– HWHIFG | Volume 1 – Chapter 5

This was a cruel form of torture.

After being forced to watch its companion get eaten alive, the eagle-headed monster now had to helplessly observe as the players hollowed out and skinned the remainder of its comrade’s corpse.

Wu Wang was still dissatisfied.

“Wuuu… woof!”

As if it wasn’t enough to get stuck between his teeth.

In fact, eating had only made him hungrier.

“…Brother, please endure it.” Xiao Tao glanced up at the hunger value above Wu Wang’s head, which had already bounced back to [999], then took a deep breath and sewed even faster with the needle and thread he’d pulled from his inventory.

Meanwhile, Zhou Mo crouched nearby scratching his back while studying the paper fragment.

“Experiment… Why would something like this exist in Heaven? Angels can’t possibly be doing experiments, right?”

“Could’ve been left behind by dead players,” Fu Guang replied lazily while leaning against the railing again. His long legs, wrapped in black suit pants, crossed loosely, making them appear even straighter and stronger in that posture. “Or it belongs to an NPC in the dungeon.”

“You should keep an eye out for more scraps later. Solitary Boat dungeons always hide plenty of stories.”

Wu Wang turned his head and flicked his tail unhappily, like a construction foreman displeased with a lazy subordinate.

Fu Guang’s honey-gold eyes met Wu Wang’s gaze.

“What?”

He slightly raised a brow, showing absolutely no intention of reflecting on himself. Instead, he shamelessly continued chatting:

“I forgot to ask earlier. Since you have a pocket watch, you should’ve received a quest too, right? What is it?”

Wu Wang: “…”

Licking his lips, he adjusted his paws while lying down, turned his head away, and presented Fu Guang with a perfectly round fluffy back-of-the-head.

“…” Xiao Tao felt speechless on Brother Husky’s behalf. “Friend, are you really expecting a dog to answer your questions?”

After a pause, he added:

“Brother Husky’s quest is just to survive for ten days. No extra requirements. My skill scanned it earlier.”

“What?! Just survive ten days?”

Zhou Mo couldn’t help interrupting.

“Our quests are all insanely difficult, so why is Brother Husky’s so simple? Earlier I guessed our quests differed because of strength or experience. But Brother Husky’s… is it because he’s a dog? Does he get special treatment?”

Xiao Tao couldn’t explain it either.

“I’ve never encountered an animal player before. Anyway, everyone try squeezing into this protective suit.”

Time was tight, so Xiao Tao obviously couldn’t hand-sew clothing for everyone. He could only stitch the monster skin into a giant sleeping bag and have everyone crawl inside before sealing the opening shut.

“Woof!”

Wu Wang swept his tail sideways, nearly knocking over Zhou Mo, who had been eagerly trying to crawl in first.

“Ow—!”

Zhou Mo windmilled his arms and barely regained his balance before turning back pitifully.

“Does Brother Husky want to go first? Please, please, after you…”

He bowed and scraped while muttering to himself. Brother Husky usually kept his tail low and rarely wagged it, and his ferocity was terrifying…

Could it be that his bloodline was especially pure? More wolf than dog? Was he treating himself as the pack leader and trying to take charge?

Xiao Tao expressionlessly slapped a prop card onto his face.

“Have some common sense. Wolf pack leaders bring up the rear. Brother Husky’s worried the spikes all over you will rip the hide.”

The item Xiao Tao used on Zhou Mo was a disguise card. It wasn’t flexible and could only transform someone into one fixed appearance.

Not only had Zhou Mo’s studded leather jacket changed, even his face had changed too.

Wu Wang couldn’t help sneaking several glances at the “cub.” In the end, however, he still shyly jumped into Xiao Tao’s arms.

At some point Fu Guang had drifted close again and thoughtfully extended his arms from the side.

“You probably shouldn’t interfere with Xiao Tao sealing the opening. Let me hold—”

“WUUUUUUUU—”

A deep, majestic war horn suddenly blared beneath their feet.

The earth and sky trembled together.

The glowing road they had walked earlier abruptly lit up again, erupting simultaneously with holy feathers and a stench of rot.

“—The retreating angels have returned!!”

Xiao Tao reacted immediately, searching frantically for cover, but the only thing nearby was the crude skin sack beneath them.

“—Damn it! Do the other angels in Heaven also have movement restrictions?!”

“No no no no they don’t!” Zhou Mo instantly rediscovered his core personality trait—terror. “We’re screwed, screwed, screwed! If they see their companion turned into a sleeping bag, won’t they rush over for revenge?!”

The platform was dazzling white and utterly empty, with nowhere to run.

Desperate, they could only gamble recklessly.

Holding Wu Wang, Xiao Tao shoved Zhou Mo into the sack. Just as he sealed the opening, Fu Guang bent down and climbed in too.

For some reason, this man looked graceful even while crawling into a sack. What should’ve been a humiliating movement somehow resembled a noble young master elegantly lifting a curtain to step onto a Jiangnan pleasure boat.

Unfortunately, nobody had the leisure to appreciate elegance at a moment like this.

Cradled in Xiao Tao’s arms, Wu Wang could feel a thin body squeezing closer in the darkness, trembling like a drowned chick.

“B-b-bro… d-do you think hiding like this will work?”

Xiao Tao lowered his voice.

“You’ll have a better chance of surviving if you talk less.”

The opaque hide blocked their vision, making every sound outside far sharper.

Wu Wang heard countless wings beating beyond the skin sack.

The wet squelching noises probably belonged to angels with too many eyes rolling their eyeballs around—

“—!”

Pressed beside him, Zhou Mo sucked in a sharp breath and silently screamed through clenched teeth:

“They’re getting closer! They’re coming toward us!”

The sound of wings rapidly approached.

From the direction alone, everyone could imagine the hideous angels gathering into a massive vortex sweeping toward them.

Silently, Xiao Tao drew his blood blade, prepared to fight to the death.

Meanwhile, Wu Wang turned his head within Xiao Tao’s arms and hungrily licked his lips.

—Food was flying outside.

He wanted to eat.

Unable to resist, he lowered his front body into a hunting posture, tail raised high—

And then someone pressed down on his butt.

Wu Wang: “!?”

“No need for Brother Husky to act yet.”

Fu Guang chuckled softly. In the cramped darkness of the sack, his voice sounded slightly muffled, though its pleasant tone remained unmistakable.

“This can be solved with nothing more than a concealment item.”

The enormous vortex outside swept rapidly closer. When it passed overhead, it narrowly missed them by mere inches and flew safely beyond.

The angels, who should have possessed keen senses, circled overhead as if blind and deaf.

Though unwilling to leave, they couldn’t detect the traces of several living humans no matter how hard they searched. They couldn’t even hear Wu Wang’s outraged protest barking after he recovered himself.

“Woof! Woof woof!”

Wu Wang was so furious that even the fur at the tip of his tail puffed up. His thick tail nearly doubled in fluffiness.

After relaxing slightly, Xiao Tao also spoke accusingly:

“How can you casually touch Brother Husky like that? Are you trying to stop him from going out to eat his fill, so you’ll still have an excuse to drag us into Hell?”

He openly laid his cards on the table again.

“Seriously, just say it already. Why are you so determined to drag us to Hell? It’s not like I’ve never accepted suicidal NPC quests before.”

“What NPC?” Fu Guang acted as if he genuinely didn’t understand, as though he hadn’t nearly murdered them earlier himself. He even sighed helplessly.

“I truly only want to go to Hell because of my quest.”

“Your suspicion is a little too strong. I really am not a monster. If using the pocket watch in front of you is the only way to dispel your doubts…”

He raised his hand.

The pocket watch he had previously refused to show now rested openly in his palm. With a light press of his fingertip, it snapped open.

A fluorescent projection appeared against the inside wall of the skin sack. He concealed his name and part of his inventory.

“Look. I’ll display my skill in front of you. Is that enough to prove my sincerity?”

Wu Wang’s attention was immediately stolen by the glowing screen.

════════

[Skill: Cat and Mouse Game]

[Skill Rank: A]

[Skill Description:]

How does one become a thief or a con artist?

First: possess skin thick enough to withstand knives and bullets, so you can lie without changing expression.

Second: possess a heart of stone, so you can strike without hesitation.

[Inventory:]

Concealment Talisman ×2 (already used)

…

════════

The unhidden section also revealed the dungeon quest:

[Quest:]

Adopt a little demon and feed it ten times (0/10)

════════

Fu Guang snapped the pocket watch shut and shook it lightly.

“Believe me now? My skill can only barely be considered defensive. It has no offensive capabilities. It strengthens my skin’s toughness and the hardness of my heart, so even if my heart is stabbed, I won’t die.”

“You saw the first row of my inventory too. I only had two concealment talismans. The first was used in Eden, and the second just now. Both are gone. If you still don’t trust me after I’ve used my only concealment tools… then I’m truly being wronged.”

Fu Guang lowered his pale eyelashes, looking exactly like a tragic beauty illustration.

“Even Cassie doesn’t trust me?”

Wu Wang, once again forcibly dragged into the conversation: “…”

Don’t ask me. You won’t get answers.

The dog silently shifted his butt deeper into Xiao Tao’s arms, carefully guarding against a certain handsy two-legged creature trying to pet him again. He even used one paw to stomp his fluffy tail deeper into Xiao Tao’s embrace for maximum security.

Xiao Tao, who could see the subtitles, remained unimpressed as he stared dead-eyed at the label hovering over Fu Guang’s pocket watch:

[???]

A beauty lowering his gaze should have inspired sympathy.

Instead, Xiao Tao found it horrifying.

Only the warm Brother Husky in his arms gave him any sense of reassurance.

Sure, Brother Husky’s stats often displayed [???], but at least the pocket watch itself was still identified as [Pocket Watch].

Unlike this unknown lifeform before them—whose entire body was covered in [???], and whose pocket watch also displayed [???].

Who knew what terrifying thing that pocket watch was disguised from?

And now monsters inside dungeons had evolved enough to imitate pocket watches too? They even knew about skills and quests…

How were people supposed to distinguish players from monsters in the future?

Wu Wang merely felt himself being squeezed tighter and tighter until, uncomfortable, he wriggled free and jumped down.

“Woof!”

A short subtitle floated up:

[Food. Flew away.]

That single line perfectly conveyed Brother Husky’s reluctance and starvation while also reminding Xiao Tao:

“Did all those angels leave already?”

“I think so. Thank goodness for Brother Fu— uh, Brother Fu Guang’s concealment talisman!”

The innocent middle schooler had completely accepted Fu Guang’s self-proof. While climbing out of the sack, he even kindly reached back to pull Fu Guang up.

“I—Brother Fu Guang, are you avoiding me because you think my hands are dirty? I tried pulling you up and you dodged.”

Zhou Mo sounded a little hurt.

Fu Guang responded with a sincere, gentle gaze. His golden eyes resembled flowing honey.

“I’m just not very used to physical contact.”

Zhou Mo: “? But earlier you voluntarily tried to hold Brother Husky.”

Fu Guang: “Did I?”

Zhou Mo looked confused.

“Yeah.”

“…”

Fu Guang smiled.

Zhou Mo: “?”

Gradually, realization dawned on him.

“…”

…So this was a man whose skill literally included the words “liar” and “thick-skinned.”

His lie had already been exposed and he couldn’t even be bothered patching it up.

The genuinely rejected Zhou Mo climbed to his feet in sorrow. Turning in place, he could only vent his emotions at the eagle-headed angel still standing there trying to challenge the limits of neck extension.

“What are you staring at?! You think only your eyes are round?!”

The eagle-headed angel, who naturally possessed bird eyes and therefore round eyeballs:

“…”

Xiao Tao packed up the skin sack and cast the eagle-headed angel a sympathetic look before departing.

“Goodbye.”

Zhou Mo leaned against Wu Wang’s front paw, borrowing the dog’s authority.

“Bye-bye!”

Fu Guang considered briefly before politely joining in:

“Until we meet again.”

Wu Wang…

Wu Wang rewarded the eagle-headed angel with a bite.

[Hunger Value: 999]

Wu Wang: “Ptooey.”

Worthless bird monster.

Not even enough for his teeth.

No need to meet again.

════════

After politely bidding farewell to their temporary neighbor, the group stepped back onto the glowing road.

Halfway down, while hidden beneath the skin sack again, Zhou Mo resumed chattering:

“Doesn’t this feel like one of those garbage chutes from American TV shows? We’re just sliding down the pipeline like tras— uh.”

That comparison wasn’t very elegant.

Zhou Mo dared apply it to himself, but not to Brother Husky or Fu Guang.

He laughed awkwardly and forcibly changed the subject.

“Haha… what a shame though. I was hoping we could stop by the human world and gather supplies.”

Using the sack for freefall was fine, but walking around the human world inside it? Not so much.

Fu Guang kindly filled in more common knowledge for Zhou Mo.

“Black Tower dungeons are always like this.”

“Listen carefully before entering a dungeon. The system announces which dungeon you’ve entered. Black Tower dungeons are small but high difficulty—essentially closed regions. White Tower dungeons are large but low difficulty—essentially open worlds.”

As a game-loving student, Zhou Mo instantly understood.

“So that’s the difference… Wait, then why are they called towers? Isn’t the game called Solitary Boat? Why not Black Boat and White Boat?”

Fu Guang returned to pretending ignorance.

“No idea.”

This glowing path connecting directly to Heaven was long and perfectly straight.

Passing through the darkness-submerged human world, it ultimately led directly to Hell—

Assuming, of course, that the “bottom” where they landed truly was Hell.

The skin sack was clawed open by an impatient Wu Wang. A wet dog nose emerged first, followed by an entire fluffy but destructive dog.

Xiao Tao failed to stop him. Zhou Mo crawled out after Wu Wang.

“—Holy crap, it’s dark!”

Thick darkness surrounded them. If their bodies hadn’t felt no corrosive pain, Zhou Mo would’ve thought they’d accidentally wandered into the dungeon boundary.

And within that darkness floated two clusters of cold blue fire suspended in midair right beside them—

Wu Wang calmly barked while watching Zhou Mo’s expression slowly turn horrified.

“Woof.”

Even so, Zhou Mo still froze for a second before finally exhaling in relief.

“Oh. It’s Brother Husky. Seriously, your eyes are insane. A dog’s eyes should at least need reflected light to glow, right? This place has zero light, but your eyes are still blazing like copper chloride burning violently.”

Darkness naturally triggered instinctive fears of hidden monsters, causing Zhou Mo to lower his voice unconsciously.

While packing away the skin sack, Xiao Tao asked with faint reverence:

“They teach this stuff in middle school now?”

“No…” Zhou Mo scratched his head. “I just like reading random books. You know, in case one day I transmigrate to ancient times and can pull off some ‘The Great Chu rises, King Zhou Mo ascends’ kind of stunt.”

Xiao Tao: “…………….”

He could genuinely imagine it.

After all, a giant blue-flame subtitle was floating right in front of his face:

[Hungry.]

The fiery text was practically smashing into his nose.

“…Let’s move. Brother Husky’s hungry.”

It didn’t matter that they couldn’t see the road ahead. Seeing Wu Wang’s blue eyes was enough.

As they carefully followed along, Zhou Mo continued babbling nonstop, changing topics wildly:

“So weird. Is this really Hell? According to books, Hell should be a sea of sulfur and fire.”

“This skin sack works great. Wish we could keep it.”

Amid the chaotic footsteps, only one pair remained calm and steady.

Fu Guang casually responded, sounding in an unusually good mood:

“You can keep it. Even if you don’t use it yourself, there are plenty of auction houses in the White Tower world. Handmade items like this can be sold.”

Xiao Tao snorted.

“Oh, so now you know about auction houses too? Weren’t you saying earlier you never interact with players?”

Fu Guang didn’t answer.

Even without answering, nearly everyone simultaneously recalled the image of him smiling at the rejected Zhou Mo earlier.

Zhou Mo, once again assaulted by fresh traumatic memories:

“…”

“Hey!”

A voice suddenly emerged from the darkness ahead on the right.

The rough male voice was lowered urgently.

“Who lit a fire? Put it out quickly! The monsters here can’t stand fire!”

Zhou Mo instinctively moved to comply before realizing the “fire” was Brother Husky’s eyes.

There was absolutely no way to extinguish them.

As he hesitated awkwardly, two sets of footsteps—one heavy, one light—approached. This time a woman spoke:

“You guys— huh? Big Boss Fu Guang!”

Her voice brightened with obvious delight.

“What a coincidence! Earlier you saved our lives before we could even repay you, and then we separated. I never expected to meet you here!”

Wu Wang sniffed the air and suddenly swept his tail silently against Zhou Mo, who was already trotting excitedly forward.

Xiao Tao didn’t need the reminder. He’d always been suspicious by nature, and anyone trying to cozy up to the “iron wolf” in his eyes immediately got treated as suspicious by association.

“Big Boss Fu Guang? Saved you?”

“Yeah!” the woman replied. “Dike and I are mercenaries—the kind who make money capturing bounties. Earlier we got trapped in a dungeon and nearly couldn’t escape. Big Boss happened to pass by. We called for help without much hope, and he immediately stepped in to save us!”

Zhou Mo didn’t think deeply.

“He saved people immediately without hesitation? He’s that nice?!”

Wu Wang swept Zhou Mo with his tail again, stopping the cub from trying to approach once more.

His sensitive ears rotated halfway backward.

The relaxed, lazy footsteps behind them had stopped at some unknown point.

“If he hadn’t nearly killed us the moment we met, I might’ve believed that.”

Xiao Tao continued icily, ruthless as an evil stepmother.

“How do you prove you’re players? How could it be such a coincidence that you appear the moment we arrive? And in this pitch-black place, how can you even see Big Boss Fu Guang’s face?”

“That’s because we infiltrated the enemy camp and temporarily accepted monster assimilation,” the male voice replied helplessly. “As for the coincidence… how do we prove that? All I can say is that we’re currently acting as gatekeepers for the monsters, so that’s why we’re standing here.”

“Yeah, Boss,” the woman urged. “Let’s stop talking here. We can explain everything once we reach the safe zone.”

Fu Guang chuckled again, warmth laced with mockery.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“I never accept invitations from dead people.”