Chapter 635: Stealing a Bone (2)

"Bang!" The hidden passage dropped straight down for almost three meters. When I hit the ground, my feet went numb and a dull ache throbbed through my leg bones.

I tucked and rolled to absorb the impact. During the drop, I shielded Gu Tongtong with my body, taking several scrapes to keep her from hitting the walls.

I tossed her aside and checked my injuries. They weren't serious—just some broken skin.

Looking completely innocent, Gu Tongtong scrambled up from the ground. Hearing the bizarre noises echoing from the passage above, she pressed closer to my side. The little kid was getting scared.

"That was close." I looked up, activating my Judging Eye. The monster still hadn't left. Its upper body was wedged into the passage entrance, squeezing inside so desperately that its bones were warping under the pressure.

"The way out is blocked too. What do we do now?" I leaned against the wall and pushed myself to my feet. I glared at the ghost girl. Ending up in this miserable situation was entirely her doing, and I was starting to regret returning her original body. "Look at the path you chose. Are you trying to get me and Gu Tongtong killed?"

The most frustrating thing about the ghost girl was her poor comprehension and total inability to read the room. Despite my hostile glare, she acted like nothing was wrong, slowly walking further down the tunnel.

Getting no response was like punching cotton. It was incredibly annoying.

"Come here. Stay close to me." Glancing back, I saw Gu Tongtong still standing there. I grabbed the back of her collar and scooped her up with one arm. "Don't squirm."

The further down we went, the harder the path became. This new level was like an abandoned mine shaft—eerie and dark, with the only light coming from my phone screen.

The walls had all turned pale white. Sometimes, if I got too close, it created an illusion that the entire surface was moving.

'Why does it feel like I've walked into the belly of some massive beast?' With no way to turn back, my only choice was to follow the ghost girl to the bitter end.

A strange odor filled the air. It wasn't pungent; it even carried a faint, bloody sweetness, like blood fermented into wine and evaporating into the atmosphere. It was completely different from the smell of the medicinal liquids earlier.

The ghost girl led the way. I couldn't guess her intentions, nor did I know where she was taking Gu Tongtong and me. Clinging to my last shred of hope, I followed her deeper underground.

The tunnel sloped downward. The ground beneath Jianghu Cancer Research Hospital had been completely hollowed out, forming a labyrinth of intricate passages.

'To finish such a massive project without making a sound... Two-Faced Buddha really went all out.' Underground construction was extremely difficult; probably only the tireless, immensely strong white fiends and Earth Corpses could accomplish it. 'Spending twenty years driving white fiends and vengeful spirits to build an underground palace... Such divine means would only be seen in ancient times when constructing mausoleums for emperors.'

I snatched a moment to glance at my livestream but didn't spot any valuable comments. I didn't know what was up with Daoist master Wan, but he hadn't posted anything new in a long time.

Avoiding the pale walls on either side, I hunched over to keep my hair from brushing the whitish ceiling. Progress was arduous.

'Something isn't right.' The further I walked, the more uneasy I felt. Looking around, I realized the color of the walls was changing. At first they had just been pale white, but after a dozen meters, they had turned a ghastly white, as if coated in cheap paint.

'This definitely isn't paint. No decorating paint in the world smells like raw meat!' Activating my Judging Eye, I noticed many tiny granules on the walls. I had seen these same things right when I first entered the hospital. With no way back, I steeled my resolve, picked up a small rock from the ground, and gently scraped at the granules.

The moment I reached out with the rock, the flat wall bulged outward slightly. Slender white threads, seemingly catching the scent of the living, drilled out from deep within the surface. There were so many of them, tangling together to make it look like the wall itself was protruding. It was a bizarre sight.

'The wall is actually alive?' After the rock lightly brushed the surface, I quickly yanked my hand back and hurried away from the spot. It took a long time for the bulging wall to return to normal.

'Why is this happening?' I looked down at the edge of the rock. Where it had touched the wall, it had collected a few tiny white granules.

These had been scraped from the wall's surface. I picked out the largest one and held it up to my eye. 'Ground very fine, white with a hint of brown, moderate hardness. Could this be crushed human bone?'

My own hypothesis startled me. If I was right, then the coating on these walls might entirely consist of corpses.

A chill ran down my spine. Factoring in those thread-like white bugs that had drilled out of the wall, the theory gradually crystallized in my mind. 'These white thread-like bugs love to parasitize corpses. They probably need dead bodies to provide nutrients for their growth, like fertilizer. If so, then these walls might really be made of those things...'

The moment that thought surfaced, I felt uncomfortable all over, as if something had crawled into my clothes.

I continued following the ghost girl inward. Before long, we reached the first fork. There was a left path and a right path; one gave off a faint stench of rot, while the other seemed completely normal.

Without looking back, the ghost girl headed down the normal-looking path. I, however, hesitated.

I only had one life; I had to be careful. If I were still holding her original body and had control over her lifeline, I wouldn't have paused at all. But I had given the mummified corpse back to her.

Our relationship was no longer equal. She held the initiative, leaving me completely passive.

"Wait," I called out to the ghost girl, pointing at the foul-smelling path. "What's at the end of this tunnel?"

The ghost girl froze in place, offering no reaction.

"I'm going in to take a look, okay?" Holding Gu Tongtong, I walked in the opposite direction from the ghost girl. After a few steps, right as I reached the bend, I studied her out of the corner of my eye. She stood absolutely still in the tunnel.

'What does that mean? She's not going to stop me?' Seeing her reaction only deepened my curiosity about where this path led.

I stepped inside, my nostrils flaring as I tracked the stench of rot, eager to find its source.

After groping through the darkness for a dozen meters, I heard the sound of moving air. 'Is there an exit ahead? No, if it were an exit, the draft would blow the stench away, but the smell is only getting stronger the closer I get.'

I raised my phone to light the way. A few steps ahead of me was an opening—the first room I had encountered on this level.

'What's in there?' Turning my phone screen to maximum brightness, I peeked inside. The horrifying scene I had imagined wasn't there. The room was just a garbage dump, piled high with countless moldy, foul-smelling clothes and everyday items.

'These don't look like things you'd find in a hospital.' I stood at the entrance without going in. Casually picking up a stinking piece of clothing, I gave it a light shake. A rotting wallet fell out, containing cash caked in dried blood.

'New banknotes? These were only issued in the last few years. The owner of this shirt definitely wasn't a patient in the hospital. He was probably some poor bastard lured in recently.' Staring at the mountain of clothes and junk, a sudden chill washed over me. 'Every year, the number of missing persons in a major city is a hundred times the death toll! How many of those missing people are buried here?'

I thought of the flaying case in Xinhu, and of the students' corpses at Xinhu High School. Suddenly, the world felt incredibly alien.

'If Jianghu Cancer Research Hospital is truly Two-Faced Buddha's scheme, no matter his motives, a man like that is beyond forgiveness!' I started to understand why Blind Liu and the sect members considered Fate Usurpers taboo targets meant only for death. If every Fate Usurper was like Two-Faced Buddha, it was truly terrifying.

'Does usurping fate really require exchanging the lives of the masses for your own?' I only had the potential to become a Fate Usurper. Truth be told, I hadn't even crossed the threshold of becoming one.

Dropping the rotting shirt, I slowly backed away. This was a dead end.

The ghost girl was still waiting where I had left her. Seeing me return, she didn't say anything and just resumed leading the way.

The image of what I had just seen lingered in my mind. Head down, I followed behind her, stripped of any other thoughts.

The walls on both sides grew increasingly pale, and the human remains embedded within them became clearer and more intact. They had been forcefully embedded into the walls to act as fertilizer for the white bugs.

'Young bone age. The ribs and humeri all show fractures and splintering. They definitely suffered inhumane torture while alive.' Their bones were practically pulverized. The perpetrator's methods were utterly hysterical—which perfectly matched the style of Two-Faced Buddha and his ilk.

I didn't know why Two-Faced Buddha needed to breed so many white bugs, nor why he had to kill so many people. His scheme was too massive; with my current level of insight, I couldn't see through it yet.

At the end of the tunnel, nine openings appeared. Guided by the ghost girl, Gu Tongtong and I ducked into the one furthest to the right.

The moment we stepped inside, the Profound Truth Mental Method and the Yin-Yang Ghost Art within my body began to circulate on their own. One yin, one yang—it was as if both had simultaneously sensed a threat and were fending something off.

'Something is wrong.' The hairs on my arms stood on end. I could only see it clearly by using my Judging Eye: the cavern was swathed in dense corpse energy, and it was surging straight toward my body!

Unlike Yin energy and malice, corpse energy was extremely harmful to the human body. Furthermore, it rarely formed naturally; it was almost always laced with vicious curses.

I looked up into the distance. Suspended in the deepest part of the cavern hung a Suspended Coffin. All of the corpse energy was radiating outward from it.

'Could the Uncorrupted Bone be hidden inside?' I recalled the method Daoist master Wan had taught me for dealing with an Uncorrupted Bone and pulled out the Peachwood Box. However, compared to the two-meter-long Suspended Coffin, the Peachwood Box was far too small. At most, it could only hold a few pieces of bone.

"Stay out here, kiddo. Whatever you do, don't wander off," I said, setting Gu Tongtong down at the entrance. Clutching the Peachwood Box, I walked into the cavern alone.