Chapter 120: Whose Skin?

cambodia-restaurant】

Inside the restaurant, wooden tables and chairs were overturned in disarray, and the plates on the tables still held plenty of uneaten food.

"Brother Lin, most of the dishes on the plates are insects."

Gao Tian prodded the food on the plate with his arrow, making out silkworm pupae and some unidentified seasoning.

Beside his foot lay a human-faced crab, only its head remaining, constantly opening and closing its mouth as it bit at the air.

"Hmm, let's check the back kitchen."

Lin An gave a slight nod, not surprised by Gao Tian's discovery.

Cambodia's specialty dishes consist of various insects, spiders, and fruit bats.

Some adventurous foodies who love novelty really enjoy this.

Back kitchen.

Gao Tian carefully used his arrow to pry open the stainless steel door, while Lin An walked behind, head lowered in thought.

Something inside seemed to be blocking the way.

Left with no choice, he had to shove it hard.

Clatter!

As the stainless steel door was pushed open,

A large amount of white chunks, like skin flakes, fell to the ground, kicking up white dust.

Cough—cough—

Gao Tian covered his nose in discomfort, waving his left hand to dispel the rising white dust.

"What... is this..."

Caught off guard, he inhaled a lot of the white dust into his mouth.

He suffered a dry cough.

"Brother Lin, cough... what... is this..."

Gao Tian kept trying to cough out the white dust, his face flushing red.

Before his eyes lay a dim kitchen, a strange odor wafting from spider cocoons of various sizes in the corners.

"Human skin dried to the extreme."

Lin An expressionlessly caught some skin flakes in his hand, rubbing them between his fingertips.

Hearing that, Gao Tian's face turned deathly pale, as nauseous as if he had eaten feces.

"These... are all human skin!?"

Lin An didn't answer, merely activating his Judgment Eye to gaze at the kitchen ceiling.

The ceiling was thickly hung with white spider cocoons, bulging as if they held much inside.

Swish

A blade flashed, and he precisely slit the cocoon with his long knife; the contents inside instantly spilled out mixed with pus.

Splash

What fell out resembled a newborn lamb, its fresh red and tender flesh exposed, utterly silent.

The bodies were curled together, making it impossible to tell what they were.

"What is this!?"

Gao Tian couldn't help but blurt out a question, looking up at the ceiling where he saw no fewer than twenty.

Lin An silently bent down, his fingertips touching the flesh of the corpse.

Beep, detected human corpse (skin peeled).

The system's prompt came through; the information from the Judgment Eye matched the system's, with no extra data.

He couldn't help but lower his head in thought, his expression somewhat strange.

Seeing Lin An remain silent, Gao Tian forced down his nausea, imitated him by squatting, but the instant he touched it and received the information, he jerked his hand back in fright.

"Brother Lin, is this human? Why does it look so strange? So tiny!?"

"The bones have been removed, so it looks this small."

"Did you see that pus?"

"No surprise, that monster likely injected toxin into a living person's body, then sealed it with spider silk."

"Once the toxin has corroded the bones clean, it can suck it up like drinking milk."

Hearing that, Gao Tian felt a chill and dry heaved, instinctively stepping back.

He couldn't imagine how painful it would be for a person to be turned alive into a puddle of pus.

Lin An ignored Gao Tian's reaction, slowly rose, and proceeded to open all the cocoons in the same manner.

In my past life, I've seen far worse than this disgusting scene.

Actually, it's not a big deal; the way humans eat animals seems extremely cruel and terrifying from the animals' perspective.

Splash—

He slashed repeatedly; in an instant, the entire back kitchen floor flowed with yellow-white pus, and twenty-three corpses collapsed to the ground.

Nothing special about it.

Only some corpses had melted more thoroughly, leaving just the eyeballs intact when they fell.

Retch—

Behind him, Gao Tian kept dry heaving, while Lin An gave a helpless smile.

He simply stepped over the corpses and walked toward the largest spider cocoon in the corner.

Swish.

The blade cut it open; inside was empty, only a thin blood-colored skin.

Lin An slightly furrowed his brows, reached out, took the skin from inside the cocoon, placed it in his hand, and examined it carefully.

"Ding, obtained?? Molted skin."

For some reason, the usually powerful Judgment Eye has given very little information since entering the fourth layer.

It used to eagerly provide even the molecular composition, but now aside from a brief explanation, there is nothing.

"Molted skin?"

Lin An's brows were tightly furrowed; the skin in his hand clearly looked humanoid, with hands and feet.

From the opening of the molted skin, one can see that the creature that molted emerged from the top of its head.

But the problem is, humans do not molt.

There are too few clues; Lin An let out a light sigh.

Gao Tian hadn't recovered his strength for a while; hearing Lin An's sigh, he couldn't help but feel doubtful.

"Brother Lin, what have you figured out?"

"What exactly happened here?"

Lin An slightly shook his head, intending to voice his thoughts. After all, two minds are better than one.

"Based on the current information, I can only speculate:"

"Around the time of the Apocalypse outbreak, that restaurant purchased a batch of edible spiders."

"Among this batch of spiders, one was contaminated and mutated, causing a woman who loved fresh food to be parasitized by spider eggs after enjoying the spider feast."

"After the Apocalypse outbreak, the woman, affected by the spider eggs parasitizing her brain, plus her own taste preferences, ate again three layers of problematic crab."

"Due to the stacking of multiple contamination sources, the spider eggs in her brain mutated, ultimately becoming... that Marrow-sucking Spider mutant."

"This is also why the equipment description dropped by the Marrow-sucking Spider includes a note about crab shells."

"Now we only lack the final clue."

Lin An paused, giving Gao Tian time to think.

"Go outside and look for any purchase records, from around November."

"Check whether the restaurant's spider supplier has changed sources."

"As long as the source is the same as the crab's, it has likewise been changed, possibly even the same supplier."

"Then all the clues can be connected."

Gao Tian nodded heavily; although his thoughts weren't as clear as Lin An's, he also roughly came up with these.

After Gao Tian left, Lin An crossed his arms over his chest, lowered his head, and sank into thought.

The cause of the Marrow-sucking Spider...

It should be that the woman was converted by the virus into a zombie.

And the spider eggs in her brain occupied her body, turning her into a mutant creature; the contaminated crab then caused another mutation overall.

Threefold mutation stacked, thus giving rise to the Marrow-sucking Spider.

And the cause of the newly appeared Human-faced Crab and the Marrow-sucking Spider is likely the same.

Except that the spider eggs in the woman's brain are mother eggs, the ones with the highest contamination level.

Thus, when mutating, the spider genes take up a larger proportion, turning into a Marrow-sucking Spider.

While the newly appeared Human-faced Crab is because the parasitic spider eggs are later offspring.

Therefore, the contaminated crab genes constitute a larger proportion, so it transforms into a Human-faced Crab.

With this speculation, everything seems to make sense.

But...

Lin An felt somewhat uneasy; he always felt it wasn't that simple.

Now we just wait for Gao Tian to bring back the purchase records; if the batch has been changed, then...

"Brother Lin, I found the purchase records!"

Gao Tian ran over to Lin An excitedly, holding a stack of purchase records.

"Brother, look here."

"Before October 29, the supplier was Xianmeiwei, with products originating from Guangbei Province."

"But starting October 29, the supplier for the Spot-net Bride Spider is Kaisile, origin Indonesia."

As soon as he finished speaking, Gao Tian hastily handed over a flyer stained with sludge.

"New variety just launched! Our shop's new specialties: sashimi spider, fried spider! Dare to try?"

"20% discount, first come first served! Deliciousness waits for no one!"

On the red flyer, in the lower right corner, there is a line of small print: activity start time number, limited-time 7-day discount.

"They changed suppliers! So indeed, as Brother Lin said, this new batch of spiders is problematic!"

"Moreover, this supplier and the crab supplier are likely the same company! Both are xxle!"

The photo on the list is exactly the Spot-net Bride Spider.

Lin An pondered for a moment; all the clues and information matched up.

His speculation was correct.

Now only one question remains.

Whose skin is this?