Linbiangui Village-Infinite Streaming Chapter 28
byNear-Death Plea for Treatment
“Your face was uglier just now than the last time you ate raw meat.” Wu Zeng rested his chin on Chen Jin’s shoulder, asking tiredly, “What, worried about me?”
“How do you still have the mind to joke like this?” Chen Jin couldn’t help but raise his hand to touch the area behind Wu Zeng’s ear. The subtle squirming of the fungal filaments beneath his fingertip made his stomach clench. A rustling sound came from the back of Wu Zeng’s head; the thread-like material was still present.
On the way back, Chen Jin brushed against the ends of Wu Zeng’s hair. The image of A Qing’s intimate demeanor at the card hall suddenly flashed in his mind, and his tone became somewhat sarcastic: “You’re blind in the dark, so don’t talk nonsense if you saw wrong. I’m not the one growing strange things, why should my face look ugly?”
Wu Zeng grabbed Chen Jin’s retreating hand, his face full of sincerity. “It’s my fault. Punch me to wake me up.”
The cold hands sent a shiver through Chen Jin. He abruptly pulled free from Wu Zeng’s grasp. “Psycho!” A stumble and a curse sounded almost simultaneously. With the force of that pull, Wu Zeng plopped onto the ground. His expression looked somewhat awkward and helpless, like the fragility of a frail old man caught in an embarrassing situation.
“Damn it!” Chen Jin’s pupils contracted. He quickly helped him up. A strange, fresh scent wafted from Wu Zeng again, lingering between the two, making Chen Jin frown.
Wu Zeng didn’t know why this was happening; collapsing from a mere push was not normal.
Chen Jin hurried Wu Zeng toward the boundary, hardened his heart, and stepped out again. But this time, it wasn’t so simple.
The familiar dull pain struck again, and Chen Jin returned to the bathhouse. Only this time, Wu Zeng’s chatter was missing. With a thud, the sound of a heavy object falling came from behind. Chen Jin frantically looked back and saw Wu Zeng collapsed on the ground.
His condition was worse than before! Finding Aunt San Rong tonight was imperative.
It was already past midnight when Chen Jin supported Wu Zeng and burst into the old woman’s courtyard. The night had poured down like ink onto Aunt San Rong’s roof. Aside from the moon, there was no other light source; the surroundings were almost pitch black.
“There’s a sound inside.” Before they even reached the door, Wu Zeng pulled Chen Jin behind him. Faint sounds of blunt objects striking could be heard from inside the house.
“Give it a rest, in your current state where you fall over with one push.” Chen Jin pushed Wu Zeng away, stepping forward. As he got closer, he realized there was indeed quite a commotion inside.
Chen Jin knocked twice on the tightly shut door. The sound of a heavy object dropping came from inside, followed by a sudden silence.
No one came to open the door for a long time. Ignoring everything else, Chen Jin’s right leg, filled with impatience and wrapped in the midnight chill, kicked the wooden door. The old, poorly maintained door creaked open, the wooden bolt falling heavily to the ground. The flying dust created a white mist in the moonlight.
Confused footsteps came from the darkness. There was more than one person inside.
“Who is it!” Chen Jin pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight.
The moment the light came on, two rolling pins stained with coal ash swung down at his head. Before Chen Jin could react, Wu Zeng grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back a distance. Chen Jin tilted his head, narrowly dodging the sneak attack. His phone dropped to the ground, and the upward-shining light projected the attackers’ figures—they were right in front of him.
Wu Zeng’s long leg sliced through the darkness, kicking accurately at the shadows. The two kicks were precise and vicious, causing the shadows to collapse onto the ground as if their spines had been yanked out.
“Ah!” “Damn it!” Angry curses and screams in a heavy village accent sounded simultaneously.
“Uncle Liao? Sister Chen?” The voices were too familiar, and Chen Jin blurted out their names.
Wu Zeng fumbled in the dark and pulled the light cord inside the house. The dim, yellow light instantly filled every corner. Sister Chen and Uncle Liao were on the floor, clutching their stomachs, hunched over like shrimp, wailing incessantly. Aunt San Rong lay on the bed, her head bloody, staring straight at the ground without moving, constantly chewing and swallowing something. She looked as if she had been badly beaten.
“Ouch! What are you doing?!” Sister Chen wailed on the ground, the blood-stained rolling pin rolling nearby. Her eyes were filled with black lines that hadn’t faded, resembling the patterns on cracked stone.
Uncle Liao supported himself on one hand and stood up. He raised his rolling pin and charged at Chen Jin, his face ferocious and his teeth gritted. “What are you here for?!”
With a clang, Wu Zeng kicked away the rolling pin aimed at Chen Jin, his face pale. “Don’t seek death.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Wu Zeng coughed up a mouthful of blood, bright red mixed with a faint green. Then, he collapsed backward like a deflated balloon.
Chen Jin quickly stepped forward to catch him. Wu Zeng went limp in Chen Jin’s arms, his body icy cold, his eyes snapping shut as if the power had been cut.
The chill of the early morning wind swept the smell of blood in through the window. Chen Jin tightly gripped Wu Zeng’s clothes, supporting his constantly sliding body. The veins on the back of Chen Jin’s hands bulged. Fresh blood continuously overflowed from Wu Zeng’s nose and mouth, and the fungal filaments behind his ear seemed to smell the fresh scent and began to twist and probe.
Suddenly, Wu Zeng’s breathing stopped. Chen Jin let out a sharp, loud cry, his voice cracking slightly at the end, his eyes instantly turning blood red. “Wu Zeng!”
The couple had lost their minds and acted recklessly when they were hitting Aunt San Rong, but Chen Jin and Wu Zeng’s intrusion brought them back to reality. They were stunned by Chen Jin’s shout and couldn’t react immediately.
It was Aunt San Rong, lying on the bed, who suddenly returned to normal. After two choking coughs, she grinned, revealing a dark, cavernous mouth, and her voice hoarsely broke the eerie stalemate. “Poisoned, is he?”
Chen Jin slowly laid Wu Zeng flat on the ground. After confirming that his nose and mouth were not blocked by blood, he turned and said anxiously, “He was poisoned at the card hall. Now he has fungal filaments growing behind his ear.”
“Oh… the card hall, then that’s probably a Flower Fungus.” Aunt San Rong slowly got off the bed. The wounds on her face were miraculously beginning to heal.
This scene of self-healing… Chen Jin involuntarily recalled the scar that had suddenly disappeared from Wu Zeng’s tiger’s mouth.
“You…” Chen Jin swallowed the words he was about to say. There was a more urgent matter at hand.
Sister Chen and Uncle Liao silently took two steps back, standing aside with their heads bowed, looking somewhat fearful, completely unlike their previous enraged state.
It seemed that neither the villagers nor Aunt San Rong had told the whole truth. The relationship between the two sides was not black and white; there must be a deeper, more complicated history. But there was no time to investigate now.
“How do you treat the Flower Fungus?”
“There is no treatment,” Aunt San Rong said, circling Wu Zeng and staring at his pale face. “Unless you can find a fresh Flower Fungus cap within six hours. With the cap, you can retract the filaments.”
“Where is the Flower Fungus?”
“Meiziqing.” Chen Jin immediately stood up upon hearing this, ready to head into the woods.
“Going now is useless. The Flower Fungus only sprouts at 8 AM,” Aunt San Rong slowly shuffled over to a stool and sat down. She probed behind Wu Zeng’s ear with her finger, and the dense, thread-like material immediately wrapped around it. “You won’t make it in time.”
“8 AM…” A Qing’s voice echoed in his ears. They had agreed to meet again at 8 AM tomorrow. Chen Jin frowned and asked, “What happens after six hours?”
“He won’t die, but he will be completely controlled by the person who poisoned him,” Aunt San Rong moved her finger away, and the fungal filaments reluctantly retracted.
No wonder Wu Zeng still had moments of clarity; the poison hadn’t fully taken effect yet.
“By then, the fungus will have sucked his brains dry. Only a shell will be left,” Aunt San Rong shook her head and added.
“Since you know so much, you must have another way,” Chen Jin said in a deep voice.
“Why do you think that?” Aunt San Rong crossed her legs comfortably, looking at the young man before her with composure.
“This poison comes from Meiziqing. If you don’t know about Meiziqing’s affairs, who would? Furthermore, your action of checking behind his ear was very practiced; it doesn’t seem like the first time you’ve encountered this poison.”
“You are indeed clever.” Aunt San Rong showed a satisfied smile. “I didn’t give you that thing this afternoon for nothing.”
Before Chen Jin could reply, Wu Zeng’s body suddenly began to twitch, his stomach rising and falling violently. Chen Jin quickly lifted his shirt. The bulging blue veins beneath the skin traced his waistline, weaving an eerie network along his violently heaving abdominal muscles. His body was smooth and cold, his waist and abdomen flat and firm, without any calloused scars.
Just now, coming out of the bathhouse, Chen Jin distinctly felt that the calloused marks on his abdomen had expanded significantly. His entire abdomen was covered in calluses, and even the inside of his stomach had begun to itch and burn.
Chen Jin looked up at Aunt San Rong and sincerely said, “Please, Aunt San Rong, grant us your guidance.”
Aunt San Rong pulled out a walking stick from somewhere, identical to the one she used during the day. She then jabbed it into Uncle Liao’s knee. “Take them to A Bai’s house. Tell him I sent them.”
Uncle Liao cried out in pain and knelt on the ground with a slap. He replied tremblingly, “Yes… yes.”
“You, continue.” Aunt San Rong tapped Sister Chen’s head with the stick, then slowly shuffled back to the bed.
Sister Chen seemed to wake up as if called from a dream. She quickly picked up the rolling pin and followed Aunt San Rong to the bedside. Then, she raised the rolling pin and heavily struck the old woman’s head. Blood instantly splattered.
Uncle Liao didn’t say anything, taking the lead to guide them.
Even though the scene in the house was extraordinarily bizarre, Chen Jin had no intention of wasting more energy here. He hoisted Wu Zeng onto his back and followed Uncle Liao’s steps.
The sound of the wooden stick tapping on the bluestone slabs was as crisp as firecrackers tearing through the night. After fewer than five taps, a light came on in the house at the end of the path, instantly illuminating the dark lane.
Passing through three wooden doors plastered with door gods, the bitter smell of herbal medicine permeated the air. An extremely young man walked out wearing a jacket, followed by two even younger boys. The three decreased in height sequentially, like Russian nesting dolls.
“Uncle Liao, what are you doing in the middle of the night?” the leading boy asked, rubbing his eyes. The two boys behind him clutched his coat tails, peeking out from behind him to examine the newcomers.
“A Bai, Aunt San Rong told me to bring them to you.” Uncle Liao pointed at the two people on Chen Jin’s back.
Fortunately, Wu Zeng had coughed a few times along the way, otherwise Chen Jin would have thought he was dead. How else could he only take a breath every few seconds?
A Bai looked them over and said, “Come in.”
Chen Jin quickly carried Wu Zeng into the house.
A Bai’s living room was a clinic. A human meridian chart hung on the wall, and the floor was piled with various medical books—Chinese and Western medicine books were everywhere.
Chen Jin placed Wu Zeng on the examination bed as requested by A Bai. It was called an examination bed, but it was actually just a wooden board covered with a towel, but he couldn’t ask for much more now.
Wu Zeng suddenly began to cough violently, and an eerie, bloody color gradually appeared on his face.
A Bai gestured with his chin toward his younger brother beside him. “Bai Lao Er, go take a look.”
The half-grown boy behind A Bai timidly stepped out, took a small knife, and walked up to Wu Zeng.
“Hey…” Chen Jin felt uneasy watching the half-grown boy, but Uncle Liao held him back, shaking his head to signal him not to interfere.
Bai Lao Er flipped the small knife, pressing the handle and cutting into the area behind Wu Zeng’s ear. A small clump of fungal filaments was excised, but some greenish-yellow mucus also oozed out from behind Wu Zeng’s ear.
“Lao San,” A Bai instructed again.
The youngest, Bai Lao San, took cotton and medicinal powder from a nearby medicine box. He quickly hopped to the bedside, poured the powder with one hand, and pressed it onto Wu Zeng’s ear.
A strong herbal fragrance wafted out, like a meadow after the rain.
A Bai used tweezers to pick up the transparent fungal filaments and burned them over an alcohol lamp for a while. There was no smell, but the filaments became straight and stiff. He soaked the burned filaments in alcohol, and they instantly regained their soft appearance.
Bai Lao San continued, plucking a green pill from the medicine box. “Dodder seeds can control the fungal filaments for a while. But for a complete cure…”
“We need to get the Flower Fungus from Meiziqing at 8 AM tomorrow?”
“That’s right.”