Chapter 307: 303 Good Medicine

This bizarre and horrifying scene was truly enough to make one knit their brows; if Fang Mu had not seen uglier things that were even more blasphemous to human aesthetics, he would already be vomiting by now.

When that humanoid creature in a long dress, covered in rugged gullies, pulsating tumors, and bulging veins, fully metamorphosed from the combination of the four meat eggs and the ghost essence and stood upside down on the ceiling of the cave, it was like a newborn life carrying ignorant tenderness, yet it announced to everyone with a high-pitched roar its superior nobility and unique power, far beyond the Earth creatures generally known to humans.

The moment Fang Mu noticed it, it also locked onto Fang Mu immediately after its birth, and with a light leap, it pounced down toward Fang Mu like a fissioning blood-colored torrent.

Fang Mu knew he could not defeat such a creature, so he could only lower his head and busily search for a foothold to flee toward the depths of the abyss.

But seeing the blood-colored torrent accelerating and dancing in the sky as it desperately approached him, Fang Mu's sanity was also on the verge of shattering, forcing him to make a choice that was rational yet by no means reasonable—he chose to leap down.

Fang Mu took a fierce leap, plunging straight into the bottomless dark abyss he could not see, embracing the unknown, and falling into the abyss.

The moment he leaped and fell, Fang Mu suddenly felt a bright light behind him. He glanced back and saw a white flare exploding in mid-air, accompanied by intense high temperatures, illuminating the ugly blood-colored thing pouncing toward him until it was riddled with holes and devastated.

Fang Mu turned his gaze toward the place where the flare had been shot from, only to vaguely see two figures, a man and a woman, standing on a high platform. They seemed to have noticed his existence, and one of them let out an exclamation, but the tail end of the exclamation fell into a sigh of regret.

In the high-speed fall, Fang Mu felt the connection between his consciousness and reality was no longer coherent, switching irregularly between the high-speed frames of the rapid fall and endless darkness. This feeling made rules and logic no longer important, simply because everything had become unfathomable.

Subsequently, whether it was a lantern-slide of consciousness disillusionment or if he had truly seen that scene before death in every lifetime, the feeling of that life suddenly closing its curtain and death arriving abruptly at the peak of fear was actually like a gentle medicine, slowly soothing his restless and surging heart.

This was a very strange feeling. For most humans, death is unknown and equivalent to fear, but for him, death is another restart. Death is not unknown; Fang Mu is not afraid of death. What he fears more is having to face an endless stream of strange things while alive—that is the ultimate horror of distancing oneself from life and turning away from death, infinitely approaching some incomprehensible truth.

Croak, croak, croak, croak...

The toad-frog croaking that had made his hair stand on end countless times was now in Fang Mu's ears, sounding exactly like the murmurs of billions of high monks chanting Buddhist scriptures, or like the Gospel of a choir singing hymns, welcoming a life about to metamorphose and awaken.

"Wanting to make it become like them..." While recalling the past, Fang Mu suddenly remembered the memory of his brief stay in that mysterious little house, the gentle yet lethal voice of the young man in white, like a poison that lulls one into a peaceful, long sleep.

"Let its eyes be able to open, to see all things in the world."

"Let its nose be able to breathe, to smell the fragrant scent."

"Let its ears be able to hear, to listen to the sounds of all things in the world."

"Let its mouth be able to speak and taste flavors, to express moods and enjoy delicious food."

"Opening an Aperture on... every day, and as a result, seven days later,... died."

Fang Mu recalled this story told by the young man in white; at this moment, he was lost yet clear-headed.

"Dead, who died?"

"It died."

"How did it die?"

"It died from having its Apertures opened."

"..."

Fang Mu fell into a state of asking himself and answering himself, then answering and asking again.

"I also had my Apertures opened, so did I also die?"

"No, I didn't die, I am still alive."

"How do I determine that I am still alive, by human definition?"

"No, casting aside all the embellishments of human language and describing my state from the most simple natural perspective, I am dead."

"..."

As if the malicious god of fate had finally heard a satisfactory answer, Fang Mu found himself stopping at a distance of less than a few centimeters from the ground, his body uncontrollably pulled, guided, and finally dragged in front of a huge, ugly toad.

Looking at that crouching, abominable face, so close as never before, he was able to maintain his sanity to examine this twisted visage, just as he was at this moment.

Fang Mu looked at the toad, the toad looked at Fang Mu, and Fang Mu looked at himself again.

Fang Mu could not help but recall the words the young man in white said at Lin Sen's new book signing event.

"Everything can lie to you, but your heart will not lie to you."

Fang Mu reached out to touch the cold, exposed corpse waiting to be digested inside the toad, brushed lightly over the surgical scar on the corpse's chest, and muttered, "I have indeed already died."

The countless eyes on the Toad God rotated, focusing and staring at Fang Mu, like an invisible beam of light with freezing power that "froze" Fang Mu's body, and Fang Mu gradually became unable to move.

"Are you really dreaming?"

The stiff Fang Mu stared into those pairs of eyes that could not read any emotion, just like looking into many mirrors at different angles and surfaces simultaneously. Although Fang Mu had lost the ability to move, his brain was thinking agilely, and Lin Ling's voice flashed through his mind again.

The voice rippled in his heart, like vast Sanskrit sounds, layered and deafening.

Fang Mu's consciousness flickered, and he saw some images again, memories that should not have appeared in his perspective.

A person wearing a black robe personally dug out the paulownia wood box buried deep in the cave ruins, and then delivered it to the doorstep of "Fang Lin".

Fang Mu wanted to peek at the true face under the black robe, but he saw an old, wrinkled toad-frog face full of bumps and protrusions. Yet, he could recognize at a glance that the owner of this face was none other than Wang Zheng, whom he had thought was long dead!

This version of Wang Zheng was essentially no different from being dead; he had become one of the frog-men, under the absolute control of the Toad-Frog God, and all his actions had to submit to the Toad-Frog God's instructions.

Just as he had handed the empty paulownia wood box to the second-lifetime Fang Mu, it was also under the instruction of the Toad-Frog God, including the countless times he had lurked and chased around Fang Mu before and after that; these were all broad and malicious orders given to him by the Toad-Frog God, just to induce Fang Mu to take the initiative to approach the Toad-Frog God's dwelling.

Facing all these unexpected yet reasonable truths, Fang Mu's heart had no ripples, and he felt no anger toward the Toad-Frog God's actions, only a question.

"When did the Toad-Frog God's Blessing begin to occur? If it was caused by the first-lifetime me entering Nong Mountain, then if the first-lifetime me had restrained my desire to investigate, would all of this not have happened?" Fang Mu thought, staring at the eyes on the Toad God, and he saw the answer.