Seeing 12 hunched over, completely unaware of our arrival, I stepped up and asked, "Hey! Are you alright, kid? What's with the desolate look?"

Only then did 12 notice we were right in front of him, and he looked up with a distressed face, saying to me, "10, I'm sorry, I killed Boss Bai myself, because..."

My expression soured slightly, and I asked, "Because of what?"

12 held his head and wailed, "Because he wasn't human anymore!"

I urgently pressed, "What do you mean? Explain clearly!"

12 pointed toward the inside of the room and said, "You two go look for yourselves..."

2 and I exchanged a glance, then hurried toward the kitchen inside. The moment we crossed the threshold, we were hit by a peculiar odor that made us wrinkle our noses in disgust.

One look, and our hearts seized with absolute terror.

I painfully swallowed a mouthful of saliva and muttered to 2, "You were right, this really is a ghost village!"

2's face turned ashen, and he breathed, "Amitabha, committing such acts, what a sin..."

The reason for our thought process was simple: hanging from the kitchen rafters by ropes were several human bodies, stripped of their skin and cured into jerky, now yellowed and waxy.

There were three in total, all gutted, their faces contorted beyond recognition, making it impossible to discern who they were or what their identities had been.

The jerky made from human flesh lacked the savory aroma of pork; instead, it carried a strange, fatty smell that made one gag instantly.

And on the kitchen floor, for some unknown reason, lay a large, black rug. Stepping on it felt sticky, and an indiscernible slime clung to the soles of our boots.

On closer inspection, this pelt rug was unnervingly humanoid, though far larger than any normal person—almost twice the size of an average human.

Just as I was speculating whether it was ape fur or bear hide, 2 quietly chanted a Buddhist mantra: "Amitabha, look over there."

Following the direction of his finger, I looked next to the hide rug and saw a pile of tattered clothes—it looked like there was an apron, a thin sweater, and nylon trousers—the very outfit Boss Bai had been wearing today.

Connecting these clothes with the humanoid pelt on the floor, and recalling the messenger Yang Zhifeng had dealt with earlier, I suddenly pieced it all together.

The hide we were standing on was Boss Bai's pelt, and Boss Bai appeared not to be human, but a hairy demon of some kind.

And those pieces of human jerky? They were very likely made by this so-called chef!

The realization hit me, and I immediately felt my stomach heave, on the verge of vomiting from the meal Boss Bai had prepared just moments ago.

At that moment, 2 shook his head and said, "Don't throw up yet. I observed that at least during the day, Boss Bai seemed like a normal person, only transforming at night. And there was no jerky in the meal we ate, was there?"

Hearing that, I recalled the food we had consumed, dry-heaved a couple of times, and mumbled, "But we ate meat, maybe some of them hadn't been turned into jerky yet..."

2’s expression turned serious, as if deep in thought. Ten seconds later, he let out a loud wah and threw up violently.

Seeing him still being such a '2' even at this point, I lost the urge to vomit entirely and burst into loud laughter instead.

Laughing, I helped him walk out of the kitchen and sat down next to 12.

12’s face was ghostly pale. He asked me, "You saw it all?"

I nodded. "We saw everything. Stop talking about it, it’s truly sickening."

12 managed a grim smile. "Boss Bai asked me to kill him. His consciousness was relatively clear, but he couldn't control his actions. I’m sorry, I failed to keep my promise to let him live."

I patted his shoulder. "It’s okay, you did your best. Living like that, it was better for him to die quickly. Tell us now, what exactly happened?"

By this time, 2 had finished vomiting and looked to us for answers.

12 sighed and began, "Here's what happened... After you left, I sat guard by the restaurant entrance, watching out for any strange creatures or people approaching. My attention was completely focused, maintaining high tension."

"But after waiting for about half an hour, there was not the slightest movement in the forest ahead, nor did a single soul appear on the road leading into the village. I started getting drowsy."

"Even though I desperately wanted to sleep, I knew Senior 2's prophecy must be accurate, so I forced myself not to drift off. I thought of a good solution: going to the rooftop for some air, to clear my head and also give myself a wider field of vision to see more."

"So I climbed the rear wall of the building onto the roof. Sitting up there, gazing at the distant moon and feeling the slightly cold, sharp wind, I finally managed to wake myself up."

"But just then, I heard a strange noise coming from beneath the roof tiles—it sounded like someone was laughing, and while laughing, they were vigorously chewing something."

"I pressed my ear against the tiles and clearly heard the sound from below. It was a man talking to himself, like someone with schizophrenia, playing two distinct roles in the same tone."

"One voice said: 'This is human meat, you can't eat it. You should find a place to bury it; it looks terrifying!' That voice was filled with fear and breakdown."

"The other voice countered: 'You didn't hesitate at all when you killed them, yet now you're scared to eat the human flesh? Your wife and children are already consumed by you; these few people are damned spies—you should eat them all!' That voice held malice and perversion."

"My heart chilled upon hearing this. What's this about eating people, even his own wife and children? What was going on? Thinking this, I gently pried open a thin gap in the roof tiles and saw Boss Bai alone, with the lights on, standing in the kitchen, holding a cleaver, about to slice the meat hanging from the rafter. When I looked closer at the meat, it was jerky made from human flesh!"

"It was a minor miracle I didn't vomit right then, but the horror I felt cannot be described in ordinary terms!"

"Although Boss Bai was still arguing with himself, I couldn't move for a long time. Only after a long while did I manage to break free from the shock. At that moment, I realized I had to stop Boss Bai from eating human flesh!"

"So, I jumped down from the roof onto the stove counter. Then, I pulled out my dagger and declared, 'Boss Bai, you've killed people, you'd best turn yourself in. I heard everything!'"

"Unexpectedly, Boss Bai let out a howl like a wild wolf, and then his body slowly expanded, covered in dark hair. His clothes instantly tore into shreds. He looked exactly like a werewolf from an American movie."

"I was stunned, failing to notice him lunging toward me. He slapped the knife right out of my hand and sneered at me, saying, 'Excellent! We have one more piece of human jerky. You came right to our door!'"

"Just as the werewolf-like thing opened its jaws to bite my neck, the killing intent surged in me, preparing to use my ability to finish it. But the werewolf-like thing stopped mid-air, clutching its head and howling in agony."

"I watched as all the dark hair receded, and he returned to his human form, which bewildered me. At that moment, Boss Bai knelt before me, tearing at his hair, and pleaded, 'Comrade from the PLA, please kill me! Kill me! I truly don't want to hurt anyone else anymore!'"

"But as soon as he finished that sentence, the black hair grew back, and he lunged, knocking me to the ground. I was helpless, so I used my ability and pulled out all his internal organs, turning him into a skin!"

Hearing this, cold sweat soaked my entire body, and I was speechless for a long moment.

2, however, seemed relatively composed. He said to me, "I knew it would be like this, actually. Because the investigators sent by the higher-ups would never use someone with an unknown identity as our contact person. This implies that all our people might be gone. Boss Bai directing us to Old Man Li's courtyard was likely a trap in itself, only Old Man Li didn't expect us to be this formidable. This village isn't lacking in people; it's fundamentally a ghost village!"

I nodded. "So, that means the history of the village that Old Man Li told us must be false."

2 shook his head instead. "Not entirely false. I don't think he could have fabricated such a story on his own. They definitely found the Six-Armed Bodhisattva in that well, but what happened after they started venerating the Bodhisattva feels more complicated. Perhaps that thing turned the entire village into puppets to gather food for itself. That must be an incredibly terrifying monster, worthy of being an SSS-rank opponent!"

I was startled. "Are you saying that Six-Armed Bodhisattva is the second messenger we are looking for? But even if it appeared in the well, that was over ten or twenty years ago. Has a messenger been around since then?"

2 shook his head. "I don't know for certain, but this thing probably didn't appear in the last twenty years. Maybe someone was worshipping it back in ancient times, and it ended up thrown into the well for some reason. It seems our visit here is extremely valuable because this will lead to a major new understanding of the messengers."

Hearing this, a silence fell over us.

After a while, 12 spoke up, "Then... what do we do now? Are we supposed to spend the night here in this ghost village?"

2 shook his head. "Certainly not. We need to leave here quickly. If the other villagers find out Boss Bai is dead, who knows what might happen. However, before we do that, we still need to check the identities of these pieces of human jerky."