Chapter 47: The Happy Garden
The Unclean One was fat and large, resembling a small hill. Dozens of plump Gutter Spirits leaped into his bronze bell, shouting, “Turn the wheel! Turn the wheel!” The Unclean One chuckled, shaking the bell, while the Gutter Spirits pressed against the bell’s decayed copper wall, screeching with delight. The Gutter Spirits began to sing, “Spin, spin, spin to the garden of the Pestilent Father…” A carrier of disease, riding on a rotting fly, with a rotting soldier’s head hanging from his waist, heard the chorus and picked up a suona, raising his head to play along. The singing filled the air. The Gutter Beasts, subspace monsters as tall as horses and resembling slugs, emerged excitedly from a green, noxious-smelling pond, wriggling toward the joyful song. The Gutter Beasts, tongues lolling like dogs, let liquids and maggots drip from their tongues, mumbling indistinctly, “Friends… new friends.” Several Gutter Beasts crawled around the Unclean One, leaving a long, ugly, slimy trail behind them. They straightened up, swaying their bodies in rhythm with the Gutter Spirits’ song. “The Pestilent Father gives me a riddle.” “What riddle?” “Cowpox!” “What cow?” “Water buffalo!” “What water?” “Clear water!” “What clear?” “Frog!” The last line of the “nursery rhyme” was sung. The Unclean One forcefully tossed the bell upward, and the Gutter Spirits cheered, flying out of the bell and into the air. The childlike Gutter Spirits shrieked in joy, stretching their limbs. The Unclean One opened his cavernous mouth, swaying left and right, catching the Gutter Spirits one by one with his mouth. The last Gutter Spirit nearly dropped to the ground, but the Unclean One flicked out his tongue like a frog catching a bug, pulling it into his mouth. With a snap of his jaws and a swallow, the Gutter Spirits’ screams vanished. The sound of the suona ceased. The Unclean One felt an itch all over; he laughed heartily while his rotting flesh trembled, and the large mouth on his belly grinned wide. A few Gutter Spirits crawled out from the rotten holes in his intestines, bouncing out. Others emerged from the festering wounds on his rotten thighs. Finally, he raised his fat rear, accompanied by a spray of green feces, as several Gutter Spirits joyfully shot out from his excretory position, landing on the ground. “Yay!” Little Green stood up, jumping and bouncing, “I’m the last one out.” The Unclean One enjoyed eating Gutter Spirits and watched with amusement as they crawled out from different parts of his body. The Gutter Spirits, thrilled after their adventure inside the Unclean One, gathered around him, forming a circle and shouting, “More! More! So much fun, so much fun.” Hahaha, he laughed joyously, and the pustules on his body erupted, giving birth to a brand new Gutter Spirit that fell to the ground. It had just opened its eyes when the surrounding Gutter Spirits, cheerfully gathered around, welcomed it into this joyful family. “Ribbit! Ribbit! Ribbit!” A toad, as tall as a person, was hopping, with a carrier of disease on its back holding an iron sword, shouting, “The eternal divine command, the command.” The Unclean One scratched his armpit with his yellowing nails and asked, “What is it?” “The eternal divine command requires you to lead your legion and join with other legions to annihilate the southern pretender king, ensuring the army’s safety,” said the toad rider. “The order is here; march immediately.” “Finally on the move.” The Unclean One stood up and said, “Gather the troops before departing. By the way, Little Green.”
This Unclean One, compared to the small Gutter Spirit, was like a pebble to a wagon, and their standing was as different as the two.
“Do you want to say goodbye to your friends?”
“Sure!” said the Gutter Spirit. “I want to say goodbye to my sister and then spread the Pestilent Father’s mercy.”
George couldn’t wait to open the tent door, and a smell worse than that of the wounded in the surrounding tents filled his nose.
“Jenna?”
“George?!”
Jenna turned around. Her silver robe had considerable light yellow stains on it, likely from blood or pus that had soaked in, needing to be cleaned.
But George didn’t care about that; his gaze fell on Jenna’s face.
A linen strip, seemingly cut from a shroud, covered her eyes, and he could no longer see Jenna’s green eyes.
Aside from that, Jenna appeared just as he remembered.
Her oval face, though her clothes seemed tattered, radiated a noble aura.
She was both joyful and excited as she took a few steps toward George, “Is it you? George? I think it’s you; I see your soul.”
“I’m sorry I’m late.”
Jenna raised her hand, intending to slap his face, but instead landed a smack on George’s shoulder.
“Right, you’re sorry.”
Jenna said, “You owe me an apology, and you’re even more at fault for yourself. Why did you come back? Now it’s all too late. Come back to die together?”
Saying this, she peered around George and asked, “Jima? You traitor? Where are you? Come here; I want to slap you.”
“Jenna, Jima isn’t here; only Frostleaf came.”
“Frostleaf? You found her?”
Jenna’s tone became cheerful. “I heard she was missing.”
“Yes, with Jima’s help, we rescued her.”
George said, “I hope no one is eavesdropping; you can’t imagine who secretly kidnapped Frostleaf.”
“Then let’s not talk about it.”
Jenna said angrily, “Today, Jima escaped a disaster; sit down, and tell me what you’ve been doing all this time?”
George took note of the arrangement inside Jenna’s tent, finding it neat and tidy, just like his own, indicating she was quite skilled at household chores. But where did that indescribable stench come from?
George felt as though he was fighting alongside the Gutter Demon Army; he took a deep sniff of the air, making a significant sacrifice—someone as strong as him shouldn’t even need to breathe.
The foul smell came from a mobile kitchen set up near the stove; the silver utensils looked spotless, almost reflective, as if they could be used as mirrors. Yet inside, there was a steaming, viscous liquid bubbling away, smelling horrendously rotten.
This was not just a stink; it was the smell of death, immediately invoking visions of rotting bodies on the ground, rats crawling with maggots, and other death-related images as soon as it entered his nose.
It seemed Jenna had fallen behind in her cooking skills, which had somehow regressed.
George suppressed the urge to make a sarcastic comment and said:
“In simple terms, I went to pursue Jima. The first time, I was misled and ended up in a strange world. The second time, I came to her world, the world where she was born, indeed. She was once a mortal too, a human, but not of our world.
“She was deceived in love and turned into a demon after jumping off a building.”
Jenna’s expression softened slightly. “So she was a suffering soul.”
“Yes, after returning to her hometown, she first took revenge on her enemies, then supported her parents…
“Jima wasn’t that evil.
“Then she became the demon queen of that world, building her happiness on the suffering of many others,” George said. “But she hasn’t killed many people, yet I must go fight her.”
