People like this often didn’t live very long. Many would mutter to themselves before their heads suddenly leaped from their necks, shouting, "I have finally achieved great freedom!"
Then legs sprouted from beneath their heads, which scurried away at great speed, yelling, "Co with to Nirvana!"
The headless bodies would grow even larger mushroom caps from their necks and race after them.
They would run to the giant gold Buddha, climb it with hands and feet, leap with all their might, and then begin to float, ascending into the sky and rging with the giant mushroom wheel.
"I’ve reached the Western Heaven!"
They would cry out in fits of laughter.
People in the city, transford into mushrooms, were continuously abandoned by their kin to join this mushroom wheel.
Now with the Buddha rooted firmly in place, the surviving people would erge from their hiding places, covering their noses and mouths tightly, constantly dousing their face coverings with water as they searched for food.
But they could often not guard against their skin.
As they walked, their skin would pop and mushrooms would sprout from their pores.
At first, so would tediously pluck them or use their Golden Core or Nascent Soul to refine these mushrooms or spores, but later, tired of the struggle, they simply let them grow.
In this anarchic era, killing for food was nothing extraordinary, let alone growing mushrooms on one’s body.
"Ha ha ha, if I eat the mushrooms that I’ve grown myself, it doesn’t count as cannibalism!" soone cackled in madness.
The number of living people in the city grew fewer and fewer.
Many couldn’t bear this oppressive terror and would rip off their masks, breathing deeply as they rushed towards the golden Buddha, shouting, "So what if the mushrooms assimilate ? Is not the mushroom Nirvana also a form of Nirvana? Ha ha ha!"
"Thud!"
Heads detached from bodies and flew into the sky.
"I have attained great freedom!" heads-turned-mushrooms would shout in the air.
"Ha ha ha, my dear wife, hurry and join us! It’s so blissful up here!"
The man, now a human head mushroom, would cry out to his still living wife and children, "I can feel the thoughts and consciousness of others. There are so many people around ! They’re all alive! We’re connected, we’re sharing, we’re sitting in golden light, this is Nirvana!"
On the third day beneath the sitting Buddha,
suddenly, within the mushroom wheel behind the Buddha’s head, mushrooms of all sizes began to wither and rot.
The people trapped in the mushroom Nirvana let out waves of heart-wrenching screams as they rotted while screaming, black juices oozing from their decaying flesh and dripping down from the mushroom wheel, forming black streams on the ground.
They struggled desperately to escape from the mushroom wheel, but with each move, chunks of black rot fell from their bodies.
Soon, they were so decayed that their white bones were exposed, yet still, they could not die.
Even more horrifying was the shared consciousness; their pain was transmitted from one to another and amplified thousands, tens of thousands of tis!
Yet they still could not die.
"The demon seeds are beginning to absorb nutrients."
The Musician in green gently tapped the tea table, keeping ti with the rhythm, squinting his eyes as if the screams were particularly sweet to his ears.
In fact, the screams were unbearably piercing, but accompanied by his timing, they sohow beca pleasing, an uncanny harmony.
"When the demon seeds have absorbed all the nutrients, they can be harvested."
The Musician in green said with a smile, "It’s just unknown which fellow Daoist the Extre Joy Demon Buddha will fall into the hands of."
Outside the city, Chen Shi, Li Tianqing, and Black Pot, although protected by a Dust Cleaning Talisman and not transford by the mushrooms, were also so hungry they felt faint, seeing everything in the shape of food.
The fish at they had been rationed had been eaten, and the crops in the fields, the fish in the water, and the beasts in the mountains had all turned to stone; even the Xinxiang rats did not escape being petrified.
Panicked by hunger, Chen Shi searched everywhere for food, digging three feet into the ground for sweet potatoes, and after a great effort, unearthed one, only to find it turned into hard stone.
Chen Shi, exasperated, punched the stone sweet potato three tis.
Li Tianqing said weakly, "Save your energy, keep digging, maybe we will find one that isn’t petrified."
Both n looked pale, their eyes tinged green with desperation.
The sweet potato field was littered with petrified vines, and walking through it carelessly could result in stubbed toes and cuts, very inconvenient.
Chen Shi and Li Tianqing went to the water’s edge, hoping to catch a fish monster. Since the area had been demonized, but the Minjiang river flowed upstream and down, perhaps so foolish fish demon would swim into the Demon Domain.
The two waited eagerly for a while but no foolish fish demon appeared.
Chen Shi sighed, straightened up, while Li Tianqing picked up a fist-sized snail from the water’s edge, saying, "Let’s have Black Pot boil it, maybe we can drink so aty soup."
"The snail shell is made of stone," Chen Shi pointed out.
Yet, Li Tianqing didn’t throw it away.
When the two returned to the village, Chen Shi suddenly froze, then burst out shouting and dived into the wooden cart, searching for sothing. After a mont, he finally found the West King Jade Seal, hidden in the corner of a bookcase!
"I have a way to get food now!"
Chen Shi clung to the West King Jade Seal, kissing it several tis, his voice choked up, "We’re saved! Tianqing, we have food now!"
Li Tianqing was holding the snail shell, pleading with the dog to cook a pot of snail soup, while Black Pot looked disgusted, telling him it was stone and inedible.
Chen Shi grabbed the basin that held the Minjiang grandmother’s face and ran, heading for the banks of the Minjiang river.
"Eating this is no good!"
Red Mountain Lady hurried behind, striding with her short legs to keep up, shouting, "Scholar, it can’t be eaten! Can we make braise out of it?"
Chen Shi poured the Black Carp Dragon from the basin, and with one leap, it plunged into the river.
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