Salted Fish Zombie Chapter 68.1

Published at 5th of October 2023 06:17:36 AM

 Flower Servant (16)

September 20, 2023 by Wyrd

  The heavy black door closed slowly.

Outside the door, light only briefly seeped in.

Inside the grand hall, there was complete silence.

“Where will she be taken?” asked Ning Changfeng.

Ning Changfeng began to analyze it himself. “The man in white said the sacred flower inside him couldn’t save her. The sacred flower died inside her, and her body can’t withstand a second transplant. She’s useless now.”

“She’ll be sold to some flower slave owner, just like that failed flower servant from Boss Qi.”

Ning Changfeng said coldly, “Surviving the first night doesn’t mean safety. They still have to nurture the sacred flower. Nurturing the sacred flower is a torturous process.”

What kind of suffering was this for a flower attendant?

It’s like opening up one’s chest and being careful in nurturing.

Nurturing it meant using one’s body as a nourishing vessel for the sacred flower.

If you couldn’t nurture it well, you would be tortured and driven insane.

If it died while being nurtured, the flower attendant would be sold to a flower slave owner and turned into a flower-shaped offering, returning to square one.

Rather than suffering twice, it would have been better to be made an offering from the beginning.

Zhu Shuangshuang said in a daze, “Was she driven insane by them? Does the Flower God’s temple want to torture us and make us suffer?”

“No,” said Fang Qi. “Look at the two girls in the row next to Meng Linjia’s bed.”

Ning Su looked at the two girls Fang Qi mentioned.

In the grand hall, each bed had only a simple partition, with one flower attendant lying on each bed, and two or three gathered together.

On the empty bed next to Meng Linjia, two girls sat together, leaning on each other, their hands placed on each other’s chest, where the heart transplant had taken place.

There must be terrible wounds, and it must hurt. In this gloomy environment, they had fragile yet happy smiles on their faces.

Fang Qi whispered, “At first, I thought that coming to the Flower God’s temple meant being tortured, but later I realized that most people here don’t think like that. They are among those who had a different opinion.”

“Are they sisters?”

“No, they’re a couple.”

From this, it’s evident that Fang Qi has done a lot of investigation during these days in the Flower God’s temple. He added, “In Furen County, homosexuality is considered heresy, but it’s something even the Flower God allows.”

Ning Su suddenly turned around and said, “Does the Flower God know? I wonder if He truly permits this.”

“...”

“Probably.” Fang Qi said, “Otherwise, the Flower God’s temple wouldn’t have tolerated them.”

“In a city full of fanatic believers, being treated as heretics, you can imagine their suffering. One of the girls was married off to an old man and subjected to his... corrections.”

“The other girl barely survived; it was the people in white robes who brought them back to the Flower God’s temple. The Holy Maiden said that as long as they took good care of the sacred flowers within the temple, they would be blessed.”

On a narrow bed, two girls leaned in close, gently caressing each other’s scars, like two injured creatures escaping from the mouth of a demon, licking each other’s wounds.

While it was heartbreaking to watch, one could also understand their happiness in each other’s company.

In this wretched city, where they were tortured in countless ways, they had finally found a place of refuge.

Even in a damp, cold, and dimly lit place, with only a small bed and their bodies tormented by the sacred flowers within them, as long as they could be together, that was enough.

Fang Qi said, “The people in the Flower God’s temple haven’t tortured them. They are the second most accomplished flower attendants here.”

This left people even more puzzled.

“But they tortured Meng Linjia. What do the people in the Flower God’s temple really want?” a player asked.

Fang Qi looked at Ning Su. “Sacred flower has been transplanted into you. Did the Holy Maiden tell you anything?”

Ning Changfeng, who was leaning against the wall, stood upright.

Ning Su turned to look at Fang Qi, and the two young men gazed at each other.

Ning Su didn’t directly answer the question. He said, “Their method of saving the sacred flowers is to stimulate Meng Linjia, to make her emotions fluctuate intensely.”

“Once Meng Linjia goes insane and there are no more emotional fluctuations, they give up.”

Of course, he knew that Meng Linjia wasn’t insane; she just wanted to end it all. To end the white-robed people’s casual harm to her boyfriend’s corpse, to end the endless torment, to end everything.

Starting with feigning madness and ending with death.

Ning Su continued, “The Holy Maiden also said that the sacred flowers need to grow in a spiritually endowed body, where they can feel the soul, and sprout and grow nourished by the soul.”

“So, nurturing the sacred flower is about the vessel, but the soul is also crucial. Only a rich soul can nourish the sacred flower. Do they define a rich soul as having intense emotional fluctuations, such as pain, happiness, and fear?”

Fang Qi looked at him in surprise, not expecting him to summarize it so clearly after just a moment of reading.

Zhu Shuangshuang also looked at Ning Su.

Why was he suddenly speaking so seriously and explaining all of this? Did he want to avoid answering Fang Qi’s question, so he simply laid out the answers Fang Qi had in mind?

Zhu Shuangshuang was even more curious about what the Holy Maiden had told him.

Ning Changfeng looked at Ning Su for a moment, then leaned back against the wall again, unsure whether he should feel relieved or disappointed by the strange feeling in his heart.

He had a faint feeling that Ning Su might not want to acknowledge him as his father. The thought of that possibility made his heart feel heavy.

One player reacted slowly, “Right! Meng Linjia went mad, and no matter how they provoked her, there was no soul fluctuation. That’s why the sacred flower withered, just like her soul.”

“Those two girls went through suffering together, and their souls were most fulfilled at that time, so they nurtured the sacred flower the best.”

“The Holy Maiden took Dai Dong away when he was at his most despairing and painful moment!”

“People who had good original relationships are grouped together, not only for the transplantation of the sacred flower but also for nurturing it later. It’s all about stimulating our emotions.”

Fang Qi said, “Yes, among all of this, the key lies in the transplantation of the sacred flower.”

“Whether the sacred flower and the person can survive a night depends on the emotions of the flower attendant during the transplantation. The Holy Maiden will find a way to stimulate the person, plunging them into either pain and sorrow or happiness and joy. This provides the freshest and most nourishing experience for the newly integrated sacred flower.”

Zhu Shuangshuang was taken aback; she had no idea this was going on.

How did the Holy Maiden stimulate Su Wangsheng?

Fang Qi looked at Ning Su again and asked for confirmation. “I got this information from chatting with a few flower attendants. They were vague, and I’m not entirely sure. What did the Holy Maiden tell you to stimulate you?”

Ning Changfeng and Zhu Shuangshuang immediately turned their attention to Ning Su.

Ning Su nodded. “Yes, she told me that I won’t be able to eat meat anymore in the Flower God’s temple.”

He quickly took a bite of the chicken leg to calm himself down. “Too scary.”

“...”

Zhu Shuangshuang believed, “The Holy Maiden is really good at getting to the point.”

Ning Changfeng: “?”

Ning Su hurriedly finished the remaining chicken leg meat.

Zhu Shuangshuang asked Fang Qi again, “What happened to Dai Dong? Su Su said the screams we heard when we arrived were his.”

Fang Qi said, “His sacred flower grew crooked.”

“Crooked?”

Fang Qi explained, “Usually, the sacred flower naturally follows the blood, growing in the blood vessels. Some branches don’t grow into the blood vessels, and they need to be pruned or moved, depending on the situation.”

No one spoke again.

The sounds they heard in the morning had already told them how painful it was.

They looked at the hundreds of flower attendants in the main hall, each with a different expression, as if they were witnessing the myriad of human experiences, tasting the various flavors of life.

These dignified yet pitiful flower attendants concealed countless sorrows or joys in this darkness, repeatedly stimulating their shattered hearts, ultimately offering them to the sacred flower within.

It didn’t take long before Fang Qi glanced at the small round window and said, “It’s about to begin.”

This time, they all knew what he meant by “it’s about to begin.”

As the night grew darker, the sacred flower was about to become active.

Fang Qi struggled to stand up. “I need to go lie down.”

He glanced at Ning Su. “You should go lie down on the waterbed too.”

Zhu Shuangshuang also needed to go back to take care of Su Wangsheng.

When Ning Su stood up, his heart suddenly trembled.

He felt like his heart had grown a bit heavier and larger in that violent beat, causing all his blood vessels to tremble.

He groaned and swayed to the right, and a pair of hands immediately caught him.

Ning Su turned to look. And it was one of the two players from their courtyard whom he didn’t know much about.

He looked at the hands holding him, and the nails on those hands were tinged with black, as if something was wriggling under the nails.

Chapter end