“He possesses the trace of my ancestors. The offerings in the ancestral hall kept disappearing for no reason. He has to be the thief!”
“His heart is insincere. Using the villager’s faith in his cultivation. How can he become an immortal?”
“He also used my ancestor’s plaque! Move out of the way! Leave a bite for me!”
The thick pill fragrance burst into the sky. The gentlemanly cultivators surrounded the Ceremony Master.
The old man who stood in the middle didn’t argue. His resistance would be futile. The collected spiritual Qi landed on everyone. Even Gao Ming was bound by a trace of bloody Qi. Gao Ming used his hands to disperse the pill mist and retreated. Elder Tang’s son approached him probably because he had targeted Gao Ming. If the Ceremony Master hadn’t shown up, Gao Ming would be the one being surrounded.
“A bunch of lunatics.” Fu Shu closed his eyes. He couldn’t fathom how his Dream Break Town ended up like this. Blood flowed out of the crowd. The fragrant blood was like a pale hand reaching out to Gao Ming for help. Before Gao Ming could react, one pill refiner went down on the ground and started to lick the blood. He was extremely graceful. Even if his face was basically on the floor, he made sure his Dao robe was not stained.
The refiners enjoyed the ‘pill’. The pill aura gathered around them. A lot of them started to experience changes. Purple fire lit up their bodies. They looked so blissful. They appreciated every piece of the Ceremony Master’s flesh.
There was a sound of tearing near the pill furnace. The maddened refiners finally calmed down. They gradually backed away.
The tearing became more conspicuous. Gao Ming took a look. The spot where the Ceremony Master was became spotless. Not even bones were left. The gory claw marks slowly dispersed into the holy mist.“Has the Ceremony Master been picked clean?”
In the centre of the crowd, Elder Tang’s son started to shake. He was closest to the old man and had the biggest bite. Soon, fiery pill patterns surfaced on his skin. “It’s so hot. The fire is burning within me! I feel like I’m melting. Something is trying to claw out of me!” His handsome face distorted. His facial features moved about. He tore apart his robe. Without the clothes, everyone could see how his horrid body was covered in pill patterns and human faces. A few large human heads swam through his skin.
“My beloved father used me to test the medicine to reach the third floor. Because we are connected by blood and because I’m his closest descendant, he forced me to eat all of you!”
His siblings’ heads screamed. The tearing got louder. The ugly pill patterns looked more like open wounds. As the man wailed, the pill patterns spread open. His skin was stretched apart. An arm filled with bite marks reached out of his brain. Then, the mist on the second floor flowed towards him.
His skin burst into dust. Elder Tang’s son reconstructed himself in the mist. The scary bite marks on his skin disappeared. His skin became as fair as snow. The heads of his siblings were transmuted by the mist into gems that encrusted his beautiful skin.
“You can only consume the pill of life after you consume the pain of life.” Elder Tang’s son appeared blessed and serious. Billows of mist sent him into the giant furnace. He ascended in a gorgeous glow. The refiners and Gao Ming could see that the divine palace was at the end of the divine glow. Elder Tang’s descendants on the third and fourth floors disappeared. The cultivators raised their heads to look. There was envy, blessing and jealousy. No one paid attention to the ground.
After the Ceremony Master left the furnace, he was left with not even a piece of bone. All traces of this old man had been carried away by the pill mist. Everything reverted to a state of serenity and peace. No one would have known a man was eaten alive on this floor.
“The people on this floor are crazier than the followers on the first floor.”
“The place gets scarier as you go up. Unfortunately, these people don’t seem to realise that. If anything, they think this is normal.” Gao Ming nodded. “I finally understand why human beings need the emotions of fear and despair. They remind us of the dangers. Once humans lose sight of them, they will become like these creatures. You become toys of a greater existence.”
“Now is not the time to be philosophical,” Fu Shu frowned as he stared at the furnace. “I told you not to come in here, but you refused to listen. What do you plan to do now? Do you want to enter the furnace?”
“I think I’m close to figuring out this place’s weakness. In a way, I am its natural enemy.” Gao Ming never planned to accept the love and bliss of the world. He wanted to shoulder the pain and despair until the end. “The illusions will not affect me.”
“How can you be sure?” Fu Shu shook his head and sighed.
Most of the pill refiners were drawn to the big furnace, so Gao Ming sneaked into one of the pill rooms, which was unoccupied. Rows of medicine lined the walls. They were labelled, but Gao Ming hadn’t heard of most of them.
“We meet again,” The divine figure in the corner spoke. It resembled Zhang Mingli more and more. “Do you need to trade for any medicine?”
“Trade?”
“Yes.” The figure sounded like Zhang Mingli. It felt like the figure was completing its mimicry of Zhang Mingli using Gao Ming’s memory.
“No, thank you.” Gao Ming didn’t want to interact more with the divine figure. Whenever he interacted with the other party, he felt like this was Zhang Mingli’s plan, and he was compelled to aid him. However, was the divine figure really Zhang Mingli? Zhang Mingli should be busy searching for his obsession and not waste his time in the Soul Temple.
Gao Ming’s group walked past the pill rooms and encountered a black pill room at the very back.
The place looked no different from the other pill rooms, but the walls and surrounding ground were crawling with black substance. It looked like mud or flesh. The stench they emitted couldn’t be eclipsed by the divine glow.
“Friend, do not go any further.” A single-armed cultivator walked out of the adjacent room. Since Gao Ming carried a cripple, he reminded Gao Ming kindly.
“Why is this room like this?”
“It was originally a normal room. However, during the butcher’s pill refinement, he washed away the dirty things in his body. Those things couldn’t even be burned clean by the furnace, so they were stashed here.” The refiner used his single hand to toss out an abandoned pill. “Now, this is where we get rid of the useless pills.”