Flesh-and-Blood Shrine

The restaurant seemed to have come alive. Its walls slowly moved inward, and the doors clattered against their frames like teeth biting together.

"Everyone harbors a desire deep in their heart, and I can make your desires real. Eat the meat I prepared for you, and nothing will trouble you ever again."

The Meat Fragrance seeped into her body. Zhu Miaomiao began to lose control, clawing desperately at her shoulders.

Her nails tore through her flesh, leaving her drenched in blood. Under the influence of the Meat Fragrance, she seemed to see her parents, who had perished in the fire.

When she was little, her parents had carried her on their shoulders, supporting her as she grew.

Once she grew up, her parents had leaned on her shoulders. She had become their support.

"You can do whatever you want to do. You can see whoever you want to see. Neither life nor death can separate you. You will be together forever."

The blood on Zhu Miaomiao's shoulders mingled with the Meat Fragrance. Two blurry faces began taking shape within her wounds, as though her parents were about to crawl out of her shoulders.

It was exactly what the Spirit Medium had predicted. If this continued, the desire in Zhu Miaomiao's heart would be stirred, and the horror reflected in the basin would actually happen to her.

"Snap out of it!" Gao Ming held Zhu Miaomiao down, but her body continued to change.

The Meat Fragrance awakened Zhu Miaomiao's deepest desire. Now she was willingly embracing the other party. She no longer wanted to be separated from her parents, even if it meant becoming a monster.

"Our instincts reside in our Flesh and Blood. Your body will never deceive you. It has already made the choice for you." The man's voice echoed through the restaurant. "Come. Come inside. I've prepared a piece of meat for you. Eat it. Just eat it, and you won't suffer anymore!"

Zhu Miaomiao had lost all reason. If Gao Ming let go now, she would undoubtedly rush into the Kitchen and sacrifice parts of her body in exchange for something.

"Gong Xi, hold her back!"

The restaurant kept shrinking. If they stayed any longer, everyone would die.

Gao Ming did not choose to sacrifice Zhu Miaomiao. He picked up the menu and headed straight for the Kitchen while he still had his wits about him.

Closing his fingers around the chain, Gao Ming lifted the thick, opaque curtain.

The aroma of meat struck his nostrils, but the Kitchen was nothing like he had imagined. There were no stoves or open flames, only a muscular man in a chef's uniform chopping meat.

Like a machine, he repeated the same motions, tossing the chopped meat into a pool behind him. The irresistibly tempting Meat Fragrance came from that pool.

Gao Ming slowly approached. He discovered that the chef had lost both eyes and ears, and had neither a mouth nor a nose. Though shaped like a human, he felt more like a Doll.

"Have you decided what you want to eat?" The man's voice sounded again. It came not from the chef's mouth, but from the pool.

Holding the menu, Gao Ming looked into the murky pool. He saw no monster in the water, only his own reflection.

"I never force anyone to offer anything. I am far nobler than those hypocritical gods. Everything you give will be rewarded. All your wishes will come true, so long as you can pay a sufficient price."

"Lie down in here. Reach for your truest desire, and let me see what you want."

The pool grew murkier. As the chef poured the chopped meat into it, blood spread through the water, rapidly dyeing the entire pool red.

The sight reminded Gao Ming of the Bronze Basin in the Spirit Medium's home. When he approached it, the water inside had also turned bloody in a very short time.

"A person has two hearts. One is the visible and tangible Flesh and Blood heart; the other exists and does not exist in the unseen, both real and unreal, gathering thousands upon

thousands of thoughts."

"I will help fulfill the desires of your Flesh and Blood heart. In return, you must offer your divine heart to me."

The world tilted before Gao Ming's eyes. For a moment, he could not tell whether he was falling into the Blood Pool or the Blood Pool was falling toward him.

By the time he came to his senses, the bloody water had already covered his body.

The pool was not deep, yet he felt himself sinking endlessly. His consciousness seemed about to separate from his flesh.

"You possess a body accustomed to pain, strong limbs, a nimble brain, eyes that can see through the mist, and a... Flesh and Blood heart that has died countless times?"

The man's voice was distinctly different from before. This was the first time his tone had changed.

"You... have been here before?"

The voice in the Blood Pool said the same thing as the Spirit Medium.

Gao Ming had no attention to spare for any of that now. He struggled with all his strength to climb out of the Blood Pool, but mutilated corpses seized him.

"Let me see your desire. Let me see what you wished for last time!"

The bloody water suddenly surged, stabbing toward Gao Ming's eyes like sharp blades.

Agony struck. Gao Ming felt his left eye being taken away. Countless threads of blood burrowed into his body through the socket, trying to spread to his heart and into his skull.

Countless fragments of memory churned in the bloody water. Gao Ming recalled some of what had happened in the tunnel that day. His remaining right eye clearly saw the corpses embedded all over the tunnel walls. Every one of them was watching him.

"Aah!!"

Two screams rang out at once. A crack appeared at the bottom of the Blood Pool, and Gao Ming's eye turned blood-red.

The chain jerked. Zhao Xi seized Gao Ming's left hand and dragged him out of the Blood Pool.

The Meat Fragrance dissipated, and the restaurant returned to normal. Only Gao Ming lay collapsed on the floor, clutching his left eye.

Through Gao Ming's eye, the thing in the Blood Pool had seen his past memories. It wanted to complete the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal's offering ritual, but it seemed utterly incapable of fulfilling the true desire in Gao Ming's heart.

"Team Leader!" Only now did Zhu Miaomiao regain her senses. She had not eaten the meat, but her body had already begun to mutate.

"Pick up your axe. Don't let it bewitch you again." It took a long time before Gao Ming climbed off the floor. He could no longer open his left eye.

At the cost of his left eye, Gao Ming had seen his forgotten memories. Their bone-deep chill coiled tightly around his heart.

He dared not tell anyone what he had seen. Clenching his fists, he finally understood why the Spirit Medium and the voice in the Blood Pool had said the same thing.

So the desire hidden deep in my Flesh and Blood was this terrifying.

Gao Ming sat on the edge of the pool and surveyed his surroundings with his remaining right eye.

When someone looked around and could not find the villain, the greatest villain might well be himself.

Under everyone's astonished gaze, Gao Ming jumped back into the Blood Pool. Now it looked no different from an ordinary pool.

Groping along the bottom, Gao Ming found a strange statue at the center of the Blood Pool: a four-faced, eight-armed Ghost deity holding a bleeding heart.

"This is a statue of the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal. The voice we heard just now must have been his." Gong Xi moved beside Gao Ming. "Why is there a crack in the clay statue?"

He pointed at the clay Ghost deity's left eye, but the instant his fingertip touched it, the statue shattered completely.

"I—I didn't do anything!" Gong Xi stood frozen. Seemingly trying to change the subject, he hurriedly asked about Gao Ming's eye. "Did the Flesh-and-Blood Immortal take your eye?"

Gao Ming did not answer. He was still immersed in his memories.

With the clay statue destroyed, the chef who had been chopping meat in the Kitchen finally stopped. As though something had called to him, he walked blankly outside.

"I'm fine. Follow the chef first. Let's see where he's going."

The intense pain twisted Gao Ming's face, but it also brought him into a state of extreme calm. He had to leave Sishui Apartments alive, then go back into that tunnel and take another look!

Leaving the restaurant and passing all kinds of signs, the chef arrived at a rental unit at the very center of the first basement level.

Something seemed to be enshrined in this room. To the left of its bright red wooden door were the words "Seize All Life," and to the right, "Seize All Death."

(End of chapter)