ICUGW Chapter 18

Chapter 18: The Man-Eating Hot Pot Restaurant (7)

Liu Niannian was shocked. She thought Zhu Ning would at least make a careful plan, not blow up a big hole in the basement!!

So unprofessional!

It was too late for Liu Niannian to back out now. Zhu Ning's noise had alarmed the people outside. The door was kicked open and the pig man stood at the door holding an axe.

"L i t t l e g i r l s , y o u ' r e n o t b e h a v i n g w e l l . "

The pig man rushed towards them with an axe.

Liu Niannian's scalp tingled. This was the first time she went out of her way to encounter contaminants. Although she had seen the pig man earlier, she still couldn't get used to it and instinctively felt disgusted.

Without a word, Zhu Ning took out a submachine gun from her backpack.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Dozens of bullets were fired and embedded into the pig-headed man. The pig head that had just grown back was smashed to pieces again. The pig man was instantly turned into a sieve.

Liu Niannian: “…”

Is this the power of violence?

Zhu Ning had more equipment this time, completely different from last time. She knew that once she found the source of the pollution, she had to act quickly.

If the source of pollution discovers they've been exposed, they'll go berserk and try to kill you, just like what the fish man did before.

More and more people were rushing into the corridor, forcing Zhu Ning to continue firing off her submachine gun.

"Go down." Zhu Ning said.

"Ah?" Liu Niannian couldn't keep up with Zhu Ning's train of thought. "You want me to jump off from here?"

She pointed at the huge hole that Zhu Ning had blasted open.

She wanted her to go to the basement to accompany that disgusting boss? Was Zhu Ning sure she was here to save her, not kill her?

"If you don't go down, I'll kick you down." Zhu Ning had no patience. She loaded the gun again and started a new round of shooting at the contaminants at the corridor.

The shell casings continued to fall down with a crackling sound, but Zhu Ning did not seem to be panicked at all.

Liu Niannian hesitated a bit, wondering whether to believe her or not. Zhu Ning shouldn't be that unreliable, so she decided to give it a chance. After all, she was the other only living person in this shabby place.

Once Liu Niannian made up her mind, she tore a piece of white plastic sheet, wrapped it around the chamber, and climbed down. When her feet touched the ground, she didn't dare to breathe.

She was too close. The hot pot restaurant owner on the bed was right next to her.

She could hear rustling sounds of something crawling... growing.

Zhu Ning was clearly right above her head with only the ceiling between them, but Liu Niannian felt as if she had entered another world when she climbed down the basement.

The flow of time and even the air feels different.

It feels... sticky.

If normal air was like clear water, now she felt like she was walking into a bowl of white rice porridge. Even with the help of the helmet, she had difficulty breathing.

There were mirrors all around, not like the large mirrors covering the entire wall in the dance studio, but more like groups of small, irregular mirrors pieced together.

The mirror reflected countless Liu Niannians and countless shop owners.

It was as if everything was cut and reorganized. Liu Niannian's body was cut off and put on the boss, while the boss's body was attached to Liu Niannian, gradually becoming one.

Mental pollution of repetition.

Liu Niannian, a daughter of a wealthy family, used to never having to get her shoes dirty, almost passed out looking at the scene around her. She didn't know where to put her eyes. Everywhere she look consumed her sanity. She could only stare at the tip of her boots.

'Breathe, Liu Niannian. Breathe, and be calm.'

She had researched before coming here and knew that as long as the source of pollution was killed, the contaminated area would naturally collapse.

The shop owner is obviously the source of the pollution. He is now lying unconscious on the bed, and even his employees can cut flesh from him. It shouldn't be that difficult to kill him.

Taking a deep breath, Liu Niannian picked up the gun.

Beside the bed stood two instruments, each covered in densely packed small characters. Liu Niannian's family had dabbled in some medical-related projects, so she could read the instruments.

The numbers on the instrument didn't fluctuate at all. And if the instrument is stagnant then...doesn't that mean he's dead?

The boss is dead?

Wait, are contaminants considered dead or alive? Should she shoot or not? If she shoots, would it kill him? If she kills him, then she and Zhu Ning could leave.

Liu Niannian felt that her mental state was rapidly declining.

Her mind was not clear anymore and she could only act on instinct. She only has one thought in her mind–kill the boss.

Kill the boss.

Kill the boss.

Kill the boss!

A hand covered in black gloves pat her left shoulder.

Liu Niannian shuddered, her hair standing on end. Her hand holding the gun trembled uncontrollably.

"Liu Niannian?"

It was Zhu Ning. Liu Ninannian could feel tears forming in her eyes when she heard Zhu Ning's voice. She had never wanted to see someone so much in her life.

It was really Zhu Ning. She had just jumped down from the room above.

Liu Niannian was still trembling. "Are the contaminants dead?"

"For now." Zhu Ning said.

As long as the source of pollution is alive, the contaminants will not die either. They can still recover, regenerate, and ressurect.

However, compared to last time, it would be hard for the pig man to recover. Last time he was just shot in the head, but now he was almost beaten into a pulp.

Zhu Ning could sense that Liu Niannian's mental state was deteriorating rapidly. A message appeared inside her helmet:

[Pollution concentration: 113%]

A concentration rate so high could only prove one thing: they were very close to the source of pollution.

Zhu Ning looked at the wriggling rotten mass of meat on the bed and asked,"What were you going to do just now?"

"Kill, kill the boss." Liu Niannian said.

She put the gun down dejectedly. "I don't think I can do it anymore. I might start hallucinating and mess up. I'll give you the gun first."

Zhu Ning took her gun and felt that although Liu Niannian was a young lady, she was pretty smart and self aware. At least she knew how not to cause trouble for others.

Zhu Ning glanced around the basement and saw the mirrors. Those mirrors seemed to have something that attracts people to look at them. Once you look, it would be hard to look away.

Liu Niannian's breathing became heavier. "It's so strange here. The number on the life monitor isn't moving."

"Hmm?" Zhu Ning listened distractedly.

Liu Niannian: "The life monitor has no data. The boss seems to be dead."

She spoke very uncertainly, because she could still hear the boss's flesh moving and growing. The rotten meat grew so fast that it soon overflowed from the bed and fell to the ground with a plop.

The meat was like a vine, quickly filling the entire room. If it was dead, how could it grow?

Zhu Ning frowned.

'Dead?'

Zhu Ning looked at the mirror reflecting them. Zhu Ning and Liu Niannian's bodies were distorted, as if they had become part of the basement decorations.

Among the countless superimposed figures, Zhu Ning saw a black dot. It was a very small dot, but it was magnified against the backdrop of thousands of mirror fragments.

Boom—

Her heart suddenly contracted. Here it came again, a death warning.

[Primary talent, Danger Premonition, has been triggered. A 30-second warning has been sent. Please proceed with caution.]

A trap.

Liu Niannian only felt that Zhu Ning's body stiffened unnaturally like she was frozen in place. She was just about to go check on Zhu Ning to see if she was mentally polluted when Zhu Ning suddenly pulled Liu Niannian towards the other side.

Liu Niannian wasn't used to being pulled and almost tripped. Zhu Ning really didn't care at all that she was a young lady. She pressed her back and knocked her down.

Liu Niannian: “?”

Her face made close contact with the ground with a thud. The helmet protected her, but her head was buzzing from the impact.

Liu Niannian usually has a very arrogant temper. This time, before she could complain, she caught sight of a cold light and strong wind.

'Is that... a guillotine?'

A three-meter-long guillotine suddenly descended inside the room. The blade brushed past Liu Niannian's back, almost chopping her in half.

Liu Niannian couldn't react at all. This matter was beyond her understanding.

Zhu Ning pressed on top of Liu Niannian's back, protecting the girl. The blade cut across her right shoulder, and blood gushed out, dripping down her arm.

Zhu Ning's breath hitched as she looked at the bloodstains on the floor. She knew that getting injured in a contaminated area was not a good thing.

Liu Niannian's mind went blank. She looked at the other person's damaged protective suit and the open wound that could be parasitized by contaminated spores. Zhu Ning might turn into a contaminant, and her only companion would be infected.

Zhu Ning reacted quickly. She took out a sticker-like thing from her backpack and stuck it on her torn protective suit.

Article 9 of the Work Code: If the protective suit is damaged, please stop the task immediately. If you cannot stop, please patch it to ensure that the protective suit is sealed.

Zhu Ning did her homework before coming here. She doesn't know if there were any contaminated spores that had taken the opportunity to latch inside her, but she couldn't care less now.

Even if she became a contaminant, she would just drag the whole contaminated area down with her.

The sharp guillotine was attached to an iron chain and was swinging inside the basement. It was like a murderous sickle, trying to harvest heads inside the room.

The blades fell down one after another. If Zhu Ning and Liu Niannian had been standing just now, they would have been chopped into pieces.

Zhu Ning pushed Liu Niannian away and rolled on the ground to avoid the second attack.

She took the opportunity to take a look.

The guillotine was hanging upside down on the ceiling, but she couldn't find where it was hanging from.

Unreasonable things cannot happen in a contaminated area, which means that there was a guillotine here before it became a contaminated area. It only become more exaggerated now that the restaurant became contaminated.

'Why would a hot pot restaurant have a guillotine? Who did the hot pot restaurant owner originally want to....off with their heads?'

She couldn't find where the guillotine was hanging, and guns were useless against it.

In the danger premonition, she had half her face chopped off by the guillotine. This talent can only predict her death within 30 seconds. She found that the danger premonition does not guarantee survival.

Knowing how you die is one thing, whether you can escape death is another.

"The source of the pollution isn't the boss," Zhu Ning said, clutching her injured right shoulder. She injected herself a powerful healing agent and continued, "It's Wang Ming."

"What?" Liu Niannian lay on the ground, trying to lower her body as much as possible. It was difficult for her to understand what Zhu Ning said.

'Wang Ming? The guy in the recorder? Wasn't he a victim? Why was he the source of the pollution?'

Liu Niannian felt like she was about to have hallucinations. After Zhu Ning mentioned Wang Ming, the mirror in front of her suddenly began to distort, and blood began to ooze from the edges of the broken lenses.

The edges of the mirror fragments were uneven, so the blood broke the mirror into pieces. A pig's face emerged from the mirror fragments. It was a bigger and uglier pig head!

Swish!

The sharp guillotine chopped down for the third time.

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The translator has something to say:

I think I know where this is heading,,,

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