Chapter Thirteen: Restraint

A pure white giant spider slowly descended along a silk thread, holding a stack of clothes in its two front limbs.

It landed in front of Liu Zheng, their eight eyes and four eyes glaring at each other.

...

Impatiently, the giant spider threw the clothes onto the ground and quickly scurried away.

“Hey, that attitude is way too rude,” Liu Zheng exclaimed, waving his tentacles and nearly smacking the spider’s rear.

“Logistics workers usually have bad attitudes. But you, kid, your temper’s really showing,” Niuma remarked.

“I can’t help it; I have irritability syndrome now,” Liu Zheng shrugged.

“I advise you to tone it down; the cafeteria isn’t like the outside world,” Niuma warned.

“I’ll try,” Liu Zheng nodded.

He picked up the new uniform and put it on.

The new uniform was a cloak with openings on both sides to allow his tentacles to extend freely.

It was quite large, perfectly concealing his form.

“You really look like one of those heretics from the old city,” Niuma teased.

“Really? I think it looks pretty good,” Liu Zheng said.

He sat cross-legged on the ground, placed his notebook on a small stool, and began practicing calligraphy.

Liu Zheng’s face was stern, like a stressed deep-sea fish.

The slender tips of his tentacles wrapped tightly around the pen, coiling again and again as if strangling prey.

“Sky,” he wrote the first character.

As expected, it was crooked and awkward; fountain pens were never designed for octopuses or jellyfish.

“Earth,” he wrote the second character.

This time, the strokes were much straighter, though every corner was rounded.

“With upright spirit, disorderly forms take shape. Below are rivers and mountains, above are sun and stars...”

He ignored the strange-looking characters and kept writing until the entire passage was complete.

“Isn’t it strange for a faceless monster to recite the ‘Song of Righteousness’ from memory?” Liu Zheng mused.

“Though I don’t know what the ‘Song of Righteousness’ is, whatever you write now looks weird,” Niuma quipped, looking up.

“Fair enough.”

Liu Zheng looked at Niuma’s large face and suddenly asked, “Boss, have you ever eaten a human?”

“Kid, you think you’re tough just because you’re no longer human? Want to arm wrestle me?” Niuma sneered and stood up.

Muscles bulged beneath its fur, which gleamed like metal.

“Let me tell you, even the executive chef and head waiter don’t dare talk back to me. I’ve eaten humans—men, women, old, young—how about that?” Niuma stomped, creating a shallow crater in the ground.

Flying gravel scratched Liu Zheng’s tentacles; a drop of blood appeared but healed instantly.

“Hmph, immortal body or not, you’re just a tough punching bag,” Niuma snorted.

“That fur of yours must be hard to maintain, huh?”

“Of course. I spend a third of my salary every month just on grooming products,” Niuma said, stroking its fur with a pained expression.

---

“Then you definitely don’t want to be around this thing,” Liu Zheng said, pulling out a fossilized dung sea maggot.

“Hmph, I can just take more baths,” Niuma said stubbornly, pupils narrowing.

“What if I bring this out? How will you handle it?”

He produced a lighter.

“Damn!” Niuma trembled suddenly.

Though a big explosion might not kill it, it would certainly burn all its fur.

“You crazy? What did I ever do to you? Are you trying to kill me?” Niuma asked, half frightened, half angry.

“Because I’m sick.”

“You really are.”

Niuma nodded.

“I’m seriously sick—with irritability syndrome,” Liu Zheng said seriously.

“I just want to survive, but I get beaten half to death as soon as I arrive; monsters everywhere want to eat me; one wrong word and I trigger a death flag; delivering food means being forced to eat things not meant for humans; I hear weird gospel; and in the end, I become a non-human monster myself. The most ridiculous thing is...”

“I worked so hard to finish the job and still can’t get paid.”

“Niuma, tell me, should I be angry?”

He stared at the tuft of fur on Niuma’s head.

“Aren’t you getting paid at the end of the month?”

Niuma asked, puzzled.

“What did you say?”

A flame suddenly flickered to life.

“Be angry, you must be angry. Anyone who isn’t is a fool,” Niuma said immediately.

“Good. Now stick your head over here.”

“For what?”

Niuma looked wary.

“What are you afraid of? You won’t get killed anyway,” Liu Zheng said.

“Hmph, I want to see what tricks you’re up to.”

Niuma decided that if Liu Zheng dared to pull anything, it would risk going completely bald to take him down.

Niuma’s large head leaned toward Liu Zheng, who rummaged in his pocket.

He pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

“Wanna smoke, boss?” he asked with a smile.

“???” Niuma looked utterly baffled.

“Smoke.”

It opened its mouth.

Liu Zheng stuffed three cigarettes into Niuma’s mouth and lit one for himself.

Smoke curled around them, filling the break room with a sweet, cloying aroma.

“Where did you get that Jiaxin Sugar 1916?” Niuma exhaled two smoke rings from its nostrils.

“Same place as the lighter—from searching the security guard at Yipintianshu,” Liu Zheng said, swallowing the smoke and savoring the burning sensation in his throat.

If this were before, he’d almost have coughed up his lungs by now.

---

Though the flesh mutation hadn’t cured his illness, it rebuilt his atrophied respiratory muscles.

“Hmph,” Niuma lifted its chin proudly.

Liu Zheng ignored it.

Niuma, feeling awkward, flicked its tail hard.

“This world’s about survival of the fittest. Don’t just think about humans—I, Niuma, have eaten people too.”

It took a deep drag on its cigarette.

“But I never ate humans on purpose. Those dead delivery guys weren’t because of me.”

“Keep smoking,” Liu Zheng said calmly.

The two of them fell silent and quietly smoked the entire pack.

“Besides Ascendant Moss, what else can you get to drink?”

He tossed the cigarette pack into the air, flicking it away with a snap.

“You want to make a deal with that tree?”

“You know it?”

“Of course, kid, you’ve only been here a few days,” Niuma scoffed.

“Boss is mighty,” Liu Zheng complimented just enough.

“Don’t. When you praise me now, I get itchy all over. I feel like you’re plotting to kill me,” Niuma waved its hooves anxiously.

“I really can get good stuff—at least enough to trade for half the tree’s fortune.”

It pondered for a moment.

“But the agreed trade is Ascendant Moss. If you want something else, that depends on the value of the level completion rewards.”

“Fine,” Liu Zheng nodded and pulled out his phone.

He clamped the phone between his knees, his four tentacles poised.

“Start.”

He pressed continue on the game.

Level twenty-one: the snake’s speed shot up again, and obstacles increased.

Yet Liu Zheng found it easier to play.

Not to mention he now had four eyes and four hands; just the stats from “Flesh Mutation” nearly doubled his dynamic vision and reaction speed.

Soon, he reached level twenty-five—the final stage.

“How did the last player get to level twenty-four?”

He panted slightly.

The difficulty increased exponentially in the later levels; if he were still human, he’d have made it only to level twenty-two at best.

“I never said a human played it,” Niuma shrugged.

“Heh,” Liu Zheng rolled his eyes.

Niuma chose to ignore him.

“Save.”

He took out a copper finger device.

It gradually faded away, and the “Next Level” button on the screen was coated in gold.

“Phew.”

Liu Zheng exhaled deeply and pressed confirm.