What to Eat?

Within the swamp of the soul space, Karen slowly raised his head. His entire body was caked in grime, leaving only his head clean. This was neither the hunger addiction's mercy nor its grace, but merely its need to draw upon Karen's power. Because of this, Karen could see everything happening outside, including Ankara's smile. Nearly every record concerning Ankara and the God of Order in the Light of Order revolved around a single theme: deep paternal love. The only exception was likely the ending—Ankara committed a transgression and was cast into the jaws of a ferocious beast, her body torn to pieces, thereby giving rise to the Light of Order. It was as if all the preceding buildup existed solely to craft a tragic atmosphere for that finale. Yet Karen knew that much of what the Light of Order recorded about Ankara was true—a profoundly genuine veneer. Whenever she faced the God of Order, a sweet smile always graced Ankara's face, and her voice was always crisp and melodious. Seeing that sweet expression now, however, subconsciously brought another young woman to Karen's mind—Daina. Daina assumed the exact same posture whenever she faced the High Priest and her uncles. They both worked tirelessly to perform for the world and for themselves, staging a picture of warm, gentle affection. And the figures they flattered required them to play along. Whether intentionally or not, a transcendent status invariably forged a self-centered dynamic in which everyone around you, actively or passively, had to fall in line with your rhythm and preferences. As Karen was lost in these musings, he did not know that not long ago, that very young woman Daina had grouped him into that exact same category. At present, only one question occupied Karen's thoughts: Would Ankara truly submit to being eaten by the hunger addiction as obediently as she appeared? Although this Ankara was merely a fragment of consciousness refined from one of the thousands of shattered remains gathered by the Moon God Church, she was Ankara after all. Karen understood the stubbornness buried in her bones. Could a woman who dared write "Order" upon a bookmark truly accept a fate of being devoured without resistance? ... The smile on Ankara's face did not fade. A burst of brilliant fire ignited across her body, accelerating her dissolution as though she were willingly cooking herself. Salayina's physical form gradually melted away, pooling on the floor as a puddle of moonlight essence—the lunar quintessence she had absorbed day and night as a devotee of the Moon God. Salayina's soul was also unraveling. Rings of lunar halos rippled continuously, flecked with sparse flakes of golden foil: the soul source interwoven with the heritage of a Child of God. Finally, there was the part belonging to Ankara. It gradually transmuted into a black blade, hovering in silence. The hunger addiction quietly waited for all of this to conclude. An excellent chef always possessed sufficient patience to wait for time to bring food to its final perfection. At last, everything reached completion in exquisite harmony. A formerly living, breathing person had been stripped of all impurities, leaving only three floating portions, arranged as impeccably and fittingly as an artfully plated dish. Sains, pinned to the wall, clung to life with the tenacity of a cockroach. His body had been thoroughly pulverized, yet he had not died. His eyes bulged wide, and his mouth repeatedly opened and shut. The incessant spurt of bodily fluids robbed him of the ability to form coherent sounds, but his fury and bitter grievance remained palpable. In his master-servant relationship, his loyalty was absolute. Yet reality proved relentlessly cruel; what had begun as an ordinary, tranquil day was abruptly shattered by calamity. Regrettably, Sains was powerless to protect or intervene. His muffled thrashing served as nothing more than background music for this feast. Karen opened his mouth, preparing to partake. Yet the moment his jaws parted, the moonlight essence, the lunar halo, and that black blade converged once more in a bizarre, overlapping motion. In their place emerged a burst of black starlight. A hand thrust out from the starburst, tearing through the darkness and slamming violently against Karen's chest. In an instant, chains of Order burst forth from within Karen, immediately hoisting him aloft into suspension. "Hehehe..." The laughter remained sweet, but this time, it carried a distinct edge of mockery. A newly formed Ankara stepped forth from the starlight. She lifted her head, looking up at Karen dangling in midair. "I once was you, and you once were me. In the past, we were inherently one and the same. It was Father who sealed you inside my body. So how could I not know what kind of creature you truly are?" Against the wall, Sains felt no joy at this reversal. Quite the contrary, he fell into the sharpest despair, knowing that this Ankara had been summoned through the total sacrifice of his young mistress. This meant that everything his mistress had ever been in this world had been wiped clean, and the newly summoned Ankara bought by such a sacrifice would not endure for long. This was Ankara's response to the hunger addiction. She would rather overturn the entire table than allow her father a single bite. Hatred was etched into the very marrow of her bones. Even as a single fragment torn from a body hacked into ten thousand pieces, she still remembered. Ankara raised her arm, and a black saber materialized in her grasp. The blade was battered and worn, full of notches and mottled with rust, indicating that its physical form had never been taken into the containment space, but had instead been left abandoned in some forgotten corner of the world. Otherwise, given the habits of the containment space, even if certain divine artifacts could not be fully repaired, they would at least be meticulously maintained—especially divine artifacts belonging to their own lineage, which would receive paramount care. Yet no sooner had she gripped the blade than an active magic circle manifested beneath her feet. A formidable suction clamped her firmly to the floor. The circle had been laid well in advance, while Ankara had been busy "cooking" herself for her "father." *Clatter, clatter...* With a shuddering rattle of chains, Karen pressed both arms downward and seized the two chains flanking him. The chains began to pull free. The links near his chest had already shifted color, and the horrific wound that ought to have appeared never manifested. The hunger addiction was a beast—wild, tyrannical, driven by a voracious greed that seemed impossible to sate. Yet none of those monstrous traits could eclipse its intellect. It had anticipated Ankara's reaction from the very start. "Hehe..." Ankara laughed again. Her wrist flicked, sending ripples through the blade in her hand. Karen raised his hand. The Key to the Rubik's Cube appeared, spinning rapidly to seize complete control over the hotel's defensive formations, which he had already infiltrated earlier. Reconfiguring them swiftly, he reinforced the hotel's isolation from the outside world. "So you don't want anyone to know you exist. Why is that?" *Bang!* The formation beneath her feet shattered, and Ankara regained her freedom. "In the eyes of the faithful, you are Father—the God of Order himself. Outsiders... no, even other deities would struggle to tell the two of you apart. What, are you afraid of your existence being discovered by the Church of Order?" Karen offered no reply. His body descended, a black scythe appearing in his grasp. From beginning to end, he harbored no desire to converse, no interest in explaining. "Has the Church of Order really developed to such an extent that even you must hide?" Karen charged at Ankara. Ankara countered, scythe and blade colliding. One was the hunger addiction of Order; the other was the daughter of the God of Order. To a certain degree, they represented the most primordial power of Order itself. Yet now, their clash lacked the magnificent grandeur of their prime, for the power base of each rested solely upon their respective hosts. The hunger addiction drew upon Karen's power, while Ankara's strength stemmed from the sacrifice of Salayina. To one's surprise, having clearly deduced that the hunger addiction wished to avoid exposing its identity, Ankara tacitly suppressed any outward spillover of their clash during the slaughter that followed. "Since you are here, where is Father?" A sweeping cleave of the scythe answered her. "Has Father already fallen?" Still, no answer came. "Tell me the truth of why the gods have not walked the earth in this era!" *Bang!* In a brief span, the two exchanged countless blows. Such combat appeared almost unadorned and primitive. Yet only an onlooker could have perceived the crushing weight of the scene. Because both combatants strictly reined in any leakage of force, all the erupting power of Order remained trapped within the room. At first, every piece of furniture in the conference room dissolved into dust, including Sains pinned to the wall. His mangled flesh ruptured first, splintering into countless tiny bugs in a desperate bid for at least one to survive. Regrettably, the indiscriminate, wall-to-wall saturation of power left the insects with nowhere to hide, pulverizing them one after another. Sains, possessor of a formidable physique and a servant insect meticulously reared by the Moon God Church, perished utterly in the unglamorous aftershocks of a duel between two transcendent entities. The devastation did not stop there. Floors began caving in; rooms were smoothed into oblivion. The remaining Moon God Church priests within the hotel, unable to escape, were crushed to death by the concentrated, nearly tangible power of Order. The space in which the two fought widened continuously. The entire interior of the hotel was hollowed out, leaving behind only a razor-thin layer of outer walls and roof. "I cannot beat you. It is the disparity between our hosts." Ankara's body had turned far more translucent than when she had first emerged from the starlight. The hunger addiction, meanwhile, remained utterly calm and composed. Karen's terrifying accumulation of spiritual power had dictated the outcome of this suffocating duel. Ankara leveled her blade before her. "Answer my questions, and I will cease resisting. Your objective is me; you surely do not wish to see me squander myself in vain. That would only spoil your meal." The hunger addiction halted its assault. "Throughout endless ages, I have waited for a summons from my true self, waiting for the day I would return to her body as a piece that completes her. "Yes, she perished under punishment, her body broken and her soul scattered. But the Church of Order still stands! There is no reason my true self should not return—even if incomplete, even if through another form, she should have returned long ago! "Yet I have never felt that summons. "Why have the gods not appeared in this era?" The hunger addiction raised a single finger, indicating that only one question would be answered. "Then I won't ask that. I'm changing my question!" Ankara resolved. The hunger addiction remained motionless. "Why were you able to separate from Father? No, not that either." Ankara pursed her lips, finally asking with a smile, "Has my revered Father fallen?" The hunger addiction looked upward toward the sky. It shook its head first, then... slowly nodded. "Not yet, but soon?" Receiving this answer, Ankara's smile grew even more radiant. True to her earlier promise, she loosened her grip. The black blade dissipated. Standing in place, she closed her eyes, awaiting her end. The hunger addiction stepped before her. This time, Ankara made no move, and no further accident occurred. The hunger addiction opened its mouth. Ankara's form dissolved into light, drawn slowly into its mouth and nostrils. Throughout the process, an expression of sheer relish spread across the hunger addiction's face, like an elegant epicure savoring the blissful contentment brought by exquisite cuisine. At this moment, it wished for no interruptions, no disruptions—only to savor the meal in quiet solitude. Involuntarily, the hunger addiction reached out a hand, as if needing something to flip through. It was muscle memory, an entrenched dining habit. Alas, the hotel interior was as empty as could be; finding a magazine or newspaper was impossible. This left the hunger addiction slightly disappointed. Whenever Karen dined, he habitually found something to read alongside his meal. The hunger addiction had not only appropriated Karen's combat experience and techniques, but had also co-opted his other habits. Having no alternative, the hunger addiction opened its palm, and a crystal-like apple floated into view. It was an illusion, yet strikingly beautiful, continually rotting and spoiling only to be reborn anew each time. In Little Kanna's telling, she had once had a dream in which she was willing to let her dragon body shatter just to deliver an apple into the hands of the God of Order. The hunger addiction continued to feed while watching the subtle shifts of the apple. ... Inside the soul space, Karen was stunned by this scene. At first, he could not fathom why the battle between Ankara and the hunger addiction would conclude in such an absurd fashion. Even if she could not win, how could she truly stop resisting just like that, standing there to be devoured? Soon, however, Karen understood. The entity before him was not the true Ankara. She was merely a fragment—an illusory past, an awkward present, a nonexistent future. She lacked the wholeness of a deity; indeed, she was not even a complete human being. Fragmented, she sought only fragmented emotions. What did winning accomplish for her? What purpose would venting a massive commotion serve? She did not care; none of that mattered to her. Nothing in existence compared to the joy of learning that her father was about to fall. She was content. Devoid of hatred or resentment, being eaten was of no consequence to her. This was the inherent difference between a Child of God and a true deity. A piece of a whole could never represent the whole; it might even exhibit traits diametrically opposed to the original self. By comparison, the spiritual imprint his dog had left behind in the Gate of Samsara was far more human, because that "Lord" possessed an awareness of past, present, and future. A new figure appeared in the swamp. She wriggled in the mire, resembling food scraps being digested by gastric acid. Karen simply watched her. If he held a short-term rental lease, then the struggling Scythe of War was a stubborn holdout tenant; as for this newly swallowed Ankara, her account was actively being deregistered. *Buzz!* The writhing mass stood up. Mud still slid down her form, obscuring any defined body to reveal only decaying bones. Every trace of her existence was being steadily wiped away. Yet Karen could still sense her gaze fixed upon him. She seemed intensely curious about him. This inevitably dredged up the image of the cute young Ankara Karen had once seen in his memory visions. Even on the verge of being erased, she maintained an inquisitive interest in the world. A shattered god truly was an incomprehensible existence. "I could never have imagined its new host would be you. I imagine it must feel quite a profound sense of disappointment inside." The hunger addiction had originally dwelled inside the God of Order before being briefly sealed inside Ankara. Perhaps Ankara herself had been another layer of life spawned from that very hunger addiction. After all, given the immense might of the God of Order, giving birth to a branch deity from a piece of himself was hardly shocking; mythological accounts of every church were filled with such bizarre legends. From Karen's perspective, however, he was genuinely at a loss for words. *You're about to vanish completely, yet you still have the mood to mock me?* Karen spoke: "The God of Order sealed off this era, preventing the gods from returning." Compared to the stinginess of the hunger addiction, Karen was far more generous. Ankara offered mockery before her demise, but Karen placed greater value on hospice care. "Oh... hehehehe..." Ankara laughed again, seemingly unsurprised by the answer. After all, no matter how deeply she hated her father as his daughter, she could never negate the reality of his boundless power. "I thought I was the only miserable one. Turns out... everyone is miserable. I am his daughter, born because of him; I had no choice. But those who chose to follow him back then must surely regret it, wouldn't they?" Karen did not dwell on Ankara's ramblings, continuing instead, "He is very weak now. He is on the verge of collapsing, and the gods are about to return." "Hehehe... hehehe..." Ankara continued to chuckle. "My growth weakens his power; my existence bound the hunger addiction. Therefore, if I die, completely swallowed by the hunger addiction and erased from existence, the God of Order will likely regain considerable strength. "Once the hunger addiction finishes feeding and replenishing itself, where do you think it will go? Who do you think it will seek out?" Ankara: "Hehe... uh..." Ankara's laughter cut off abruptly. Then, she let out a roar: "No!" Karen looked at her. She was now only half her previous height, her skeletal frame barely recognizable, resembling a lump of melting clay. "I will teach you a method to constrain it! I deduced it myself back then. It was useless against the hunger addiction of old, but against what it is now, it should still have an effect!" Karen looked up toward the dome of the soul space. It felt somewhat surreal. How could the hunger addiction make such a mistake? Even secular police departments knew to isolate accomplices from the same case to prevent collusion, let alone the Whip of Order. On second thought, however, whenever Karen was in control outside, he possessed little awareness of the hunger addiction deep within his soul. This place was the hunger addiction's private reserve. Conversely, when the hunger addiction was outside, this became Karen's private reserve... No matter how clever a person was, how could they see behind their own back? This was precisely why the hunger addiction appeared wise and calm to the outside world, yet seemed like a savage beast from Karen's perspective. Karen and the hunger addiction were each other's blind spots. It could calculate others with pinpoint precision, yet failed to account for "itself." Ankara had melted down to a mere puddle, her height nearly leveled to the ground, yet this puddle currently displayed the stratified effect of a magical diagram. "My time is short. I hope you can understand and learn it." "You need not worry about that." "If you ever see my true self... please do not speak of my existence to her." "Why?" "Because I ought to be flawless." With those final words, Ankara vanished, merging entirely into the mire. Outside, the hunger addiction concluded its feeding. Its aura grew denser, the detailed contours of its statue form becoming sharper. Pleasurable moments were always fleeting; it prepared to hunt its next target. A layer of black mist gradually enveloped its body, yet the spell froze midway through casting. Black dots materialized across Karen's flesh, exerting a terrifying suction that hauled the hunger addiction backward. "Have you had your fun yet?" It was Karen's voice. The hunger addiction lowered its head and closed its eyes. Above the soul space, the statue of the hunger addiction looked down once more. Dense clusters of black specks appeared across its body, bound together by fine threads. It was mud—mud from the swamp. What Ankara had taught Karen was not some abstruse, intricate technique, but an alternative perspective. When the hunger addiction slipped out of control, one did not have to view oneself as a dejected loser bound in place. You could recall how the hunger addiction had tortured you before; now, you could treat yourself as the hunger addiction to torture it in reverse. One should not view such a perspective as absurd or unrealistic. The truth was... in terms of the laws of Order, the hunger addiction was far purer than Karen himself. When it was the clean entity, "oneself" became the pollution. Naturally, the side effects of this method were severe. Just as split personalities gradually assimilated over time, using it repeatedly would eventually cause one to merge into the hunger addiction. Yet for now, there was no room to worry about consequences. The mud from the mire dragged the hunger addiction statue downward. The statue resisted, but to a certain extent, it was engaged in a tug-of-war against itself. The two sides fell into a deadlock. Yet even a deadlock was something Karen could never have imagined before. Every previous flare-up of the hunger addiction had left him in a wretched state—especially this time, when it had completely seized control of his selfhood. "Now, give me back everything that is mine!" ... The perimeter of the hotel had already been locked down by the Whip of Order. They had received the distress signal from the Moon God Church long ago, yet the Whip of Order not only refrained from charging in to rescue them, but even detained the Moon God Church priests who had stepped out earlier and were now trying to return. As reports climbed through the chain of command, prominent figures arrived one by one. After listening to Muri's report, Alfred ordered directly, "Silence all personnel associated with the Moon God Church. Remember to purify their corpses." "Understood." Alfred stepped into the hotel. Upon entering, he was stunned by how spacious and clean the interior had become. The building was truly reduced to nothing more than an impossibly thin outer shell. The interior was saturated with concentrated power of Order. Black crystals of the Order attribute had even formed in the cracks of the walls—high-grade goods that could be chipped off and sold straight on the black market. "Madame Gandiluo." "Here, sir." "Take the trouble to use your crystal to collect the power of Order here and bring it back. Such fine material would be a shame to waste." "Yes, sir." Next, Alfred looked at Daliwenluo standing behind him, pointed a finger at him, and said, "Plant that sapling of yours right here. The destruction of the Moon God Church stronghold, the death of their Child of God—we'll pin all of this onto the Life God Church." Daliwenluo frowned. "Wouldn't my sapling be handed over as evidence, then?" "It will be submitted, but only as a formality. It will find its way back to your hands eventually." "Are you certain?" "No, not certain. Who knows if an even higher-ranking official might take a liking to a branch from your Tree of Life?" Daliwenluo tightened his grip on the sapling, reluctant to part with it. Alfred offered a faint smile. "You ought to know what the leadership of the Church of Order is currently planning. If a bookmark must be filled, why can't it be the Life God Church?" Daliwenluo's eyes widened. Clearly, he was tempted. "Opportunities are seized through effort, and sometimes, through a gamble." "I understand." Daliwenluo stepped forward and plunged the sapling into the ground. Soon, a great tree grew forth, lush with foliage. At that moment, several black crows flew in. Count Recal caught them, examined each in turn, and reported, "Neither Poer's side nor the Felsher family has located the Young Master. We arrived too late here." Alfred shook his head. "If we had arrived early, what did you plan to do?" Count Recal choked. "This..." Alfred said, "The few of you will handle the cleanup here. If there are similar reports of incidents moving forward, handle them according to this procedure." Daliwenluo spread his hands. "But I only have one sapling!" "Then submit your corpse." "If it can provoke Order into going to war with Life, that wouldn't be entirely out of the question." Alfred could not be bothered to waste words with the bald man and turned to walk out of the hotel. Muri, having just finished delegating the silencing orders, happened to return. Seeing Alfred preparing to leave alone, he asked instinctively, "Mr. Alfred, where are you going?" "Do not follow me." "Understood, sir." Alfred slipped into the street alone, blending into the crowd. In his heart, he began to chant: *"Great existence, your radiance has ever guided my steps. Now, grant your most devout believer an indication, that he may continue to follow in your footsteps..."* ... The mechanical march continued, but this time was different from before. Karen could occasionally catch sounds in his ears and intermittently perceive color in his vision. Karen had not yet reclaimed his "self," but the hunger addiction's control over that "self" was likewise faltering. Both sides remained locked in a stalemate, neither willing to yield. The resulting effect was that Karen resembled a drunkard wandering aimlessly through the city. Last time, wandering aimlessly had been an aim in itself; this time, it was purely because he had no idea where to go. In other words, Karen was currently completely adrift. People on the street began to catch sight of Karen. Yet one second he appeared about to collide with them, and the next, he vanished into thin air, leaving many startled passersby convinced they were hallucinating. Stumbling along like a roaming ghost, as though guided by some unseen pull, Karen arrived before an apartment building. A sign hung on the ground floor: Millerton Mortuary Care Company. Karen halted at the entrance, his gaze still blank. A hearse drove up and parked by the door. The driver was a fat man, followed by a tall, skinny fellow in the passenger seat. The fat man got out, slammed the car door shut, and cursed, "Damn it! One step too late, just one step! That hospital order got snatched right out from under us! The nurse said the client's family is loaded, spent a fortune on high-end treatments!" The tall, skinny man rolled his eyes at him, snapping, "I told you to wait at the hospital parking lot early, but did you listen? You insisted on hitting the pastry shop! Now look—the client we staked out is gone!" "Can you blame me? You're married, you've got a wife—do I?" "Fine, fine, I'm not wasting my breath. Just wait for the boss to tear into you. I'm not covering for you." "Are we brothers or what?!" The fat man grabbed the skinny one in a bear hug. "If you dare rat on me, I'll tell your wife all about you and that little nurse in the inpatient ward!" Suddenly, Karen materialized right before them. The fat man and the skinny man shrieked: "Ah!" Then, Karen vanished. The fat man pointed forward trembling. "Just now... I think I saw someone." The skinny man nodded. "Me too." "Could we both have seen wrong?" "Must be. Come on, let's grab a drink at the pub next door. Our job is just too stressful." "Yeah, yeah, totally." Karen walked into the mortuary care company. While local adjudicators of the Church of Order often liked to run funeral parlors as fronts for their adjudication courts, this place was clearly not run by an Order priest; it was an ordinary, mundane funeral parlor. The first floor was a mourning hall. There was no second floor, only a basement that housed the morgue and workstation. The funeral parlor staff did not live here, treating the building strictly as a workplace. Karen descended into the basement. In the workroom, a woman was smoking a cigarette while talking on the phone. A client lay on the steel slab before her—a female client who seemed to have died in an accident, having suffered severe trauma to her head and face. "Damn it, how do you expect me to reconstruct this corpse? It's mangled beyond recognition, and you refuse to add a single penny! Who's going to work for you for free? I'm out of here—find someone else!" Hanging up the phone, the woman stood up, packed her tools into her bag, and clicked away on her high heels. As she stepped out, she glanced back over her shoulder, feeling as though she had just brushed past someone. "Damn, staying up all night playing cards really messed with my head. Seeing things now. Dammit!" The woman left the basement. Karen entered the workroom and sat in the chair she had vacated, facing the female client lying on the steel slab. Though the facial injuries were severe, one could still discern that she was very young. Unfortunately, her parents had chosen the wrong funeral parlor. The most vital technical role in any funeral home was the mortuary makeup artist, yet this parlor had actually outsourced the job. Karen sat there blankly for a long time, his mind entirely hollow. Then, he stood up and walked to a corner of the workroom, where a dust-covered toolbox rested. Opening it, he found many of the implements rusted over. Karen ran his hands over the tools one by one. A closer look would reveal flickers of black flame dancing in his palms. He was using the flame of Order... to strip away the rust. Carrying the treated tools, Karen sat back down, only to sink into another daze. "Mary... Mary..." Murmuring the name, Karen drew out a tool, stood up, and tilted his head, preparing to apply mortuary makeup to the client. He had chosen the wrong tool. More accurately, he did not know which tool to use. "Scythe... scythe..." A small black scythe appeared in Karen's hand. Yet soon after, Karen sat back down again. He had the tool, but he had no idea where to begin. Straightening his back, he lowered his head and looked around as if searching for something. Then he opened his palm, and a Rubik's Cube materialized, beginning to rotate. Karen leaned over once more. This time, his movements became remarkably deft. Every step was executed with exquisite precision. Using the mastery of arranging formations, he reconstructed the female client's facial features. "Allen... Allen..." The hollowed areas required filling. Drawing upon the power of Progenitor Allen, Karen used ice to reconstruct a skeletal foundation for support. The ice would eventually melt, but that would be several days later, long after the girl was buried in the earth. All that mattered was allowing her to bid farewell to her loved ones in her finest appearance. With the reconstruction complete, he turned his palm downward. Gentle streams of water flowed forth, caressing the girl's entire body to cleanse her. The girl had originally possessed permed hair. Karen manipulated a small fireball to swirl above her head, restoring her hair to a soft, fluffy curl. She probably needed no further makeup; she looked as though she had merely fallen asleep. Karen felt that for a young girl, heavy makeup was an unnecessary burden. Yet, what if she wanted it? Everything should cater to the client; client satisfaction was paramount. Karen asked the girl, "Wake up and look for yourself... do you want makeup?" "Order... awakens." The girl opened her eyes and sat up. A large mirror hung in the workroom. Looking at her reflection in the glass, the girl answered, "Yes." "Alright." The girl turned her head, looking blankly at Karen, whose gaze was equally vacant. Soon, her memories rushed back. Reconstructing the moments before her death, her expression twisted into mounting terror. "Sleep... it's all over." The girl closed her eyes and lay back down. Karen gently stroked her face, smoothing her expression back into serenity. Immediately after, Karen began applying her makeup. Once finished, Karen sat back down again. At that moment, the female owner of the funeral parlor rushed back in, cursing under her breath as she hurried: "Damn it, damn it! Going on strike at a time like this! Damn it all, where am I supposed to find a temporary replacement right now?" The owner burst into the workroom and froze upon seeing the female client on the steel slab. "Oh heavens... she finished the job? And did it this beautifully?!" The owner stepped closer, examining the client intently, and marveled again, "This is practically a work of art." The owner dressed the client in her clothes, but when she tried to lift her into the coffin, she realized she lacked the strength. She hurried upstairs to fetch her staff. When the fat man and the skinny man returned to the parlor, they found a coffin resting in the mourning hall, the female client already lying peacefully inside. The fat man asked, "How did the boss manage that by herself?" The skinny man replied, "Maybe her trucker lover happened to drop by today to pay his 'water bill.'" "You mean they did it down in the basement?" "Who knows? Not like the boss would care about that." "No, I just really admire that trucker." ... In the afternoon, the memorial service commenced. The girl's parents, relatives, and friends gathered to pay their respects. Karen sat in the penultimate row of the mourning hall. The fat man serving water handed him a cup, sneaking a few extra glances at Karen, feeling that this mourning guest looked somewhat familiar. The skinny man had donned a priest's robe, moonlighting as a clergyman standing beside the coffin to lead the prayers. The girl's mother nestled against her husband's chest, sobbing, "Our baby isn't dead. Look, she's just sleeping. Wake up, baby, Mama's right here. Baby, wake up." The husband patted his wife's shoulder comfortingly while turning to the owner. "Thank you. You've worked hard, truly, thank you." The owner replied, "Please, don't mention it. It's only our duty." ... Alfred walked on as he prayed. He halted before an apartment building, turned his head, and spotted the sign for the funeral parlor. He stepped inside. Amid the seats in the mourning hall, he saw that familiar figure. He took a seat in the back row without uttering a word. A black cat riding atop a golden retriever entered the hall. They trotted to the front to check Karen's face, finding him seated with his eyes closed. The black cat patted the dog's head with its paw. Understanding, the retriever carefully padded to the back row, curling up beside Alfred. Richard and Philomena walked into the mourning hall. Spotting Karen, Richard instinctively raised a hand to call out, only for Philomena to clamp a hand over his mouth and drag him down into the back row. The black crows had already carried the message outward. Before long, more people filed in continuously: Muri, Vic, Leon, Daliwenluo, Madame Gandiluo, Old Saman, Ventura... Some wore clerical robes, others ordinary clothes. With no vacant seats left in the back row, and none daring to sit alongside or ahead of Karen, they could only stand at the rear. Everyone's gaze drifted periodically toward Karen's back. Karen, meanwhile, had sat there motionless for a long time. The girl's mother turned around, and upon seeing so many people sitting and standing there, could not help murmuring to her husband: "Our baby had so many friends. She had a group of truly sincere friends... though some of them look a bit old." The husband still retained some sense; the aura these people carried clearly did not belong to friends of his daughter. Fearing trouble, he promptly signaled to the owner that the service could conclude. The girl's mother continued muttering, "Could that young man sitting in that row be our baby's boyfriend? He's sitting all alone, looking so heartbroken." The owner gave instructions to the skinny man acting as priest, who quickly brought the service to a close: "May the great Lord grant you eternal slumber, free from all earthly suffering, and lead you to true peace. Amen." The memorial ended. The fat man stepped forward, preparing to slide the coffin lid shut before conveying it to the reserved cemetery for burial. However, a slight hitch occurred as he pushed the lid. It seemed jammed, refusing to budge no matter how hard he shoved. The skinny man and the owner had to step in and heave together. Finally, with a sharp *clack*, the coffin snapped shut. At that exact moment, Karen opened his eyes, lifted his head slightly, and spoke: "I'm hungry." Almost everyone in the back rows stiffened, their expressions turning solemn. Accompanied by Richard's naive, cheerful reply: "Hey, I'm hungry too! Karen, what do you think we should eat?" The atmosphere froze to an absolute standstill. Karen turned around and looked at everyone. His next words brought an instant wave of relief to all present. He said: "With this many people, let Hilly prepare hot pot."