CH 58.2

July 29, 2023 by Wyrd

Apart from the one that looked like a corpse’s hand, Su Wangsheng’s deep blue flower had undergone a change overnight. Two eyeballs with small pores grew in the center of the flower bud, eerily rotating.

Among the players standing together in silence, one of them had a red flower with a crimson tongue protruding from the emerald leaves. The sticky liquid from the tongue formed a continuous stream that extended downward.

The players looked at this strange and disgusting scene with seriousness.

“What the hell is this creature?”

“What kind of world is this, exactly?”

“Are we supposed to serve this thing?”

Zhu Shuangshuang’s potted plant didn’t mutate; it remained the same as it was last night.

Ning Su’s flower was also unchanged, quietly growing in the pot. Apart from the slightly droopy appearance compared to when it first arrived, there were no other issues.

However, Ning Su thought of the “bang bang“ crashing sound from last night and looked at his flower with doubt.

Dai Dong stared at the mutated flowers in the pots and suddenly said, “Do you think this has something to do with those human flower sacrifices?”

The other players were taken aback.

Last night, they learned from the white-haired flower attendant that the Dark Swamp was known as the Land of the Sleeping God, a profoundly sacred place.

The flowers that grew from the Land of the Sleeping God had human parts, and the god people worshipped was the Flower God. It was not unreasonable to assume that their sacrifices would take on a flower-like appearance.

The human body parts growing in the flowers kept wriggling and struggling, and faced with this bizarre situation, Yenan Wang had not appeared. They didn’t know whom to ask about handling this situation.

By evening, Yenan Wang still hadn’t appeared.

After discussing among themselves, the players decided to go to the Dark Swamp together.

There were still some Flower Attendants who hadn’t brought back flowers. Although these flowers were strange, Yenan Wang had said they needed flowers to attend if they wanted to have the chance to see the god.

Other players also went to investigate the so-called Land of the Sleeping God.

At the Dark Swamp, they encountered flower attendants from other families and learned that they had also encountered the same situation.

The players’ expressions were not pleasant at all. They had to serve this kind of thing; not to mention sincerely serving it. They couldn’t even sleep at night with it in their rooms.

Ning Su followed behind them and listened to their discussion. With the corner of his eye, he caught the white-haired flower attendant staring at Jiang Ying’s potted flower.

To be precise, the other was staring at the hand growing out of the flowerpot.

Ning Su’s gaze moved to that hand.

The struggling hand was indeed a dead person’s hand

In fact, if you ignore the color of the dead hand and some parts of decay, the hand should have been quite beautiful, with long and distinct fingers and well-defined joints.

Ning Su carefully observed the hand for a while and unconsciously imitated its movements, making a sound of “hmm.”

On that day, with the help of other players, they all found their respective flowers in the courtyard.

Even with the players’ assistance, this time was not easy either.

Countless flower attendants had searched the front of the swamp for flowers, and there were no more flowers there. To find flowers, they had to venture deeper.

This meant that each time they had to go deeper, they had to face more difficulties than before.

Fortunately, they all had their flowers now.

That night, before falling asleep, the players were not at ease.

Mainly because the mutated flowers were too bizarre.

In many rooms, the players discussed and decided to take turns keeping watch, with each person sleeping for a few hours.

Ning Su and Ning Changfeng didn’t need to do this, of course.

Before sleeping, Ning Su took a glance at his flower.

There were four flower buds on each of the two branches, making a total of eight red flower buds tightly closed with petals resembling small buns.

Ning Su covered himself with a quilt and fell asleep.

During the night, he heard a “thud, thud“ sound again. This time, there was no beautiful dream to keep him from waking up. Ning Su opened his eyes upon hearing the noise.

It was midnight, and moonlight penetrated through the white window curtains of the wooden house, dispersing some of the darkness in the room.

In the dim light, Ning Su saw two children sitting side by side on a wooden couch, one bathed in the white moonlight and the other hidden in the darkness.

They both faced the flowerpot, gazing intently at it.

“Ahh...“

A red flower bud slowly swelled, getting larger and larger. In the dimness, red liquid oozed from the top of the bud, about to bloom.

“Ahh...“ was the sound of the top petal tearing open.

The bloody liquid overflowed more and more, and the jagged red petals opened, revealing a human head.

A blood-drenched, indistinct face of a person.

The hair stuck to the bloody face like dirty and greasy stamens.

The mouth on the person’s head twisted open, as if to let out a scream.

“Thud!“

Manman raised a wooden hammer and smashed the head down.

Another flower bud swelled, and the red liquid overflowed along the petal’s seams. The petals tore open again, revealing a terrifying human head that stretched its neck outward.

“Thud!“

Gui Sheng lifted a wooden hammer and smashed the head back.

Buds continued to swell, spilling red liquid, revealing decayed or bloody human heads.

Eight human heads emerged from the eight red flower buds, their mouths opening and their necks stretching in different directions.

Two wooden hammers were raised.

“Bam! Bam Bam! Bam Bam Bam Bam!!“

Ning Su: “......”

Ning Su: “............”

Even if you’re a ghost master, you shouldn’t bully little monsters in other dungeon worlds.

After smashing all the heads fiercely.

Manman: “Little brother Gui Sheng.”

Gui Sheng: “Hmm?”

Manman: “As far as I know, flowers shouldn’t grow human heads. These human heads are like viruses in the body. To cure the flowers’ illness, we need to drive them away.”

Gui Sheng: “To cure them, it costs 200 points.”

Ning Su silently closed his eyes.

He thought that it would be really hard without money. Failing to educate children properly would not help them form the right values.

Just as Ning Su was considering whether to stop their bullying, he suddenly heard a miserable cry.

“Ah! Help!!!”

“Get away! Don’t come near me!”

“Jump into the lake quickly!”

Ning Su suddenly opened his eyes, threw off the blanket, and walked outside. He glanced at Ning Changfeng’s quiet door in the tearoom and opened the outer door of the tearoom.

At that moment, he heard a “plop”.

Someone flashed by and jumped into the lake.

The pale green lake water spread intense red, as blood dyed the water like red mist spreading underwater.

A huge, rotting hand extended from Dai Dong and Jiang Ying’s room.

As the hand expanded and elongated, the originally small areas of decay became large and clear.

Pus-yellow liquid clung to the gray, soft, decaying flesh, dripping chunks of rotten meat.

On the gray-purple fingers were several pieces of fresh red flesh, stuck under the long, sharp nails.

In the morning, there were bits of flesh and blood between the nail crevices, torn from Jiang Ying’s arm.

But at that time, the hand was of normal size, and Jiang Ying was just pale from the pain, with no immediate danger to her life.

Now the hand had become incredibly massive, and the crevices between the nails were no longer filled with tiny bits but with clearly shattered internal organs, oozing blood.

The blood in the lake continued to spread, and the people at the bottom of the lake were likely in grave danger.

Seeing the blood spreading at the bottom of the lake, the hand became even more frenzied. It broke through the wooden walls around the door frame and stretched straight down toward the lake.

“Jiang Ying!”

Ning Su stood still and didn’t move. He saw Zhu Shuangshuang jump into the lake, while Dai Dong and Su Wangsheng jumped towards the rotting hand and tried to pull it back with a rope.

The decaying dead hand struggled frantically, its pale gray nails emitting a cold and eerie light under the moon. The five fingers were like sharp monster claws, flinging pieces of rotten flesh and fresh blood.

The pus-yellow or bright red flesh splattered on the rooftops, creating huge splashes on the lake surface.

The giant hand got closer and closer to the lake’s surface, and with one hand, it could flatten the two tiny figures at the bottom of the lake.

Su Wangsheng and Dai Dong couldn’t hold back this rotting hand at all.

Ning Su tightened his belt and rushed straight up towards the giant hand from the doorway.

His fingers were very long, but when placed against the giant palm, they were as tiny as grains of rice.

When the vastly different-sized palms collided, Ning Su’s clothes and long hair scattered like the wind.

He blocked the downward movement of the rotting hand and looked down to see the two girls at the bottom of the lake.

In this instance, all the men have long hair, not to mention the girls.

At night, when they slept, both men and women have their hair loose.

Jiang Ying’s hair drifted in the water, surrounded by a pool of blood, and she kept convulsing as more and more blood engulfed her.

Zhu Shuangshuang wrapped one hand with a red cloth over her cracked chest cavity, and with the other hand, she covered the hole in her neck, futilely trying to push her to one side with her foot.

Ning Su: “Gui Sheng, stop picking up the flesh, go help Zhu Shuangshuang!”

Even though Zhu Shuangshuang had faced death many times before, seeing a girl almost the same age as her convulsing and spewing large amounts of fresh blood in front of her still evoked a feeling of sad despair.

The blood gushed fiercely from her body, impossible to stop.

The convulsing person, at that moment of agony, opened her eyes in pain, as if telling her how painful and desperate the feeling was when blood gushed out, her expression telling her how icy cold the lake water was.

It seemed as if she was begging for help.

Blood rushed into her nostrils and ears, dyeing her vision scarlet, and Zhu Shuangshuang recalled the time when she fell to the bottom of the lake as a child, that same feeling of despair enveloping her.

She tried to say something, but only a string of blood bubbles floated out.

Humans could not produce audible sounds underwater, so she couldn’t even say her final words to her.

“Sister.”

She heard a crisp voice.

A cold, pale gray little hand grabbed her wrist and flew towards the surface.

Gui Sheng pulled the two hugging girls and swam out of the water, while a huge decaying hand slapped the lake.

The bridge and pavilion on the lake were crushed under the water, and massive waves soared into the sky, then fell onto ten flower attendants.

Dai Dong, ignoring the rushing water, ran to Jiang Ying’s side, “Jiang Ying! Ying Ying! Ying Ying, wake up!”

After she emerged from the bottom of the lake, another layer of blood overflowed from her body, but it wasn’t as surging as before.

How much blood could a human have?

The lake water had turned red.

The players all knew the ending.

Ning Su saw the exposed blood vessel on the wound on her neck, standing firm beneath the tender skin.

He touched his own neck and turned his head to see the white-haired flower attendant in front of a different door.

Unlike other players, he was gazing down at the bottom of the lake.

Half of the water in the lake had already been splashed out, and the remaining half was still red.

The decaying giant hand was crazily squirming inside.

It desperately wanted to grab hold of that blood.