Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 108 Tree Man Syndrome (Subscribe!)

The young monk went to the back kitchen and got a bowl of porridge that had already gone cold, added some pickles, and then slowly walked towards the innermost room with the bowl in his hand.

Sun Hang walked around to the front of him and carefully looked at the expression of the little monk. 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 did he dislike? Was it the eldest brother who relied on his seniority to give them orders, or the monk who was guarding the door just now, or... the person in the wing room?

The young monk knocked on the door twice and whispered, "Master, Senior Brother Jueming asked me to bring you food."

There was no response from inside the room. The young monk hesitated for a moment and then slowly opened the door.

Suddenly, a foul smell wafted out from the room.

This is not the smell of a rotting corpse, but the smell that comes from an elderly person who has been bedridden for a long time and has not received proper care and cleaning.

"Master?"

It was still dusk and the light in the room was very dim. Sun Hang could only vaguely see a figure lying on the bed in the corner.

The young monk leaned against the wall, placed the bowl of porridge on the cupboard, and then lit the kerosene lamp in the room.

An old man who looked like a monster appeared in Sun Hang's sight.

His limbs were exposed outside the quilt. The ends of his hands and feet were covered with thick keratin growths, making him look like four dead tree roots dug out of the mud.

The old man's face was also covered with growths of various sizes. The largest one was as big as a goose egg and was stuck in the corner of his mouth, making him completely unable to speak. He could only make "ho ho" sounds from deep in his throat.

"Master... Master." The young monk asked nervously, "Are you... are you okay?"

Sun Hang walked around the old man's bed, then squatted down to closely observe the growths on his body, then he let out a long sigh.

This old man is not infected, at least, not infected with the strange virus.

Although he now looked more like a monster than most of the infected people, Sun Hang happened to have seen a description of this disease in a medical journal.

This is a rare disease called "tree man disease". In essence, it is a disease caused by immune deficiency due to genetic problems, which leads to infection with human papillomavirus, also known as "HPV", resulting in the growth of a large number of keratinized warts on the skin surface.

Although this disease looks disgusting, it is actually not contagious to people with normal immune systems.

Compared with the danger of the strange virus, it is far less dangerous.

However, in that era of information blockade, in the eyes of ordinary people, getting this disease was equivalent to being infected by a strange virus - no, according to them, it was called "being possessed by a demon."

The young monk found a pair of coarse cloth gloves from the cupboard, then took out a cloth mask from his pocket that he had worn who knows how many times and put it on, then carefully walked to the bedside holding the bowl of porridge.

He scooped up a spoonful of porridge and put the spoon to the old man's half-open lips.

Sun Hang frowned as he watched from the side - how can you feed someone lying in bed like this? At least you have to help the person stand up first, right?
As expected, half of the porridge flowed from the corner of the old man's mouth and dripped onto the pillow. The young monk seemed to be worried about being punished by his senior brother, and hurriedly tucked up the corner of his clothes to wipe it, completely ignoring the change in the old man's expression.

"Is this... choking?" Sun Hang looked at the old man's wide-open eyes and guessed in his heart - the old man's face was also covered with warts, which made it impossible for him to speak or make any expression.

But the way the young monk fed the old man the porridge just now, most likely the half spoonful of porridge that didn't spill out was all 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 made a coughing sound as if he was dying, and the young monk was so frightened that he jumped back a big step, leaned against the wall and stared at the old man, not daring to even breathe.

After a few seconds, the old man's coughing finally stopped - and his breathing stopped along with it.

The little monk walked forward in disbelief, took a look, turned around, and ran out in a hurry.

After a while, the monk guarding outside rushed in together with another young monk with a fair face but a huge black mole on the back of his head.

"Big Brother..." The gatekeeper looked at the old man on the bed, then looked at the pale monk, and whispered, "Master seems to have... died?"

Just as the two were about to go forward to take a closer look, the old man suddenly took a deep breath, as if he were having a last burst of energy, and then began to cough violently.

He coughed so violently that the warts on his face that were stuck to each other were torn apart, and blood mixed with pus slowly flowed down the gaps between the warts.

"Big Brother... what should we do?" The gatekeeper was stunned and asked anxiously, "Should we... should we call a doctor?"

"Why are you calling for a doctor?!" A fierce look suddenly appeared on the fair-skinned monk's face. He grabbed the quilt on the bed and covered the old man's face with it.

"Big, big brother?!" The monk guarding the gate was stunned and subconsciously stretched out his hand, but when his hand was halfway extended, he retracted it.

Half a minute after the weak struggle under the quilt completely disappeared, the white-faced monk loosened his hand, stepped back a few steps, turned to the monk guarding the door and said, "Jueming! Go find some firewood and pile it in this room, then burn the house and the people together. Be careful not to set the house next door on fire! Also, keep a close eye on that kid and don't let him run around - tell him that he killed the master with his own hands, and he is the murderer. If he doesn't want to be arrested by the Public Security Bureau, just listen to me! Do you understand?"

"Then, tomorrow's pilgrims..."

"Go put up a notice at the door and say that the abbot, Master Huishan, has passed away and we are going to hold a cremation ceremony for him. All visitors are not welcome for a week," said the white-collared monk.

This memory came to an abrupt end here. In the next scene, Sun Hang found himself in the midst of a raging flame. A dry skeleton was curled up not far away, crackling under the licking of the flames.

Faintly, Sun Hang smelled a faint, unique scent of strange creatures emanating from the skeleton.

"So that's how it is..." Sun Hang suddenly understood.

(End of this chapter)