Chapter 106: The Human Skin Drum (10)

Xingwen could not understand what she was saying, and his attitude remained extremely hostile.

"Keep your life first before you talk big!"

He spoke in a vicious tone. While tying up Tang Mu, he deliberately pulled the ropes tight and added slipknots for good measure.

Tang Mu was left hanging by the ropes, bound for the entire day.

Night fell.

The previously quiet village suddenly erupted with miserable screams. Judging by the direction, it seemed to be coming from Old Wang's Inn.

Tang Mu used the red string bell to cut through the ropes binding her and jumped down from the tree. She also untied the stone from her feet and tossed it to the ground.

After such a long prologue, the game had finally begun.

Tang Mu did not "disturb" the rest of the Black Bamboo Forest villagers; instead, she headed straight back to the village.

Old Wang's Inn was brightly lit.

The players were being slaughtered by the suddenly mutated monsters, with cries of terror echoing one after another.

"Ahhh! Damn it, why have all these things mutated? Where is the innkeeper? What about the receptionist? Are they both gone?"

"Those two ghosts are crafty; they must have run off somewhere long ago! What’s worse, they locked the front door of the inn when they left! Does anyone have anything that can pry open the door? I refuse to believe that with so many of us here, we can't kill these filthy things!"

This was the chaotic scene Tang Mu found upon her return to Old Wang's Inn.

She casually found a stone in the grass and smashed it against the iron lock.

One strike, two, three, four...

As the chain snapped, the people inside swarmed out.

"Tang Mu, where have you been?" Seeing her, the members of the A-Yu Association scolded her for always preferring to act alone. "We looked for you for so long and thought you were dead!"

Tang Mu ignored Ge Wenqian’s hypocrisy. "What happened in the inn?"

"The houseplants in the inn have all mutated. Look for yourself." Ge Wenqian pointed to the pothos plants, of which there were at least two in every room. "These things looked unremarkable at first, but who would have thought they would be the first to mutate?"

From their ordinary, plain appearance, they had suddenly pupated. The plant fibers had mutated directly into the shape of animal embryos.

That was not all.

The viscous, plant-based pupae had secretly crept from the pots, spreading into the rooms to attack the guests resting on their beds. By the time the guests noticed something was wrong, it was too late. Several people had already been swallowed whole by the mutated pothos.

"What are you doing?" Seeing that Tang Mu was not only refusing to run but actually intending to charge back into the danger zone, Ge Wenqian and Zhu Ya'an rushed to stop her. "Those things have eaten people, so their mutation speed has become incredibly fast. If you go in there now, you'll definitely be the next one to be eaten!"

"It’s precisely because they mutate faster after eating people that I must kill them before they have a chance to eat anyone else, and stop their mutation from accelerating further."

"Otherwise, once the entire village is filled with these things, you won't even have a place to stand. Do you still think you'll be able to run away alive?"

Having said that, Tang Mu stopped paying attention to Ge Wenqian and charged back in once more.

Ge Wenqian couldn't help but look at Qiao Yuan and An Xiaoying.

"Um, should we go in too and help her kill the monsters? After all, we’re in the same association."

An Xiaoying sneered, crossing her arms over her chest, and scolded Ge Wenqian, accusing her of not caring about the other members of the association.

"You and I both know what the situation is like in there."

"We barely managed to escape... if you want to go in and die, go ahead. In any case, Qiao Yuan and I will not go in to kill monsters just to save you."

"Right, Qiao Yuan?"

Qiao Yuan pursed his lips and nodded. "I have to be responsible for the entire association. Let's go."

And so, in the entire inn, excluding those who had already died, only Tang Mu remained.

The first and second floors of the inn were relatively normal, but on the third and fourth floors, many giant, pupated, insect-like eggs were hanging from the ceiling of the hallways.

The outer layer of the pupae was a green, transparent gelatinous substance. Inside the jelly, things were constantly churning.

At the same time, the "thump-thump" sound of a heartbeat emanated from within the pupa shells.

Seeing that these shells were hatching monsters, Tang Mu showed no mercy and took them out one by one with her blade.

She aimed specifically for the monsters' hearts.

The moment the knife was pulled from the gelatinous shell, it brought out a significant amount of thick, green slime.

It was utterly disgusting.

"Hiss!" A strange sound echoed from the depths of a corridor. Compared to the gelatinous pupae hanging from the ceiling, the thing inside was truly massive.

Tang Mu decided not to go deeper for the moment and used an item: [Eli's Gold-Rimmed Glasses (D)].

A pair of glasses that could see through anything. No matter how thorny the problem, wearing them would provide the solution you needed.

The scene before her eyes changed as expected.

The previously colorful world was reduced to only black, gray, and green once the glasses were on.

Black represented impassable routes.

Gray represented passable routes.

And the green fluorescent glow marked the location of the monsters.

Detected: [Mutated Pothos (E), (D), (C), (B)].

Exterminating E-rank mutated pothos yields no items.

Exterminating D-rank mutated pothos drops E-rank items.

Exterminating C-rank mutated pothos drops D-rank items.

Exterminating B-rank mutated pothos has a certain chance to drop C or B-rank items.

Mutated pothos are impervious to water and fire, but they are not without weaknesses. Please take a blade to the Black Bamboo Forest and cut down some bamboo. Black bamboo is the nemesis of mutated pothos and can thoroughly kill the mutated monsters.

However, one piece of black bamboo can only kill one mutated pothos monster and cannot be reused.

Immediately afterward, the durability of [Eli's Gold-Rimmed Glasses (D)] decreased by 10.

Tang Mu took off the [Eli's Gold-Rimmed Glasses (D)]. She retrieved several strips of black bamboo from the tight black bandages wrapped around her lower leg.

She had seen the villagers of the Black Bamboo Forest cutting down a lot of bamboo and had "borrowed" a few pieces from their processing area. She hadn't expected them to be useful so soon.

There were not many mutated pothos on the third floor; the majority were on the fourth.

For the low-level mutated pothos, Tang Mu simply used an ordinary dagger to pierce their hearts directly.

As for the trickier ones, Tang Mu used the black bamboo strips.

Perhaps because the mutated pothos were in the middle of digesting their prey, they were lying dormant and did not launch any swift attacks against Tang Mu.

Furthermore, as she reached the end of the fourth floor, she suddenly heard a man groaning weakly.

"Is... is anyone there?"

Tang Mu kicked open the door and saw a man with a distended belly lying in the middle of a bed surrounded by mutated pothos.