Chapter 49: Cultivation
Beneath Baiyan Village, perhaps beneath the entire area, lay a vast cavern filled with corpses.
This cavern seemed to be enveloped by some kind of power, preventing Luo Ling’s Spores from penetrating deeper.
But… waiting passively for rescue wasn’t Luo Ling’s style.
Even though she believed her friends would come, she wanted to do everything she could to find a way out of Baiyan Village before then.
The subterranean cavern was the only lead they had.
However, Luo Ling wasn’t willing to risk her life. Entering the cavern alone could be fatal. The villagers’ transformation into Meat Puppets was undoubtedly connected to this place.
Just as Luo Ling felt helpless, she heard Grandpa say he was going to loosen the soil for the specialty product, and an idea struck her.
As Grandpa passed by, a Spore discreetly attached itself to him.
…A single Spore couldn’t stay in the subterranean cavern for long, but by using a Meat Puppet as cover, perhaps she could take a closer look.
If it failed, Luo Ling could simply sever the connection with the Spore.
An inactive Spore was just an ordinary strand of white hair and wouldn’t affect her.
Luo Ling stayed inside with Grandma and An Yu, but her focus was on the Spore attached to Grandpa.
Grandpa, carrying a hoe and his old pipe, hummed a tune from a traditional opera, walked to a secluded corner of the yard, lit his pipe with a match, and took a long drag.
“A smoke after a meal, feels like heaven~”
Grandpa sighed contentedly, a look of satisfaction on his face.
Even when not in front of Luo Ling and the others, this Grotesquery disguised as “Grandpa” still followed his programmed behavior.
If it weren’t for the dense Grotesquery aura emanating from him, even Luo Ling, who had experienced this before, would have a hard time distinguishing him from the real Grandpa.
Truly terrifying…
After a few more puffs, Grandpa reluctantly tapped the ashes from his pipe, tucked it into his waistband, picked up the hoe again, and shuffled towards the back of the yard.
The backyard was about three hundred square meters, with designated areas for raising chickens and pigs, and growing vegetables.
It was clear that almost all the food they had eaten at lunch came from this small yard.
However, Grandpa didn’t even glance at these areas, instead continuing towards the back of the yard.
He stopped at a shady spot near the mountain and put down the hoe.
“A similar location…”
Looking around, Luo Ling immediately thought of the cellar “Old Man Huang” had taken them to. The entrance and surroundings were almost identical.
It seemed the entrances to the subterranean cavern followed a pattern…
Grandpa felt around on the ground, seemingly finding a switch. He pulled it open, revealing a cellar door camouflaged with grass.
“Sighing for my parents, tears streaming down~”
Grandpa continued humming the opera tune as he carried the hoe and walked down into the cellar.
But Luo Ling felt a sudden urge to sever the connection with the Spore.
She opened her eyes and saw Grandma munching on sunflower seeds, watching a soap opera with An Yu, occasionally commenting on the plot.
But when she closed her eyes, she saw Grandma’s dismembered and dissolving corpse, her scattered limbs half-buried in the soil, her lifeless eyes staring up at the sky.
Grandpa’s corpse was even more gruesome, only his face still recognizable, the rest of his flesh and blood feeding an enormous white reishi mushroom.
“In an instant, at Nanyang Pass, hanging white mourning banners~”
Grandpa hummed as he carefully loosened the soil around the enormous white reishi, his hoe inadvertently slicing through Grandma’s severed arm.
“All the officers in the camp, weeping bitterly~”
“Wu Yunzhao, I don my mourning clothes~”
After toiling for a while, Grandpa straightened up and wiped the sweat from his brow.
He looked up at the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lifeless faces frozen in terror, and a satisfied smile appeared on his lips.
“Looks like the harvest is quite good this year. That old woman wanted to burn them, tsk, tsk, she’d be heartbroken if she actually did it.”
Even Luo Ling, whose emotions were dulled in her “Bai” form, couldn’t bear to watch.
Her chest rose and fell, her already pale skin losing even more color.
The veins on her small hands bulged, and her usually calm eyes trembled.
The churning in her stomach threatened to overwhelm her.
After all, Luo Ling was just a sixteen-year-old high school student.
A few months ago, she had been living a carefree life at school, until her sudden awakening dragged her into all this.
No, she couldn’t lose control…
She had to stay calm.
Unconsciously, she had crushed the apple in her hand, leaving a deep indentation.
Grandma and An Yu, who were watching TV, didn’t notice Luo Ling’s distress. Only Elsa, sitting beside her, felt her trembling.
But she didn’t know what Luo Ling was experiencing and could only offer a silent comfort.
As if struck by an idea, Elsa’s eyes lit up, and she placed Bella, the teddy bear, in Luo Ling’s arms.
“Big Sister Bai, I always hug Bella when I’m nervous. Here… you can hug her,” Elsa whispered in Luo Ling’s ear, her face blushing as she returned to her wheelchair.
Oh god, what was she doing…?
“Thank you, I feel much better,” Luo Ling whispered.
She didn’t feel better at all.
Grandpa was walking deeper into the subterranean cavern, and she witnessed even more gruesome sights, countless enormous white reishi mushrooms rooted in the crimson “soil,” blooming silently and cruelly.
Nausea.
The urge to vomit.
A wave of revulsion assaulted her senses, pushing her to the limit of her endurance.
Just then, Grandpa stopped, raised a hand to shield his eyes, and said with a look of envy,
“Oh my, whose is this one? Truly magnificent.”
Luo Ling fought back her nausea and looked in the direction Grandpa was looking, her eyes widening in an instant.
It was a white reishi mushroom far larger than the others, its slowly unfurling cap almost the size of the entire backyard.
But that wasn’t the main point.
Lying on top of this enormous mushroom was a person.
The seemingly less important target of their mission.
“The Seer… is here…”
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