Chapter 108 Tree Man Syndrome (please subscribe!)
The young novice went to the back kitchen and made a bowl of porridge that had already gone cold. He also added some pickles and then slowly walked towards the innermost wing with the bowl in hand.
Sun Hang walked around to the side of him and carefully looked at the little novice's expression. He found that in addition to fear and worry, there was also a hint of disgust that could not be concealed on his face.
Who does he hate? Is it the senior brother who gave them orders based on his seniority, or the monk who just guarded the door, or... the person in the wing?
The young novice knocked on the door twice and shouted in a low voice: "Master, Brother Jueming asked me to deliver food to you."
No one in the wing responded. The little novice hesitated for a moment and slowly opened the door.
Suddenly, a foul smell wafted out of the wing.
This is not the stench of a rotting corpse, but the stench of an old man who has been bedridden for a long time without proper care and cleaning.
"Master?"
It was still dusk, and the light in the room was very weak. Sun Hang could only vaguely see a figure lying on the bed in the corner.
The young novice clung to the wall, placed the bowl of porridge on the cupboard, and then lit the kerosene lamp in the room.
A monster-like old man appeared in Sun Hang's field of vision.
His limbs were exposed outside the quilt, and the ends of his hands and feet were wrapped in thick cuticle growth, which looked like four dead tree roots dug out of the mud.
The old man's face was also covered with large and small growths, the largest of which was as big as a goose egg and stuck at the corner of his mouth, causing him to completely lose the ability to speak and could only speak from the depths of his throat. The sound of "ho ho".
"Master...Master." The little novice monk asked nervously, "Are you...are you okay?"
Sun Hang walked around the old man's bed, squatted down and took a closer look at the growths on his body, and then let out a long breath.
This old man is not an infected person, at least, not an infected person with the deception virus.
Although he now looks more like a monster than most infected people, Sun Hang happened to have seen a description of this disease in a medical magazine.
This is a rare disease called "Tree Man Syndrome". It is essentially an immune deficiency caused by a genetic problem, and then infected with the human papillomavirus, also known as "HPV", resulting in a large number of keratinized warts growing on the surface of the skin. disease.
Although this disease looks disgusting, it is not contagious to people with normal immune systems.
Compared with the danger of the deception virus, it is even worse.
However, in that era of limited information, in the eyes of ordinary people, having this disease was equivalent to being infected by the deception virus - no, according to them, this was called "evil possession".
The little novice monk found a pair of coarse cloth gloves from the cupboard, took out a cloth mask from his pocket that he had worn countless times, put it on, and carefully held the porridge bowl and walked to the bedside.
He scooped up a spoonful of white porridge and put it towards the old man's half-open lips.
Sun Hang frowned as he watched from the side - How can you feed someone lying on the bed like this? At least you have to help the person up first, right?
Sure enough, half of the spoonful of porridge flowed from the corner of the old man's mouth and dripped onto the pillow. The little novice monk seemed to be worried about being punished by his senior brother, so he hurriedly picked up the corners of his clothes and wiped them, completely ignoring the change in the old man's expression.
"Is this... choking?" Sun Hang looked at the old man's round eyes and guessed in his mind - the old man's face was also covered with warts, which made the old man unable to speak or do anything. What expression do you have?
But the little novice's way of feeding the porridge just now, most of the porridge that didn't drip out of the spoon was completely fed into the old man's trachea.
Sun Hang subconsciously raised his hand to help, but immediately realized that he was just reading a past memory. Everything he saw here was a fact that had already happened.
"Cough...cough..."
The old man finally let out a cough that sounded like he was dying. The little novice monk was so frightened that he immediately jumped back and stared at the old man against the wall, not even daring to breathe.
After a few seconds, the old man's coughing finally stopped - and along with it, his breathing.
The little novice walked forward in disbelief, took a look, turned around, and hurried out.
After a while, the monk who was guarding outside rushed in together with another young monk with a fair face but a huge black mole on the back of his head.
"Elder brother..." The gatekeeper looked at the old man on the bed, then at the white monk, and said in a low voice, "Master seems... to have died?"
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Just when the two of them were about to step forward and take a closer look, the old man suddenly took a deep breath, as if coming back to his senses, and then coughed violently.
He coughed so violently that the warts on his face tore apart, and blood mixed with pus slowly flowed down along the gaps between the warts.
"Elder brother...what should we do now?" The gatekeeper monk was stunned and said anxiously, "Do you want to...call the doctor?"
"What are you calling doctor?!" A fierce look suddenly appeared on Monk Baijing's face. He grabbed the quilt on the bed and covered the old man's face directly.
"S-Senior Brother?!" The gatekeeper monk was stunned and subconsciously stretched out his hand, but when he reached halfway, he retracted it.
After the weak struggle under the quilt completely disappeared for half a minute, Monk Bai Jing let go of his hand, took a few steps back, turned to the monk guarding the door and said: "Jueming! Go find some firewood and pile it up in this room. , and then burned down the house together with the people. Be careful not to burn it. The house next to it is set on fire! Also, keep an eye on that kid, don’t let him run away - tell him that he killed Master with his own hands, and that he is the murderer. If you don’t want to be arrested by the Public Security Bureau, just Listen to me! Do you understand?”
"Then, the pilgrims tomorrow..."
"Put a notice on the door saying that the abbot, Master Huishan, has passed away. We will hold a cremation ceremony for him and refuse all visitors within a week." Monk Bai Jing said.
This memory came to an abrupt end. In the next scene, Sun Hang found himself in the midst of blazing flames. A decaying skeleton was curled up not far away, crackling under the tongue of fire.
Vaguely, Sun Hang smelled a faint scent that belonged to strange things, emanating from the skeleton.
"So that's it..." Sun Hang suddenly realized.
(End of chapter)