Mutated Tao

Soon, Jingxin used her crusty nails to reach into the box and took out the pair of red eyes, gently rolling them around in her hands. “Hoho, these are good.”

Then, without any warning, she held the egg-sized pair of eyes with her hands and directly shoved them into her dark and empty eye sockets.

By the time she removed her hands from her face, the pair of blood-red eyes had found a new owner. “Thank you. With this, I can finally see once again.”

That scene was downright horrifying. Imagine a swollen, ugly, and toothless old nun with a pair of blood-red eyes. She didn’t even have her eyelids!

“Senior Li, is she really a good person? I don’t think so…” said Bai Lingmiao as she hid behind Li Huowang’s body.

“Shh, stay quiet.” Unexpectedly, Li Huowang was not surprised by Jingxin’s demeanor. His tolerance for such horrifying scenes had increased substantially after having gone through so many incidents.

Li Huowang’s voice turned serious as he stared at the old nun’s face. “You’ve got what you need. When can we start the process of getting rid of Dan Yangzi?”

“Why the rush? You youngsters are always in such a hurry,” said Jingxin.

She had just finished saying that when Li Huowang detected movement from behind himself. He turned around and saw that it was a row of fat burping nuns.

Li Huowang instinctively placed his hand on the Profound Records.

However, he was wrong. The nuns' actions revealed that they had no ill intentions. All they wanted to do was to remove the wall.

Abbess Jingxin’s body was far too large and the door was far too small; they had to remove the walls for her to exit.

When one of the walls of the house had been removed completely, a wooden plank with numerous wheels was pushed inside. From the looks of it, this seemed to be Abbess Jingxin’s method for moving around.

Then, under everyone’s watchful gaze, Abbess Jingxin slowly wriggled up the wooden plank like a giant bug. Jingxin tried to get on, but failed. She tried a few more times before exasperatedly turning toward Li Huowang and saying, “Are you guys blind? Don’t you want to be free of your Master? Why aren’t you in a rush now? Can’t you see that I’m slow? Hurry up and come push me!”

Finally, with everyone’s help, Abbess Jingxin was pushed onto the plank. Then, the wheels below the plank started to creak heavily under her body weight as the rest of the fat nuns slowly pushed her out.

On the other hand, after he released his grip of her flabby flesh, Li Huowang helped Jingxin scratch an itch that she could not reach for herself.

Taking a few steps back and looking at Abbess Jingxin who was surrounded by a group of fat nuns, Li Huowang suddenly had a feeling—he suddenly felt like he was looking at a Buddha statue.

“A Buddha statue is nothing but a statue. It’s not easy to become a Buddha. Follow us, quickly,” said Jingxin.

Hearing this, Li Huowang raised his legs and followed her.

However, the nuns did not push Abbess Jingxin toward the exit of the nunnery, instead taking her deeper inside. They were heading to a place that Li Huowang had not been to before.

“Remove your hands from the Profound Records. I will overlook it this one time. In the future, don’t bring that thing to the nunnery. It’s an extremely unlucky item,” said Jingxin.

Even though Jingxin’s tone was repulsive, Li Huowang decided to ignore it. In fact, he didn’t have any time to care about how rude she was being. He was busy thinking about what he needed to do next.

“What’s the method to get rid of Dan Yangzi? Will it work?” asked Li Huowang anxiously.

“Aren’t you asking that question far too late? Relax, our Benevolent Nunnery adheres to the values of integrity and trust quite strongly. If you can’t even trust us, then there’s no other place you could place your trust in,” said Abbess Jingxin.

However, Abbess Jingxin’s words were not able to calm Li Huowang down. Ever since he realized that Dan Yangzi had possessed him, everything he did and thought about had been for this day. Thinking about the stone in his heart that he would finally be getting rid of, he thought about many things for the first time.

“Don’t be too excited. Even if your Master has been dealt with, you are still a Strayed One. That’s an even bigger problem,” said Abbess Jingxin.

Li Huowang’s heart sank upon hearing her. “Abbess Jingxin, you might not have been able to find a method in the past, but that doesn’t mean that I have no hope either.”

The Abbess laughed at him. “Do you think you are the only one who had such a thought? The rest of the Strayed Ones had the same kinds of thoughts as well, but in the end they all met the same fate.”

Li Huowang was just about to refute her when he stopped and took a deep breath. “But we can’t give up without even trying, right? I can’t just continue to live on like Yu’er, accepting my fate of being trapped inside a hallucination my entire life. You think it’s the best scenario? I don’t think so.”

Abbess Jingxin’s face fell. She plunged her hands into the folds of her skin and pulled out her son, staring at his shriveled face with pity as she caressed him gently.

“Sigh~ I really don’t have a choice. As his mother, the only thing I could do was keep him alive.” Li Huowang stretched his hands and gently patted the old man’s white hair. His eyes were filled with pity, just like Abbess Jingxin.

Meanwhile, the rest of the guiding drug ingredients and nuns were also staring at the shriveled up old man.

Li Huowang stared at the old man and said slowly, “I still remember how he leapt into my embrace when he was younger. Ah~ Fun times.”

Abbess Jingxin nodded, her face covered in bitterness. “Once we get trapped inside a hallucination, it’s really hard to differentiate which side is real and which is fake. I once saw my mother kneeling in front of me inside the hallucination. At that time, my heart was aching so much.”

The bitterness on Jingxin’s face spread to everyone.

“Sigh.” Everyone sighed in unison, the atmosphere around them turning heavy.

The wooden plank continued to creak as it rolled forward. They trudged on with a heavy heart until they encountered a fork in the road. Toward their left, there was another fat old nun the same size as Jingxin. She was being pushed on a wooden plank as well.

Li Huowang stared at the old nun, his face revealing an expression of disgust. “Junior sister Jingyuan, could you please hurry up? Dan Yangzi is constantly trying to take over my body.”

“Why are you being so pushy? You’ve already waited for so long and we are just moments away from succeeding. If you had hurried up in the first place, then we wouldn’t have to rush,” said Jingyuan as she picked up a piece of moldy cake from the ground and shoved it into her mouth.

Jingyuan was not the last nun they met. Soon, they met a second and a third fat, old nun. All of them were similarly being pushed on wooden planks with wheels. In just a while, including Jingxin, a total of six old nuns were being wheeled toward their destination.

Soon, Li Huowang and the rest arrived at a small basin. In the center was a large, black Buddha statue that was tens of meters tall.

For some reason, the surface of the statue looked like it was wriggling.

When they got closer, they could hear a loud buzzing sound—the wriggling black Buddha statue was composed entirely of flies!

“My stomach hurts. How about waiting for a bit?” Li Huowang pressed his stomach in pain.

“Stop whining and hurry up. You think it’s easy for all of us to come out at once?” said Jingxin as she rummaged through the folds of her skin and took out a set of shining prayer beads before throwing them over to Li Huowang.

When he saw them, Li Huowang snatched them from the air. Then, he started turning the prayer beads in his hands as he started chanting an extremely difficult sutra.

Chacha and Char's Thoughts

Is the Abbess using the power of the Eighteenth Lunar to exchange their identities??