Salted Fish Zombie

Chapter 54.2: Flower Servant (2)

July 12, 2023 by Wyrd

Although they didn’t see how the ‘human bouquet’ was made specifically, right now, they still felt that it was the most terrifying. But in the future, there might be even something scarier, like the ‘human bookmark’ this new customer had asked for.

The boss had someone measure the length and width of the book, and with the information about the flower servants, they dragged out a man from the first water prison. The players on their side breathed a sigh of relief.

Before they could let out that breath, they saw the boss drag out another man from the second water prison, and the third prison was not spared, either.

Finally, the boss came over to their side and started dragging people away.

The boss chose a male player who was about 175 cm tall. The player was slender, fair-skinned, and indeed very similar to the three men the boss had chosen before.

Realizing the horror of the ‘human bookmark’, the player whose face paled when selected by the boss shouted, “Let go of me!”

He looked thin but had great strength and pushed the boss away with one push.

The boss frowned and stepped back, letting the guards in gray clothes come in and apprehend him.

They had witnessed the power of the guards in gray clothes yesterday.

The players from the fourth water prison stood silently in various places, quietly watching the two servants approach.

The player shouted at them, “We must resist! With so many of us, we can definitely resist! If you think you can just watch from the sidelines this time, remember that we will all be sold. It will be too late for you when it’s your turn!”

Ning Su stood up and said, “I think he makes sense.”

Su Wangsheng: “...”

What sense did that person make? This guy just didn’t want to stay here and drink the green water again.

Zhu Shuangshuang also stood up and said, “He makes sense. Can we just wait here to die? The more players die, the harder it will be for us to escape. Now is the best opportunity!”

Su Wangsheng: “...”

He also stepped forward and said, “Although these gray clothed servants are formidable, we have more people and can give it a try. Even if we fail, it’s better than being controlled and manipulated.”

What they said made sense.

However, resisting the NPCs right after arriving in this instance was not a wise choice.

It was said that immediate punishment would follow, and it would be difficult to progress through the entire instance if the NPCs held a grudge.

Many players hesitated until it was time for that player to be taken away.

The guards in gray clothes entered.

And more guards in gray clothes emerged from the warehouse.

Even though the players shouted loudly, they might not have heard it.

When the first servant in gray clothing entered, Ning Su, who was the first to take action, grabbed a wooden pillar and kicked the other out in one go.

“Quick, let’s go,” he said.

His kick instilled great confidence in the players, and many of them followed him in charging out.

For the 98 players who wanted to break free, if there were only a few dozen people blocking them, their chances of breaking out were high.

However, the people in the other water prisons watched calmly and numbly, as if they had seen this kind of resistance many times before and anticipated their fate.

Even the boss showed no signs of nervousness.

Looking at their calm faces, a sense of panic arose within the players.

Ning Su initially felt fine, but after kicking away two guards in gray clothes, he realized he was running out of strength.

His energy was depleted, just like that.

Even if his stamina was low, it shouldn’t have vanished so quickly.

He noticed that it wasn’t just him; the other players also lacked strength, with several of them panting and resting their hands on their knees.

The guards easily dragged them away.

This rebellion ended in failure within two minutes, without even causing a ripple.

The guards’ actions were not rough; they were gentle. But the heaviness in the players’ hearts was indescribable.

When they hadn’t tried, there was still hope. They could speak in a relaxed tone, subconsciously believing they could escape.

But after they actually tried, a wave of despair weighed down on their hearts.

They couldn’t struggle, so they could only wait here for death in various forsaken ways.

When Ning Su was personally taken to the water prison by the boss, he saw Ning Changfeng leaning against the wall with his arms around his waist, unmoving. It seemed like he knew they couldn’t escape.

The boss grinned and playfully patted Ning Su’s head. “You should be delicate and tender like this. This is what a flower servant should be like.”

When he withdrew his hand, the smile vanished from his face.

Suddenly, the floor of the fourth water prison sank.

The water in the prisons was connected with the lake outside. With this sinking, more water flooded into the fourth water prison, rising ankle-deep and spreading up to their knees.

Now they all knew the reason behind their exertion.

It was these eerie waters.

These waters were slowly sapping their strength and potentially transforming their bodies.

The rising water level was their punishment for resistance.

In the neighboring water prison, a player suddenly burst into laughter.

She had been numb and calm all along, but something triggered her, and she laughed manically.

Her voice should have been hoarse, but she laughed loudly and sharply, piercing the people’s brain and heart, adding to the sense of oppression.

She laughed and turned her head.

All the players were more or less frightened when they saw her face.

Normally, the skin on a person’s face would hide the blood vessels. Some people may have thin skin where you could faintly see the tiny blood vessels, but it would still be faint.

On this woman’s face, the thick blood vessels were clearly exposed, distinctly visible, and you could even see the pulsation of the blood within the vessels, as if it was about to burst through the thin layer of skin.

A few of the blood vessels seemed to have ruptured, with blood seeping into the surrounding cells.

The sudden and clear spread of visible blood vessels, along with the diffusion of blood under the skin, made her face appear extremely eerie and terrifying.

It was not the kind of horror resembling a ghostly face, but a horror that went beyond the realm of human physiological understanding.

Humans have had extensive research on themselves, and they had acquired comprehensive knowledge about their own bodies. A belief had existed for hundreds of years of how a human’s body should be.

However, once it went beyond that idea and broke the deeply ingrained boundaries of awareness, a sense of panic would arise.

What further panicked them was yet to come.

When the boss saw her face, despite his usually composed demeanor, an unusual expression appeared on his face. “How did she mature so quickly? Take her to the warehouse for processing!”

The two guards, who were supposed to capture the male player in the fourth prison, immediately went to the third and dragged her out.

The female player seemed even more powerless than they were. She didn’t struggle at all as the two guards dragged her away.

She stumbled as she followed the two guards onto the bridge.

“Hiss—plop—“

“Hiss—plop—“

“Hiss—plop—plop—plop—“

The players were watching her intently, completely focused, so they caught these subtle and multiple loud sounds.

It sounded like something tearing through flesh and “plopping” out.

In the midst of their tension, the vivid colors were more noticeable than the sounds.

As they unconsciously caught these sounds with their ears, they first saw a small, sparse blood flower blooming in front of her.

That thin blood flower was like a faint firework released from somewhere, appearing clear and dazzling against the pale background of the guards’ backs.

“Plop—“

“Plop—“

“Plop, plop, plop—“

One after another.

Thin little blood fireworks bloomed, their sound also faint.

They rose from the blood vessels.

The blood vessels protruded beneath the skin.

Hard, straight, poking upward.

When blood vessels were cut, it was not immediately clear when they would stop bleeding. Instead of a gushing flow of fresh blood from the severed cut, there might be a thin and pale trickle of blood, almost resembling a delicate and faint burst of fireworks.

It could be described that when a hollow blood vessel punctured through the skin, it released a bubble filled with blood into the surrounding empty space, resembling a burst of blood-filled bubble in the vast expanse.

Because there was almost no blood left, the blood flowers appeared so thin.

“Hiss—plop—“

“Hiss—plop, plop, plop...“

More and more blood vessels emerged on her face, poking out of her scalp, poking out of her neck.

Even on her body, blood vessels protruded. Those blood vessels were thicker, piercing through the clothes and “plopping” out a bubble of blood.

With a head full of blood vessels, she tilted her head upward, staggering with the bubbles, sometimes standing upright and sometimes bending over, being dragged by the guards across the bridge and into that dark warehouse.

Her final figure before she entered the warehouse was full of blood vessels.

The entire courtyard fell into an eerie silence.

A few players rolled up their sleeves and looked down at the veins on their arms and the back of their hands.

Ning Su also looked at his wrist.

On his fair and slender wrist, dark blue veins were faintly visible.

There hadn’t been any changes in him, but his condition didn’t really represent anything.

He turned his head to look at Zhu Shuangshuang beside him.

Zhu Shuangshuang rolled up her sleeves to her elbows and stared at the veins on her wrist.

“It seems more prominent,” her voice sounded a bit panicked, and there was a trembling quality to her trailing tone.

It’s not surprising for her to react like this. After witnessing that scene just now and looking at her own veins, it would be weirder for her not to show any reaction.

The arms of a few people were trembling, as if the veins were about to burst through their skin.

She was still relatively okay.

She turned her hand over and looked at the veins on the back of her hand. “Yes, Su Su, it’s more prominent, right?”

Ning Su’s voice was steady and gentle as he replied, “They have become thicker, or perhaps even harder.”

“Yes,” Zhu Shuangshuang nodded anxiously, “That’s it! That’s how it was on her face.”

Even if you could see the veins on a normal person’s face, they would be fine capillaries. But the veins on that woman’s face were very thick, which was one of the reasons why her face looked so horrifying.

Su Wangsheng asked solemnly, “Why would they make our veins thicker? What does it have to do with the flowers?”

Zhu Shuangshuang also thought of a reasonable explanation for a moment. “Is it for the patterns on the petals? Some flowers have prominent patterns of the same color. Should we call them variegations?”

While they were still discussing, the guards entered the water prison again.

This time, everyone knew what they were going to do.

The buyer for the ‘human bookmark’ was still here. After the interlude just now, they were going to continue selecting flower servants for that buyer.

The male player chosen by the boss swallowed hard, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead as the guards approached.

After listening to the screams last night for so long, he knew what a ‘human bouquet’ was. When he heard about making a ‘human bookmark’ today, he was already aware of how bloody and horrifying it would be.

Having seen what happened just now, the fear for this instance weighed heavily, pressing down so intensely that it was hard to breathe, especially for the one chosen.

The other players could only watch; they had tried but couldn’t resist or save him.

The guards wore black boots, heavy and sturdy like the boots on a battlefield. Each step left a deep footprint.

“Pat-dap.“

“Pat-dap.“

Step by step, getting closer.

The male player’s gaze grew more and more fierce.

As the guards were about to cross the bridge and reach the entrance to the fourth water prison, a warm splash of blood landed on Ning Su’s face.

The blood was warm, fresh, almost causing Ning Su’s veins to throb.

At the same time, there was a suppressed groan of pain and the sound of a person falling to the ground.

The seemingly slender and handsome male player, with the strength he had gathered, forcefully tore off his own arm.

Now he was writhing on the ground in pain, biting his pale lips until they bled, the blood vibrant and glaring.