The followers didn’t see the strange thing in the villager’s head. They only saw the villager achieving ascension after he was decapitated by Gao Ming. He easily surpassed the divine ghosts from Dream Break Town and floated higher up the Soul Temple.
“It is going to the divine temple!” The crazed claims professed by the man were verified. More followers turned to look at Gao Ming.
“He was the one who cut through the follower’s body. He helped him in his path of enlightenment!”
“Killing is not murder! Killing is salvation! I think I get it now!”
“The master’s words contain great wisdom. We have to dissect it, understand it and experience it!”
The crowd started to move towards Gao Ming. Gao Ming put away the knife warily. With the example shown to them, the crowd became crazier.
“The man wanted me to kill him so he could become immortal. I haven’t even heard of that at Dream Break Town before. However, after I killed him, he ‘rose to the sky’ before everyone’s eyes,” Gao Ming communicated with Fu Shu in whispers.
At that moment, Fu Shu proved surprisingly useful. He said confidently, “I can tell you with absolute certainty that there are only ghosts at Dream Break Town. There is no divine palace and immortals! That villager purposely came to delay you the moment you were about to leave. It was like he wanted to do this before the other’s eyes.”
“Yes. A lot of divine glow and mist could be seen in his wounds. He was absorbed in his hallucinations. Let’s not forget the strange things that he turned into after he died. It should be the effects of the mist and glow inside the Soul Temple!” Fu Shu glared at the palpable clouds of divine air. “Those are hallucinogenic poison.”
“You have a point.” Gao Ming sensed the strange happenings in the Soul Temple. Once he wished for something, that thing would come true. He wondered if the divine figure was related to Zhang Mingli, and the figure became more like Zhang Mingli.
“If you think it’s real, it will become real. If you think it is fake, it will persuade you and confuse you to make you believe that it is not fake.” Fu Shu saw the mist float over. He closed his mouth and controlled his breathing, afraid that the mist would enter his body.
The followers stood up and gathered around the stairs, lured by the prospect of becoming immortal. Their gazes made Gao Ming feel sad and scared. These people were not just greedy. They truly trusted the words of the divine in the Soul Temple. Their simple wish was cultivated to grow into a tree bearing poisonous fruits.
“Let’s go.” Gao Ming carried Fu Shu. He and Bai Feng were fine, but the two kids were unwilling to move their feet. The stairs were right before their eyes, but they acted as if they couldn’t see it. They bounced about with agitation.
“No! We are not going up!” The boy grabbed Bai Feng’s hand tightly, “We’ll fall, and the big snake will eat all of us!”
“What do you see? Isn’t this a normal stair to go up?” Bai Feng didn’t have the time to ask them slowly. As the followers approached, she picked up the two children and raced up the stairs. The two kids trembled and cried at the top of their lungs. They begged Bai Feng to put them down. Bai Feng knew that if she did that, they would die. She hauled them to the second floor. As they were about to reach the second floor, the two small water ghosts fainted due to an unknown reason. The surrounding mist tried to enter their bodies.
“Shoo!” Bai Feng waved her arms rudely as she shielded the two kids.
“Why did you save them? We can barely save ourselves.” Fu Shu looked at Bai Feng with annoyance. He actually wanted to give up on Bai Feng too, but he didn’t dare to say that.
“I will not be assimilated by monsters like you.” Bai Feng stared at Fu Shu coolly, “I’m a human, not a ghost, not an animal.”
“Fine. I’m a bastard. I’m an animal.” Fu Shu rolled his eyes. When they stopped arguing, they noticed Gao Ming stopped at the entrance to the second floor. He didn’t walk forward but turned back to look down the stairs.
“What are you looking at?”
“The villagers and paper dolls didn’t . These normal stairs in our eyes are an impossible gulf in theirs.” Gao Ming patted the faces of the kids. He also wanted to know what the water ghost kids saw so that they’d be so scared that they fainted.
“Is that so hard to understand? Due to life experience and living environment, people cultivated different senses of determination. We have strong wills and are not affected by the power within the temple. That was why we got up the stairs easily. On the other hand, these people were impacted by the glow, and their minds were corrupted. They have become the temple’s puppets,” Fu Shu answered easily.
“It is not that simple.” Gao Ming closed his eyes. A memory fragment flashed, “I had a student who could materialise people’s fear. The more afraid a person is, the more realistic the subject of fear would become. Ultimately, the student became a part of the uncontrollable fear and something that shouldn’t exist.
“This nine-story soul temple might operate on the same basis. It needs everyone’s belief to achieve a certain goal.” Gao Ming frowned and looked up. “Dream Break Town hasn’t had a nine-story soul temple. What will be its final goal?”
“A divine temple?” Bai Feng raised her voice as it dawned on her. “Could it be the heavenly gates? The heavenly gates can help us leave this nightmare to return to the real world or enter another world!”
“Fake. Those are all fake. Don’t waste your time on them.” Fu Shu wanted to cover his ears because he wanted to stop listening to them. “When you start to presume its goal, you’ll be manipulated by it. Even if it didn’t have those plans, it would slowly manifest them into reality.”
They opened the wooden door of the second floor. The fragrance of medicine hit them. This floor was much larger than the first floor. The layout resembled a Baguo. A giant pill furnace was in the middle of the room. That was where the fragrance came from.
“The first floor is the cultivation of the inner self. The second floor cultivates the outer objects. You can use something you carry to cultivate the pills. You can also turn yourself into a human pill for cultivation.” A young man Gao Ming met in the Tang Residence kindly offered an explanation to Gao Ming. The black threads of greed on him had been severed. His eyes were clear and shiny.
“Are you… Elder Tang’s son?” Gao Ming looked at the polite young man. He couldn’t reconcile it with the frightened soul he encountered at Elder Tang’s place. “Your father has let you go?”
“Father used a few of his children as the pill to heal his heart problem.” The young man smiled gently. “He has gone up the floors and become closer to immortality.”
“Your father has abandoned several of his kids?!” Gao Ming regarded the young man with disbelief.
“The human body is a medicine. My siblings have been touched by the divine because of this.” As he spoke, human heads crawled out of his heart and neck. His siblings grew inside his body. The heads under the robe moved about. They looked handsome and pretty. However, when they were stitched together, it was as strange as possible.