Green at Death's Door

"Hey, are you all right?"

When Lu Ban saw the new greenery on Hound's hand, his heart skipped a beat.

Hound stared blankly at Lu Ban, seemingly still unaware of what had happened.

The two had just emerged from the maze formed by the wild grass and arrived beside the bus.

The wild grass that had originally been flattened beneath the wheels had now stood upright again, trying to wrap itself around the bus.

Stone and Mary had returned to the bus. They had only opened the doors and waited for Lu Ban and Hound.

The two boarded one after the other and shut the doors tight.

"Damn it."

Hound looked at his left hand.

That hand no longer looked human.

The bones, blood vessels, and muscles were gone.

All that remained was hard wood, fresh green grass, and twisted vines.

His arm was gradually turning into a plant.

In the blink of an eye, Hound's entire left hand had turned into wood, and the transformation was rapidly spreading toward his shoulder.

"Cut it off! Hurry, cut it off!"

Hound shouted in a panic.

Compared to turning entirely into a tree, losing an arm was clearly more acceptable.

Lu Ban did not hesitate either. He grabbed the knife they had previously used to process the rat meat and brought it down on Hound's upper arm.

"!!!"

The knife sank into the flesh and cut into the bony joint connecting the shoulder and upper arm, but it was difficult to pierce any farther.

Hound's face was ashen. He bit down hard on a bundle of cloth torn from his clothes, letting out only a faint whimper from his throat.

Lu Ban pulled out the knife and picked up the crowbar. Before the bark-like plant structure could spread any farther, he swung it down with all his strength.

Without needing to aim, the crowbar's hook embedded itself precisely in Hound's wound. Its sharp tip smashed the joint, leaving Hound's left hand completely limp.

Lu Ban continued with the knife, swiftly cutting off Hound's arm.

Clack—

The arm, already hardened into wood, fell to the ground. The tiny amount of flesh remaining on it gradually darkened, and even the blood that flowed out quickly dried up and turned into green grass.

Lu Ban now understood how this grassland had formed.

Most likely, any creature that stayed here for a while would be eroded and infected by the green plants, eventually becoming part of the grassland.

Some of those creatures would be preserved as bait to attract other prey. The grassland was like a skilled hunter, quietly waiting for its prey to deliver itself.

The wild grass, the earth, and even the air were all part of the hunt.

That was why this grassland was utterly silent.

"We need to leave as soon as possible."

Lu Ban said this and went to the driver's seat to check the condition of the vehicle.

Before he could even check whether the engine would start, Lu Ban noticed green shoots beginning to sprout from the gap where the glass beside the driver's seat had shattered.

"Even lifeless machinery can be infected by this grassland?"

Lu Ban finally realized how serious the situation was.

He pressed down on the accelerator, and the engine roared to life.

Lu Ban placed both hands on the steering wheel, preparing to break through the grassland's restraints.

His arm began to itch intensely. Lu Ban scratched it, but the itching never eased.

He looked over and suddenly discovered that something was growing inside his forearm, where there should have been veins.

The thing writhed and crawled between his blood vessels and muscles like a long, thin worm.

Through his skin, he could clearly see the green thing trying to break through the barrier of his flesh and crawl out. Lu Ban felt an unbearable itch and wanted to scratch it, to cut open his own flesh and dig the thing out.

As he pressed the accelerator and glanced back, he could see that the blood from Hound's severed shoulder had stopped flowing.

But no one had helped him staunch it.

"Damn it!"

Hound looked at his shoulder.

The cross-section of the wound was already covered by fresh green plants. The life-filled grass and wood clung to Hound's shoulder, forming a bizarre sight.

He could see something bulging and sinking on his chest and stomach. Hound pulled open his clothes. His abdomen, which had once been muscle, now seemed to contain countless worms stirring within it. One strange green bulge after another pushed outward, and even his neck and face were beginning to be covered.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it."

Hound clawed at his neck and face with his right hand, trying to ease the uncontrollable itching. But although his fingernails left bright red trails of blood, they did nothing to relieve it.

He kept scratching and scratching. His nails became stained with blood, and his skin rotted, yet the bulging, worm-like things remained hidden even deeper beneath the surface.

The bus's wheels were covered in green grass and were nearly flat, but they finally began to turn.

The dirt kicked up by the wheels pushed the bus forward. Lu Ban tightened his grip on the steering wheel and turned toward the direction from which the bus had rolled.

"."

Lu Ban glanced back again.

Stone and Mary were at a loss. Those "worms" seemed to be appearing on their bodies as well, while Hound, whose condition was the worst, had already begun convulsing all over.

The bulges on his face seemed to have finally found an opening. Hound's eyes turned cloudy, and something green spread across the bottoms of them.

Pop—

With a faint sound, a new shoot grew out from the bottom of Hound's eye.

Then a trace of blood seeped from his nostril, and another tender shoot poked out.

More shoots finally found outlets through his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. The bulges beneath his disordered skin writhed toward those openings and eventually burst out of his body.

Pop—

Hearing the sound, Lu Ban turned his head and saw that Hound had already lost all liveliness. Several clumps of wild grass had grown from his exposed abdomen, as if it were the perfect soil.

"Throw him out."

Lu Ban shouted this at Stone and Mary.

Their symptoms were not yet severe. After hearing Lu Ban's words, they looked at each other before finally hardening their hearts and opening the bus door.

The wild grass outside suddenly seemed to possess a life of its own. It began to sway and grow frantically, and the grass and plants ahead of the bus had even risen higher than the roof.

The two threw Hound's corpse, which had already become a potted landscape, out of the bus. In an instant, the swaying wild grass swallowed the corpse, and it disappeared from sight.

Lu Ban felt that the restless plants inside his body seemed to calm down for a moment.

"These plants aren't limited to the parts we can see. The air here is also part of them."

Lu Ban roughly guessed why they had ended up like this, and why Hound had fallen into such a state from nothing more than an injury.

The air in this grassland was already filled with seeds. As long as they inhaled, those seeds could enter their bodies and grow madly in a demonic frenzy. In an injured person, the seeds would fuse with the blood more quickly and thus grow faster into monsters capable of taking a person's life.

Lu Ban even suspected that the earth itself was a mimicry of the plants. The entire area existed solely for hunting.

On this grassland, the plants were the true masters.

"We're almost there."

Lu Ban saw the road beyond the high beams and spoke, his hanging heart finally settling.

Just then, a white hand with sharp claws reached out through the shattered windshield.

*

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