Chapter 206: Brain Student
The structure of the ruins wasn't particularly complex. As Lin Ye walked, he observed the walls and soon discovered some newly made marks on one surface.
Lin Ye knocked on that section of wall, but the sound was no different from knocking on other walls. He tried pushing the wall, but it remained completely motionless, as if it were just an ordinary wall.
After thinking for a moment, Lin Ye began tracing patterns on the wall with his fingers, attempting to complete the designs. He didn't know what these patterns represented, but he could sense which tracing movements felt appropriate.
After failing more than a dozen times, Lin Ye finally completed the correct pattern. The wall automatically opened like a door, revealing a dark passage leading deeper inside.
Lin Ye entered the passage, and the door closed automatically behind him. The inner side of the door had similar patterns, which he completed, causing the door to open again.
Seeing he could exit at any time, Lin Ye proceeded deeper along the passage. The tunnel was also constructed from stone slabs that emitted a faint glow, making it possible to see the surroundings even without a flashlight.
After only a short distance inward, Lin Ye encountered a curtain made of bones and human skin. Rather than touching it directly, he carefully used his firewood chopper to part the bones and skin, slipping through the gap.
This wasn't the only such curtain. Every stretch of the passage contained similar hanging barriers.
As he passed through curtain after curtain, the passage began to lose its regularity. The straight tunnel gradually transformed into a winding cavern, with flesh-and-blood conglomerates appearing on the cavern walls. The deeper Lin Ye ventured, the more grotesque the shapes of these conglomerates became.
Moving cautiously through the cavern, Lin Ye soon heard voices speaking. "Brother Yang, we should go back. If we don't return soon, the teacher might notice we're missing."
A male student spoke these words.
"Relax, there are so many people at the campsite. Nobody will notice if a few are missing."
The speaker was indeed Li Yang, who seemed to be working on something, his voice carrying a hint of fatigue.
"Brother Yang, after we join the Church, will we really get assigned jobs with official status?"
Another male student asked this question.
"Of course, that's the easy part. Once you join the Church, you'll never have to worry about employment issues again."
Li Yang answered with confidence.
Lin Ye lifted the curtain and looked into the small chamber at the end of the passage. Li Yang was currently crouched between two flesh sacs, carving abstract patterns on the ground.
The two male students had only their heads visible above the sacs, with everything from their necks down completely enveloped within the fleshy containers.
But the sacs stood only half a person's height, with width similar to an average person, making them resemble two meat jars that couldn't possibly contain full human bodies.
Even more bizarrely, the two students seemed completely unaware of their abnormal situation, still chatting with Li Yang about job security.
Lin Ye quietly slipped through the curtain, then gradually approached Li Yang. His movements were minimal, and Li Yang, focused on carving patterns, remained completely unaware of anyone approaching.
One of the students noticed Lin Ye first. Since both students were facing sideways toward the passage, no matter how Lin Ye approached, one of them would eventually spot him.
"Teacher? What are you doing here?"
The student uttered these words in surprise.
But this was within Lin Ye's expectations. Before the student finished speaking, Lin Ye was already charging at full speed toward Li Yang with his firewood chopper.
Hearing the noise, Li Yang jolted in surprise. He whipped his head around, but before he could identify the intruder, the sharp firewood chopper had already sliced through his neck.
With a single swing, Lin Ye severed Li Yang's neck, sending his head rolling several times across the ground.
"Li Yang! Help! Murder!"
"Ahhhhhh, someone's dead!"
The two students stared in horror at Li Yang's still-bleeding corpse. They had followed Li Yang in hoping to secure official positions, never imagining things would turn deadly.
"Stop shouting. Do you even realize what condition you're in? Let me see what's below your necks."
Lin Ye examined Li Yang's body and found a translucent red crystal on him.
"Below our necks? What are you talking about? This is... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Upon seeing the flesh sac beneath him, the student unleashed a terrified scream.
"What kind of monstrous thing is this!"
The other student also cried out in shock. They had been completely oblivious to their situation until now.
"You followed him in here yourselves. How should I know what these monstrous things are? Can you get out of them?"
Lin Ye watched the two slowly pulsating flesh sacs that seemed to breathe. He wasn't sure how to handle them either—without understanding their internal structure, he hesitated to use his blade.
Though these students who'd been used as sacrificial offerings had joined some cult organization, they'd only done so for job security without committing any truly heinous acts. They could barely be considered victims, and Lin Ye wasn't about to simply cut them down.
"It hurts! Help! It's eating me! Teacher, save me!"
One student suddenly screamed in agony.
Lin Ye quickly grabbed the male student's hair, attempting to pull him from the flesh sac. With just slight effort, he easily extracted the student from the container.
But what emerged made Lin Ye's pupils contract sharply.
Below the student's neck extended only a dozen or so fleshy tendrils resembling those of mollusks. His body had completely disappeared.
Lin Ye instinctively released the hair he held. The student fell to the ground, scurrying briefly on his tendrils before realizing something was terribly wrong with his body.
He was too short—not even reaching the height of the flesh sac.
"Ahhhhhhhhh... No! My body! This can't be real!"
The student emitted a despairing scream, the nightmare scenario pushing him toward complete mental collapse.
The other student fared no better. He struggled out of his flesh sac and stared blankly at his body that had been replaced by fleshy tendrils, completely breaking down mentally.
"Sigh, you've had truly terrible luck. These kinds of scams are common—every year some soon-to-graduate students get tricked. But usually they just lose tens of thousands of money. I've never seen anyone end up as badly as you two. These cultists really aren't human."
Lin Ye sighed with genuine sympathy.
"...Teacher, please kill me. I don't want to exist like this..."
A head student crawled to Lin Ye's feet, but before he could finish speaking, the sharp firewood chopper came crashing down toward the ground.
"Why did you dodge? Now you made me miss!"
Lin Ye asked with a frown.
"Wait, that was too quick! I hadn't finished speaking yet!"
The head student broke out in a cold sweat. Though mentally shattered and verbally expressing death wishes, he remained just an ordinary student who hadn't yet graduated, utterly lacking the courage to face death directly.
"Do you think I want to kill my own student? I struggled with this decision for so long before finally resolving to grant you release! Your dodging means I have to find that resolution all over again!"
Lin Ye spoke mournfully while covering his mouth.
"Bullshit! You didn't hesitate at all, not even for a second! Covering your mouth doesn't help—I can hear you laughing!"
The head student roared in furious outrage.