Processing Plant 11

As soon as those words fell, Tingting let out a miserable scream. Immediately after, right before Su Man and the others, her left hand transformed into a pig’s trotter.

The pain quickly passed, and Tingting calmed down, looking at her pig-trotter hand without any particular reaction.

"I told you these things cannot be spoken of casually, Sister Ting! Why did you have to say it?!" Huang Xin cried out in incomprehension. "Are you really not afraid of completely..."

She only managed to finish half her sentence before Tingting covered her mouth, cutting off the rest. "Don't say it.

My son is dead, and I have nothing left to hold onto, which is why I can fearlessly speak of these things. You are not the same."

A flash of grief for their shared misfortune crossed Huang Xin's eyes.

Tingting no longer looked at her, turning her gaze solely to Su Man. Just as she opened her mouth, Su Man interrupted her. "You don't need to speak just yet either. Listen to my thoughts first."

Tingting nodded.

"Were you all caught in Boss Zhu's trick?" This was an association Su Man made only after seeing Tingting's hand turn into a pig's trotter. When she had come earlier and Boss Zhu made his move, he had turned both people and objects into pigs.

At the time, there had been far too many pig-headed people, and she had assumed it was just a feature of this realm. If her conjecture was correct, then all the pig-headed people here were connected to Boss Zhu, and it was he who had turned them into this state.

Tingting nodded to confirm her statement, and her body underwent no further changes.

Seeing all this, Su Man became even more certain. "As long as you don't speak of certain truths yourself, your body won't change, right? Just like these facts I guessed myself—they don't count as you telling me."

Tingting nodded again. She had experimented with this beforehand, and it was much as Su Man said. As long as she wasn't the one speaking aloud the unmentionable truths, her body would not undergo any changes.

"Is this change reversible?" Su Man asked, though she quickly realized she shouldn't ask it that way and immediately corrected herself, "It's irreversible, right?"

Tingting didn't speak, but her gaze and expression explained everything: the transformation was indeed irreversible.

"Do not have direct contact with Boss Zhu," Tingting warned her. In truth, Tingting didn't know what could be said and what couldn't; whenever she touched upon a forbidden topic that wasn't allowed to be spoken of, her body would undergo changes.

"You don't need to ask me questions. If you want to listen, I can tell you everything directly. I'm no longer afraid of anything," Tingting's emotions suddenly turned agitated. "If you hadn't appeared, if you hadn't given me the opportunity, I might never have resisted Brother Zhu in my life. I might have just died like that, and my child would have..."

What she actually left unsaid was that had Su Man not appeared to give her courage, even if her child had died right before her eyes, she probably would have swallowed her insults and ultimately been slowly worn down and killed by Brother Zhu.

Although Su Man hadn't done anything particularly extraordinary, she had given her the most precious courage to resist, which was why she was deeply grateful to her.

"Mm, I will let you speak, but not now." Su Man had her own plans. Tingting's opportunities to answer questions were limited; there was no telling when she might completely turn into a pig, and there were simply too many questions Su Man wanted to ask. "You can tell me after tonight's affairs are over."

By then, she would likely have figured out and grasped most of what she needed, allowing Tingting to answer the core questions for her.

Tingting nodded and said nothing more.

Huang Xin, however, felt somewhat unsettled. "Su Man, how can you be like this? I thought you were stopping Sister Ting from speaking because you cared about her, but it turns out you were saving her so she could answer your questions tonight. Have you ever considered that Sister Ting might completely turn into... you-know-what by then? Sister Ting has already suffered enough losing her child. I thought we were friends."

She muttered under her breath, "I even thought that once you became the team leader, you would help Sister Ting and me live better lives and help us get our revenge."

Su Man did not grow angry at these words; instead, she corrected her very earnestly, "When it comes to getting revenge, you shouldn't count on me. Your grievances have nothing whatsoever to do with me. Entrusting your hopes to others is the most foolish thing you can do.

Secondly, we are merely strangers meeting for the very first time. Don't trust that I'm a good person simply based on intuition—the truth is, I am not.

Therefore, don't try to use your so-called morality to bind me; it's useless."

Su Man could have lied, using a gentler way to resolve this matter, but that simply wasn't her style. With certain people, she didn't wish to deceive: if she wasn't, she wasn't; if she was utilizing them, she was utilizing them. At worst, they would just part ways. She was no saint, but she stood tall and open-hearted.

Hearing what she said, Huang Xin felt it made some sense, yet she also felt it wasn't quite right, though she couldn't find any words to refute it.

"Alright, Huang Xin," Tingting finally stopped her. "I know you mean well for me, but I am speaking of my own free will."

Perhaps it was the death of her son that had helped her see things clearly, or perhaps it was some other reason. She said, "Huang Xin, I've figured it out. If we are always afraid of this and that, daring to say nothing at all, our lives will never change. Without this Brother Zhu, there will only be another Brother Zhu to wear us down and torture us. You, me, and countless others in the future—none of our sufferings will ever be known. The truth of this place will forever remain buried in the darkness, and countless children of mine and yours will die in silence."

"Change always requires sacrifice." Tingting's expression didn't change in the slightest, yet a spirit of resignation to death radiated from her entire being. "I'm already prepared."

"Sister Ting..." Huang Xin's emotions were in turmoil, yet she could not utter a single syllable. She understood what Tingting meant, but she could not bring herself to reach Tingting's level; she lacked such lofty awareness and simply wanted to survive.

Glancing at the unperturbed Su Man, and then back at the resolute Tingting, Huang Xin stopped speaking, subconsciously feeling a psychological tier below them both.

Nighttime arrived swiftly.

Su Man didn't even return to the dormitory, choosing instead to stay at the breeding ground and keep watch, terrified of missing anything, especially since she only had two days to complete her primary task.

During this time, Tingting and Huang Xin accompanied her the entire way.

Su Man leaned against the window, casually exchanging a few unrelated words with Tingting. "You said earlier that change requires sacrifice, but what if that sacrifice is completely worthless? What if you make the sacrifice and nothing changes at all? Then you would have died for nothing. I've always lived by one principle: a miserable life is still better than a good death."

Huang Xin, standing nearby, turned her head with a tense expression. Truth be told, she didn't understand either. She knew Tingting had nothing left to hold onto, but... but... she didn't know how to describe her current feelings. Perhaps out of shared sympathy, she didn't wish to see Tingting die just like that.

Tingting did not answer Su Man's question directly. Instead, looking out the window, she brought up an entirely different matter. "I heard that an Arbiter has come to the factory. Those two who went to make trouble at Boss Zhu's place weren't actually troublemakers—they were Arbiters."

Su Man's gaze paused, though she quickly masked it. She turned around, pressing her back against the wall, her hand hidden behind her back tightening around the dagger. "Who did you hear that from? Your father? What is an Arbiter?"