Bleeding Soil

Listening to their description, Sun Hang felt something stir deep in his mind—the memory fragments he had just absorbed from the three Apostles. He had forcibly sealed them away immediately.

The memory fragment from that girl alone had already left him somewhat dazed. If memories from all three of them flooded in at once, the resulting confusion and sense of losing himself would deal a devastating blow to Sun Hang's self-identity.

Sun Hang had very few memories that originally "belonged to him." Add a whole heap of memories from others, memories that nonetheless felt utterly real, and it would be easy for him to begin doubting himself...

Who exactly was "I"? Sun Hang? Han Ying?? An "Apostle"? Or a member of some Cult Organization that worshipped Lord Tai Sui?

Rather than face that risk, Sun Hang would rather seal away all those memory fragments... and only revisit them once his sense of self had become stable enough.

"You two, and you two." Sun Hang pointed at two more sturdily built believers. "Grab the tools and come downstairs with me."

Behind the apartment building was an open patch of land around two hundred square meters in size. It had originally been part of the complex's green belt, but because construction had been left unfinished, there were no plants to speak of—not even the most basic drainage system had been completed. The path that had once been meant for pedestrians had long since been covered by mud. Sun Hang could easily imagine how much of a mess this place became on rainy days.

"Where did the Apostles dig last time?" Sun Hang asked the two women.

The two of them pointed toward the middle of the open lot at the same time.

In a cheap housing complex like this, land was at a premium, and the distance between buildings had been squeezed to the absolute minimum. This patch, wedged between two apartment blocks, received barely any sunlight. Moss of uneven thickness covered both the surface of the muddy ground and the bases of the buildings' walls. Only the spot they were pointing at had clean soil on its surface. It did indeed look like it had recently been dug up.

"You two, dig up the soil there." Sun Hang ordered the other two male believers holding shovels.

"W-We don't dare..." The two men shook their heads miserably. "Only the Apostles can communicate with Lord Tai Sui. None of us have that ability. If we anger Lord Tai Sui... then, then..."

"You're very afraid of Tai Sui?" Sun Hang asked.

Not only the two men, but the two women beside them nodded repeatedly as well. "There used to be a believer who wanted to leave the sect after his illness was cured. He even threatened the Apostles, saying that if they didn't let him go, his family would report them immediately..."

"What happened afterward?"

"The Apostles said he could leave. He hadn't even taken two steps when he came back with a terrified look on his face. Then he opened the window himself and jumped out... He fell to his death right here in this open lot." One of the male believers said, "The Apostles didn't let us collect his body... but by the next day, the body had disappeared for no reason. Even the bloodstains were gone."

"He was eaten by Lord Tai Sui..." the other male believer said softly. "The Apostles said... it was called a sacrifice."

"So, are you digging or not?" Sun Hang asked again.

"But..."

"Let me ask you one thing. Do you think Lord Tai Sui is more frightening, or... me?"

The two male believers immediately recalled what had happened upstairs. Their faces turned white as paper, and one of them instantly nodded frantically. "We'll dig! We'll dig! But can we ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"If Lord Tai Sui gets angry, can you keep us alive?" he pleaded.

"I'll try." Sun Hang nodded slightly.

The two of them carried their shovels over to the patch of land untouched by moss, dragging their feet. The man who had just asked Sun Hang to protect them took a deep breath, raised his shovel, and drove it diagonally into the ground.

The moment the tip of the shovel sank into the mud, the man's expression abruptly changed. His body froze, and he said cautiously, "I... I think I hit something..."

"Don't scare me!" The other man instinctively took two steps back. "What did you hit?"

"I-I-I think... I shoveled into flesh..." The man glanced at Sun Hang and asked in a trembling voice, "Can I pull the shovel out... and take a look?"

Sun Hang nodded.

Holding his breath, the man slowly pulled the shovel blade out of the soil.

Other than some loose dirt clinging to its tip, there was nothing unusual about the blade. But just as everyone else breathed a sigh of relief, a blood-like liquid suddenly seeped out of the earth, instantly dyeing the soil around the shovel mark a dark red.

"Ah!" The man turned pale with fright, threw down the shovel, and fell onto the ground. He scrambled backward on his hands and feet.

The two women let out screams and retreated more than ten meters away in terror.

Sun Hang frowned, walked over, hauled the fallen man to his feet, and picked up the shovel from the ground.

There was not much "blood" seeping from the soil. It only stained an area the size of a palm red before it stopped spreading.

"When you watched the Apostles cut Tai Sui meat before, did it bleed?" Sun Hang turned back to the two women in the distance and asked.

The two women immediately shook their heads like rattles.

"L-L-Lord Tai Sui... p-probably..." the younger woman stammered, "isn't... isn't this close to the surface..."

"Can this Tai Sui thing move on its own?"

"...I don't know." The woman continued shaking her head. "We've never actually seen what a complete Lord Tai Sui looks like."

"Since the Tai Sui parasitizing your bodies can use mycelium to attack others, the main body of Tai Sui shouldn't just be a lump of rotten meat that lets people carve it up, should it?" Sun Hang recalled the file from seven years ago. The lump of flesh temporarily designated Wu Yi Qi Jiu had not possessed offensive capabilities—at least, the Investigation Bureau file stated, "No aggressiveness discovered. Threat level low."

The Cult Organization had used immobile corpses to feed the lump of flesh. If a living person whose movements were unrestricted had been thrown into that fish tank, he could easily break free of the mycelium wrapping around him and escape by stepping on the lump of flesh.

If Tai Sui and that lump of flesh were the same type of anomalous entity, then after seven years, how far could it have "evolved"?

Sun Hang gestured for the two male believers to back away. Then, carrying the shovel himself, he stepped forward, aimed the blade vertically at the bleeding hole, and stomped down on it.

"Pfft."

Just as the male believer had said, the sensation transmitted through the shovel blade did not feel like breaking through soil—neither soft earth nor hard, compacted dirt. It felt more like cutting into a piece of tough leather.