Despite the confusion and doubt in her heart,
Shiya’s first instinct was to grab the young mistress and hide under the bed.
Fortunately, the sound of heavy, blood-chilling metal blade scraping gradually faded away.
Accompanied by the sound of a door being smashed open in the distance, the two girls finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Shiya didn’t dare to be careless.
She decided to spend the night on the floor under the bed with the young mistress.
‘No one knows if the killer will come back like last night.’
Shiya could only hold the young mistress close, trying to calm her own heaving chest and racing heartbeat as she stared up in silence.
Little Leonora, her small body pressed against the woman’s surprisingly soft curves, bit her lip, her eyes moist.
The sudden fall from a warm cloud into the cruel reality of this desperate situation was almost unbearable for her.
The girl buried her head deep in the young woman’s neck.
“I’m sorry. If I were stronger and had awakened my bloodline talent, I wouldn’t have to drag you down to protect me.”
Shiya was stunned upon hearing this.
She had heard such self-blame and self-deprecation from the young mistress once before, back in the piano room.
So the young woman repeated her old trick.
She lowered her head, pressing her warm, pink lips against the young mistress’s earlobe.
She gave a completely opposite answer this time.
“Then I’ll trouble the young mistress to work hard at learning magic.”
“And then… come back and protect me for the rest of your life.”
With that, Shiya’s heart suddenly fluttered, and she placed a gentle kiss on Little Leonora’s cheek.
Before the girl could react, it was over in an instant.
Such a bold and reckless move even embarrassed Shiya herself.
So when the fiery red little ball of fluff frantically tugged at Shiya’s collar, demanding an explanation, she pretended not to hear, closed her eyes, and pretended to fall asleep.
That night passed, muddled by someone’s actions.
The next morning, Little Leonora woke up with faint dark circles under her eyes.
Call it morning, though it wasn’t quite accurate in this sunless underground space.
But the supervisor’s bell rang again and again, urging them like an old rooster crowing.
She pretended not to hear, closed her eyes, and acted asleep.
“You idiot! How could you just kiss someone out of nowhere!”
“You idiot! How could you just kiss someone out of nowhere!”
Little Leonora groggily rubbed her fluffy, messy hair and tried to sit up.
But her palm sank into a soft mass.
A startled, embarrassed cry rang in her ears.
Accused inexplicably, the girl’s face flushed instantly.
“Young mistress, were you always a pervert since childhood?”
She lifted her head and smack—hit the underside of the bed.
She immediately hissed.
“I haven’t settled yesterday’s score with you yet!”
“W-who’s a pervert?”
Their playful bickering continued into the damp, cold corridor lit only by dim yellow lights.
The workers in patient gowns, with hollow, numb eyes, saw this scene and a faint glimmer appeared in their eyes.
But it quickly faded.
No matter how relaxed these girls’ moods were, or how much they dreamed of the future,
today they would still have to contribute to the Longevity Factory and shed some blood.
Shiya, sensing something wrong, pursed her lips and suppressed her smile.
She sat back on the high chair by the assembly line, tightly gripping Little Leonora’s hand, unwilling to let go.
The humming of the conveyor belt was absent today, and the cutting tools at the workstations had already been removed.
Instead, the gray-uniformed supervisor walked over carrying several large iron buckets and threw them in front of everyone.
Her intuition came true the next moment.
“Yesterday, no one on your entire production line met the work targets.”
He sneered, tossing a razor-sharp knife at the feet of the first worker, gesturing with his chin.
“Now the factory is losing money, so you have to make it up yourselves.”
“Same old routine: all the flesh from one arm or one section of a calf.”
The leading worker, pale-faced, silently picked up the knife.
Under the young woman’s horrified gaze, he rolled up his sleeve, revealing a section of rotted arm with black and white mottled patterns.
In an instant, he raised the knife and brought it down.
The rotten, moldy flesh on the entire arm fell off like a piece of cake.
A muffled scream of pain escaped the man.
Shiya felt her scalp crawl.
Why would these workers accept such harsh and pathological orders?
This couldn’t be explained by long-term oppression.
After all, the supervisor’s method was no different from killing them directly.
And what about the rotting flesh on their bodies?
Soon, the answer was revealed before Shiya.
The female worker in front of her, her hand twitching, barely managed to cut off the rotting flesh from her own calf.
The originally sharp, gleaming blade was now completely covered in layers of coagulated black flesh tissue.
If such a knife cut open a wound, contamination would be inevitable, right?
Shiya was still frowning in thought when the supervisor came up to her and threw the knife at her feet.
The splattered blood directly wet the young woman’s calf.
He casually placed the iron bucket full of black flesh on the ground.
Shiya silently let go of Little Leonora’s hand, pushed her behind her, and used her body to shield the tiny young mistress.
Then, swallowing hard, she steadily picked up the knife.
She slowly brought it closer to her own slender arm, her gaze lowered.
‘I don’t know how long I can last if my arm is severely injured and contaminated, or how much hope there is left to get the young mistress out.’
After learning that the Longevity Factory had monsters like the Performance Enforcement Team, Shiya chose the safest method.
Concede and sacrifice herself.
Seeing the young woman’s fair, smooth skin, the supervisor couldn’t help but show a look of disgust and disdain.
“Hurry up, you’re the last one.”
He secretly planned to pick out that clean piece of flesh from the iron bucket later.
But just as Shiya gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and was about to bring the knife down,
she grabbed nothing but air.
To be precise, the young mistress had already snatched the knife.
“Young mistress, give me back the knife!”
Shiya panicked and reached out to take it back, but Little Leonora slapped her hand away fiercely.
Finally, the proud Little Phoenix did not forget to return a long string of very warm greetings to this big fool.
The supervisor watched coldly the entire time and said casually,
“You want to do it? That’s fine.
But the little one has to cut off the flesh from both forearms.”
Little Leonora didn’t bother with pleasantries.
She stabbed the knife directly into the supervisor’s thigh.
In an instant, blood splattered, staining her small, delicate face.
She pulled out the knife, like drawing a worn-out, old violin bow, causing the supervisor to let out a piercing scream.