Its mouth kept chewing on meat, but it seemed it could never be satisfied.
Its body was gigantic, towering perhaps six meters tall. It squatted in a corner of the kitchen, gnawing continuously on food.
On the surrounding walls, there were writings that Wen Xishu could recognize.
They were childish scrawls writing "Hungry", "More", "Eat it all".
Later, they were crazily overwritten with "Never enough!"
Besides that, a woman's slightly reproachful yet tireless voice kept echoing:
"Charlie, Charlie, eat them! This is a mother's sacrifice!"
"Charlie, eat, eat, eat joyfully."
"Charlie, do you know that food shouldn't be wasted? Many children in other places can't even get food. You have to learn to be grateful."
Every time this voice appeared, the fat man would immediately start to chew frantically.
But soon, the fat man would start pounding the ground wildly.
This kitchen was as vast as a building, no… akin to a stadium.
Yet under the fat man's hammering, the entire kitchen would actually shake.
Countless lumps would shatter, bursting out plenty of pus.
Witnessing this disgusting scene, Wen Xishu was hanging in the air, observing it all clearly.
Wen Xishu silently analyzed the rules:
"Could it be… that we need to defeat the monster?"
"No, if that's the case, it would be too difficult."
The monster's strength made even the Red House retreat. Wen Xishu couldn't imagine what level of attack power would be needed to fight such a tough-skinned monster.
Not in the same league. The chance of winning in head-on combat is very low.
"This endlessly hungry fat man in the kitchen might be another embodiment of Charlie's desires."
"Gluttony? Seems too simplistic…"
"The mother's voice exists, but the mother herself is unseen… only endless food."
Indeed, in the line of sight, decaying food was everywhere, and in the ears, the mother's voice was audible.
But no sight of the mother anywhere.
One could only see, in this constantly expanding, living-like kitchen, the fat man continuously devouring food.
Wen Xishu had a way to kill the fat man directly, like summoning Sagittarius, but it's certain that this time's regional challenge...
Requires defeating more than one enemy.
So killing the fat man wouldn't be the final step for a perfect clearance. The cost of summoning Sagittarius was too great.
Wen Xishu looked at the fat man:
"The Hanged Man challenge might be brute-forced, but not this one."
"Maybe some seemingly unbeatable enemies have solutions. If we solve the fat man's puzzle, there might be an entry point."
"Let me think."
"Assuming the fat man is some kind of metaphor, what does food represent? Desire?"
"No… not quite, why is desire linked to his mother? That woman's voice, calling for Charlie, should be his mother."
"And it seems, each time the fat man pounds the ground, it's because the food isn't finished… So is there a way, I can help the fat man finish the food?"
Wen Xishu observed silently.
He had to admit, the Hanged Man's ability allowed him to safely have an aerial view of the situation.
So soon, Wen Xishu noticed more details of the kitchen.
He noticed a dining table in the corner of the kitchen.
He crawled cautiously, making no noise, moving along with the fat man's chewing sound.
Wen Xishu was like a spider fearfully traversing the room's corner.
Using the Hanged Man's ability, Wen Xishu and Zheng were quietly solving the puzzle and had grasped some initial clues.
First, the refrigerator.
Of course, there was a refrigerator in the kitchen. And since the fat man was six meters tall, naturally, the refrigerator was enormous as well.
The rusty industrial refrigerator door embedded in the meat brick wall had a handle polished by countless handprints. Inside was not food, but a bottomless darkness and biting cold wind.
A note hung on the refrigerator door, bearing the following words:
"Eat it, Charlie! Wasting food equals harming lives!"
Wen Xishu could be certain that approaching the refrigerator would surely result in being sucked into that dark interior.
Not far from the refrigerator, Wen Xishu noticed a gigantic, thickly grey-frosted cake model on a greasy counter.
Looking at it now, the cake seemed covered in dust.
Beside the cake were faded birthday hats, whose size, compared to the fat man, might have been worn by a young version of the fat man.
They were "child-sized" birthday hats.
Beside the hat was a birthday card, stained with grease.
Even so, Wen Xishu could decipher the writing on the card:
"Charlie, you've grown another year older, you need to be more sensible than before. Do you like your birthday present? It's a new tutorial book."
Wen Xishu felt a trace of sympathy in his heart, as if he had comprehended all the metaphors.
Soon his gaze fell on the dining table.
In the distance, the fat man kept chewing on decayed food, everything was in a dim, dusty palette… but on the dining table, there were some different colors.
Wen Xishu had excellent eyesight and he gazed at those rotten foods on the dining table.
In his eyes, those weren't foods but broken toys and fragments of test papers.
On the test paper fragments, syrup-like, symbolizing errors, were red "X"s visible.
On the plate, Wen Xishu saw such a pattern—
A stick-figure person, sitting in front of a giant dining table, crying over an empty plate.
Beside the plate, it was shakily written with childish handwriting:
"Am I full?"
Seeing this, Wen Xishu already had a sure answer in his heart.