Chapter 8: Aberration
Lu Gang followed Li Jun through the thick fog. This ti, he finally no longer went in circles and truly approached the “High Wall.”
But at this very mont, he had already lost his teammates.
The only one he could rely on was this unfathomably mysterious Li Jun—if he was really Li Jun at all.
“This really is a tree root.”
Lu Gang stood beneath that root, reaching out to touch it.
Yet doubt imdiately arose in his heart—the texture felt sowhat like stone.
He raised his head.
He estimated it to be over ten ters tall, about as high as a four-story building not far away, while the length stretching out to the sides was impossible to gauge.
“If this thing is a root, then how massive must the tree be?”
On the other side—
Li Jun was already standing atop the root, gazing out toward the “world” on the other side.
His eyes swept once, and soon locked onto Tao Mountain Hospital.
“Chirp!”
Once again, he heard the cry of the Blue Bird, warning him of danger ahead.
And within his mind, images began to surface.
He saw a face, seemingly that of a violent and ferocious “child.”
If Lu Gang could have seen the images in Li Jun’s mind, he would probably have recognized the person instantly. It was soone he had seen in the docunts earlier.
Tao Shu.
Lu Gang climbed breathlessly up the rope, reaching the very top of the “High Wall.”
He raised a specially made phone high into the air, searching for a signal, and finally managed to establish communication with the outside world.
He had wanted to transmit more information, but for so reason, even the calls were filled with static, and the video he sent turned into a complete ss.
In the end, however, the outside still issued him orders—hoping he would follow Li Jun to explore further, hoping he would overco every obstacle and achieve the final victory.
He lowered the phone and looked at Li Jun’s back.
He asked, “Where are we heading next?”
Li Jun pointed toward a distant building.
Lu Gang instantly recognized it—it was Tao Mountain Hospital.
Lu Gang asked, “How do you know sothing’s wrong there? Did you investigate this place before you ca, or did soone tell you?”
This was exactly what Lu Gang had wanted to ask all along: Why was Li Jun here? And why had those Wood Guests attacked him?
Li Jun said, “Intuition.”
Lu Gang thought to himself, “That’s the most absurd reason I’ve ever heard—he couldn’t even be bothered to make up an excuse.”
From his recent communication, Lu Gang had already obtained permission from the outside. So he took out the classified docunts in his possession and shared them with Li Jun.
Among them—
There happened to be details on Tao Mountain Hospital and specifics about Tao Shu.
Li Jun pointed at Tao Shu and said, “He’s the one with a problem. But he shouldn’t be too hard to deal with.”
Lu Gang grew more tense. “How do you know?”
Li Jun again said, “Intuition.”
Lu Gang was left speechless.
He followed behind Li Jun, further explaining the situation to him. After all, in this state of affairs, Li Jun was the only one he could rely on.
And he also sensed that his mission and the path ahead would be unimaginably dangerous.
Lu Gang believed there was another problematic person behind Tao Shu—his grandfather. But he also thought that Tao Shu’s grandfather was only a problem, not the root cause Li Jun spoke of.
He said—
Everything might be connected to the three words Peach Blossom Spring, words spoken by Tao Shu’s grandfather, Tao Yougen, in the docunts.
Lu Gang said, “So there could be many dangers and enemies. We have to be careful.”
After everything he had just gone through, Lu Gang’s nerves were strung taut, like a startled bird.
But Li Jun only said one word: “Oh.”
He had spoken at length, yet Li Jun just stared ahead, lost in thought.
This made the already nervous Lu Gang feel as if his punches had landed on cotton. He couldn’t tell if Li Jun was truly confident, or simply putting on an act.
He had never t anyone who showed off more than Li Jun. Couldn’t he see how strange and dangerous this island was?
The two of them were stranded here, “helpless and alone.” Shouldn’t they stick together, watch each other’s backs?
Lu Gang muttered inwardly, “Be careful you don’t suffer a heavy fall.”
It seed Li Jun finally understood sothing. He leaped down from the height, plunging into the fog below.
The mist parted around him, swallowing his figure.
But Lu Gang had no choice but to climb down slowly along the rope.
Watching Li Jun’s unbelievable agility, while he himself crawled down clumsily, Lu Gang felt even more irritated.
Because—“He wasn’t just showing off. He really was that powerful.”
The bottom was hidden by fog, making it impossible to see. The mist coiled around him, sending a chill through his body.
Perhaps the only one who needed to “huddle for warmth” in this loneliness—was him.
At the very bottom, Lu Gang saw Li Jun heading toward a side alley.
Lu Gang called out, “Isn’t Tao Mountain Hospital that way? Shouldn’t we take the main road?”
But Li Jun said, “The target has appeared.”
Before the helicopter crash.
Tao Mountain Hospital was completely shrouded in dense fog, only its shadow faintly visible. In truth, the interior of the hospital had already begun to aberrate.
The building seed to have co alive, with wooden patterns spreading across its walls—but those patterns were tainted with rotting black.
One room after another began squeezing and rging together, transforming into a massive structure like a hollow tree cave.
And at the source of this aberration—
Was Tao Shu’s ward.
“Ah!”
“Ah…”
Tao Shu’s ward had beco a gaping cavity spanning three floors, and within that abyss stood a grotesque giant infant over four ters tall, its skin an ashen gray, letting out ear-splitting howls.
That was Tao Shu now.
Of course, it was not only the hospital itself that had aberrated—more crucially, the people inside it had as well.
Along the cavern walls, open rooms and doorways extended up and down, resembling niches carved into a cliffside.
Figures stood within those rooms and high alcoves, peering down in terror at the monstrous infant screaming in rage.
These figures looked bizarre and twisted.
For example, there were nurses with eyes growing in the palms of their hands, and doctors whose faces were empty save for a single oversized ear.
At that mont, the nurses lifted their eye-bearing hands, swaying their arms as though soothing a child, or else watching him with the intensity of mothers.
The doctors pressed their ear-faced heads close to Tao Shu, as if servants listening for his commands and whims.
And there were stranger patients yet—their limbs misplaced, crawling like crabs, or standing like trees.
All of their mouths shouted downward, or tried to soothe the deford infant.
“Don’t cry!”
“Don’t cry.”
“Look here—whatever you want, we’ll give you.”
Tao Shu rose from the “sickbed.” Only then did it beco clear—his “sickbed” was ford from dozens of aberrated humans fused together, their countless twisted arms serving as pillars straining to hold him up.
Perhaps because Tao Shu’s deford and massive body was so heavy, the countless intertwined arms trembled unceasingly.
Standing tall, Tao Shu scread, roaring in fury:
“I’m hungry! I’m hungry!”
He stomped violently. The “human-flesh sickbed” collapsed instantly, but the tangled arms imdiately propped it up again.
At his shrill cry, everyone rushed toward him like a pack of hounds, offering up snacks and treats.
Tao Shu hurled them away in fury, shouting—
“I don’t want this!”
“I want at! I want at!”
At last, all those “people” surged outward again, scouring outside for the flesh he demanded, then presenting it before him.
The entire Tao Mountain Hospital, along with its surroundings, had beco Tao Shu’s playground. He was the ancestor of all, the tyrant of this place.
Whatever he wanted, everyone had to provide.
His screams were the clappers of a soul-reaping ghost.
His cries were the gavel of the life-taking King of Hell.
Seeing everyone toyed with so miserably, Tao Shu let out rustling, sinister laughter—he was delighted.
He devoured food endlessly, and his body grew ever larger, ever more grotesque.
He writhed upon the sickbed, like a living mountain.
No sooner had he eaten his fill than he beca obsessed with sothing else.
He noticed the eyes of others. His filthy mouth stretched wide, revealing rows of jagged teeth.
That smile—
Innocent, yet utterly wicked.
“Eyes—your eyes are pretty.”
“Fun. Hahaha, fun.”
“Dig them out for !”
“Give them to , all of you!”
He ordered everyone to hand over their eyes. When so hesitated, he erupted in rage.
“Give them all to !”
“Why won’t you give them to ? Why?”
“I want them…I want them…”
Imdiately, all the people twisted in agony, then began offering their eyes to the monstrous infant.
Joyfully, Tao Shu embedded those beautiful “beads” into the walls, until the entire wall was studded with eyes staring at him. Yet he seed to relish this constant, watchful gaze.
But soon, even these bead-like toys could no longer hold his attention.
“I want your hands… Give your feet…”
“Give them to , all of them.”
“I don’t care, I want them!”
“Whoever refuses, I’ll tell my grandpa.”
“My grandpa will kill you all, every last one!”
Tao Shu ran rampant, plundering parts from these already aberrated and twisted people.
They scread in tornt, yet still dug out everything they had, presenting it before him.
And Tao Shu—
He combined all their hands into a massive seatback behind his “sickbed,” the countless arms twisting together like ropes.
He assembled their feet into wheels, attaching them beneath the “sickbed.”
He pieced their heads into a gigantic ball, braiding their hair into reins, pulling at it as if driving horses—making the giant head roll to drag his bed forward.
And those who lost every last organ of their bodies rged into the hospital walls, like wooden cores, becoming part of this aberrant domain.
One could say—
They lost everything of themselves, becoming nothing but slaves and puppets.
When they fused into the walls, human shapes surfaced upon them.
Their forms were the sa as those once seen outside—the undying monsters.
“Wood Guests!”
Their bodies, minds, and wills were enslaved, yet their faces, exposed beyond the walls, bore expressions of agony, as if crying out.
And the one who stripped them of all that made them human, who turned them into toys—the deford infant Tao Shu—never even glanced at them. His attention was only on his toy car made from human flesh.
He drove his “flesh-sickbed” racing through the “ward.”
“Hahahaha…”
“Fun!”
“Fun!”
Just then, from the distance ca the whirring of rotor blades, imdiately catching the giant infant’s attention.
Tao Shu looked to the sky, fixing his gaze upon the shadow of a helicopter.
“Airplane!”
“I want the airplane!”
But the helicopter would not obey his command.
He flew into a frenzy, shrieking and wailing. The sound echoed through the hospital, spreading farther and farther along the streets.
“I want that… I want it…”
“I want that one!”
And then—the plane in the sky actually fell down.
“Hahahaha!”
Tao Shu cheered with glee. But soon, hunger gnawed at him again.
He feasted once more, filth dripping from his mouth, his form growing even larger and more distorted.
Then—
He drove his upgraded “flesh-toy car,” with its vast horde of aberrated “slaves,” surging out onto the streets.
He went to fetch his “big toy.”
The “flesh-toy car” rolled through the streets, and one could see the outer walls of the hospital covered with shadowy figures.
The fog-shrouded streets were the sa, filled everywhere with “remnants”—Wood Guests stripped of everything by the giant infant.
One figure after another squeezed halfway out of the walls, waving at Tao Shu.
“Don’t go.”
“Don’t go, I can still give you more, I can give you everything of mine.”
“Whatever I have, I’ll give it all to you.”
Tao Shu laughed even louder.
His mischievous laughter echoed through the mist—reckless, yet carrying a sinister innocence.
Finally.
He arrived at the place where the helicopter had crashed.
When it had fallen from the sky, the helicopter happened to strike a patch of sandy slope. Though the impact had twisted its shape—
The general fra still remained, letting Tao Shu obtain this “big toy.”
“Hahaha.”
“Fun, fun.”
Tao Shu was overjoyed.
As long as he wanted sothing, even a plane from the sky could be brought down for him.
His limit for joy was raised again. Soon, perhaps even a plane would not satisfy him, and he would want more.
Thus.
His body swelled even larger.
By now, Tao Shu’s body had expanded to nearly four ters tall.
He climbed down from the “flesh-toy car,” and when he wrapped his arms around the giant helicopter, his abnormal body made it look like a re plaything.
Indeed.
It did not take long before the “toy plane” lost its charm for Tao Shu as well.
With disgust, he tossed the “toy plane” aside, then swept his gaze around, searching for his next “toy,” sothing new to amuse him.
Suddenly.
A voice ca from within the fog.
“No wonder.”
“You’re the one who made the helicopter fall?”
The deford giant infant imdiately turned toward the distance. For the first ti, soone had spoken to him in such a tone.
“Who?”
“Who’s talking?”
The giant infant grew angry, because the speaker had not tried to please him.
Soon.
His massive eyes pierced through the fog, fixing upon a figure standing atop a tall building.
The mist gradually thinned, revealing a man in sportswear, crouched upon the railing as if he had just leapt down onto it from above.
Li Jun stood lofty and imposing, overlooking him, eyes filled with scrutiny.
Tao Shu had never seen soone like this.
The man made no move, yet Tao Shu felt a crushing pressure, an instinctive sense of danger.
“Who are you?”
Then, Tao Shu noticed Li Jun’s Double Pupils.
At once, his attention was utterly captured by those eyes. A craving welled up from his heart, a desperate desire to possess them. Even his instinctive fear was forgotten.
“Your eyes.”
“Pretty.”
“Fun!”
“But your gaze—I don’t like it!”
Tao Shu adored those eyes, but hated the look in them—for that gaze brimd with indifference toward him.
With vicious certainty, he declared—
“Dig out your eyes and give them to !”
Crossing that “High Wall,” the “world” on this side made Lu Gang feel no trace of the normal world.
The people here could scarcely be called human any longer.
The entire population of this region was shedding humanity, transforming into sothing else.
Lu Gang followed behind Li Jun through the fog zone.
He saw a woman with eyes so large they covered half her face; a person whose body was so covered in hair they had beco a ball of fur; a flesh-mass writhing like a worm with a head, missing most of its limbs.
And of course, the countless Wood Guests embedded into the walls.
Compared to this, the strange, lost crowds he had seen before were nothing.
Yet all this was only the appetizer.
At last.
He saw a “vehicle” assembled from countless human limbs and flesh rolling down the street, hands and feet densely churning upon the ground, while a huge ball of heads pulled it forward.
And upon it sat a deford infant taller than the surrounding houses.
In that instant.
Lu Gang’s hair stood on end, his breath drawn in sharply.
“Hiss?”
It felt as though his very soul had flown from the top of his skull, and he pressed it back down with all his might.
In that mont, he suddenly rembered what Luo Zhen had told him.
That he should overco all obstacles, and obtain the final victory.
But right now—
He only wanted Luo Zhen to co see this horrific scene himself, to understand just how twisted this cursed place was.
At this mont, Lu Gang no longer cared about victory. He only wanted to gather more information, then send it out.
He glanced toward Li Jun, hoping to discuss retreat.
“Quit while we’re ahead!”
The situation here had far exceeded his expectations. And he had already collected more than enough intel.
But the instant he saw the deford infant, before he could even speak, Li Jun had already flown forward.
Lu Gang suddenly understood.
From the very beginning, Li Jun had co for this. There was never any thought of quitting.
“How did he know that thing would co here?”
“Did he open his heavenly eye?”
Lu Gang followed the tracks left by the giant infant’s “vehicle,” and soon he saw it himself, hearing Li Jun’s words—
“No wonder.”
“You’re the one who made the helicopter fall?”
Looking at the wrecked helicopter behind the giant infant, Lu Gang’s anger blazed.
“What—this thing caused the crash?”
He still did not know that the two pilots had already escaped safely from Tao Mountain Island.
But now, he suddenly felt he did not want to leave anymore. Instead, a burning anticipation arose.
He hoped Li Jun would unleash his true strength, and destroy this murderous monster.
“Aren’t you supposed to be amazing?”
“Then be even more amazing—take this thing out too.”
“Then I’ll truly respect you!”
And as though hearing the voice of his heart, Li Jun spoke at that mont.
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
“But never mind—whether you answer or not, I was already planning to eliminate you!”
The deford giant infant stared, dumbfounded, as though he thought Li Jun had misspoken, or that he had misheard.
That soone dared disobey him—dared to make demands of him.
And even dared to threaten him.
He did not take him seriously in the slightest.
Instantly, he was enraged. He fell heavily to the ground, crying and screaming in madness.
“Kill him for !”
“Kill him!”
“I want his eyes—dig out his eyes for , dig out his eyes for !”
The giant infant’s enormous body roared, his voice booming like a colossal flesh-trumpet, magnified countless tis beyond a normal human’s. The soundwaves were so piercing that Lu Gang grew dizzy, clutching his ears involuntarily.
Countless twisted doctors, nurses, and patients charged wildly toward Li Jun, their grotesque postures like a horde of demons unleashed.
At that mont, Li Jun suddenly leapt high.
Flying upward.
Even those outside Tao Mountain Island could see a shadow soaring from the mist, Li Jun bursting out from the dense fog, ascending into the sea of clouds.
Then, like a bolt of thunder, he crashed down.
This movent imdiately sparked countless speculations outside, suspecting whether sothing new had erupted within Tao Mountain Island.
Li Jun’s speed reached its peak. When he landed, it ca with a violent shockwave and sonic boom.
He struck at a slanted angle, and as he skimd the ground, all those grotesque figures rushing forward were swept aside. With his twin wings slicing past, the monsters were scattered one after another.
At last, the “thunderbolt” struck the sandy slope.
“Boom!”
Lu Gang once more witnessed Li Jun unleash this move, and he was still shaken to his core.
“What on earth is his body made of?”
When the smoke cleared, the massive deford giant infant was gone.
In its place—
Only a “baby” just over two ters tall remained.
Li Jun lifted him up and asked,
“Was it you who made the helicopter fall?”
The deford giant infant Tao Shu scread wildly: “Who are you, who even knows you, let go, let go!”
Li Jun tore off one of his arms, but the infant’s hand imdiately regrew—yet his body shrank again.
Li Jun asked once more: “Was it you who sent the Wood Guests to attack ?”
The deford infant went mad: “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill your whole family, I’ll destroy you!”
Without hesitation, Li Jun ripped off one of the monster’s legs. Tao Shu shrieked in pain, yet still cursed him, refusing to answer.
Li Jun dismantled him piece by piece, as though taking apart a toy, until all that was left was his true form: a child of about ten years old.
He was no longer an infant.
At that mont, Tao Shu truly felt that Li Jun intended to kill him.
Fear consud him. He began to beg, to whine.
“I was wrong.”
“I was wrong, you can’t kill , you can’t hit .”
“Grandpa, grandpa.”
“This man hit , this man hit .”
“Ah, soone’s hitting a child, soone’s hitting a child!”
Yet Tao Shu realized that none of his tricks worked on this man.
No matter how much he shouted, cried, or played the victim—
The man only repeated one phrase: “Answer my question.”
Each ti he asked, he dismantled another piece of him, until Tao Shu’s body grew smaller and smaller, reverting into a true infant.
Only his head remained the sa size, while his body shrank to its limit.
Tao Shu was terrified beyond reason. He could no longer form complete words, only scread and struggled in madness.
Then—
A voice echoed out from the very heart of Tao Mountain Island, storming across the isle like a tempest.
It said: “It was !”
Li Jun turned his head toward the sound, and saw the entire Tao Mountain Island beginning to change, revealing another layer hidden behind reality.
Endless fog surged skyward, and within it appeared a colossal Divine Tree. At its base spread vast peach groves, winding toward the roots.
At the very foot of that Divine Tree, where its roots coiled, a cavern faintly ca into view.
The cave glowed, as though leading to so mysterious realm.
And the one speaking now—was a human face upon the Divine Tree itself.
“Hm?”
Lu Gang saw this scene and blurted out—
“How is this possible?”
If such a massive tree had always stood here, how could they have failed to see it before?
But looking at the fog around the Divine Tree, the twisted light and shadows, Lu Gang seed to find an explanation.
“Perhaps it doesn’t truly exist… Or perhaps it exists in another space.”
anwhile, the outside world also witnessed the scene.
Caras locked onto the divine wood rooted in the island, transmitting the sky-piercing tree-shape to every corner of the globe, spreading its supernatural power and influence everywhere.
Even just seeing it through a screen was shocking enough. For those present in person, the feeling was overwhelming.
On every ship, all who looked upon the Divine Tree towering between heaven and earth felt a crushing weight upon their chests, as if they could not breathe.
“What on earth is this?”
From the very beginning—the Double Pupils Virus, the undying Wood Guests, the aberration of Tao Mountain Island—behind it all seed to lurk beings from the ancient myths ntioned in the records of the Longevity Temple.
And now, even such a thing had appeared.
The situation was expanding, spiraling further out of control.
On a coast guard vessel—
Luo Zhen had yet to recover from the sight. Calls flooded in from every direction.
He knew, they were asking him what exactly was going on.
But at this mont, he too wished he could ask soone.
“What exactly is happening here?”
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