Chapter 44: The Truth
A strong, putrid smell mixed with a strangely sweet scent filled the air, making An Yu nauseous.
She stared at Old Man Huang’s corpse in the cellar, then turned to look at the still-chattering Old Man Huang standing beside her. A chilling coldness surged from her bone marrow, her blood seeming to freeze in her veins.
If Old Man Huang was already dead in the cellar, then who was this Old Man Huang talking to her?
If Old Man Huang was still alive, then whose corpse was that in the cellar?
The incessant beeping of the Grotesquery fluctuation meter continued, like a death knell.
“Lass, why do you look so pale?” the living Old Man Huang asked with concern. “Are you feeling the heat? Want to go down to the cellar to cool off? Just be careful not to touch my precious goods.”
An Yu lowered her head slightly, looking at Old Man Huang’s corpse in the cellar, which he referred to as “precious goods.”
His bulging eyes were bloodshot, and small, budding white reishi mushrooms were growing from his eye sockets.
Wait, that white reishi…
Looked familiar.
A horrifying realization dawned on An Yu, and she couldn’t help but vomit.
“Ugh…”
The soup she had drunk at lunch, the reishi she had eaten… were they also these “specialty products”…?
An Yu clutched her stomach in terror, gagging, trying to empty the contents of her stomach.
A few drops of bile dripped onto the ground, tinged with blood.
“Lass, are you alright? Should we go see Dr. Wang?”
Old Man Huang’s face was filled with concern as he stepped forward to support An Yu.
But before he could take a few steps, Luo Ling’s dagger flashed, slicing his arm.
“…”
“I, I’ll go get Dr. Wang right now, lass, just wait!” Old Man Huang said frantically, clutching his arm. “Little girls, look after her, I’ll be right back…”
He turned to leave.
“An Yu, he’s… no longer the Uncle Huang you know,” Luo Ling said calmly.
An Yu fought back her nausea and looked up at Old Man Huang, her gaze falling on his arm. A look of sorrow and horror appeared on her face.
“How could this be…”
From the living “Old Man Huang’s” sliced arm, no blood flowed, only milky white, viscous threads.
Beneath his normal-looking skin, his flesh and blood had been replaced by… the Puppet Ballad, just like Li Tianming and Wu Qin…
The living “Old Man Huang” was merely a Meat Puppet playing a role.
The real Old Man Huang was buried in the cellar, becoming nourishment for the “white reishi.”
“But why? He looks exactly like the Uncle Huang I know…” An Yu’s voice trembled with tears. “How could he be a Grotesquery… this is impossible…”
“…”
Luo Ling remained silent. She knew this was the Puppet Ballad’s ability.
Reading memories, mimicking behavior, replacing the original person, absorbing their life force to gather strength for its dormant true form.
Watching the departing “Old Man Huang,” Luo Ling turned to Elsa and nodded.
“Do it.”
They were far enough away.
They couldn’t let the awakened “Old Man Huang” return to its kind.
Elsa nodded slightly, raised her hand, and pointed it at the departing “Old Man Huang.” A strange syllable, the first time she had spoken aloud, escaped her lips.
“Shieh.”
“Old Man Huang” froze.
“Mie.”
“Old Man Huang” collapsed.
The battle ended silently.
They were far enough away that Luo Ling and An Yu wouldn’t be affected by Elsa’s ability. If they had been closer to “Old Man Huang,” they would have been affected as well, likely suffering a similar fate.
An Yu wiped away her tears, forcing herself to calm down.
She looked at the corpse in the cellar, hesitated for a moment, and was about to go down when Luo Ling stopped her.
“Don’t go in, it’s complicated,” Luo Ling said in a low voice.
She had used her Spores to briefly scout the inside of the cellar, but she couldn’t see much.
The Spores were severely disrupted upon entering the cellar, and Luo Ling could only maintain the connection for a few seconds.
But those few seconds were enough for her to glimpse the cellar’s true nature.
…It wasn’t a cellar at all, but more like… a subterranean cavern.
Within its seemingly endless expanse, white reishi mushrooms grew everywhere, densely packed together.
And even more terrifying… the soil beneath the mushrooms was composed of rotting flesh and gruesome corpses.
The entire cavern was filled with a dense, putrid air, and even Luo Ling, who had only briefly sensed it with her Spores, almost couldn’t bear it.
If hell existed, it would probably look like this subterranean cavern.
Luo Ling had a vague suspicion, but it was a terrifying… and cruel one.
“Wait, if Uncle Huang is dead, then Grandpa and Grandma…”
At the same time, An Yu realized the same thing, her briefly calmed emotions surging with panic again.
No, it couldn’t be…
Her grandparents had seemed perfectly normal just now…
But so had Old Man Huang…
Even in his last moments, Old Man Huang had been no different from usual, exactly the same.
If her grandparents were truly dead, and the “Grandpa” and “Grandma” from earlier were just Grotesqueries in disguise, then…
The “white reishi” she had eaten at lunch was actually…
An Yu looked down at the cellar. Old Man Huang’s lifeless eyes stared back at her, devoid of color.
The white reishi mushrooms blooming beside him were pristine and alluring.
“Ugh…”
Nausea surged through her again, along with unstoppable tears.
“No, it can’t be… Grandpa and Grandma…”
“Calm down, An Yu,” Luo Ling said, gently patting An Yu’s shoulder. “Perhaps things aren’t as bad as they seem.”
This was a lie.
Luo Ling knew that the entire Baiyan Village… had become a breeding ground for the Puppet Ballad. Among the countless corpses in the subterranean cavern, there were likely the bodies of An Yu’s grandparents.
No, there definitely were.
It was a despairing truth.
…But for An Yu now, it was too much to bear.
Even Luo Ling could empathize.
Fortunately, in her “Bai” form, Luo Ling’s emotions were dulled, preventing her from overthinking.
“Really?”
An Yu looked up at Luo Ling, like a drowning person clinging to the last straw, her eyes filled with desperate hope.
…Déjà vu.
“Really,” Luo Ling said, lowering her eyes slightly.
Elsa wheeled closer and whispered something in Luo Ling’s ear.
Luo Ling’s expression turned grim, and she looked at An Yu.
“This is no longer a commission we can handle. We need to call for backup.”
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