Chapter 1542: Chapter 787: Silkworm Calamity (Part 2)

Turning his head to look at the woman holding the two children, he said with compassion: "They are merely silent, not without suffering. Everything in the world comes with a price, and any evil skill to prolong life, staying in this mortal realm, is a form of pain."

"I ask you, do they sleep peacefully at night?"

"How do you know?!"

Zhou Dayong’s eyes turned red as he questioned angrily.

His wife and two children, though they survived the plague thanks to the "Silkworm Zombie Curse," usually appeared as cold and lifeless as corpses, and screamed hysterically during the nights, bordering on madness.

As time passed, these symptoms grew increasingly severe.

Zhou Dayong knew that his wife and children would eventually end up like the people just now, completely becoming puppets controlled by silken threads, but he could only feign ignorance to escape.

Now that Wang Daoxuan had exposed the truth, his anger reached its peak.

Suddenly, his body stiffened, halting his struggle.

It was then that he saw Long Yan’er beside the mother and children, sighing and releasing several leech gu from her sleeve.

As the leech gu writhed, it absorbed many white threads.

Plop!

The leech gu swelled into a transparent form, falling to the ground and becoming motionless.

The curse in this mother and children was too deep; even the leech gu could do little to heal.

However, as the silken threads were extracted, the complexion of the mother and children improved significantly, their expressions were no longer wooden, but instead, they looked at Zhou Dayong with tears streaming down their faces.

"Lord, let us go, we’re so tired..."

"Daddy, it hurts, every night it hurts..."

They tried their best to speak, but their voices grew increasingly weak. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"Ah——!"

Zhou Dayong’s face was streaked with tears as he let out a heart-wrenching, desperate howl.

After taking several deep breaths, he struggled to his feet, stumbled forward holding his wife and children tightly, sobbing uncontrollably as his body trembled incessantly.

Then, he turned his head woodenly towards Long Yan’er, "Is there a way to make their departure more comfortable?"

Long Yan’er’s expression darkened slightly as she took out a porcelain bottle from her embrace:

"Heavenly Fragrance Powder can allow people to forget the pain and leave in peace."

Zhou Dayong accepted the bottle numbly, hugging his wife and children as he returned to the room.

Wang Daoxuan sighed, took out a bell, and while shaking it, he chanted a spell:

"Supreme decree, transcend your lost spirits, all apparitions, all beings receive grace. Those with heads transcend, those headless ascend... Wealth or poverty, brought upon by oneself. Decree to save all, urgently transcend life, decree to save all, urgently transcend life."

In the autumn rain, the Rebirth Mantra echoed along with the sound of the bell.

Li Yan looked solemnly at the gloomy sky.

Their team, known as traveling immortals, seemed on the surface to pursue power and wealth, but their true aim was a journey of cultivation.

He was always pondering, what is the purpose of cultivation?

For immortality, ascension?

The Daluo Law Realm isn’t as beautiful as legends say...

For power?

Power is important, but just like wealth, it has no end.

There is always a taller mountain, and in the world, there are too many who use unscrupulous methods to pursue power; no one can reach the other side, dying as Asura on the road.

At that moment, he suddenly recalled Cheng Jianxin, the Sword Immortal of Shu.

Protecting one side can be called a Red Dust Immortal.

Perhaps cultivation is to transcend, to escape the suffering of the human world.

Helping others transcend is also helping oneself...

...

A long time passed before Zhou Dayong emerged from the room.

His face was expressionless, and he said to everyone:

"Follow me."

After speaking, he led the way to the ancestral hall.

"Dalong, what are you doing?!"

The limp old man panicked, "You’ll kill us!"

"Old fool, such a nuisance!"

Sha Lifei slapped the old man, sending him flying to the ground.

Soon, the group arrived at the village’s ancestral hall.

Inside stood an ancient stone statue, from an unknown era, which slightly isolated their aura and combined with the subtle stench of the dilapidated shrine, went unnoticed by the crowd.

"This thing, it was them who sent it here..."

Zhou Dayong explained briefly, then exerted force to move the Divine Statue aside with a rumbling sound.

Below, a rough tunnel entrance was revealed.

Zhou Dayong lit a torch in the lead, Li Yan gestured for the brawny Wu Ba and firearm-expert Sha Lifei to stay outside for backup, then led the others inside.

As they crawled into the tunnel, the dim and moist air mixed with a strong rotten and sweet stench assaulted their senses, making them nauseous.

Zhou Dayong silently held the torch and hunched forward to lead the way, the flickering firelight barely illuminating the vast natural cave beneath the shrine.

Soon, they reached their destination.

The scene before them, even for those like Li Yan who were accustomed to dealing with monsters, made their skin crawl.

In the depths of the cave lay pitch-black shadows, as Zhou Dayong lit each fire basin; mountains of "cocoons" came into view in the cave’s center.

These cocoons were not made of silky white threads but had a sickly, semi-transparent stickiness to them, hinting at the human outlines curled up inside.

Encased in the cocoons like insects caught in a web, their eyes tightly shut, faces ashen, bodies trembling slightly to a certain rhythm—as though a hidden mouthpiece was slowly sucking away their life force.

And around the cave, amid the rock crevices, crawled and squirmed Zhou Dayong’s so-called "Divine Silkworm."

They were as large as wild boars, entirely covered in a greasy, disturbing gray-white hue, and kept opening and closing the mouthparts at their heads, continually spewing out sticky, resilient white threads.

These colossal maggot-like creatures moved slowly and clumsily, but combined with their continuous movements of swallowing, entangling, and encasing, plus the dripping slime from their mouthpieces, all invoked a deep nausea within one’s chest.

Within the cave, the sounds of their leaf-chomping shuffling and silk-spitting hissing reverberated.

"Those were the earliest batch of villagers..."