Chapter 200: Blood Bodhi!

When she looked closely, the clay statue was smiling.
The corners of its mouth slowly split open, the surface of its “skin” tearing into fine, fragmented cracks.
Deep within those fissures, something seemed to be gently writhing.

It was too close.
A wave of hot, greasy breath sprayed onto Lin Yu’s forehead, carrying the stench of rancid oil and rot.
That sharp, hooked nose was practically pressing against her skin.

“Lower lot… eat…” The voice squeezed out of its throat sounded like a broken bellows.

It opened its mouth.
Opened it wide.
So wide it could not possibly belong to a human face.

Behind them, Xiao Zhu leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, watching the show.
She even felt a twinge of regret that she hadn’t brought her phone to record this moment.

“Oh my, oh my…” This delicate little mistress really was unlucky. To draw this “death lot” on the very first try…

In a moment, that pretty cheongsam of hers would be torn to shreds by the [Fortune-Interpreting Monk], along with that tempting body, reduced to a pile of minced flesh scattered across the floor~

Tsk, tsk…
How exhilarating.

Blood splattering everywhere.
Desperate screams…

When she was eaten down to only half a body, it would be the turn of that man who only knew how to put on airs—Boss Luo… oh no, Little Pretty Boy Luo.

Seeing his woman chewed up alive by a monster, would he piss himself on the spot, she wondered?

Hehehe…

However.

Xiao Zhu did not hear the scream she was expecting.

“Uh… ugh…”

At that instant, Lin Yu’s soul really did fly out of her body.
She wasn’t afraid of fighting.
She was used to that.

But as a veteran shut-in who, even when doom-scrolling horror videos at home, kept the volume turned all the way down and relied on “high-energy warning” bullet comments for emotional support the entire time…

The one thing she absolutely could not handle in this lifetimevwas this kind of sudden, untelegraphed—

“GHOST—AAAAAAAH———!!!”

Her rational mind snapped.
Even though she didn’t want to react like that,
her body moved on its own.

Like she’d been electrocuted, she jolted violently, her right arm already swinging in a full arc—

“PA!”

The sound was absurdly crisp.
Like someone popping a water-filled balloon in a vast underground space.

The next instant—

The Buddha’s head was gone.

Not cracked.
Not shattered.
Gone entirely.

Black clay fragments and thick, dark-red liquid exploded outward,
splattering against the floor, the pillars, the walls with a crackling clatter.

The headless body remained frozen in its forward-lunging pose,
swayed once,
and from the severed neck came a bubbling, gurgling sound.

The expression on Xiao Zhu’s face stiffened bit by bit.

“Drip… drip…”

Something warm splashed against the corner of her eye.
She raised a hand and touched it.

Red-black.

Slowly, she looked forward again—

That statue which had been enshrined here for who knew how many years…
its head…
was gone.

“H-how… how is that possible…?”
Her face was filled with shock.
“The statue… was destroyed?”

“Hah… hah… hah—”

Lin Yu braced her hands on her knees, her chest heaving violently.
She lifted her head in a daze, her small face still speckled with a few splashes of grime.
She looked both disheveled and unintentionally funny.

She wiped her face haphazardly, then pointed at the headless statue that was still bubbling with black foam.
Turning to the utterly stunned Xiao Zhu, she burst out in furious complaint:

“No, seriously—what the hell are you people even doing here?!”
“Y-you’re drawing lots, fine, just draw the damn lots! Can’t you talk like normal people?!”
“Why do you have to pull this kind of heart-stopping prank?!”
“Do you have any idea people can literally be scared to death?!”

“A… a prank?!”

Hearing those three words, Xiao Zhu’s face twitched violently.
She stared at Lin Yu so hard her eyeballs practically bulged out of their sockets.
But after grinding her teeth for a long time, she still couldn’t squeeze out a single word.

A prank?

Sister!
That was the [Fortune-Interpreting Monk] that eats people without leaving bones behind!
You slapped its head clean off and you’re blaming it for pulling a prank?!

What kind of monster are you?!

While the two women were locked in a wide-eyed stare-down,
Luo Shaotian had already quietly taken advantage of the chaos to put his sunglasses back on.

“Bzz—”

Although the communication signal was still weak,
the spirit-energy detection module behind the lenses was functioning.

That sudden “head explosion” had just provided it with crucial data.

Through the specialized filtered vision of the sunglasses,
that so-called [Fortune-Interpreting Monk] was no longer just a pile of broken mud.
From within its shattered cavity, yellow-green traces of spirit energy were continuously leaking out.

That energy spread like a plague, exuding the stench of rot and decay.

And the analytical data jumping across the lenses made Luo Shaotian’s heart jolt violently.

[Detection confirmed: Nurgle Lineage]

“Nurgle lineage?”

Luo Shaotian’s brows knitted tightly, his expression instantly turning grave.
“How… how could a Nurgle-contaminated entity appear here?”

He rapidly searched through everything he knew about this lineage.
The more he thought about it, the more wrong it felt.

Back at the exhibition center, that so-called descending entity, the [Elysium Angel · Seraphine], with its aura of temptation and corruption— without a doubt belonged to the [Slaanesh] lineage.

By all logic, if this mission was to track down the remnants of the Chicheng Gang and the Abyssal Gospel Society, then what they encountered here should also have been remnants of the Slaanesh lineage.

But now…

“Wait…”

That massive rotting flesh monster that had rampaged through the Xinhai City Public Security Bureau…
That filthy bride that simply wouldn’t die no matter how much punishment it took…

Those were Nurgle too!

“Hiss—”

Luo Shaotian sucked in a sharp breath.

As he pieced together these seemingly isolated fragments of information, a bone-chilling hypothesis gradually took shape in his mind.

Could it be that… the force behind the Chicheng Gang—the one known as the [Abyssal Gospel Society]— was not merely a group of believers devoted to a single evil god?

They… could simultaneously summon and control two completely different, even mutually opposing, sources of corruption?!

Luo Shaotian clenched his fist.

This mission…
was going to be dangerous.

With no hesitation, he immediately transmitted the current situation to Chen Qing, who was holding the fort back at the base.

At the same time, he moved without warning,
reaching from behind and locking Xiao Zhu’s throat and joints in a brutal grip.

“Ugh—y-you! What are you doing?!”

Xiao Zhu struggled frantically.
Her glamorous wine-red gown was torn apart in the struggle, revealing the ghastly pale skin beneath.

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“You… who are you people, really?!”
“How dare you—do you know whose territory this is?!”

“I know. The Chicheng Gang’s.”

Luo Shaotian’s face was expressionless as he exerted force, slamming Xiao Zhu hard against the floor.

“Bang!”

Lin Yu, still not quite recovered, stood there dazed.
“Eh? Luo… w-what are you doing? Weren’t we still—”

“Drop the act, Ah Yu.”
“That slap of yours just now—no script in the world could cover that.”

Luo Shaotian stared down at the woman pinned beneath him. “Besides, this woman… has probably already seen through us.”

Sure enough, the next moment, Xiao Zhu stopped struggling.

“Hehehehe… hehehe…” She began to laugh.

“Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

The laughter was sharp and piercing, echoing layer upon layer through the deathly silent underground Buddhist hall.
It overlapped with the shadows of the eighteen wrathful arhats and the countless downcast bodhisattvas, as if all the gods and Buddhas were laughing along with her— a sight so deranged it made one’s scalp crawl.

“I clearly… clearly wanted to keep playing with you for a while longer…”
“To savor that delicious pleasure of watching mortals struggle…”

“Who would’ve thought…you’d flip the table so soon?”

Xiao Zhu pressed her face against the blood-smeared floor, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle.
She looked sideways at the panicked Lin Yu.

“Ah… even though you and this man changed your appearances and put on a bit of makeup…”
“You did look somewhat convincing.”
“But didn’t you underestimate Platinum Splendor’s security measures just a little?”

“From the moment you walked through the door,
the surveillance system had already scanned your facial data completely.”
“One backend comparison later…”
“and your identities were obvious.”

She stuck out her tongue and licked the blackened blood off the floor, her voice growing increasingly unhinged.
“Luo Shaotian… Gray Crystal…”
“Hehehehehehehe… hehehehehe…”

“Monkeys of Dawn, we’ve been waiting for you… for a very long time! Hahahaha!”

“Shit!”

Luo Shaotian’s throat tightened as he roared:
“Ah Yu! Now! Use your contract bracelet to send out an alert!”
“The bracelet uses a gravitational-wave channel—interference here—”

“Is there still time?”

Xiao Zhu, pinned to the floor, suddenly spoke.
“It’s already… already started rotting… hehehe…”

Luo Shaotian looked down in horror.
A bulge suddenly swelled beneath the woman’s skin.
Something was writhing slowly underneath, trying to break through that fragile layer of human flesh, making wet, gurgling sounds.

The next second—

“Plop.”

Her left eye socket collapsed.
The eyeball slid down her cheek like candy softened by high heat, leaving behind a sticky trail of yellow-green residue.

Then came the nose.
The lips.
The jaw.

Her delicate features could no longer maintain their shape, melting onto the floor like a wax figure exposed to flame.

“f*ck!”

Even Luo Shaotian broke out in a cold sweat at the sight.
“What the hell is this—”

“Splurt—”

In the next instant, the woman’s seven orifices burst open.
Fetid liquid poured out all at once, its stench instantly overpowering the sandalwood incense of the hall.

Amid the surging yellow-green fluid, countless milky-white maggots squirmed out, scrambling over one another before dropping to the floor with wet splats.

“Guh—!”

Luo Shaotian staggered backward.

The moment the restraint was broken— Xiao Zhu’s body lost its final limit and began to swell grotesquely.

“BOOM—!”

Her skin split apart.
Bundles of bright-red muscle flipped outward, like raw meat torn open by brute force.

Her spine arched violently, ribs thrusting outward as her chest cavity split open.
Yet her organs did not spill out— instead, they were wrapped, stitched, and packed together by layers of fat and purulent flesh.

In the span of a few breaths, the woman who had once worn a wine-red gown was completely gone.

In her place stood a mountain of flesh, stacked layer upon layer of rotting meat.

It was breathing.
Each rise and fall came with dripping slime and writhing maggots.

“Warning! Warning! High-risk spirit-energy reaction detected!”

The shrill electronic alert exploded simultaneously from Luo Shaotian’s sunglasses
and Lin Yu’s contract bracelet.

Red warning frames flashed wildly.

[Threat Level Assessment: B-Class]
[Contamination Source: Nurgle Lineage]

“B-Class… Nurgle contamination…”

Lin Yu’s hands were shaking.
More than fear, she felt overwhelming nausea.

“Hehehehehehahahahaha—!”
“Hahahahaha!”
“Ahahahahaha!”

Laughter rang out. Not from the flesh mountain—

But from all around them.

The once-silent arhats and bodhisattvas— from within their clay torsos came hollow echoes of laughter.
Their mouths did not move, yet they laughed.

As if mocking the suffering of all living beings.
As if laughing at the pitiful fate of mortals.

“Hehehehe…”

At that moment— the golden Buddha seated at the center of the altar… moved.

That gilded hand slowly lifted.

“Namo Amitabha…”

A voice resounded— vast, deep… compassionate?

From the corners of the Buddha’s eyes, liquid slowly seeped out.
Not golden light.
But black tears.

“Decay—
is nirvana.”

A black lotus bloomed at the Buddha’s fingertips.
He gently pressed that lotus against the flesh mountain’s brow.

“Thus is bodhi attained.”

“Pop.”

A soft sound rang out.

Layer upon layer of rotting flesh peeled back like petals,
falling away.

Amid the sky of flying blood, meat, and pus—the “true form” hidden at the core was revealed.

A being seated cross-legged upon a black lotus, its bearing solemn and majestic.

Its skin was blood-red, its body riddled with cracks.
Within those cracks, half-coagulated pus-light faintly glimmered.

The calm prompt from the contract bracelet sounded:

B-Class high-risk contamination confirmed— [Blood Bodhi].