Qiong panted lightly for a few breaths, crouched down, and fumbled to adjust the angle of the rough wooden stick that served as his left leg.
After his leg was severed, the tribe members had fashioned him a crude prosthetic that could barely support him while walking. But comfort was out of the question—prolonged use would cause it to shift to one side, requiring frequent adjustments like this.
Being disabled was indeed extremely inconvenient. Just trekking to the entrance of the underground city’s upper district had left him gasping for breath.
This time, he had come to find the puffshrooms.
It could be said this was a pure act of risking his life. Setting aside the terrifying Chis still lurking in the underground city, Shou had mentioned that those puffshrooms were probably not benevolent creatures either.
But the tribe’s food reserves were running low. Whether they migrated south or continued surviving here, they couldn’t escape making a trip to the underground city eventually.
Rather than have those still-able warriors take the risk, it was better for him—a useless cripple—to scout the path.
Shou would definitely not agree with this idea, so he had snuck out on his own.
Moreover, deep in his heart, a vague intuition lingered: those puffshrooms… perhaps… weren’t as terrifying as Shou thought?
The surrounding temperature had risen slightly—Qiong had already entered the upper district’s range.
However, after taking just two steps, his prosthetic slipped, and his body instantly lost balance. His remaining right hand shot toward the ground at the critical moment, barely avoiding an embarrassing tumble.
When he lifted his hand away, it was covered in sticky slime…
“Mycelium?”
Sweeping away the thin snow around him, he discovered that the ground was already completely covered in mycelium!
It definitely wasn’t like this just a few days ago!
Carefully maintaining his balance to avoid another fall, the slippery ground was far too unfriendly for someone with one leg.
He hadn’t walked far when he witnessed another bizarre scene.
A group of puffshrooms stood in the distance. Among them, one exceptionally plump puffshroom was continuously pulling handfuls of mushrooms from its belly and scattering them around.
The grease worms hidden in various corners emerged one after another, greedily pouncing on the mushrooms on the ground and feasting heartily.
Just as they were lost in their feeding frenzy, the other puffshrooms quietly surrounded the plumpest grease worm among them!
Several tough mycelium tentacles shot out, instantly entangling and constricting it!
The unfortunate grease worm struggled futilely and was soon wrapped into a constantly writhing “dumpling,” being dragged by several puffshrooms working together toward the shadowy depths…
The puffshrooms could come to the upper district!
This was… farming?
These puffshrooms… ate meat?!
“Gurgle—”
Hopefully they only liked eating grease worms…
When Qiong snapped back to reality after watching the entire feeding process, he discovered that two puffshrooms had somehow appeared in front of him.
His mind reminded him to be vigilant!
However, when his gaze truly met those two round, even somewhat “honest-looking” puffshrooms, an indescribable, almost instinctive sense of intimacy strangely overcame his wariness.
“Yo, Qiong!” came the familiar mental dialogue. “Come to play with me?”
The two puffshrooms flanked him left and right, enthusiastically clustering around him. They used their flexible mycelium tentacles to gently support his swaying body, helping him stabilize his center of gravity, almost half-carrying him as they guided him toward the castle.
Just as they were about to enter the middle district, Qiong couldn’t help but stop, asking hesitantly: “Um… what if… we encounter Chis…”
“Chis? Don’t worry, Chis moved away.”
“Moved… moved away?” Qiong was stunned.
“That’s right!” One puffshroom used its tentacles to mimic a shrugging gesture. “Don’t know why, but it suddenly moved away! Sigh, some folks are just so cold and heartless. We were neighbors for so long, yet it didn’t even leave a forwarding address. We can’t even find a place to visit and reminisce! Qiong, you wouldn’t treat me like that, would you?”
“Of… of course not…” Qiong smiled somewhat stiffly.
Moving away and such—he wasn’t an idiot.
But this was only a few days?
The Chis that had nearly wiped them out before had been eliminated?
Qiong now realized he was wrong. The puffshrooms weren’t as terrifying as Shou had said—they were even more terrifying than Shou had described…
At least they seemed friendly toward him?
After entering the castle, there truly were no traces of Chis anywhere. Instead, mycelium grew everywhere, and busy puffshrooms occasionally scurried past.
The puffshrooms led Qiong all the way to the half-finished mushroom forest, then scooped a bowl of steaming mushroom soup from a burrowing puffshroom’s body for him.
The mushroom soup wasn’t particularly delicious, but it contained magical power, making it quite precious food in Qiong’s eyes, so he didn’t waste a drop.
Moreover, Qiong felt that his appetite had increased recently, or rather, his need for magical power had grown, though he didn’t know why.
Not far away, in a mushroom house, Little Black, sensing a stranger’s presence, poked his head out and made eye contact with Qiong for two seconds before retreating back inside—just some drab fellow, nothing worth noting.
But Qiong found it quite miraculous.
Dragon-folk, vampires… it seemed they were all living together with the puffshrooms…
However, Qiong couldn’t quite figure out where they all came from.
After finishing the mushroom soup, the puffshrooms seemed to want him to experience sleeping in a mushroom house, but Qiong couldn’t dawdle any longer. With some awkwardness, he made his request.
…
“Need mushrooms? And… enough food supplies for nearly three hundred demons?!”
Qiong fidgeted with his remaining hand, too embarrassed to look at the puffshroom across from him: “Yes… yes. We used to barely manage by hunting in the upper district, but the magical beasts… are becoming fewer and fewer, and now…”
Now it had been occupied by the puffshrooms…
“Ah, Qiong,” the puffshroom’s cap swayed slightly, simulating a humanlike troubled gesture, “I’m very happy to be friends with you all. Treating you to a meal or hosting Shou would be small matters. But the amount for three hundred people… that’s not a small number even for the great puffshroom family.”
Its mycelium tentacles spread helplessly, “You’ve seen it yourself—I have a whole bunch of hungry puffshrooms to feed at home…”
Qiong shamefully bowed his head deeply, almost burying his face in his fur clothing.
He himself felt this request was extremely excessive.
The puffshrooms had saved him, yet not only had he failed to repay them, he was now shamelessly demanding more…
But the tribe currently seemed to have few other options. He could only steel himself to stay here.
“However…” the puffshroom’s tone suddenly shifted, carrying a hint of room for negotiation.
Qiong’s head shot up, the dim light in his eyes instantly igniting with hopeful flames as he stared intently at the puffshroom before him.
“Giving away so much for free—even with my ‘family fortune,’ I really can’t handle it.” The puffshroom’s tentacles clicked like a small abacus. “But… if you’re willing to help me with some tasks, using your labor to exchange for these mushrooms… then the situation would be completely different! Completely not a problem!”
“Is… is there anything I can help with?”
“Of course there is!”
What happened next felt like falling into a bizarre dream for Qiong.
For the first time in his life, he witnessed and passed through a spatial rift twisted with deep purple light!
For the first time, he set foot in a place so warm it nearly made him sweat—like two different worlds compared to the northern lands’ bitter cold!
There, the puffshrooms brought him to a cavern growing with mushrooms and glowing grass. Even more incredible, the puffshrooms actually gave him over twenty little puffshrooms to lead!
The feeling of commanding puffshrooms was also quite wondrous for him.
In that warm cavern, he clumsily but earnestly worked alongside the puffshrooms to collect firefly grass.
He also fought shoulder to shoulder with the puffshrooms, repelling two waves of wandering, grotesquely-formed unknown magical beasts that had strayed here!
Two days later.
He earned what the puffshrooms called “twenty-six contribution points,” then used them in the puffshrooms’ exchange program to obtain a mountain of mushrooms that far exceeded his carrying capacity!
For their first cooperation, Lin Jun thoughtfully prepared a free delivery service for him—a shut-in puffshroom loaded all the mushrooms into its belly and helped transport them back to the tribe.
For warmth, it even brought along a self-heating burrowing puffshroom.
When Qiong, who had been missing for three full days, returned to the tribal camp dragging his less-than-nimble prosthetic leg with that enormous puffshroom following behind him, he happened to run into Shou, who had personally set out to search for him.
Looking at the puffshroom behind Qiong, Shou’s voice was filled with disbelief: “Qiong… you… what exactly did you do these past three days?!”
