Volume 2: The Ancient Country of Lando Chapter 38 "Offending Tai Sui"

  The space inside the Lan Palace is complex and confusing, we previously slid down from the ice abyss for thousands of meters and found that there was another cave below. Although I don't know where to go or what to do, I was attracted by the mysterious sound under the 70th floor. After learning some causes and effects through the murals, everyone was thinking about how to act next, but unexpectedly, the monster that almost drove us to desperation appeared again.

  Youzi said it was time to make a desperate effort, but I thought the situation could still be turned around. Just as we were arguing, Su Qin suddenly told everyone to look up quickly. I heard her words and hurriedly raised my flashlight to shine upwards, and instantly saw an extremely shocking scene appear before our eyes!

  Only the top of the cave had a piece of elliptical gray cocoon, densely hanging on it, and not seeing half an inch of stone wall. At this moment, these gray cocoons began to shake one after another, as if something wanted to break out from them.

  We followed Zhou Xing to this place earlier, first discovering the huge seventy-zhang-wide disk beside us, and then being drawn in by the stone slab with carvings on it. Nobody noticed what was above the cave entrance until now, when we suddenly saw this scene, and were all shocked silly.

  It was still Liu Dapao who came to his senses first, pulling us and shouting: "Hey, my little ancestors! Do you dare to stay here? Are you waiting for the joint meeting? Run quickly!"

  He shouted and we started running, just two or three steps out, something fell from the giant cocoon behind us. We didn't dare to stay, only hearing things constantly falling behind, the giant cocoon above our heads was also stirring restlessly, everyone's heart was panicked to the extreme.

  I couldn't help but turn around and take a look, only to see the black shadow behind me flashing, it was actually that corpse-like thing!

  Liu Dapao also turned his head to look, almost slipping under his feet, and cursed loudly: "Damn it! This... this is too bullying! I said earlier that thing was so arrogant with just one gun, it turns out he has an army here!"

  Youzi turned around and fired a shot at a monster that had fallen to our left, which hadn't gotten up yet. He yelled at Zhou Xing: "Old Zhou, what are you still stunned for? Quickly throw out your chemical weapon!"

  Zhou Xing raised his arm and shot an arrow with his crossbow, then calmly said, "It's not the right time yet."

  I said to Oil: "These monsters are not like the worms in 'The Book of Worms', and Old Zhou's strong acid is useless against them. They've just woken up from their cocoons, and they're still not very agile, let's take advantage of this and run quickly!"

  "Escaping like this isn't a solution either. What if there's something even more dangerous ahead, we'll all die here."

  "What the...what to do?" I was so anxious that my words were already unclear.

  Su Qin was about to say something when she suddenly looked to my right and shouted: "Duck down quickly!"

  I knew there was a situation, and I quickly put my hands on my head and bent down, the next moment, Su Qin's gun in her hand rang out.

  She was holding a "Remington M870" shotgun that Liu Dapao had obtained from Vietnam, which has extremely high lethality at close range.

  I was at the far left of the queue, with no one to my right. As I turned my head to look at Su Qin, a strange creature landed on my right rear side and crawled up, trying to pounce on me. Su Qin's eyes were quick and her hands were fast, and as soon as I bent down, she pulled the trigger. The creature rushed forward and happened to collide with the muzzle of Su Qin's gun.

  The power of "Remington" was revealed at this time, and the monster was blown backward for several meters, with half of its head gone.

  This is the first time I've been seriously injured by such a monster, and I'm very curious about how strong their vitality is, so I ran while looking back.

  All I saw was that the monster knocked down by Su Qin was shaking all over, and something was crawling out of the gap in its head. When I looked closer, I saw that it was like a flower, but also like an insect wriggling around. Soon, the monster's corpse was submerged by the surging companions behind it.

  It wasn't until I saw this that I realized, turning back to the crowd and saying: "Damn it, these monsters are actually corpses! They're probably slaves of the Demon God Clan who were hung here by the Queen using a curse to guard the Orchid Palace."

  Liu Dapao exclaimed: "Corpse? What corpse is so powerful, even more fierce than a zombie?"

  I told everyone what I had just seen, and they finally understood. Oil son smiled and said: "It turns out that the Lantian ancient flower is like this! It seems that the goddess queen of Asia calculated everything, but in the end, she was still one move short! What a joke to say that eating Lantian ancient flowers can revive the dead! The corpse is just a corpse, and it's impossible for it to come back to life. The ones making trouble are these flowers!"

  At that time, the Queen of Ya saw Lantian flower parasitizing on the corpse of Manman. Suddenly, Manman came back to life, so she thought these so-called Lantian flowers had the effect of reviving the dead. It seems that she was deceived. In fact, those two Manmans did not come back to life at all, but were controlled by these strange flowers.

  Su Qin said at this time: "I think these things are not flowers, but a kind of parasitic organism, it is very likely that they were influenced by the Dragon Ball and produced mutated flesh fungi."

  I'm quite clear that Su Qin is knowledgeable and has a rigorous personality, without 99% certainty, she won't easily make a conclusion. This orchid-like flower doesn't look like a plant, animal or fungus, but its life form is very similar to that of meat mushrooms, it's probably a kind of slime mold composite body.

  However, "Ròu zhī" (肉芝) is also known as Ròu líng zhī (肉灵芝), or commonly referred to as "Tài suì" (太岁). This is a fourth type of life form that exists outside of animals, plants, and fungi, capable of growing on its own. In traditional Chinese medicine, Ròu zhī is considered a superior medicinal material, with records in the Bencao Gangmu stating: "Ròu zhī resembles flesh, attached to large rocks, with head and tail present, it is a living thing... Large ones weigh over ten jin, small ones three or four jin", possessing the effects of "prolonged consumption, lightening the body, preventing aging, prolonging life and achieving divinity". In the Shanhaijing, Ròu zhī is referred to as "Ròu wú" (肉芜), with records stating: "A mass of flesh with eyes but no stomach, somewhat resembling a horse's muzzle, strange in that it never ends, its flavor thin and bland when eaten".

  Although in reality, reishi mushrooms don't have the effect of longevity, they are indeed a good anticancer drug and are currently formally applied in medicine.

  In the north, however, it is believed that meat fungus is a fierce god, also known as "Tai Sui", so there are also common sayings such as "dare to move earth on Tai Sui's head" and "life offended Tai Sui".

  The kind of Orchid I found is probably a variant of Cymbidium goeringii.

  Liu Dapao also knew what Rouzhi was, and after listening to Su Qin's words, he suddenly cursed: "Damn it, next time we go out, we must check the almanac. His mother's offense is not so serious!"

  More and more corpses fell from behind, we didn't dare to look back, could only speed up and flee with our heads down. At this time, the snow python running in the front suddenly sucked in a breath, we raised our flashlights and shone forward, only to see that several beams of light had suddenly lit up in front, shining towards us.

  Oil son's eyes are sharp, and he immediately saw what was in front of him. He hastily told us: "Damn it, there are people, probably more than a dozen! This time is 'enemies meet again', we finally met the 'Black Button' gang again!"

  But the people in front suddenly saw us and were also very surprised, stunned for a moment before raising their guns. I knew it was bad, so I shouted loudly to them: "Don't shoot! Look behind us! If you don't want to die, run quickly!"

  Those people aren't fools either, hearing such a big commotion behind us, plus my words, suddenly turned on the high-beam searchlight towards our rear, I only felt an extremely strong light shining straight at me, and couldn't see the road ahead.

  Youzi stretched out his arm to block the light in front of his eyes and cursed loudly: "I'm going to your grandfather, who turned on the lights? Hurry up and turn them off! Otherwise, believe it or not, I'll blow you up!"

  Who would have thought that as soon as the oil child's voice fell, the gun across from us went off. The first bullet grazed my face and flew by, scaring me so much that my heart almost jumped out. Su Qin was the first to return fire, but she was still far away from "Black Button", and the "Remington" didn't have much effect. On the other hand, the oil child randomly fired a shot towards the front and hit someone.

  I knew that the "black buttons" were worried about escaping, and when we would shoot them from behind, they would solve us first before running away. But they seemed to have some concerns, after Oil Lamp opened fire and knocked down one person, their firepower gradually became sparse, soon, the searchlight in front turned around, and those people also started to escape.

  Youzi saw the situation and raised his gun, saying: "As expected, it's a bunch of rubbish, watch me take down a few of them first!"

  "Hold on, don't fight yet! Look, the corpses behind us are getting closer and closer. The Lantana flowers inside them must have adapted to the environment by now. Our firepower is limited, if those things catch up with us, we'll definitely be unable to escape. For now, our only choice is to temporarily join forces with 'Black Button' and his gang."

  Su Qin also chimed in and said: "Long Qiu is right, one more person means one more share of strength. I think that gang of foreign thugs thinks the same way too, let's just stop fighting!"

  You Zi said urgently: "We can't just sit back and suffer a loss, those people are running ahead of us now, they must think that we'll eventually be caught up by the corpses, so they're taking advantage of the situation to escape. They're using us as scapegoats!"

  He finished speaking and was about to fire his gun, but Zhou Xing stopped him. Zhou Xing then pulled out a peculiarly-shaped flying dart from his waist and said to us, "Leave it to me."

  He saw him wave his hand and the flying dart flew out of his hand, drawing an arc as it flew towards the crowd in front, and he didn't know where it landed.

  We were feeling strange, when suddenly the people in front of us stopped, followed by a loud "bang" of gunfire. A bullet whizzed past between me and Su Qin, scaring everyone into ducking their heads and cursing loudly. Zhou Xing's face didn't redden or breathe heavily, calmly telling us: "The opponent's sniper is covering us, run straight, don't turn corners."

  "You? Cover us? I'm telling you, Old Zhou, you're not kidding, are you?"

  No sooner had he finished speaking than there was another "bang" from the opposite side, and this time the bullet also passed through the gap between us. I turned my head to look back, and saw a corpse behind me being shot in the head, falling to the ground.

  It wasn't until they saw this scene that everyone began to believe him, and he ran forward with his waist bent.

  Then came the successive sounds of gunfire, all the bullets were harmless to us, but instead knocked down many corpses behind.

  I know this situation is not right, the dart that Zhou Xing threw earlier seems to be some kind of token. "Black Button" saw Zhou Xing's token and immediately stopped to cover us. This means that Zhou Xing and "Black Button" may have some unknown relationship?

  However, escaping with one's life was the priority at that moment, and no one had time to ask him anything. Before long, we reunited with "Black Button". When they saw us rushing over, they also turned around and escaped together, without saying a word to us.

  The underground space here is much more solid, but the environment is complex and confusing, with towering stone walls on both sides and huge natural cave entrances. The "Black Button" and others rushed forward in a panic, seeing where they could go, and we had no choice but to follow them blindly, losing our sense of direction before we knew it.

  Only the sound from behind was getting closer and closer, several faster-moving corpses had already rushed into the crowd, causing everyone to open fire.

  Youzi almost got his ear bitten off by a corpse, his face turned purple, and he told us that if we continued like this, it wouldn't work. The speed of those zombies is getting faster and faster. I reckon in another three to five minutes, we'll be caught up by these things. It seems like either way, we're dead, let's use explosives.

  Liu Dapao hastily shook his head and said, "Master Fang, don't be reckless, in a place like this, even firing a gun will cause rocks to fall down, let alone setting off explosives? That would immediately collapse the cave! The feeling of being crushed by stones is no more comfortable than being bitten to death. Until the very last moment, we absolutely cannot do something so suicidal!"

  I knew that Oil was a desperate man, to put it bluntly, he was a man who didn't care about his own life. I was just about to speak up and agree with Liu's advice when suddenly the crowd in front of us started to get rowdy.