The logic constructed by the doctor crumbled instantly. Gao Ming witnessed the monster in his heart. It was not a creature made from pressure but a real branch of flesh and blood!
Gao Ming wanted to believe that everything was false, but the pain in his chest was too real. The branch seemed to possess consciousness and thoughts. Its action became soft as if it were sensing Gao Ming’s pain. The veins on the leaves lit up like capillaries. It seemed to use this method to communicate with Gao Ming.
The flesh and blood resonated. Gao Ming’s body found an answer before his brain could catch up. They were from the same source. His beating heart jumped repeatedly. As if receiving the permission, the branch grew wildly. It crawled out of Gao Ming’s body and spread through the bed. Then, it crawled on the walls and the medical devices before drilling into the ceiling and the floor. The thick meat fragrance triggered Gao Ming’s nerves. He could hear someone calling his name.
“Gao Ming! Wake up! If you die, what am I supposed to do?”
The room door was kicked down. The voices in his ears were replaced by the screams of the doctors and nurses. He turned to the door. The light from the outside shone into the room, which was as dark as a monster’s lair. The light exposed all the ugliness before everyone’s eyes.
In Gao Ming’s memory, the nurses and doctors were very nice people. They were extremely patient. They always had smiles on their faces. There were no cases of patients being tortured.
The branches crawled out and pierced the staff’s necks. Their smiles froze in Gao Ming’s memory. The healing, care and warmth in the hospital were dyed red. Screams were everywhere.
The branches cut through the straps and carried Gao Ming out of the room. He saw how all the joy was being destroyed. He was like the villain in the movies. He murdered recklessly, trampling on the happiness and joy. The hospital brought recovery and life but he vanquished the seeds of hope easily.
As the branches expanded, more doors opened. Gao Ming saw dull patients. They once had control of their lives and possessed emotions, but they had been cured to become puppets. They only had one expression left, and that was a permanent, silly smile.
The human life was not made up of endless joy. Constant joy was numbing. Extreme joy could also lead one to death. Gao Ming caught sight of different patients. Room 301 had a handsome young man who was laughing non-stop. He called himself the young master of the Tang Residence, and he was about to marry the Xi Residence’s daughter. Room 302 had a tousled painter. He used a cooking ladle and painted the shapes of girls and flowers on the wall. The rooms were filled with souls of joy. Their lives were twisted. Only mutated joy remained in their dreams.“Haha! Everything is fake!”
The bloody branches cut through Gao Ming’s body and tore his skin. The branches slammed into every room and pierced every patient’s heart!
The expressions of all the patients changed. Their silly joy was replaced by pain as the roots crawled into their beautiful dreams.
When the last patient was ‘absorbed’ by the branches, a loud boom came from the basement of the hospital. It sounded like the foundation had been hollowed out. The lights above their heads swayed before falling. The walls crumbled. When the world turned red, Gao Ming’s eyes flew open…
The joy threads snapped. Gao Ming bled. A giant hole appeared in his stomach. He lay on the first floor of the Xi Temple, cushioned by a lot of wedding invitations.
“Gao Ming! You’re finally awake!” Fu Shu was like a meat shield lying under Gao Ming. The mutation on his body had disappeared. The altar closed. The God of Flesh and Blood had disappeared.
“What happened when I was out?” Gao Ming could barely move his finger. He could only wait patiently for his body to recover.
“Don’t you know anything? I thought everything was within your prediction! My praise was wasted!” Fu Shu was surprised, “Xi God’s foundation is these wedding invitations. Each of them represents a nightmare filled with joy. Before this, you were sucked into the nightmare. I tried to wake up, but it was to no avail. I saw your consciousness sinking, but as you were about to lose control of your body, meat branches that radiated meat fragrance grew out of your flesh.”
“Out of my flesh?”
“Right! They couldn’t cut through the nightmare’s barrier, so they couldn’t leave your body.” Fu Shu frowned. “Incidentally, the invitations were from the middle-level nightmares. Madam Xi hoped to use those nightmares to trap your consciousness, and she voluntarily sent them into your body. That gave the branches the perfect chance to absorb them. They saved you in the end.”
The invitations became wrinkled. The red faded away. The Xi Temple looked like it was ready for a funeral.
“I’m surprised that you kept this from me. Now that Xi God’s foundation is crushed, your God has stolen half of Xi God’s heart. Your fleshy branches took over the nightmares previously stored at the Xi Temple. Once you eat the Xi God’s main consciousness that has possessed Bai Feng, you will be Dream Break Town’s new Xi God!” Fu Shu was excited. He didn’t expect Gao Ming to go this far. “Amazing! Your despair is a natural counter to joy. Your friend used her body to temporarily trap the Xi God’s consciousness. You learned Dream Release and that allowed you to ignore the Xi God’s rules. In the end, you even hid a trump card that could consume nightmares. Have you planned all these when you saved me? Am I part of your plan?”
Gao Ming didn’t answer. He was sensing the changes in his body.
The bloody tree still couldn’t enter the Dream Break Town. Since Gao Ming had once consumed the fruit of flesh, it could only use Gao Ming as the medium. The branches were trapped under Gao Ming’s skin. After they consumed the wedding invitations, they injected pink liquid into Gao Ming’s body.
Before this, Gao Ming had adequate luck. However, as the pink liquid spread through him, his resistance against pain and despair increased, and his luck also became better. Kindness appeared between his eyes.
At that moment, there was a flash of lightning in the air. A bloody rain fell. Fu Shu opened his mouth. “A God in Dream Break Town has died?!”