Processing Plant 8

When Brother Zhu was at his last gasp, lingering with only a single breath left, Su Man stepped forward to stop Tingting.

The madness in Tingting's eyes had not yet faded, and she almost slashed Su Man as well, but Su Man quickly caught her wrist with lightning-fast reflexes.

"I know you are in terrible pain, but I still have questions to ask him. After that, you can do whatever you want with him."

The look of hatred in Tingting's eyes lingered. She stared at Su Man for two seconds as a myriad of emotions surged within her heart. Finally, she dropped the dagger and burst into loud, wailing sobs, crying out, "My child!"

Brother Zhu, who had been on his last breath, transformed back into his human form at that moment. However, he appeared to be breathing more than he was taking in, and his vision was completely unfocused.

Su Man called out to him twice, but he gave no response at all.

She glanced at the dagger nearby, picked it up, and stabbed it toward Brother Zhu.

Yet, just as before, the dagger slid across Brother Zhu's body without inflicting any harm whatsoever, feeling as though it had struck a steel plate.

Su Man grabbed Brother Zhu by his large ears, pulling his massive head up to face her. "Brother Zhu, can you still hear my voice?"

Brother Zhu's gaze was scattered and struggled to focus, but he had heard her voice, for Su Man noticed his pupils rolling slightly toward her.

Su Man did not resort to any schemes and asked directly, straight to the point, "What does the energy baptism given to you by Boss Zhu mean? Do you know what Boss Zhu's weakness is? Why couldn't I injure you?"

Brother Zhu's mind was scattered right now, which made this the easiest time to extract information from him. If she couldn't get answers now, it was probably hopeless to pry open his mouth, and she could just send him straight back to his hometown.

"Boss Zhu..." Brother Zhu's gaze remained unfocused. Upon hearing the name Boss Zhu, he answered irrelevantly, "He is my cousin..."

He muttered like someone talking in his sleep, "He is invincible..."

Su Man touched her forehead; this was not what she wanted to hear.

She let go, and Brother Zhu's heavy head dropped back to the ground with a dull thud.

With this bump, Brother Zhu, who was already speaking deliriously, became even more disoriented, murmuring and rambling further, "I'm injured, I need to replenish my energy..."

"The piglets here are the most nourishing, they are specially supplied to those big shots..."

"Ah!! I'll kill you!!" His mention of piglets once again provoked the high-strung Tingting. Acting almost out of her mind, she lunged forward to choke his neck.

The brief suffocation actually cleared Brother Zhu's head a fraction, though only slightly. Looking at the ferocious-looking Tingting before him, he subconsciously blurted out, "Cousin-in-law..."

Cousin-in-law?

Su Man looked at Tingting again, but Tingting acted as though she had completely lost her mind, beating and biting wildly. "I'm not! I'm not! I am nothing!! Shut up, shut up, shut up, I'll kill you, I'll kill you!!"

Su Man did not stop her, because after uttering those two words—cousin-in-law—Brother Zhu transformed back into a black boar, his eyes lost their luster, and he was undeniably dead.

Tingting needed to vent, and this was not a good time for questioning anyway.

Su Man walked out of the pigpen first. Huang Xin was standing outside, and when she met Su Man's gaze, she lowered her head with a heavy sense of guilt. "I won't say anything."

Su Man hadn't been counting on her to say anything anyway. She already had a rough outline forming in her mind, but she still needed to sort things out.

Instead, Huang Xin couldn't hold back. Despite claiming she wouldn't speak, she blurted out again, "Actually, whatever you heard is all true. You know what I mean, right?"

"Know what? That Tingting is his sister-in-law?" There was no need to keep repeating things she already knew. Su Man truly disliked her habit of saying half and leaving the rest hanging. "If you can't say everything, then don't say anything at all. Leaving me hanging without telling me is quite infuriating."

Su Man flashed the dagger at her, gesturing threateningly.

Huang Xin instantly clamped her mouth shut. "I didn't say anything."

Su Man didn't walk far either. She just leaned against the edge of the pigpen, listening to Tingting's heartbreaking, cathartic cries from within. She kept her head down, staring at the ground, lost in thought.

Huang Xin also fell silent, leaning against the wall alongside her to listen. After a long while, perhaps moved by emotion, she suddenly spoke in a deep tone, "Su Man, do you think anyone will ever come to change this status quo? Will anyone ever come to save us?"

"What status quo?" Su Man didn't raise her head. "Aren't you living just fine?"

"I'm alive now, but one day..." Huang Xin spoke in a rush, then stopped abruptly as if remembering something, her mood sinking even lower. "Su Man, actually, I'm so pitiful."

Su Man turned her head to look at her.

Huang Xin kept her head down, her entire person seemingly shrouded in a dark cloud. "Me, Sister Ting, and the others... we are all so pitiful."

"Perhaps one day, I too will walk down Sister Ting's path..."

Huang Xin looked up, her face streaming with tears before she even realized it. "Su Man, when do you think the King will discover the problem here and send someone to rescue us?"

"The King?" This was the first time Su Man had heard this term from the mouths of these NPCs.

Huang Xin didn't pick up on her question, merely wiping her tears fiercely and sighing, "I shouldn't harbor such extravagant hopes anyway, especially since the King himself is barely able to protect his own skin."

"Barely able to protect himself?" Su Man listened to these matters of which she knew nothing, feeling an itch in her heart. Watching Huang Xin stand there doling out information a word or two at a time, she felt a strong impulse to tie her up and force her to spit out everything.

Huang Xin, completely unaware of the danger, chuckled self-deprecatingly, "Yeah, I heard that our King fought with the one over there. Many people are spreading rumors that our King is dead."

She lowered her voice further, afraid of being overheard by others. "We probably don't have a King anymore, which means no one will save us from the depths of misery. Perhaps my fate is sealed."

Huang Xin suddenly gave up in despair. "I should just accept my destiny, dying such a miserable death, dying in the identity of a pig."

"...Su Man, why are you looking at me like that?"

She didn't know how to describe Su Man's gaze at this moment, only feeling that the way Su Man looked at her was extremely dangerous. She couldn't put it into words, but just meeting Su Man's eyes made her heart beat frantically.

Su Man merely smiled. "Huang Xin, what kind of rope do you like?"

"...Huh?"

"If you have so many secrets in your heart and refuse to tell them, won't you suffocate to death? If I tie you up, will you be willing to tell me a bit more?"

Huang Xin swallowed hard. What did Su Man mean by that? Was it the meaning she thought it was?

She averted her gaze. "There's no need for that, right? Whatever could be said, I haven't kept from you."

Su Man closed in. "Is that so?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Then the King on the other side you mentioned just now—which side is that? How many Kings are there in total?"

"Two, I suppose." Huang Xin shrank her neck, dodging the steadily approaching Su Man, looking quite uncertain. "I only heard Boss Zhu mention it by chance. He said the King on our side is dead, and the King on the other side seems to have gone missing, probably dead as well."

Su Man raised an eyebrow, stopped in her tracks, crossed her arms, and smiled faintly. "You heard it mentioned by Boss Zhu? Huang Xin, who on earth are you?"