Chapter 16 The Rules Here

When Feng Bujue said those words, he glanced at Xiao Ling intentionally or unintentionally. The latter immediately understood her captain's hint and nodded to him. Then, Xiao Ling gently nudged Xiao Tan, who was sitting next to her, with her elbow.

When Xiao Tan turned to look at her, Xiao Ling had already picked up the bowl in front of her and brought it to her lips…

"I've decided!" Xiao Ling stared at the disgusting meat soup, gritted her teeth, and stomped her foot, saying, "I'll drink it!"

Before the words were finished, she opened her mouth, pinched her nose… and began to pour the soup down her throat.

Seeing this, Xiao Tan naturally understood Xiao Ling's intention of nudging him just now, so he also gritted his teeth and stomped his foot, and with both hands, he held up the bowl of soup in front of him, enduring the physiological and psychological nausea, and stubbornly swallowed the soup into his stomach.

Thus, within one minute of Feng Bujue's appearance, the three bowls of meat soup that Oink had ladled out were wiped out by the three members of the Infernal Frontline. Moreover, when Xiao Ling finished drinking, she also imitated Jue-ge and smashed the bowl. When she smashed it, Xiao Tan followed suit.

When the sound of smashing bowls subsided, Fei Kouweiwang, who was sitting beside them, belatedly realized something…

"That's not right…" Looking at the soup dregs and porcelain shards on the ground, Fei Kouweiwang thought to himself, "In this way… wouldn't I not even be able to drink it if I wanted to?" Thinking of this, he immediately raised his eyes and glared at Feng Bujue, and said in a deep voice, "You surnamed Feng… you're scheming against me!"

"Hahahahaha…" Feng Bujue laughed up to the sky, "That's right~ I'm scheming against you~" He replied with a wretched and aggressive expression, "What can you do to me?"

Fei Kouweiwang was no pushover either. Before Jue-ge finished the second half of his sentence, he had already dashed out and pounced towards the stove…

However…

Bang!

The next second, a dull sound of a pig's hoof striking the body rang out.

Oink instantly appeared beside the stove, and with one punch, he knocked Fei Kouweiwang, who was about to reach out and lift the lid of the soup pot, to the ground.

"Ugh—dam…" Fei Kouweiwang wanted to curse "damn it," but before the words reached his lips, he realized that he couldn't catch his next breath. Obviously… Oink's seemingly simple punch was far more powerful than he had imagined.

"Truly presumptuous…" Oink looked at Fei Kouweiwang, who was lying on the ground and trying to catch his breath, and said coldly, "Who allowed you to touch the soup pot? Do you understand the rules of the kitchen?"

"Well said~" Feng Bujue interjected to himself, and stood next to Oink, hands on his hips, pointing at Fei Kouweiwang arrogantly, "Someone like you wants to work at the stove after ten or eight years?"

"Shut up!" But Oink turned his head and scolded Jue-ge.

"Hey hey… I'm helping you out here." Feng Bujue looked at the other party with an innocent expression and replied, "And I'm not wrong…" He immediately began to count on his fingers, "Wash the toilets for a year, wash the dishes for a year, wash the vegetables for a year, then cut the vegetables for a year, prepare the dishes for a year…"

"Go, go, go…" Oink pushed Jue-ge away, interrupting the chatter of this shameless man, "Who asked you to speak up for me?" As he spoke, he picked up the kitchen knife from the cutting board and waved it in front of Jue-ge, "I'm telling you, this is how it is now… If it were five hundred years ago, with my hot temper, daring to interrupt… I'd stab you to death!"

Hearing this, Feng Bujue instantly revealed a suspicious expression, "Five hundred years ago… weren't you using a rake back then?"

Clang clang clang clang clang clang—

As soon as Jue-ge's retort came out, Oink's kitchen knife followed suit and slashed at him. The knife came out as fast as the wind, as powerful as thunder… However, Jue-ge was also prepared, and he spun around and retreated continuously, unharmed, causing all of Oink's slashes to chop onto the stove, making a crisp sound of metal striking stone.

"I haven't seen you for a while, and your skills have improved a lot, kid…" After a round of attacks, Oink didn't follow up with any more moves, but just stopped and said to Jue-ge.

"You flatter me, you flatter me~" Feng Bujue replied hypocritically, "Speaking of skills, Brother Oink is even better."

"Hmph… don't try to get close to me." Oink said, turned around, and slashed down with his knife at Fei Kouweiwang, who had not yet gotten up.

This rising star of Corpse Blade was cut off at the back of his neck with a clean and crisp strike before he could even stand up from the ground. Not long after his head rolled to the ground, he turned into white light and dissipated…

"So… the 'rules' here are…" Feng Bujue calmly looked at the scene in front of him, "If you don't drink the 'soup that was served to you'… you have to die, right?"

"That's not necessarily true." Oink took the blood-stained kitchen knife and went to the stone pool used for washing vegetables to carefully rinse it, "'If you can't beat me,' you will die… isn't that right?" He paused, "Of course, if you obediently drink the soup, you don't have to fight me."

Their few words basically explained all the events and flags here.

So, it was time for Feng Bujue to show off again, "Look~ I came just in time, right?" He looked at his two teammates, "I knew Brother Oink's cooking must be good stuff."

"Tsk… isn't it just something you 'saw'…" Xiao Ling narrowed her eyes and responded in a low voice. But she didn't say anything more, so as not to expose her captain's information.

In fact, with Xiao Ling's intelligence, coupled with her understanding of Feng Bujue, she had naturally deduced the whole story of what had just happened…

First of all, the moment Feng Bujue walked into the Xiangji Kitchen, he had already directly 'seen' the effects of those soups using his data observation skills.

Afterwards, he quickly formulated a strategy, and before everyone could recover… he took the lead in drinking Fei Kouweiwang's soup, forcibly setting up a death flag for the other party…

Then, after drinking the soup, Jue-ge gave the quick-witted Xiao Ling a wink at the first moment, telling her to quickly pull Xiao Tan and drink the soup.

In this way… all three bowls of soup "that Oink had ladled out" were gone.

Even the "smashing the bowl" action was calculated by Feng Bujue… He had already thought that if the bowls were still on the table after the three of them had finished drinking, then Fei Kouweiwang might be able to avoid triggering the death flag of "not drinking the soup" by eating the leftovers in the bowls; but when Feng Bujue and his teammates smashed the bowls like this, Fei Kouweiwang's path to survival was completely cut off…

Although Little Fei realized that he had to drink the soup after seeing the actions of the three members of the Infernal Frontline, it was obviously unwise to touch the soup pot himself… Here, players can only accept "the soup that Oink serves you." Taking it yourself is another matter, so it's still death…

"Alright, stop nagging." Oink interrupted them, "I'm in a hurry, ask whatever you want to ask quickly."

Hearing this, Feng Bujue and his two teammates just exchanged glances slightly and reached a consensus.

"How did the town become like this?" Jue-ge was obviously the best candidate to negotiate with NPCs, so he asked without hesitation.

"Two nights ago, three people entered the temple to steal treasures." Oink didn't waste any words and went straight to the point, "They killed the abbot, took the key, broke into the pagoda in the stone courtyard, and broke through the ninety-nine eighty-one Chan Gate Seals, causing the Six Directions Mirror to break free."

"Liuhe Mirror?" Feng Bujue repeated these three words in a questioning tone (because the pronunciation was the same, Jue-ge thought Oink was saying "He" at this time).

"More than a thousand years ago, there was a demon priest…" Oink continued to explain, "This person was highly skilled in magic and was sinister and vicious… He actually spent decades collecting the blood of tens of thousands of people to refine a fierce and evil magical treasure…" He paused for half a second, "...That is the Liuhe Mirror."

At this point, Oink had washed the kitchen knife in his hand and walked slowly to the side of the stove, leaning against the stove and standing still, "The so-called 'Liuhe' refers to all living things in heaven and earth, the six paths of reincarnation. Now the 'Liuhe' of this 'Liuhe Temple' is a misreading by later generations."

"Then this 'Liuhe Mirror' (Jue-ge knew which character it was at this time)…" Feng Bujue continued, "...How was it sealed in Liuhe Temple?"

"Simply put… a virtuous monk sacrificed himself to save the world and died together with that demon priest." Oink replied, "Later, the disciples of that eminent monk placed the magical treasure \[Kasyapa Stone Pagoda] that he used during his lifetime here, used multiple seals to suppress the Liuhe Mirror in the pagoda, and built a temple around the pagoda so that future generations could guard this object for generations."

"I understand…" Feng Bujue nodded and asked, "Um… tell me more about the three treasure thieves, what are their backgrounds? Where are they now?"

Oink pondered for a few seconds and replied, "Strictly speaking, the three of them are not all human… The leader of them is the great-grandson of that demon priest, with the Daoist name Miaoxuzi. This guy is half-human and half-demon, and he usually likes to transform into a young monk; he is not only proficient in Daoist arts and demon magic, but also studied many Zen Buddhist methods."

"Oh… no wonder the eighty-one seals didn't stop him…" Hearing this, Xiao Tan on the side shook his head and said.

"The second person…" Oink then said, "...Is a woman, a great thief known in the martial world as Hongying. This is a very strange person. From your human perspective, she is undoubtedly a beauty, and she is very skilled in martial arts, and she doesn't lack money… However, she just likes to be a thief…"

"Kleptomania." Xiao Ling interjected.

"If she just likes to steal, it may be kleptomania…" Oink replied, "But… she doesn't just like to be a thief, she also likes to be a prostitute." He shrugged his shoulders, "A person who can buy an entire brothel with a wave of her hand, but willingly works in the lowest brothel, is that not kleptomania?"

"That's \[beep—] then." Feng Bujue blurted out, but his words were blocked by the system, and no one knew what strange noun he had said.

"It doesn't matter what it is, anyway, she has already been killed by that kid over there." Oink said, turning his head to look at Wang Tanzhi.

"Huh?" Xiao Tan was stunned for a moment, and reacted two seconds later, "Oh~ you mean that big-mouthed monster in red?" He scratched his head, "Uh… are you sure that's a person?"

"She was still a person when she came to steal the treasure." Oink replied, "But… she wasn't after the Liuhe Mirror broke free."

"Let's talk about that later." Feng Bujue brought the topic back, "Let's continue talking about the third person."

"The third person… is called Lu Bufu, a notorious Jiangyang bandit known for his 'delicious food'…" Oink sneered and glanced at the soup pot on the stove, "Ironically… now he has become a pot of meat soup himself."

His words were like an invisible emetic, causing Xiao Tan and Xiao Ling's stomachs to feel an unspeakable discomfort.

"Of course, I didn't kill him, it was that kid named So-and-So-weiwang who killed him." Oink said, "I just didn't want to waste the ingredients."

"It doesn't matter about that kind of thing…" It seemed that Feng Bujue didn't care about eating Brother Bufu's flesh, he continued to ask, "What I care about is what happened when they stole the treasure."

"Hmph… can a few clueless nobodies do anything good?" Oink shook his head and replied in a helpless tone, "When the seal was broken, the magic power of the Liuhe Mirror appeared in the world, shrouding the entire Heyue Town in a 'Blood Fiend Barrier', and summoned the 'Six Paths of Evil Spirits'; then, the people of the entire town died quickly under the influence of the barrier, and they were still suffering from the torment of the Blood Fiend Curse after their death, unable to be reborn; as for those three unlucky bastards… because they knew nothing about the mirror's ability, their souls were immediately captured by the mirror and turned into hosts for the evil spirits."

"I see…" Xiao Tan nodded and said, "In other words, all three of them were possessed by those 'Six Paths of Evil Spirits'?"

"No, it's not possession." Oink replied, "The so-called 'Six Paths of Evil Spirits' does not refer to six specific individuals, but…" He thought for a few seconds and then said, "In terms you can understand… they are six relatively extreme symbols of consciousness. These six can be entities that exist somewhere in this universe, or they can be things that do not exist in the physical plane…" He paused, "To use an analogy… it's like what you humans often say, 'Dao'. Dao can be a person, a book, a passage, or a concept."

"So, what are the Six Paths of Evil Spirits in this Blood Fiend Barrier?" Xiao Ling tentatively asked.

"Lu Bufu is the 'Hungry Ghost Path', Hongying is the 'Human Path', these two have already been eliminated." Oink replied.

"More than eliminated, they are still being digested." Feng Bujue interjected.

"And Miaoxuzi is the 'Heavenly Path', he should be active in the abbot's room at this time." Oink ignored Jue-ge and continued, "In addition… there is also a poor guy who was 'swallowed' by the mirror forty years ago, named Zhang Ke, he is the 'Hell Path', and he and the mirror are still in that pagoda."

Speaking of this, Oink paused for a few seconds and then continued, "The above four are the evil spirit hosts 'illuminated' by the mirror. They basically retain their original personalities and memories, but they are essentially another kind of creature." As he spoke, he pointed to himself, "The remaining two paths… one of them is me."

"Oh… 'Animal Path', is it?" Feng Bujue interjected.

"That's right." Oink replied, "I was summoned by the Liuhe Mirror as some kind of 'representative'. Unless the Blood Fiend Barrier absorbs enough living beings or is broken, I really can't leave."

"Then…" After this conversation, Feng Bujue's expression changed slightly, and he asked in a deep voice, "The last one… the 'Asura Path'?"