Pirate: It’s not a phantom beast, it’s a phantom god!

Chapter 337 Return
"Mr. Quinn, do you know what a pig is?"

"?!"

Quinn, who was huddled in the corner, heard Ra's voice and immediately shuddered, then buried his head even deeper.

But La ignored him and continued talking to herself:

“In my hometown, there’s a custom that almost every household in the village, if they can afford it, will build a pigsty and raise a pig.”

"This pig is usually well taken care of, fed several times a day, and if it gets sick, a veterinarian is called in to take a look..."

"And its task is to eat and sleep, and then keep growing fat and fat... and finally be killed in the period before the New Year as the biggest blessing of the New Year."

"They are therefore called 'Year Pigs'."

Quinn's body began to tremble uncontrollably, but he dared not make a sound, only desperately squeezing his round body into the narrow corner.

"Back then, nobody had much money, and we could only eat meat a few times a year. We relied on this New Year's pig to have a good feast and have a good New Year."

"How does that nursery rhyme go again... [Little child, little child, don't cry, once the twelfth lunar month comes, we'll slaughter the pig]?"

Quinn didn't understand the two lines of the nursery rhyme that La hummed in Chinese, but he was indeed almost crying with fear as La walked past him and started picking out knives from the table.

Ra picked up a sharp knife, casually brandished it a few times, and the cold glint of the blade swept across Quinn's body, reflecting in her unchanging crimson eyes...

"But actually, things weren't so difficult when I was a child. At least in my memory, there was never a shortage of meat on the dinner table... but we still continued to raise pigs for the New Year."

“Every year in the days leading up to the Lunar New Year, my grandparents would prepare a large basin of hot water and then call over the village's pig butcher…”

Seemingly feeling somewhat uncomfortable, Ra put down the dagger in his hand, and then, under Quinn's almost suffocating gaze, picked out another one from the table.

This knife is longer, sharper, and more razor-sharper than the previous one.

"The butcher would bring his own special butcher knife, but it was always wrapped in cloth, so I've never seen it with my own eyes."

La ran his fingers along the edge of the newly chosen dagger, then nodded.

"What impressed me most was that the butcher would carry a very large and deep wooden tub that could hold a whole pig... or rather, a wooden bucket would be more appropriate, and a pair of iron hooks hanging from one end of the tub."

"Those hooks didn't have the luster that metal should have; instead, they gave off a greasy feeling that made people not want to touch them at all."

"As for that wooden barrel, it should be a special one. Although it looks clean, it is somewhat blackened near the bottom and has many irregular spots on it."

"It's just a wooden barrel, but every time I see it, I feel like there's a bloody smell coming at me."

……

"Then Grandpa and Grandma would pour all the boiled water into that big wooden basin..."

"Hmm... I think that's how it is?"

La's tone was unusually uncertain.

Just then, the water boiling on the stove began to bubble. She extinguished the flames in a flash, and then continued:
"I'm sorry, I'm not very clear about the specific order of the process. Because I was very timid at the time, I didn't dare to keep staring at it."

"I only remember that the butcher asked my dad and uncles to help take the pig out of the pen, and then a group of aunts and uncles from the village who had pre-ordered the meat surrounded it, making it impossible for me to see inside."

"Of course, even without them surrounding me, I wouldn't have dared to go look. Because the squeals of the pigs that followed were just too terrifying..."

"Isn't there an adjective that describes a scream like a pig being slaughtered? The real sound is much more than just a scream."

"It was a heart-wrenching wail, a mixture of the yearning for life and the despair of death... a fearful resonance that could transcend species and evoke biological instincts."

"I believe that anyone who hears it once will never forget it."

As La recounted all this, her tone was remarkably calm, a stark contrast to the desperate wails within her words.

"I could only breathe a sigh of relief when the pig's screams gradually weakened and disappeared. When I came out of the room, I could see the pork that had been cut into eight pieces and a whole bucket of pig's blood."

"A large portion of this meat will be bought by the villagers, while the rest will be kept in the kitchen."

"For a while after that, I would walk around the kitchen and never go in. Partly because the smell of meat in the whole house made me want to vomit... and partly because I was afraid of seeing certain things—like a pig's head split in half... or something."

At this point, a smile suddenly appeared on La's lips, as if she had remembered something interesting.

Her tone carried a hint of emotion:
"I never imagined that something I used to avoid at all costs, something I dared not face, would now, on a whim, make me want to try it out myself..."

"It's kind of a way to make up for the regrets of my childhood."

[Why is this your childhood regret?! Shouldn't a little girl like you be enjoying candies and cakes she'd never tasted before, or wearing pretty little dresses?!]
Quinn roared inwardly, but her body shrank even smaller, for Ra, who had chosen a sharp knife, was already in front of her.

La crouched down and gently patted Quinn with the hand that wasn't holding the knife...

...a wild boar lying nearby.

Although this wild boar was driven here from the forest, it actually has no natural predators on this deserted island. So, instead of being nervous, it casually lay down on the ground and started to doze off.
Pat~ Pat~
"It's time to get up."

"snore?"

The wild boar, which was dozing, opened its eyes, glanced at her casually, and then lay back down.

At this moment, because of its restrained aura, it did not perceive Ra as a threat at all.

"Um……"

Seeing that the other party didn't react, La was a little troubled.

The pigs at home used to be slaughtered in a way that wasn't like this. They would struggle so fiercely that it would take several people to pull them away. But the most realistic pig slaughtering process she wanted to experience... "Never mind, let's leave it at that for now."

After tapping the other person a few more times and still getting no response, La simply let it go.

Following the wild boar's back upwards, it stopped around its neck and began probing for the location of the carotid artery.

"To be honest, I'm not really clear on the specific steps of slaughtering a pig, but the first step is to cut the carotid artery, right?"

Through the rough fur, I could feel the slight pulsation of the carotid artery at my fingertips, confirming the location.

"snore?!"

The wild boar, which had been peacefully napping, was instinctively awakened by the sudden, unfamiliar touch on its vital parts.

A sense of foreboding washed over it, and it tried to struggle to its feet, but it was too late.

Without hesitation, a sharp knife plunged directly into its neck, severing the artery in its neck.

puff-

Blood gushed out rapidly from the cut in an instant. Perhaps the wound was too small, or it was blocked by the blade, but the arterial blood that had broken free of the blood vessels did not start to spurt out as La had imagined.

"snore--!!"

"snore----!!!"

The threat of death made the wild boar struggle desperately, and the heart-wrenching screams that I remember echoed out... fear, terror, pleas for mercy, madness.

But no matter how much it screamed and struggled, the hand pressing down on it did not budge an inch.

Gradually, the wild boar's struggles weakened, and its cries grew fainter...

[Is he dead?]
Quinn lowered his trembling hand that had been covering his ears. He had never felt any discomfort even when he killed people with his own hands before, but now he couldn’t bear to look at just a scene of slaughtering a pig.

Perhaps he had unconsciously identified with the creature lying in the pool of blood as himself, or perhaps he regarded it as a sacrifice that had died in his place...

Blood continued to drip down the wild boar's neck, pooling and eventually covering the ground beneath its feet.

Trampling on this pool of blood, she had changed out of her original pastoral-style dress and replaced it with her original white dress.

The white hem of the skirt was completely submerged in blood as she squatted down, but there was no sign of it staining, as if this magical fabric was something that isolated her from everything in the world.

"So this is what it feels like to slaughter a pig."

呲~
The dagger was pulled from the pile of pork in front of her, and a stream of still-steaming blood splattered onto La's face, but strangely, it dripped completely down her cheek without leaving a trace.

……

On a wooden grill, a whole wild boar, gutted and skewered from head to tail, is being turned at a steady pace over the charcoal fire.

Although wild boar meat is much more gamey than specially raised and castrated pigs, and this pig is neither a suckling pig nor a baby pig, so the meat is tougher... but none of that matters.

Looking at the roasted pig on the grill, its body golden red, as if carved from amber, glistening with oil like a work of art, no one would doubt its deliciousness.

"Mr. Quinn, the pig is roasted. Aren't you coming to eat?"

Pull the chopsticks and tap it lightly on the surface. It immediately makes a crisp "crack" sound, like glass shattering or thin ice breaking.

The glossy, crispy skin cracked open, revealing a thin layer of oil underneath, as white as solidified fat. Below that was tender, rosy meat, from which steam rose, carrying a strange and pungent aroma.

The indescribable aroma of meat wafted through the air to Quinn in the corner, forcefully grabbing his head, which was almost tucked into his stomach, prying open his eyelids, and forcing him to look in the direction of the roast pig.

The pig's head was still on the grill, but its eyes were closed. Due to the muscle deformation caused by roasting, the corners of its mouth were slightly upturned, as if it were smiling, completely unlike its ferocious appearance before death.

"Goooo~"

Trembling, Quinn accepted the large piece of hind leg meat that La handed him. His mouth began to water uncontrollably, forcing him to swallow mouthful after mouthful of saliva.

Looking at the plate of his beloved family, friends, and siblings, now smelling delicious, Quinn silently repented:

[Yes, sorry bro, you smell absolutely amazing.]
[I... I can't let your sacrifice be in vain, don't you think?]
"Aww!"

Seeing Quinn, who was eating with tears streaming down his face and his mouth greasy, La curiously cut off a piece and put it in his mouth as well.

She couldn't understand why Quinn would cry while eating such an ordinary dish made without any culinary skill. The chicken soup she had eaten before hadn't had this effect.

[Hmm... the taste is just average, nothing special.]
[Could it be that Quinn simply likes to eat pork?]
[Since that's the case, let's do it a few more times from now on...]
With that in mind, for the next two weeks, La would kill a pig in front of Quinn every few days and then cook it into various pork dishes for him.

……

"Roar--!"

A dragon's roar pierced the clouds, breaking the silence of the morning and startling the birds and beasts on the deserted island into a frenzy of flight...

At sunrise on the fifteenth day after he left, Kaido finally returned.

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh! Sain, long time no see~"

"You, uh... how come you seem to have gained a lot of weight in just a few days?"

Kaido, who was holding an adorable baby in his arms, said this.

(End of this chapter)