Chapter 151: Second Lottery Draw
The middle-aged man felt a bit helpless. Having sold pork for half his life, this was the first time he'd encountered a situation like Chen Ge's: "If you don't have anything else, just leave. I don't have a pig-slaughtering knife here."
"Then are these knives you usually use for sale?" Chen Ge was dead set on starting his livestream tonight. Whether it would be useful or not, he wanted to buy one and carry it with him first.
"If I sell them to you, how would I do business?" The middle-aged man had just finished speaking when a young man with dyed hair pushed through the crowd from behind. He looked about eighteen or nineteen, with his jacket tied around his waist, yawning.
Seeing the young man approach, the middle-aged man slammed the cleaver in his hand onto the chopping block, wiped his greasy hands on his apron, and walked toward him: "You finally remember to come back? Where did you run off to last night!"
"Hanging out with some friends, singing, then went online for a bit." The young man put on his earphones, as if he didn't want to hear the middle-aged man's nonsense.
"Why didn't you answer the phone?" Having chopped bones and cut meat for years, the middle-aged man looked much sturdier than the young man. He stepped forward and yanked the earphones off: "I'm talking to you!"
The earphones were forcibly pulled off. The young man covered his ear, stood in front of the middle-aged man without saying a word, and stared at him intently.
"Cat got your tongue? I asked you why you didn't come home last night? Didn't answer the phone either—what exactly are you trying to do?" The middle-aged man's voice was loud. Nearby shoppers, elderly men and women, started to mediate. The young man on the other side glared at the middle-aged man, grabbed his earphones, and ran out of the market.
"Come back!" The middle-aged man couldn't leave because of the busy business. He stomped his foot in anger, grabbed the kitchen knife from the board, and viciously hacked through a bone.
Watching his brutal display, Chen Ge wisely retrieved the money from beside the board, picked up his rooster, and left.
Exiting the farmers' market, Chen Ge was looking for his bike when the young man with dyed hair suddenly approached him on his own.
"Heard you want to buy a pig-slaughtering knife?"
"I don't want a new one. I need a butcher knife that's been used for a long time."
"We have one at home. Follow me, just don't let my dad see." The young man led Chen Ge to a residential building near the market. He had Chen Ge wait outside, and after a moment, came out carrying a red cloth-wrapped, rod-shaped object.
"My grandpa was a pig butcher. He was going to take this knife to his grave, saying he didn't want the family to continue this trade. But my dad insisted on keeping this old knife. After that, everything went wrong at home. He lost all the family savings in business, my mom's gone, and he ended up just slaughtering pigs at the market." The young man shoved the red cloth-wrapped object into Chen Ge's hands: "This knife is unlucky. I don't want to cheat you—take it for a hundred bucks."
Hearing this, Chen Ge grew curious. He lifted the red cloth and looked down.
His Yin Eye twitched, as if pricked by a needle, and took two or three seconds to return to normal.
Inside the red cloth was a single-edged dagger, nearly forty centimeters long. Perhaps because it had been soaked in too much blood, the blade was a dark red-black.
A blood groove ran down the center of the blade, and the wooden handle was covered in red lines like blood vessels.
Chen Ge swung it a couple of times—it was heavier than he'd expected.
"This knife feels pretty fierce."
Wrapped in red cloth for who knows how long, the blade was no longer sharp, but the aura it gave off hadn't changed.
"When I was a kid, I saw my grandpa walk into the pigpen with this knife, and not a single pig dared to squeal." The young man glanced at the red cloth and reached out to Chen Ge: "If you're satisfied, pay up."
"Not bad. This is exactly the kind of 'pig'-slaughtering knife I'm looking for." Chen Ge handed the young man a hundred yuan and left his phone number: "If your father asks about the knife, you can have him call me."
"What does he have to do with it?" The young man, stone-faced, took the money and went inside.
"Your father's a bit harsh, seems hot-tempered. But he's not having an easy time. As far as I know, there's no slaughterhouse near Hanjiang. If he wants fresh pork for the morning market, he has to get up at three in the morning to go to the suburbs and pick up the goods, just to make it in time for the early market."
...
Carrying the live rooster and the pig-slaughtering knife, Chen Ge returned to New Century Park. There was still some time before the park opened. Chen Ge took out the list he'd made last night.
"Rooster, pig-slaughtering knife, salt—all set... Three-star horror scenarios have an extremely high risk factor. If I can't come back safely, everything else is just empty talk." Chen Ge planned to turn everything he had into trump cards that could help him at critical moments.
He pulled out the black phone, scrolled to the bottom of the screen, and fixed his gaze on the horror roulette option.
To be honest, he had a certain psychological shadow over this feature of the black phone: "When I completed the daily task of expanding the haunted house, I got a free lottery draw that I never used. The haunted house has been open for so long, the accumulated screams are enough to exchange for another draw. If I draw twice, it can't all be vengeful spirits, right?"
For this kind of uncontrollable, luck-based game, Chen Ge always kept his distance. If it weren't for the pressure of the three-star trial mission, he'd probably continue to selectively forget about this feature of the black phone.
"Two chances—maybe I'll actually draw something life-saving." Chen Ge had always been decisive. He tapped the screen, and the roulette wheel started spinning.
As the wheel slowed down, Chen Ge clenched his fists: "Please don't give me another vengeful spirit!"
The phone let out a soft chime, and the pointer stopped at a certain spot on the wheel.
"Draw complete! Congratulations on obtaining a special item—White Valentine's Day Fruit (Appears with a 7% chance when Zhang Ya's affection reaches 'Deeply Devoted')."
"Sincere, pure, romantic, and clean. When you receive this gift, your friendship will be elevated."
"White Valentine's Day Fruit: A sweet fragrance lingers on your tongue. When you eat the fruit, Zhang Ya will appear."
"You have accepted the gift Zhang Ya never sent while alive. Zhang Ya's affection toward you has slightly increased."
After reading for a while, a sense of foreboding crept into Chen Ge's heart. He sat on the steps outside the haunted house: "I accepted the gift Zhang Ya never sent while alive—why does that sound so unsettling?"
A chill ran down his neck. Chen Ge turned around and found a fruit bag behind him. The packaging design was similar to the fruit bags in the dance room of West Suburb Private Academy.
He opened it and found only one white, soft fruit inside. What was a bit terrifying was that the fruit's surface bore the crying face of a girl.
"This face looks a lot like one of Zhang Ya's roommates. Did she make the lingering resentment of her roommate into a fruit?"
Stuffing the fruit back into the paper bag, Chen Ge felt he needed to calm down: "This draw didn't give me a vengeful spirit, but the prize is still related to one. Is it because I'm too close to the haunted house that I keep drawing these monsters?"
He brushed the dust off his clothes, went inside to wash his face, put the rooster away, then rode his bike far away from New Century Park.
"According to the black phone's description, the roulette has many types of rewards. Statistically, I should get something good by now." Chen Ge stood under the morning sun, facing it, and tapped the screen.
The pointer spun rapidly on the wheel, stopping after more than ten seconds.
"What did I get?" The morning sun fell on Chen Ge, as if gilding his body with a layer of gold.
"Draw complete! Lucky Vengeful Spirit Favorite, congratulations on obtaining a rare special item—Crying Tape (3% draw probability)!"
"The first time he listened to this tape, he noticed something wrong. There was an unremovable noise in the blank tape. He tried every method and eventually restored the content of the noise. It turned out to be the sound of his own desperate struggle for help as he was dying."
"Lucky Vengeful Spirit Favorite, congratulations on drawing a rare vengeful spirit again!"
"Note! After accumulating five draws of vengeful spirits, the title 'Vengeful Spirit Favorite' will automatically upgrade!"
...
The sun rose, and Chen Ge sat on the curb. He lit a cigarette and stared at New Century Park three kilometers away: "I knew I shouldn't have come this far."