Chapter Twenty-Four: Vitality Amidst Impurity

“Stay.”

The word, hoarse, dry, and cold, clanged through the blood-drenched, fetid silence like two chunks of frozen, rusted iron. Zhou Xiaoxiao set down the night-soil bucket, dripping with sour filth. Its icy rim nearly brushed Lin Mo’s hand, which hung off the straw mat, caked in mud and blood. The pungent, suffocating stench enveloped him in an instant, as though he’d fallen into the depths of a rotting marsh.

Then Zhou Xiaoxiao turned away. His sodden, mud-streaked back seemed unusually heavy beneath the dim light. He did not glance back at Lin Mo, as if the body sprawled on the floor was nothing but a lifeless rag. He pushed open the creaking, battered wooden door, and his figure melted once more into the surging, gray-white mist outside, tinged faintly with the color of rust.

The door closed, blocking some of the invading cold, but trapping the oppressive stench and chilling silence, locking them in this dormitory hall that felt like a tomb.

“Huh… huh…” Lin Mo lay sprawled in a pool of blood and filth, each labored breath tearing at his chest with searing pain and the thick taste of blood. His throat felt stuffed with burning sand, every swallow scraping like a knife. The wound on his back, split open, burned numb and raw in the cold air and the stinging blood.

The immense terror did not fade with Zhou Xiaoxiao’s departure; instead, it tightened around his heart like icy vines, constricting ever more. Zhou Xiaoxiao’s last gaze—cold, dead, as if regarding some dangerous thing—was more chilling than the rock lizards of Ghost Cry Ravine. “Stay”… not a reminder, but a command, cold and binding. He was a prisoner, waiting for disposal in this filthy cage.

Within his chest, the cold “stone”—the remnant fragment of the Void Scripture—after resisting the terrifying pressure of the storm, had lapsed into some deep quiet. Its pulse remained heavy and sluggish, no longer radiating hostility but instead a kind of weary inertia. The strange, vivid green attached to it—the “Reversed Seed”—had dimmed its glare, leaving only a faint flicker of green, like a candle in the wind, glimmering on the stone’s cold surface.

But in this deathly silence and stench, a peculiar, weak yet distinct throb pulsed again from deep within the “Reversed Seed” in Lin Mo’s chest!

This time, its target was clear—not the lingering dead energy in the corners, nor his own depleted blood and vitality, but something right beside him: the night-soil bucket, radiating that pungent, rotten stench!

The faint green glow seemed to catch a scent of something “delicious,” its pulse quickening. An almost imperceptible, ravenous suction, like a leech drawn to blood, reached out from the seed, silently bypassing Lin Mo’s paralyzed body and locked precisely onto the viscous, dirty liquid dripping from the rim of the bucket!

Lin Mo’s consciousness jolted awake at this bizarre change—shock and a wordless disgust seized him. What was it absorbing? Those filths?

He wanted to resist, to scream, but his body was pinned by some invisible weight; even lifting his eyelids was a struggle. He could only, in despair, feel that greedy suction, like the most delicate tendrils, reaching into the visible foul vapors rising from the bucket!

Hiss…

A barely audible sound, like dried leaves burning.

Strands of gray-black, viscous, almost living filth began to rise from the bucket’s mouth, drawn by an unseen force. Carrying a nauseating stench—mixed with excrement, urine, and some decaying organic reek—they slithered, like tamed venomous snakes, through the cold air, silent and unseen, burrowing beneath the filthy bandages wrapped around Lin Mo’s chest, which reeked of medicine and blood.

Their aim—the faint, pulsating, uncanny green glow.

The moment the filth touched the Reversed Seed’s green light—

Buzz!!!

An indescribable, cold, sinister vitality erupted from deep within the seed, as if a spark had dropped into boiling oil. The weak green glow flared fiercely, its color growing even more lurid and poisonous, as if distilled from the deepest venom. A weak but pure warm current, brimming with life, mingled with the cold evil brought by the filth, surged forth.

This energy was no longer the pure vitality that had protected his heart before; it carried a… strange activity born from corruption and decay. Like a venomous bloom blossoming in the depths of a swamp—bewitching and deadly.

As the cold, sinister vitality washed forth, Lin Mo felt the tight, suffocating pain in his chest, bound by filthy bandages and a sensation like being buried alive, ease—just barely.

It was not the soothing of a healing wound, but a strange sense of blockage being forced open, of accumulated filth dissolved and expelled—a peculiar relief. The numb burning of the wound on his back was also suppressed a little by this sinister vitality.

But what shook Lin Mo most was that, as the filth was devoured and transformed by the Reversed Seed, the uncanny green light seemed to become more solid, its pulse stronger, tougher—it was, in some twisted way, drawing nourishment from the filth, slowly growing!

What… was this thing? It fed on filth?

Horror, disgust, confusion—tangled emotions strangled Lin Mo’s chaotic mind. He recalled Zhou Xiaoxiao’s fearful utterance of “Reversed Seed”—a seed born against the heavens? Or something even more dreadful?

At that moment—

A faint, heavy resonance, like the pulse of the earth, welled suddenly from deep in the cold fragment of the Void Scripture in his chest.

This resonance did not point toward the distant Abyss of the Buried Immortals, but, in a subtle way, toward the Reversed Seed, which was greedily devouring the filth. As if the cold, ferocious fragment regarded the growing seed with a hidden… attention? Even a hint of… expectation?

The sensation was fleeting, almost illusory, but Lin Mo caught it clearly. The Void Scripture fragment—not only did it not reject the Reversed Seed, it seemed to permit its growth!

The chill of this realization was sharper than the fog in Ghost Cry Ravine.

Outside the dormitory, the chaos from the inner gate of Greenwood Sect seemed to have calmed, though a low, distant hum, as if from the depths of earth, still rumbled like muted thunder, carrying an unsettling weight. In the direction of the back mountain, where the forbidden Abyss of the Buried Immortals was shrouded in fog, a deathly silence hung, oppressive as the lair of some slumbering beast, heralding a storm.

Time crawled by in the stench and silence. The filth vapor escaping from the bucket was devoured by the Reversed Seed, strand by strand. After its feast, the uncanny green glow gathered itself, its pulse steady and strong, like a sleeping beast crouched atop the cold stone, radiating sinister vitality.

Lin Mo lay in the cold filth, his body still weak, every breath an agony, but the tightness in his chest had eased a little. The sinister vitality from the seed flowed through him like a maggot in bone, bringing a sickly relief.

Then—

Boom!!!

A deep, thunderous crash, as if the sky itself had collapsed, thundered from the forbidden depths of the back mountain! The sound was even lower than the previous storm, carrying an ancient terror that could shake the soul, as if it pierced through time and space! The entire mountain of Greenwood Sect trembled violently!

Immediately after—

A colossal pillar of blue light, radiating a chilling, boundless aura of death, shot up from the mists of the back mountain like a column supporting heaven and earth, piercing the heavy leaden clouds in an instant!

Within the beam, a blurry figure flickered—none other than the ancestral glow of Greenwood, once steady as an ancient tree. Now, the aura it exuded was no longer the vast forest, but a glacier of death, freezing all things, brimming with boundless rage and a savage wrath awakened!

The Greenwood Ancestor… had taken action? What had happened in the Abyss of the Buried Immortals?

The terrifying pressure swept over the entire sect like an apocalyptic tsunami! The ruined roof of the dormitory groaned under the weight. Lin Mo felt the cold stone in his chest sink heavily; a primal, icy terror seized him. The Reversed Seed, just fed, instantly drew in all its light, curling tight like a startled viper.

As this world-ending pressure descended—

A cold, focused, nearly tangible mental force swept from the blue pillar like a giant searchlight, instantly covering the outer regions of Greenwood Sect—including the filthy servants’ dormitory!

This intent was icy, merciless, with the contempt of one who regards ants and a terrifying power to penetrate all things. As it swept the dormitory, Lin Mo felt his blood freeze, his soul shivering beneath its cold scrutiny.

It was searching—searching for any anomaly, seeking the source of the disturbance in the Abyss.

Lin Mo’s heart stopped, terror choking him—he was done for, about to be discovered. The fragment of the Void Scripture and the uncanny Reversed Seed within him—before such power, there was nowhere to hide.

At this critical moment—

Buzz!

A faint but pure surge of vitality, tinged with sinister cold, burst from the curled Reversed Seed in his chest. It did not resist outwardly, but instantly spread like the perfect disguise, covering Lin Mo’s entire being.

A pungent miasma, blending the filth and rot of the night-soil bucket, stale sweat, mold from the straw mats, and the blood from Lin Mo’s wounds—so intense, so filthy, so… real—wrapped him completely.

This miasma blended perfectly with the squalid background of the dormitory, making Lin Mo appear as nothing more than the most insignificant piece of garbage in the foul environment.

The cold, terrifying mental sweep passed over him like it brushed a roadside stone, not lingering at all. It pierced the roof and walls, scanning the dormitory—the corpses in the corners, the living sprawled incontinence, the filthy floor—before receding like a tide.

The oppressive pressure ebbed away.

Lin Mo lay in the filth, as if hauled from icy water, drenched in cold sweat, his heart pounding so hard it might burst from his chest. The immense exhaustion and terror of surviving weighed on him, nearly pushing him to faint.

It was the Reversed Seed! After devouring the filth from the night-soil bucket, it had transformed that sinister vitality into the perfect disguise, fooling the Greenwood Ancestor’s terrifying search!

Was it protecting him—or protecting itself?

Lin Mo’s mind was chaotic.

The dormitory door was pushed open again. The cold wind brought denser moisture and a faint, rusty tang of blood.

Zhou Xiaoxiao stood in the doorway, still holding the now-empty night-soil bucket, its rim dripping with dirty liquid. Half his body was soaked, mud thick on his trouser legs, as if he’d slogged repeatedly through mire. His face was expressionless, only a bottomless cold and deathly quiet. His eyes, like frozen ponds, pierced through the stench and blood, locking once more onto Lin Mo, barely alive on the straw mat.

This time, his gaze lingered for an instant on the spot over Lin Mo’s chest where the thick miasma radiated. In the depths of that cold stare, something flickered—faint, complex, impossible to name: suspicion? Understanding? Or… a deeper wariness?

He said nothing. He simply set the empty, filthy, cold bucket gently beside Lin Mo’s bed, in almost the exact spot as before.

Then he turned, preparing to step back into the swirling mist.

Just as he crossed the threshold, he paused, his back to Lin Mo. A hoarse, low voice, like wind scraping through an icy fissure, drifted faintly, nearly swallowed by the wind outside:

“Wait for me to return.”