectly matched the very first obstacle she had encountered—the calf.

Small animals would die instantly if hit by a car.

But for larger ones, if a car hit them, they might be left clinging to a sliver of life, reduced to a half-dead state.

In that case, wouldn't it be considered animal abuse?

What an insidious design. Yefu District, what on earth are you?

...Wait, she seemed to be able to guess it now.

Yefu?

Di Fu—the Underworld?

Surely, this was no coincidence.

As she pondered, Bai Ci thought of someone who had died even earlier.

Her husband, Yu Yue.

If this place truly was the Underworld, then not only was her husband, Yu Yue, dead, but was she herself already dead in this instance as well?

Then what was she doing right now?

Was she not completely dead yet, struggling desperately to come back to life?

Many absurd murder mystery games featured such a design, where a revolving lantern of memories could explain the occurrence of various abnormal phenomena.

Having thought of so many things at once, Bai Ci wanted to use a process of elimination to determine what she needed to watch out for in the journey ahead.

However, her mind was a jumbled mess, and she couldn't organize the information systematically.

For instance, on the stretch of road before the first gas station, the sounds of grinding meat and sawing, along with those wails about money, must have corresponded to that particular level of Hell.

Would the scorching hot stretch of road be the Volcano Hell? Or was it the Steamer Hell?

Since she had already passed that road, she really couldn't recall any more details at the moment regarding the clues she had failed to notice back then.