Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 533 The Curse of Immortality

The ascetic was silent for a few seconds, then said, "I suppose so."

"What exactly is that thing?" Sun Hang leaned closer. "Could you tell me?"

“Human desires,” the ascetic said.

"What?" Sun Hang frowned.

“A materialized desire,” the ascetic replied. “You will understand when you see it… but I still hope that you can choose to leave this place before then.”

He smelled a faint musty odor emanating from the ascetic monk, like the musty smell mixed with dust that wafts from the pages of a long-sealed bookcase when it is opened.

It doesn't smell bad, but it gives people a sense of distance, as if they're in another world.

Sun Hang increasingly felt that this ascetic was like a walking humanoid antique, or rather, he gave Sun Hang the impression of an undead creature who usually lay in a tomb sleeping and would occasionally rise up and take a stroll.

However, the ascetic did not have the aura of a strange meme. He had a heartbeat and pulse, and he could breathe. Blood was flowing in the veins under his skin. These characteristics did not match any of Sun Hang's guesses about his true identity. For a moment, Sun Hang even wanted to pin the ascetic to the ground, cut open his body with a knife, and study his body structure.

As the four approached Nanhua Town, the ascetic monk would stop every so often, rhythmically tapping the ground with his wooden stick before continuing on his way.

Each pause causes a slight shift in the angle of the route.

Sun Hang initially thought that the ascetic was tapping the ground with a stick to detect traps, but as he collected more and more data samples, he found that the ascetic's tapping force and frequency were exactly the same each time, and the sound produced had no discernible pattern.

Could this actually be some kind of special ritual?

Without making a sound, Sun Hang summoned three mycelium puppets and sent them in different directions.

The mycelium puppets reached the limit of Sun Hang's control range without encountering any abnormalities, so Sun Hang had no choice but to recall them all.

"Can you tell me what you're doing by tapping the ground?" Sun Hang asked. "Your legs and feet are perfectly fine, and you don't look like you need a cane."

“To prevent myself from forgetting more,” the ascetic said calmly, “I’ve forgotten far too many things… but some things are absolutely essential. To remember them, I invented a method myself, using the rhythm of my steps and the frequency of tapping to aid my memory… My brain may forget, but over the years, my body will always remember these things…”

"Using muscle memory to replace brain memory?" Zhulong's expression was somewhat strange. "You've compiled a set of codes consisting of footwork rhythm and tapping frequency, and then forced your body to memorize these codes containing important information... so your brain can forget this information and only needs to remember how the code is interpreted... is that what you mean?"

“Yes.” The ascetic stopped again and tapped the ground lightly with his stick. “Every now and then, I relive those memories in this way… I find that these memories are becoming more and more unfamiliar, so unfamiliar that they seem like they happened to someone else.”

"Do any of your memories record your past?" Zhulong then asked.

“Yes,” the ascetic said, “but I don’t want to interpret it… I just need to know that my body still remembers those things, and that’s enough.”

"Are those memories painful for you?"

The ascetic monk glanced at Zhulong and shook his head: "All beings suffer. If it were only pain, I would not refuse to recall it... but what frightens me is something else."

"for example?"

“Those memories will gradually devour my humanity, and when I lose all my humanity, perhaps I can no longer be called human,” the ascetic said. “I still retain a trace of humanity now, so I will advise you to leave, I will advise you not to continue searching for that thing… But if I lose all my humanity, perhaps I will become its accomplice, bringing one pitiful person after another, driven by desire, to its presence.”

"Is that thing a strange creature?" Zhulong asked.

“I’m not sure, I know very little about it,” the ascetic said.

"Then why did you come out to lead the way for us... Is that thing manipulating your behavior?" A hint of vigilance flashed in Zhulong's eyes.

The ascetic monk did not answer the question, which Sun Hang and his companions considered a tacit agreement.

Sun Hang and Zhulong exchanged a glance, the latter's eyes filled with a questioning look, while the former shook his head and said in a low voice, "No rush, let's see where he takes us first."

The ascetic led the three of them into the ruins. He walked along a road that had almost blended into the desert for several dozen meters, and then stopped in front of a section of broken walls.

He crouched down and groped around on the ruins for a long time, moving in small steps as he went, until he finally stopped under a window frame that was only half intact.

Sun Hang noticed that there were several holes running through the wall below the window frame, which looked like bullet holes. There were also some dark brown marks left on the wall.

Is it blood?

The ascetic reached into his pocket and took out a fake flower made of scrap paper and rusty wire, placing it under the window frame.

"Is this... a ritual?" Zhulong asked.

“Yes.” The ascetic nodded. “I once had a friend who breathed his last against this wall… May he be reborn in the Pure Land.”

Just then, Sun Hang's earpiece suddenly beeped with a communication notification sound.

Sun Hang pressed the answer button, and Nagano Soya's voice, mixed with static, immediately rang out on the other end of the earphone.

“Sun Hang, I found out… There was indeed a monk in my father’s team back then. That monk was a superhuman, but the person I found wasn’t familiar with him. He only knew that the monk was a superhuman but didn’t know what kind of superhuman he was… Uh, did you find the monk’s remains in Nanhua Town?”

"Why is it called skeletons?" Sun Hang felt that he might have already guessed the truth of the matter.

“Because that monk is already dead, the person I questioned was a witness to the monk’s death… He saw the monk’s chest shattered by a shotgun, his body lying in a pool of blood, and then a series of explosives blew the monk’s body to pieces… How did you determine that the remains you found belonged to a monk? Did you find any personal belongings?” “If I told you that this monk, blown to pieces, is now leading the way for us, what would you say?” Sun Hang replied.

“It’s a monster! It must be a monster!” Nagano Soya said with certainty. “Don’t believe it!”

“But we didn’t sense any strange meme aura on him,” Sun Hang said.

"Perhaps it's some kind of disguise... Try to keep them calm for now, and make a decision after our main force arrives in Nanhua Town! We'll get there as soon as possible—"

Nagano Soya wanted to say something more, but the signal suddenly fluctuated at that moment, cutting off the communication.

Sun Hang looked at the ascetic monk walking ahead, pondered for a moment, and asked, "Have you already died once?"

"You've met... one of my former companions?" The ascetic monk stopped, turned around, and asked Sun Hang.

"Otherwise, how do you think we knew there was a 'treasure' hidden in Nanhua Town?"

“Indeed.” The ascetic nodded with a relieved expression, then opened the cloak he was wearing.

His body beneath the cloak was emaciated, his skin covered with horrific, deep-seated scars and stitches—so many that it was as if his entire body were pieced together from hundreds of fragments, even more numerous than the patches on his tattered cloak.

Zhulong's breathing suddenly stopped, and the surrounding temperature instantly dropped below freezing.

Centered on the spot where he stood, a thin layer of white frost began to spread outwards.

"What have you been through?" Zhulong asked in a deep voice. "Was it the power of the strange creatures that allowed you to survive?"

“The Buddha said, ‘If I don’t go to hell, who will?’” the ascetic monk said calmly.

"Let's not beat around the bush at a time like this," Sun Hang said helplessly. "Will it kill someone to speak plainly?"

“That thing needs to find a guide, or rather, a vengeful spirit,” the ascetic said. “Because of my abilities, I retained a sliver of consciousness, and I willingly became the chosen one… If it were anyone else, they would have become nothing more than puppets, their souls and spirits forever imprisoned in an incorruptible body, enduring eternal torment in confusion and pain…”

"So, you were resurrected by that strange creature?" Sun Hang asked.

The ascetic nodded.

"Then why don't you have any strange meme aura on you?" Sun Hang asked, puzzled.

“Perhaps it’s because the monster didn’t infect him… After all, the monster was going to use him as bait. If it had infected him, it would have been easier to alert the prey…” Zhulong said. “It seems that we have some clues about those missing persons cases.”

"What missing person case?"

“Before I set off, I checked all the information about Nanhua Town. In the past ten years, there have been a total of 24 missing persons cases in the vicinity of Nanhua Town, with as many as 85 people missing… However, such incidents are very common in uninhabited areas. The frequency and number of missing persons in Nanhua Town are not significantly different from other areas, so it did not attract much attention… Now it seems that those missing people were probably led to that strange creature by him,” Zhulong said.

“I tried to persuade them, saying that the sea of ​​suffering is boundless, but turning back is the shore,” the ascetic said. “I told them again and again that it was dangerous, that it was the embodiment of humanity’s purest desires, and that no one could escape its influence… but not a single one was willing to give it up. In fact, after hearing my description, they longed for it even more…”

"Do you know why they don't believe that thing is dangerous?" Sun Hang asked the ascetic.

The ascetic monk looked at Sun Hang with a questioning look in his eyes.

“Because of you,” Sun Hang said. “You’re not infected, but you’ve obviously seen, or rather, come into contact with, that thing. Since nothing happened to you, they naturally believe they won’t be in any danger either… Humans are such blindly confident creatures, especially when driven by greed.”

“You see things clearly, so why are you still so stubborn?” The ascetic wrapped his cobbled-together body in his cloak. “Since you know what the final outcome will be, why don’t you choose to give up? I am just a guide. I will not force you to come into contact with that thing. Even if you turn around and leave now, I will not stop you.”

“I told you, humans are blindly confident creatures.” Sun Hang chuckled. “If I were human, I would obviously be very confident in myself; but if I weren’t human, then the purest embodiment of human desire probably wouldn’t have any effect on me… You wouldn’t be affected by that either, would you?”

"I..." The ascetic was speechless.

"Do you even consider yourself human?" Sun Hang continued to ask.

"I...I don't know." The ascetic looked down at his body and shook his head.

"Now that this matter is settled, if you are still alive, you wouldn't mind if I dissected you, would you?" Sun Hang smiled at the ascetic monk.

“If you can remove the curse that thing has placed on me, I will be at your disposal,” the ascetic said.

Suddenly, Sun Hang leaped in front of the ascetic monk, and the liquid metal condensed into a short blade, piercing the ascetic monk's throat with lightning speed.

"Sun Hang?!" Zhulong was stunned. He subconsciously tried to reach out to pull Sun Hang up, but the ascetic monk had already clutched his throat and collapsed tremblingly.

Why are you killing him now?

"Don't worry, he's unlikely to die."

Just as Sun Hang said, the ascetic got up from the ground after a dozen seconds. He first touched his still bleeding throat, then took out a needle and thread from his pocket and began to suture the wound on his neck.

Throughout the entire process, his pupils remained dilated until the wound was stitched up, at which point his eyes regained focus.

"This is the curse upon me." After everything was restored, the ascetic said helplessly to Sun Hang, "I cannot be killed... Even if I am cut into countless pieces, these pieces will be pieced back together."

(End of this chapter)