Linbiangui Village-Infinite Streaming Chapter 30

The fog lay overhead like a heavy quilt, making it hard to breathe. Along the entire path, the only sound echoing through the forest was the rustling of two people walking.

Upon reaching the minefield, the unique fresh scent of the fungi grew stronger. What should have been the pleasant aroma of food now only made Chen Jin’s throat tighten. Deep within the minefield, sparse patches of purple light seeped out from the weeds, clinging to the ground like ghost faces under the gloomy sky. A closer look revealed that the light was spores ejected by a cluster of fungi. Chen Jin instinctively covered his mouth and nose.

“See it?” A Qing leaned against a nearby plum tree, pulling a sharp dagger from behind her back with one hand. She slowly plunged the blade into the main trunk of the dead tree. A greenish-blue viscous liquid slowly oozed from the wound. She dipped a bit of the liquid and fed it into her mouth. It seemed to taste good; she grinned with lingering satisfaction, the smile twisting her originally delicate face into something bizarre and unsettling. “It’s different from the little mushrooms you saw in the woods, isn’t it?”

“Why did you bring me here?”

“Didn’t I tell you last night? Naturally, it’s to go out and work. If not him…” A Qing pulled the dagger from the tree trunk, pointing the tip directly at Chen Jin. “Then it’s you.”

“Even if I go with you, what about the poison in Wu Zeng’s body?”

“The fungi were grown by me, so I naturally have a way. But you don’t have much time to hesitate.”

“You went to all this trouble, yet you can only take one person. What exactly is your goal?” Chen Jin pulled out his phone and checked the time. Half an hour was almost up. A text message popped up at that moment: “You have entered a border management area. Please comply with relevant regulations…”

So they had already reached the border.

“Mind your own business.” A Qing hooked her little finger through the pure black eye patch and swung it. The gold-edged fabric looked delicate and appealing in her hand. “Have you thought it through, little brother?”

The lenses of his glasses were suddenly coated with purple fungal spores. Chen Jin took off his glasses to wipe them, and while lowering his head, his peripheral vision inadvertently glanced at the minefield ahead. “I’ll go.”

“I thought that little brother was a rare beauty.” A Qing walked over, her soft laughter brushing past his ear. She gazed gently at Chen Jin, and the sharp blade coiled around Chen Jin’s neck like a venomous snake. “Now that I look closely, it seems you, little brother, without your glasses, might be even more striking? You brothers look so much alike around the eyes.”

A Qing’s jade-like fingertip traced Chen Jin’s earlobe. The moment the eye patch was tucked away, Chen Jin heard the sound of the dagger being sheathed, accompanied by A Qing’s soft whisper: “This kind of selfless, life-or-death brotherhood is quite rare.”

As soon as she finished speaking, A Qing took Chen Jin’s hand. The warm, soft touch only made Chen Jin’s heart turn cold. “Follow me.”

The ground in the minefield was mostly weeds and exposed dirt. A Qing’s technique for walking was very clever, moving forward and then retreating. After nearly two minutes of maneuvering, they hadn’t even covered half of the fifty-meter distance.

“Xiao Jin! Turn around—” Wu Zeng’s fierce shout mixed with the wind. Chen Jin abruptly tore off the eye patch and looked back. His eyes, adjusted to the darkness, stung from the morning light filtering through the thick fog. He saw Wu Zeng appear at the edge of the minefield, his hands twisted behind Sister Li’s wrists.

Sister Li’s hair was messy, with some dead leaves stuck near her temples. Her stand-up collar had been cut away by a knife, revealing shoulders covered in prominent purple marks, identical in shape to the protrusions on A Qing’s neck, though the contents inside were gone.

“Bring Xiao Jin back, and I’ll give you your mother’s life.” Wu Zeng grabbed Sister Li’s hair and placed the sharp knife against her neck. His voice was unusually cold and hard.

Even ten steps away, Chen Jin could see Wu Zeng’s hands, gripping Sister Li, trembling slightly—he was nervous.

“Hahaha! We’re just business partners, where did this mother-daughter relationship come from?” Sister Li seemed provoked by the revelation of this identity. Her messy strands of hair were blown by the mountain wind. Ignoring Wu Zeng’s grip on her hair, she forcefully twisted her head and spat out bloody saliva. “Surely you know that the poison naturally dissipates after the person who administered it dies, right?”

When they previously reviewed Sister Li’s materials, they had only analyzed her identity, but never expected this relationship with A Qing. After everything that had happened, Chen Jin wondered if their bond was affection or sin.

Chen Jin looked back at A Qing, who was close by. Not far behind her was the Mother Fungi cluster.

“Trust me or trust her? Or…” A Qing’s finger suddenly pressed against Chen Jin’s Adam’s apple, scraping back and forth. The next second, A Qing’s right arm suddenly swung backward in a bright silver arc. Several fungi clusters that were about to bloom instantly burst into powder. The strange fungal dust flew up, condensing into a wall of mist that almost blocked Chen Jin’s vision. “Do all three of you want to die?”

A sickly sweet scent surged out from the dense fungal mist. Chen Jin’s nasal cavity was flooded with the fresh, sweet, and decadent aroma of the fungi, clouding his mind. The scene before his eyes instantly twisted into a kaleidoscopic vortex.

“Are you coming or not?” A Qing whispered close to his back, sounding like a demon. The dagger had somehow pressed against him, now intimately rubbing against Chen Jin’s artery. “Do you guess the fungal threads will erode your brain first, or will my blade taste blood first?”

“I’ll go.” Chen Jin answered hoarsely.

At the edge of the minefield, Wu Zeng couldn’t hear their conversation, only watching their movements anxiously while holding Sister Li. The next second, he saw them intending to move further inward. “Don’t go! I’m fine!”

Wu Zeng was so tense that his teeth bit hard into the inside of his cheek, and crimson blood beads continuously seeped from the wound. He suddenly let go of Sister Li and ran forward. “Don’t believe her!”

“Overestimating yourself.” A Qing sneered, moving her fingers intending to freeze him in place, but she suddenly realized it had no effect. “How could this be…”

In A Qing’s astonished gaze, Wu Zeng surged forward. The dense fungal mist was split apart, like the great Moses parting the sea in mythology.

Chen Jin’s pupils instantly dilated. He wasn’t poisoned?

A Qing pressed the dagger, intending to stab Chen Jin’s artery. The moment the blade flashed, Wu Zeng knocked the dagger out of A Qing’s hand. Chen Jin immediately spun around, grabbed A Qing’s wrist, and used the momentum to push her toward the safe area outside the minefield.

Sand and dirt mixed with rotten leaves flew up. A Qing tumbled and fell beside Sister Li.

“Are you crazy?!” Sister Li’s scream pierced through the haze. Her hair was scattered like menacing dead vines, looking utterly disheveled and covered in mud. “How many lives has this vixen ruined! Chen Jin! The souls of all the dead are watching!”

Chen Jin took a deep look at Wu Zeng beside him, then lifted his foot and crushed a cluster of fungi. It was now worthless. The viscous liquid silently accused, like tears.

Chen Jin’s voice was as cold as an ice spring in a canyon. “So you want to use my hand to complete your matricide ritual that’s twenty years too late?”

Sister Li knelt on the ground, two silent lines of tears rolling from the corners of her eyes. She clutched two dead leaves on the ground, her lips trembling uncontrollably. “She is a bastard child! All the tragedy started because of her! Why does everyone insist on keeping her alive?!”

Memories from decades ago played out in her mind. Every day and night locked in the basement by iron chains was still vivid. Every infant forced to be born in Sha Country had been smothered in her arms. A Qing… A Qing was the one that got away. The sudden downpour that night washed away her path home, but it also left A Qing behind.

But, if not for A Qing, Zhang Guo Wei wouldn’t have distanced himself from her, and she wouldn’t have been reduced to a running dog for the Sha Country people!

“Do you hate her, or do you hate yourself?” Chen Jin dropped the cold question.

A Qing just stared at the ground, unresponsive. She had always known Sister Li’s thoughts, but having them laid bare like this, she was momentarily speechless. “Have you really thought of me this way all along?”

“Shut up!” Sister Li grabbed a stone from the ground and hurled it across. The stone landed squarely on A Qing’s forehead, and blood streamed down from the wound.

Wu Zeng watched Chen Jin’s action of crushing the fungi. He knew Chen Jin held resentment.

A scent of mint suddenly enveloped his nasal cavity. Wu Zeng’s slightly hoarse voice sounded in Chen Jin’s ear: “I will never harm you.”

Before Chen Jin could turn around, Wu Zeng spread his arms and fell backward into the minefield.

Time stretched infinitely at that moment. Chen Jin lunged forward, only seeing Wu Zeng smiling with his eyes.

The instant they hit the ground, dust and dirt flew up, and a thunderous explosion erupted in their ears—a landmine had detonated.

Chen Jin’s palms were scraped raw and bleeding by the dirt. The alligator turtle shell, stained with blood, and the detonating landmine simultaneously burst into light. The alligator turtle shell rapidly enlarged, enveloping both of them. The barrier barely withstood the mine’s impact.

The familiar dull pain returned. In the moment of near annihilation, Chen Jin clearly saw that every inch of Wu Zeng’s skin was inscribed with his name, like a prolonged blood curse.

“It’s time to go back.” That was the last thought left in his mind before Chen Jin passed out.

Outside the minefield, A Qing pulled out her dagger and plunged it into Sister Li’s heart. “It’s over.” But she was no saint either.

Outside the minefield, A Qing and Sister Li were thrown to the ground by the mine blast.

After a while, Sister Li slowly regained consciousness, her head ringing from the explosion. When her vision refocused, she saw A Qing standing before her. The next second, a dull pain of a sharp blade piercing flesh came from her chest. Looking down, A Qing’s dagger was plunged into her heart.

Before Sister Li could react, A Qing stabbed her heart several more times until she was completely silent. “You’re right. After all, I’m no saint either.”

In the bathhouse stall.

Chen Jin felt a giant rock pressing on his chest. In his stupor, he fell into an abyss again. The suffocating sensation of drowning tightly wrapped around his body, dragging Chen Jin down into a more secluded depth. His body began to involuntarily curl and spasm from lack of oxygen.

The familiar scent of mint returned. Chen Jin realized someone was cupping the back of his neck with a cold hand, lifting him from the continuous sinking. Sharp canine teeth pried open his tightly closed lips, and a continuous stream of air was passed into his mouth.

“Cough, cough…” Chen Jin suddenly opened his eyes, finding his back pressed against the cold floor. The back of his neck was gently supported by Wu Zeng. Their lips were tightly pressed together, and Wu Zeng’s handsome face was inches away.

“Slap.” Chen Jin abruptly pushed Wu Zeng away.