Chapter 861: The Head Chef's Gift

Exsanguination.

This player had no obvious external wounds. Judging by the blood trail, it would have taken at least five to ten minutes for a player to bleed to death. That length of time usually exceeded what items or characteristics could achieve—unless someone had been restraining this player the entire time. But if that were the case, not everyone in the carriage should have been wiped out. At least one person would have survived. Otherwise, this player wouldn't have died from blood loss.

Yet that was exactly how he died.

His mouth and teeth were completely clean. In contrast, another player's oral cavity contained traces of blood and human tissue.

Xu Huo tested this player with the Identification Fork. The conclusion was that he hadn't been poisoned, and his body contained no traces of anesthetic.

"This player actually died from overeating!" The female player who had arrived later sliced open a corpse's clothing. "I thought she was pregnant."

The people nearby looked somewhat disgusted by her actions. They glanced over, then quickly looked away.

By now, the situation was becoming clear.

"Were they killed by people from the carriage ahead?" Xiao Xianglin counted heads. "Not a single one got away."

"I don't think so," Xu Jinfeng said. "Normal people wouldn't be unable to tell when they were full. Most likely, they fell into an illusion and kept eating until they literally burst."

"You're not going to suggest it was me again, are you?" The female player tossed her hair.

Xu Jinfeng looked at her with suspicion but didn't make a move. Instead, he took several steps back to put distance between them.

The female player let out a scoffing laugh, as if she didn't care about anyone else in the slightest. She turned and headed back into her carriage to rest.

"No one came in or out of my carriage last night," said the player who had come from the carriage ahead. He paused, then added, "Everyone, be careful."

Watching him return to his own carriage, Xu Huo finally spoke. "What should we do? Should we split into two carriages? It's empty here anyway."

"I'd rather go back!" Xiao Xianglin quickly waved his hands. "Every other carriage is fine except this one—obviously a bad omen!"

The remaining players didn't voice their opinions, but after inspecting the carriage, they all filed out.

Xiao Xianglin dawdled at the back, pawing through the corpses. After a while, he muttered in frustration, "So many dead people and not a single item to scavenge!"

Xu Huo glanced at him, then was the last to step out of the blood-soaked carriage. He pulled the door shut behind him but didn't let it latch completely.

After exiting, he went to the restroom to wash his hands, then detoured to the attendant's corridor nearby to ask whether the dining car would be available today.

"Of course, sir. Would you like to reserve lunch?"

"Do you still have that set meal from the day before yesterday?" Xu Huo asked.

"No, we don't." The attendant said, "That was a special dish for the Head Chef's birthday. It's not sold on regular days."

"I thought it was quite tasty. Do you have any similar recommendations?" Xu Huo slid a thick stack of White Bills across.

This time, however, the attendant didn't accept his money. Instead, she said, "I can ask the Head Chef on your behalf."

"Thank you."

Xu Huo returned to his carriage, closed his eyes, and rested for a while. He waited until noon, but the attendant never showed up. He knew there would be no follow-up.

The events on this train ride had been chaotic.

First, there were players falling into inexplicable deep sleeps, along with the decapitation incidents that occurred in three carriages after the unconsciousness took hold.

Second, there was the collective hallucination among players. What he'd seen on the first night was most likely an illusion. Last night, Xu Jinfeng had immediately experienced a corresponding hallucination after listening to the ghost story. And then there were the players in the carriage ahead who had all died.

Looking at just the sleeping and decapitations alone, the culprit could be someone in the last three carriages.

But Xu Huo had seen a figure. Even during the daylight of the second day, he still felt a lurking sense of crisis following him like a shadow. Whether Xu Jinfeng's hallucination was real or fake remained uncertain, but at least two people in the carriage ahead had died from hallucinations.

Nothing had happened the night before last. Yet last night, everyone was wiped out.

On one hand, the hallucinations might have deepened. On the other hand, it could genuinely be a dietary issue.

After boarding the train, most players ate the same things. Yesterday's discussion between Xiao Xianglin and the others concluded that the Yellow-Haired Female Player and the elderly man's deaths had nothing to do with whether they'd purchased set meals. In reality, the biggest difference in the players' meals wasn't the set meal itself—it was the complimentary pudding that came with it.

The vast majority of people had ordered the set meal, but only those who sent gifts had received the pudding.

The meal trays had already been collected, so he couldn't confirm whether any players in the carriage ahead had eaten the pudding. But comparing the situation between the front and rear carriages, the carriage he was in had fared the best.

If the train hadn't provided any special food, then the current situation could be the work of a high-level player. It wouldn't be difficult for an item or characteristic to cover such a large area.

And if the pudding really was the Head Chef's "gift," then there might be another reason behind the events on the train. Besides internal conflict among players, there could also be a major external factor causing everyone to simultaneously fall into "slumber" or "hallucinations."

This wasn't hard to understand. Just like being in a special magnetic field environment where one might see images of the past or hear sounds from the past—if the train was passing through a similar location, the situation would only be worse than merely seeing and hearing things. In that case, deaths from "overeating" or "bleeding out" weren't impossible either.

However, the latter speculation lacked solid evidence, and this time the attendant had become less cooperative. So Xu Huo leaned toward the former theory.

Assuming there really was such a person on the train—whether they relied on items or characteristics to make players kill each other, or acted with their own hands—they could be anywhere, front or back. The best approach right now was to stay away from the crowd.

Likewise, if such a player didn't exist, then being alone was relatively safe.

Of course, the worst-case scenario was a combination of both: a high-level player killing on the train while a special situation occurred that only the train staff knew the details of.

Being able to drive a dozen or so D-grade players—and possibly even C-grade ones—to slaughter each other to death without ever waking up was more dangerous than mutants jumping off the train.

Xu Huo crossed through the empty carriage to the fourth carriage.

A glance through the window told him this carriage had suffered few casualties. On the first day, after Xiao Xianglin returned from his sales pitch, he'd mentioned that this train had quite a lot of passengers. The fourth carriage showed few signs of fighting, and the number of people exceeded half the seating capacity.

His appearance at the door drew the attention of a few players. But then the player he'd seen before took the initiative to stand up. After he walked out, the others withdrew their gazes.

Xu Huo raised an eyebrow and took two steps back.

The male player who had been sitting cross-legged in meditation at the station opened the door and came out. He asked with friendly concern, "How are things in the carriages behind?"

"People died." Xu Huo said, "You seem to be doing well here."

The man shook his head. "Last night, the situation in the fifth carriage nearly repeated itself. But everyone managed to stay calm, and nothing irreparable happened."

Seeing that he was easy to talk to, Xu Huo asked, "Did anyone in your carriage eat pudding on the first day?"