Mushroom Man

Chapter 160 The Mushroom Man's Right Eye, the Dark Moon Celestial Venerable

"This is……"

Wu Liang narrowed his eyes slightly, looking around.

But all around, a mist had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.

The fog was so thick that you couldn't see anything.

The seven figures, appearing and disappearing in the mist, remained silent, all sizing each other up.

Clearly, these fellow disciples of Wu Liang, who were also inheritors of the Wuxiang lineage, were equally unaware of this.

However, one thing is certain...

Everything that is happening now is definitely related to the Formless Celestial Venerable.

The same thought flashed through everyone's minds simultaneously.

"Could this be... a scam?"

suddenly!

One of the figures murmured to himself, as if he had remembered something.

His murmur caused everyone to instinctively look at him.

"scam?"

Wu Liang's eyes flickered slightly, as if he were deep in thought.

The so-called scam is actually a man-made natural wonder.

The creator of this man-made wonder, needless to say, is none other than the renowned Wuxiang Tianzun.

Unlike the failed project, the River of Oblivion, the deception was Wuxiang Tianzun's proudest and most successful work.

Wherever there are people in the world, there will be scams.

If this is indeed a scam.

It is clear that the deceased Wuxiang Tianzun had devised some scheme to lure them into this deception.

"If I remember correctly, the legendary deception of the Formless Celestial Venerable was inspired by the legend of the Mushroom Man."

Wu Liang's thoughts wandered as he tried to understand this place.

In the past two days, besides cultivating, he has been reading the Legend of the Mushroom People, trying to understand this world as much as possible.

So now I suddenly hear that I may have been tricked into a scam.

His first thought was of the Legend of the Mushroom Man...

However, this time, the protagonist of the Mushroom Man Chronicles is no longer the Mushroom Man's first child, the Great Sun Celestial Venerable.

He was the second child of the Mushroom People, and also the second Venerable One in the world... the Celestial Venerable of Obsidian Moon!
The Tale of the Mushroom Man, Volume One, Chapter 1.

long long ago……

The sun stretches across the sky, bringing daytime to the world.

The light of day shines upon all living beings and dispels loneliness.

Every corner of the world was bathed in light.

However, although the light emitted by the sun can illuminate all things in the world and all living beings, it cannot cross the boundary of eternity...

And this eternal boundary is life and death.

The world of the living is full of light, but the world of the dead remains dark and filled with loneliness.

In that world of only death, a hazy, gray mist lingered for a long time.

A faint, ethereal shadow moved slowly.

Beside him was an endless expanse of lifeless, murky yellow water.

This place is called "Yellow Springs".

It is the lowest part of the Zimu River that the mushroom man carried with him after his death.

This is the end of life, the final resting place of death, the homeland of the wandering souls of the dead.

Beneath his feet was a muddy, uneven path, yellow and murky.

This road is called "Road to the Underworld".

It is also known as the "Road of Life and Death".

It winds and twists, stretching towards the boundless end of the underworld.

That's right, even though the Yellow Springs is at the very bottom, it still has an end.

The end of the Yellow Springs is the beginning of "life," the source of all things at birth.

The Zimu River lies between life and death; its upper reaches represent life, while its lower reaches represent death.

The upstream and downstream are connected end to end, and the cycle repeats itself.

Everything in the world begins with birth and then gradually moves towards death.

And from death comes a new birth.

This is the eternal and unchanging cycle of heaven and earth.

A phantom, ethereal shadow, drifts across the waters of the underworld, aimlessly wandering the road to the afterlife.

He was the second son of the mushroom people, and the right eye that fell into the Mother-Child River and drifted to the Yellow Springs.

He was born to die, and never felt happy.

After all, the sense mushroom only exists in the world of the living.

He was naive and filled with curiosity.

He could never understand why everything he saw was meaningless and indistinguishable nothingness.

All he could do was silently, alone, and aimlessly walk forward on this path that was destined for him...

This road has no footprints of predecessors, no guiding direction, but it is full of mushrooms.

They come in all shapes and sizes, and are scattered along this road.

There are the excruciating pain mushrooms and the cold, despairing corpse mushrooms.

There are also rotten mushrooms, which emit a nauseating, putrid stench.

And then there are bitter mushrooms, whose bitter taste is unbearable...

However, no matter how intense the sensations evoked by these mushrooms were, they could not cause the slightest change in the expression on his face.

He seemed numb, unresponsive to everything.

That's why a mushroom quietly grew on his body.

That's... the Ignorance Mushroom.

A person who cannot accept and feel the outside world is ignorant and dull.

They are trapped in their own world, unable to perceive the wonder and difference of the outside world.

Ignorant as he was, he wandered aimlessly.

Until one day, an ordinary-looking, dark gray mushroom blocked his path. "Man, I am the Lonely Mushroom."

"Loneliness is my nourishment, and I feel a deep loneliness in you."

Lonely Mushroom's voice was low and hoarse.

"I hope you can use them to support me."

"With me, you can attract endless loneliness, and you will know the feeling of loneliness."

"From now on, your life will no longer be nothingness, but a grayness filled with loneliness."

Huiyue listened to Lonely Mushroom's eloquent speech without any reaction.

He doesn't know how to accept or refuse.

And so, the Lonely Mushroom spontaneously grew on his body.

He was accompanied by solitude, as if it were his destiny.

A lonely heart thus arises...

An endless loneliness, like a tide, kept surging into his mind with each heartbeat.

He was finally able to experience all things in the world.

However, this is a loneliness that cannot be shared or spoken of.

The muddy path was marked only by his footprints, making him appear exceptionally lonely.

The voice of the underworld, the voice of the dead, can only be heard by him; no one can share it with him.

He was all alone, and it's unclear how long he had been walking.

Gradually, for some reason, the road became narrower and narrower, as if it were being squeezed by some invisible force.

A vortex appeared around him, burying his limbs...

The body, which should be illusory and formless, could not pass through the yellow mud.

The wandering souls, who should have been adrift, could no longer roam.

He went from being able to stand and walk at first, to eventually only being able to lie down.

Even with their entire head pressed against the ground, they could only crawl forward very slowly.

Seeing this, Lonely Mushroom said helplessly, "Human, you have walked into the Valley of One-Sidedness on the Road to the Underworld."

"You are too ignorant, and all you can feel is loneliness."

"Once you step into it, you will only be blinded by what you feel, misled by one-sided illusions, and entangled in a vortex of deception."

"Even if a live mushroom were right in front of you now, you would have no chance of catching it; you would only be trapped in the deception of this world."

yes……

Once a person's perspective becomes narrow, it becomes harder to see even the slimst opportunities, and they are more easily deceived and misled, becoming trapped in a scam from which they cannot extricate themselves.

However, Lonely Mushroom's voice did not stop Huiyue's steps.

He was only focused on moving forward, only focused on walking.

He grabbed a solid rock on the road to the underworld and drilled through it with all his might.

His head was completely stuck in the one-sided valley, and intense pain washed over his mind, like a sharp blade tearing his soul apart.

Everything from the past flashed before his eyes like a revolving lantern.

He began to recall every moment he had spent on this road.

He recalled the stench of rotten mushrooms, a pungent smell that made him frown.

But this gave him his first reaction to this world...

He recalled the stiffness of the corpse mushroom, which, though cold, frightened him.

But this gave him an instinctive fear of death...

With each one he thought of, the valley widened a little more.

Until Huiyue stood up again, a new mushroom appeared in front of him.

That's a false illusion. People who only see one side of the story will naturally become deeply trapped in the illusion and unable to extricate themselves.

"turn out to be……"

"I don't just feel lonely, I am filled with loneliness."

He felt his heartbeat, chuckled self-deprecatingly, and there was a hint of helplessness in his laughter.

The world is vast and boundless, but people's hearts are often narrow and self-imposed, trapping themselves and their understanding of all things in this world.

……

When a person's perspective is one-sided, they will fall into illusions and scams.

The artificial wonders created by the Venerable Wuxiang were inspired by Huiyue's journey from the Yellow Springs to the Valley of One-Sided Beauty in the Legend of the Mushroom People.

The deception of the Formless Celestial Venerable means that anyone caught up in it can only access one-sided information.

This is why Wu Liang and the other seven disciples of Wuxiang gathered here.

The reason why they could not see each other's faces clearly and could not use any means to examine each other.

It is said that a venerable one once tried to find the deception after the death of the Formless Celestial Venerable and destroy it completely, but he never found the deception.

This is because scams are everywhere, yet nowhere to be found.

No one could find the deception except for the Wuxiang Tianzun who set it up.

And now, the scam that even the Venerable One couldn't find has appeared right in front of them.

Of course, this does not mean that they are more powerful than the Venerable One.

The real reason is simply because they are the successors of the Formless lineage...

Wu Liang's mind raced, but he quickly came to his senses.

Meanwhile, a question was growing stronger in my mind.

Since no one in the world has ever seen a deception, including the Venerable Ones after the Formless Celestial Venerable.

So why was that person able to recognize at a glance that they were in a scam?
Is it possible...

Is that guy the reincarnation of the Formless Celestial Venerable?

Wu Liang was able to think of this, and so were the others.

In an instant, the way everyone looked at that figure changed inexplicably.

The figure also sensed the gazes of the crowd.

He was taken aback at first, then quickly waved his hand and spoke.

"Ha, don't get me wrong."

"I just happened to know about the scam, so I just said it offhand..."

(End of this chapter)