The young novice went to the kitchen, filled a bowl with porridge that had long gone cold, added a little pickled vegetables, then cradled the bowl and slowly headed toward the innermost side room.
Sun Hang circled around to the novice's front side and carefully studied his expression. Besides fear and worry, there was also a trace of undisguisable disgust on his face.
Who was he disgusted by? Senior Disciple Brother, who ordered them around by virtue of seniority? The monk who had been guarding the door just now? Or... the person inside the side room?
The young novice knocked twice on the door and called softly, "Master, Senior Brother Jue Ming sent me to bring you food."
No one answered from inside the room. The novice hesitated for a moment, then slowly pushed open the door.
At once, a foul stench wafted out of the room.
It was not the stench of a rotting corpse, but the odor that came from elderly people who had been bedridden for a long time without receiving proper care or cleaning.
"Master?"
It was still dusk, and the room was dimly lit. Sun Hang could only vaguely make out a figure lying on the bed in the corner by the wall.
The young novice pressed himself against the wall, set the bowl of rice porridge on a cabinet, and then lit the kerosene lamp in the room.
An old man who looked like a monster appeared before Sun Hang.
All four of his limbs lay exposed outside the bedding. The ends of his hands and feet were wrapped in thick, overgrown layers of keratin, resembling four clumps of withered tree roots dug from the mud.
The old man's face was also covered in growths of all sizes. The largest was as big as