This is clearly the final "cleaning" process before slaughter.
Those who were deemed "suggested to be split up" were sent to the inhumane "fasting room" to await a brutal dismemberment, while the other two who were advised to be used as a whole experienced a completely different scenario.
The “breeding center” was a relatively spacious room with beds laid out in front of it. In front of the beds were soft lights and machines that did not appear to pose any danger.
The two individuals were art school graduates, and the scene they saw upon waking up was somewhat familiar—it reminded them of the beauty salon they frequented.
Sure enough, they were tied up and put on this bed. After lying down, soft light shone on their cheeks, and a machine probe reached out and first applied a gel-like substance similar to an essence to their faces. Then, a mechanical hand wearing a latex glove reached out and massaged their faces.
It certainly looked very peaceful. If it weren't for the fact that the entire room was filled with densely packed people, if the beds at the far end weren't being moved to another glass room by a conveyor belt, and if the glass room wasn't filled with cylindrical petri dishes containing people—they might really think this was ISSAC's last perk for them.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the factory, Yi Heye was taken to the medical examination center, where his "old acquaintance," Mr. Qin, stood before him.
"Mr. Qin." Yi Heye smiled innocently when he saw him. "Have you been feeling any better lately?"
Upon hearing this, Lao Qin, who had been smiling, suddenly froze and then his expression collapsed.
Old Qin did not answer his question, but said with great resentment, "It was God's will to spare your life."
"Is that a little sheep holding a cucumber?" Yi Heye held back for a long time, almost bursting out laughing.
Old Qin didn't know what he was thinking, and then dropped his harsh words: "I won't touch you now either, because God needs a clean sacrifice."
Yi Heye couldn't help but think to himself, "Isn't it because my tools for committing the crime were confiscated that I can't be touched at all?"
For some reason, perhaps because this person possessed a tragicomic quality, Lao Qin's appearance actually made Yi Heye less tense.
He first mocked Lao Qin in his heart for a long time before his slow reaction time began to savor what Lao Qin had just said.
—What does "God needs a clean offering" mean? Is this because Jian Yunxian's dream about the living sheep has messed up his brain, or is there another meaning?
Without explaining further, Lao Qin pushed him into the medical examination machine in front of him.
Old Qin seemed determined not to touch Yi Heye. Yi Heye, fully dressed, was scanned from head to toe, and when he came out, he saw his examination results.
"Popularity assessment: Passed (Grade: Excellent), Body data: Qualified, Health status: 95 points, Overall assessment result: Meets the qualified standard, Handling opinion: Prioritize selection as a sacrificial offering."
—Sacrifice? Upon hearing this word again, Yi Heye finally realized that this was not a coincidence.
Yi Heye turned to look at Lao Qin, who was now reciting with a devout expression—
"...If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock."
(If any of you offers an offering to the Lord, you shall offer an offering from your herds and flocks.)
"If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD."
(If his offering is a burnt offering of an ox, he shall offer a bull without blemish at the entrance to the tent of meeting, so that it may be acceptable to the Lord.)
"And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him."
(He will lay his hands on the head of the burnt offering, and the burnt offering will be accepted and will make atonement for him.)
Author's Note:
The English text and translation are excerpted from: Leviticus, Chapter 1 of the Old Testament.
(This is merely a quote from the original text and does not represent any real-world religious stance. Please do not interpret it literally.)
Chapter 111, number 111
At this moment, Yi Heye, who had just finished his physical examination, was lying on a special iron bed with his limbs firmly restrained.
In fact, with Yi Heye's explosive power, it wouldn't be difficult for him to break free from the current constraints. However, in order to perform the current script well, maintain his persona, and smoothly enter the final stage without any obstacles, he still obediently lay on the bed, pretending to be a terrified prey.
At this moment, Lao Qin was still muttering his English lines. His speech was unclear and his voice was not loud. His whole voice was mumbling, like a wizard performing a ritual. This corresponded to the previous talk of "sacrifice". Yi Heye's intuition told him that what Lao Qin was doing was very likely some kind of strange religious ritual.
At this moment, he deeply regretted not studying English properly. He could only hear a series of high and low, melodic buzzing sounds, but he couldn't understand what he was saying, which made him feel very insecure.
Finally, Old Qin finished rambling. He opened his eyes and looked at Yi Heye, who was turning his head to look at him. He then looked at his score and recommendation on the screen and smiled: "Truly worthy of being personally selected by 'God of Sheep'."
Yi Heye remained silent, only muttering to himself—what did this mean? Was he referring to the time SHEEP invaded his sweet dreams with three cucumbers? It was just a dream; could he have gone to such lengths as to become possessed?
Old Qin leaned closer again. His gaze, sharp as barbs, was fixed on Yi Heye's face, making one want to vomit: "Perform well in a bit—you're the best 'sacrifice' I've ever seen. I believe you'll win no matter what, won't you?"
Yi Heye asked, "What do you mean by 'win'? Who do you win against? What do you win?"
"The person you're going to beat is your senior who's right next to you right now," Old Qin laughed. "He was chosen by everyone's vote, embodying the public's expectations and aesthetics, but I've never worried about you, after all, you were personally selected by the God of Sheep."
Qin still hadn't answered the question he wanted to hear—what exactly was he going to compete against Tang Ruoqi in? Was it another popularity contest? Or was it going to be a singing, dancing, and acting competition again?
Despite having won once in this manner, and in a dazzling and spectacular way, Yi Heye still felt completely unsure of himself and firmly believed that he had no chance of winning.
“You should thank God. Last night I truly heard God’s will, which is why I overruled everyone’s objections and let you go straight to the final stage,” Old Qin said. “You must not disappoint the God of Sheep who loves you.”
Yi Heye listened to Lao Qin's nonsense in a daze. He thought that this man who was nearly forty years old might have eaten some food that was harmful to his intelligence, so that his mind was still stuck at a very immature age.
But he also suspected that Jian Yunxian had appeared to him in a dream again last night. This person's strange behavior was obviously guided and hinted at by someone.
In fact, he was right.
Last night, Qin, who had lost his weapon, was in so much pain that he couldn't sleep, so he turned on a holographic game to try and distract himself.
He knew what kind of game he was playing, so when a lamb wearing a cassock appeared before him with its hands clasped together, he was deeply moved.
His lack of intelligence was evident in the fact that he never suspected his holographic helmet had been hacked; instead, he immediately thought of the little sheep god holding a cucumber in his dream. In that instant, the place where he had lost his tool of the crime throbbed with pain again.
"Amitabha Buddha~" The little lamb in front of them, with a halo of Buddha shining behind its head, swayed and called out with its eyes closed, "This believer—"
The moment it opened its mouth, all the little monsters in the game's background turned into clumps of little sheep, and even the clouds in the sky sprouted pink sheep heads.
Old Qin had played holographic games for half his life, but he had never seen anything like this before. Instantly, idealistic thoughts took over his mind. Fear, awe, and uncontrollable physical pain made him prostrate himself before the lamb in reverence.
At this moment, the little sheep spoke up again with an air of composure: "Do you still remember the person I told you not to touch in my dream a few days ago—"
Old Qin's lower body tensed, and his whole body trembled violently—how could he not remember? If the Meng Po soup wasn't strong enough, he was afraid he would never forget it in his next life.
"I...I remember," Old Qin said, trembling as he covered the affected area.
"Bring him to me safely and immediately—" The sheep's emotionless voice, with its maximum reverb, echoed through the game lobby, "I want to see him right now—"
He glanced at the time; the next "Burning Sacrifice Day" was just around the corner. Old Qin suddenly felt that he understood the meaning of the Sheep God, so he obediently and sensibly brought the person over and even gave him a very thorough physical examination.
At this moment, he stood in front of Yi Heye, but Yi Heye was completely unaware that he was recalling the scene of "contact with God and listening to the gospel" in his mind. He only felt that this person's face was radiating an abnormally devout light.
Finally, the man snapped out of his pleasant memories and said to Yi Heye, "This is your last test. If you pass, you can 'truly' enter Area A—we've come this far, and I don't think you want to lose, right?"
Yi Heye looked at him without saying a word. He now suspected that Lao Qin's mental state was not quite normal, but he was still very concerned about what this "truly entering Area A" meant.
If I beat Tang Ruoqi, will I really be able to get into Zone A?
Just as he was having doubts, Lao Qin had already pushed him out. At this moment, the door next door was also opened, and Tang Ruoqi, who looked equally terrified, was slowly pushed out by another man.
Yi Heye had seen the man pushing Tang Ruoqi at the company. This man was a junior manager, roughly in the same position as Lao Qin.
It must be said that during his time with Jian Yunxian and the course of this underground mission, Yi Heye's understanding of interpersonal relationships and emotional experiences reached an unprecedented peak.
He glanced at the man's eyes, then looked back at Lao Qin, and roughly guessed their relationship—the two were probably competitors in the same field, like two top students' homeroom teachers in an exam hall, each hoping their student could outperform the other in the exam.
Sure enough, as the two walked side by side, they each let out a cold snort.
The man said, "Those who don't follow the rules will not have a good ending."
Old Qin chuckled lightly: "The will of God is the only rule."
Upon hearing this, the two glared at each other again and gave a sarcastic laugh.
In just a few short steps, they went from arguing to leaving a mess on the ground. Yi Heye tried hard to extract useful information from the bunch of strange words, and he roughly understood some of it.
They truly believed in a "god," and the two of them considered themselves the god's right and left arms. They would regularly offer "sacrifices" to the god in order to ask the god to forgive their sins and fulfill their wishes.
Listening to the two middle-aged men, around forty years old and seemingly mentally disturbed, Yi Heye felt utterly absurd and looked helplessly at the ceiling.
The conversation between the two seemed long, yet the patterns on the ceiling made it all seem short.
Soon, Yi Heye and Tang Ruoqi were pushed into a room that was empty and devoid of anything, which in turn fueled a wide range of terrifying thoughts.
With a "bang," the door behind them was slammed shut, and the two people were finally freed from their restraints.
At this moment, Tang Ruoqi was so frightened that her face turned pale, and she seemed unable to even stand steadily. But the instant she turned to look at Yi Heye, she revealed a very beautiful smile: "This variety show is really too professional..."
Yi Heye choked. He didn't know if this person was really stupid, so stupid that he thought he was participating in a variety show even after being kidnapped, or if he was just putting on a brave face and using such an excuse to cover up his fear.
Regardless of the reason, Yi Heye had no desire to speak. He tensed up and turned to look around.
It was a circular room. The floor they could touch was completely empty, but looking up, the walls were covered with cameras, microphones, and speakers from all directions.
For some reason, the circular area looked familiar to him, but he couldn't quite place where he had seen it before.
In a terrifying atmosphere, silence can amplify the fear in people's hearts many times over.
Tang Ruoqi was silent for a few seconds, then finally couldn't help but speak again, "What is this? Is it an escape room? Let's find the mechanism together."
Yi Heye had no patience to play any role-playing games with him, and tried to push the door open on his own, but unsurprisingly there was no response.
The door was locked from the inside; there were no hidden walls or windows.
It was the complete absence of any mechanisms in the room that made it all the more frightening—they almost simultaneously recalled the gas chambers in concentration camps during World War II, where people were stuffed into such sealed rooms and killed together with poison gas.
Tang Ruoqi's breathing became rapid, and she couldn't help but follow Yi Heye to his side.
An enclosed space only amplifies anxiety. Yi Heye also felt somewhat irritable.
He raised his foot, intending to kick the door he had just entered through, when suddenly Old Qin's voice came from the loudspeaker hanging on the wall behind him.
"Greetings, my friends. You are now at the final stage of our entire assessment," Old Qin said. "If you can succeed in this stage, you will have the opportunity to stand before the true deities, receive their teachings, hear their will, and thus fulfill your wishes..."
Yi Heye couldn't help but think that if the god you wanted to talk about was Jian Yunxian, then he had already fulfilled this "wish" eight hundred years ago.
"There are no rules for this final stage. You have only one goal—"
As Lao Qin deliberately prolonged his voice, the lights on the surrounding walls came on, making the two of them seem as if they were surrounded by spotlights on a stage, or as if they were being pierced by sharp swords from all directions.
Yi Heye suddenly remembered what the circular arena in front of him resembled—the Colosseum of ancient Rome.
"That means killing the enemy at all costs."
Author's Note:
What does my Buddha have to do with you Western crab legs?