Recap
Xunzhe hummed thoughtfully, “Besides that, there are also birds in the sky, fish in the river, rabbits sticking their heads out in the forest, and deer drinking water.”
He paused, “The entire sculpture is very large, and the carving I was in only has them. The other carvings mainly depict mountains and forests, but I heard there are a few more animals in them as well.”
Chu Shici: …
There are so many small animals…This face of Lady Dayangtian, will probably never be pieced back together.
From what Chu Shici has seen so far, Lady Dayangtian has only merged the fox and the monkey.
It is not known whether she has already merged with the other animals as she didn’t show it.
The bodies of those two yaoguais were controlled by her, and they had no consciousness at all, it is basically tantamount to death.
Now the relationship between Xunzhe and Dayangtian has reached a point where there can only be one who survives.
Xunzhe’s face was terribly gloomy, and the white marble in his hand was about to break from being squeezed hard.
He pondered for a long time and suddenly sneered. Using his fingers to grind the white marble into powder.
“She separated some fragments from her true body and placed them in the golden statue. I don’t know where her real body is hiding. All I saw before were her fragments. Killing her is very simple, I just need to find her true body.”
Xunzhe tapped the young monk’s bare head and pick up the stones on the lotus platform, crushing them all.
She can come and go through the fragments freely, and keeping them is a hidden danger in itself.
He lowered his eyes and stared at the dust on the ground, “Her body is too damaged, it will be difficult for her to make a breakthrough no matter how hard she cultivates. Killing her is not difficult, the difficulty is how to find her true body.”
Chu Shici is a little panicked, “Is there a way to quickly lock in on her position?”
“Di Ting* and Bai Ze* know, but they won’t care.”
*(
← Di Ting is a divine mythical creature and the steed of bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha in Chinese Buddhism, for more information
image source)
*(
← Bai Ze is a mythical beast in ancient China. It can speak, understand the feelings of all things, and know the affairs of ghosts and gods, and only appears when “the king has virtue”, and can ward off all evil spirits on earth. For more information
Image source )
Xunzhe only said this sentence and nothing more.
Chu Shici understood what he meant.
Lady Dayangtian’s level is too low, the two legendary beasts don’t care about the struggle between the little yaos, so it’s useless to find them.
After thinking for a long time, he couldn’t think of any good solution. Then, Xunzhe decided to be reckless.
Since she tried her best to help people get pregnant, she even separated a part of her body, and put a fragment of it into the golden statue in the temple. It would show that this ritual of body snatching is an important part of her plan.
After swallowing the millennium white fox, she pretended to be the ancestor to deceive the little fox yaos, and the Fox Immortal Temple is one of her strongholds.
When Chu Shici asks him what his plans are, Xunzhe narrows his eyes with a mocking smile on his lips.
“Go to bed early tonight. Tomorrow, we will go to the Fox Immortal Temple first, and then go to Lingshan Mountain to find the Monkey Clan. Isn’t she good at hiding? I will destroy all her hiding spots and force her to come out to see me.”
The little monk was so charmed that his legs were weak, so he silently supported himself on Xunzhe’s abdominal muscles.
White Snake is usually naked, and doesn’t like to wear a shirt when alone with him.
This is not a good habit, but Chu Shici has no intention of telling Zhe-ge to change this habit. He is very happy now.
When it was almost dawn, a guest came to the hostel, and Xunzhe’s plan to take away the Fox Immortal Temple was forced to be postponed.
Chu Shici, who was soundly asleep, was awakened by a rustling sound.
He opened his eyes in a daze, sitting up on Xunzhe’s hand and looking around.
A big black hole suddenly appeared on the hostel floor at some point, and a sea of fiery red flowers could be faintly seen through the big hole.
Xunzhe still maintained his half-human form and is patting the little monk with one hand, while leaning lazily on the bed with his cheek propped up with the other.
A woman rose slowly from the big hole. She looked only in her twenties, with white hair reaching her waist and wearing a loose robe.
The woman casually put the soup bowl she was holding on the table nearby, “Xunzhe, thank you for stopping the body snatching last time. This is the brain-refreshing soup I made. Drink it and you will get twice the result with half the effort of cultivation within an hour.”
After she said hello to the snake yao, she looked at the little monk in his hand with some confusion.
The woman, holding the soup, came from the underworld. Two words popped into Chu Shici’s mind, ‘Meng Po’.
He hesitated a little, ‘Tong-ge, Meng Po has been staring at me, does she see something is wrong with my soul? ’
The system met Meng Po for the first time and was taking photos.
[No, relax.]
Before the system finished speaking, Meng Po said in confusion: “Your soul is very unfamiliar. It seems that you have never drank my soup.”
After she finished speaking, she turned to look at the snake yao: “I haven’t seen you before either.”
Xunzhe glanced at her expressionlessly: “I am a stone carving mural, and he is a wood carving. Inanimate objects who cultivated a spirit.”
Meng Po nodded, “No wonder, Xunzhe, I went back and checked, but I couldn’t find the… the Lady Bright… Lady Bright Sun you mentioned*. Her soul has never been reincarnated. Either she avoided reincarnation by taking the fetus, or she became a spirit.”
*(Her name is Dayangtian da is big, yang means sun or sunny, tian is day. Bright Sunny Day is a direct translation. Here, Mengpo thought her name is Dataiyang which is Bright Sun)
Chu Shici leaned forward and whispered to her, “It’s Dayangtian.”
Granny Meng was taken aback, and opened the booklet in her hand, “No, Dayangtian is an earth immortal, and Dataiyang is a yao. There is a huge difference. Which one are you looking for?”
Chu Shici: ?
He quickly looked up, and Xunzhe had lost the ability to manage his expressions.
He repeated in surprise: “There’s two?”
Granny Meng spread out the paper* for them to read. This is a fragment she copied from the merit book.
*(
“Five hundred years ago, there was a thousand-year-old snake yao that caused harm to the people and killed more than 800 people. Dayangtian assisted the eminent monk and successfully sealed it. In addition, she often gave children to her worshippers, so she is able to accumulate a large group of followers. She was meritorious and was thus promoted to an earth immortal, to continue serving and protecting the people.”
Chu Shici hurriedly asked, “Do you know what kind of yao she is?”
“The manifestation of a spirit in an inanimate object is different from ordinary yaos. It is originally an inanimate object without a soul. Only after it gains spiritual intelligence, the underworld will generate a record. If they do good deeds, they will gain a point, and if they do bad things, they will be deducted a point. We don’t know the rest.”
There are so many yaoguais in the world, and he is not the only snake yao. Meng Po didn’t know that the snake yao mentioned in the booklet was Xunzhe, so she directly hit him with a precise blow.
Xunzhe lowered his eyelids and pursed his lips tightly.
For five hundred years, there was no one in the cave except for him.
In the first few years, he kept banging on the door, trying to escape. He knocked himself bloody, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t see the light.
Granny Meng’s words brought back painful memories for him. A strong bitter feeling of unwillingness welled up in his heart, and just as he was short of breath, he felt a soft touch on his fingertips.
Xunzhe looked down.
The little monk is hugging him with his short arms, and kissing his fingers intimately.
The memory scattered and Xunzhe touched the little monk’s smooth head, gradually calming down.
He escaped from the cave.
This little wood spirit likes him, and he is no longer alone. No matter where he goes in the future, someone will accompany him.
After talking about Dayangtian, Meng Po turned a few pages and continued talking about Dataiyang.
“After checking, I found out that in the past five hundred years, Dataiyang has probably been helping people snatch reincarnation places. Because she has never passed through the underworld for reincarnation, there are very few records about her. I don’t know what kind of yao she is.”
Xunzhe interrupted her, “Are you sure they are two people?”
“Of course, they have two souls, and the records in their merit books are completely different. How can they be the same person? Dayangtian has accumulated a lot of merit, but now her strength is just too weak. After cultivating for a few thousands of years more, she will be able to be promoted.”
“Dataiyang is full of sins, and she can only be a yao for the rest of her life. Even if she wants to ascend in the future, she will be struck to death by lightning.”
While she was talking, Xunzhe raised his head slightly and glanced at the booklet. His name is not on this page, he may have to look further back.
Chu Shici’s head is full of small question marks.
The underworld mainly deals with reincarnation. Yaos live long and may not be reincarnated for thousands of years. The underworld doesn’t know much about them.
Meng Po said that the underworld was going to send someone to follow the soul for reincarnation; to take their souls across the bridge, drink the forgetting soup, and stuff them into their bodies.
Let these people forget the past, live a good life, and then go to the underworld to be punished after death. As for the debts owed, it will be brought forward into their next lifetime and the debts accumulated in both lifetimes will be repaid in one.
It was handled fairly well, and Chu Shici didn’t care much.
While Meng Po was still there, he quickly asked about the chicken talking, hoping to see if the underworld bigshot had any ideas.
Meng Po saw that he was only as big as a palm, with small arms and legs, he looks very cute. She smiled and reached out to play with him.
Before her fingers even touched, the snake yao hissed at her.
Meng Po withdrew her hand and stared at the little monk with interest. “It’s very simple. Just take out the soul of the chicken and stuff a human soul inside. Not only yaos can do it, but some humans can do it too.”
She taught Xunzhe a spell to break the enchantment, and asked him to recite it if need be.
Chu Shici chased her and asked, “An old monk from Dayangtian Ming Temple has disappeared. Can you help me see if he has gone to the underworld?”
Meng Po flipped through the book for a long time, “No, he is still in the human world. But his destiny has changed. It says that he will be taken for breeding in three days. After a while, there will be a bunch of… chicken eggs? He will continue to be bred until his life is over.”
There are still a bunch of ghosts queuing up to drink the soup at Naihe Bridge, and Meng Po cannot stay for long.
Before leaving, she wanted to pat the little wooden sculpture on the head, but was glared at by the snake yao.
She sighed, “You are so cute and small. If I have the time, I will go up to find a little yao for myself.”
The underworld gate closed again, and the hostel floor turned into its original tan color again.
The old monk was turned into a rooster, and there were many chickens in the fence in the backyard of the temple.
Chu Shici remembered that when he passed by the chicken coop last night, all the chickens were croaking, except for one chicken lying motionless in the corner.
He can’t be sure but it could be the old monk.
___
Stuffing the old monk into a rooster’s body is too sinister a revenge method.
Chu Shici wanted to seek justice for the old monk, but he didn’t know who he should blame.
He thought their enemy was Lady Dayangtian, but Meng Po said that it was Dataiyang who helped people snatch other’s reincarnation placement.
Putting these two names together is like playing a game of finding differences. Chu Shici repeated their names back and forth a few times, but he got confused while reciting their names.
On the way to the temple again, Chu Shici sat on top of Xunzhe’s head and grabbed his silver-white hair. “Ge, who are we going to deal with?”
Xunzhe answered decisively, “Dayangtian.”
“Meng Po said she is a good earth immortal.”
“Whether she is good or not has nothing to do with me. She was the one who planned to kill me five hundred years ago, and she was the one who wanted to devour me.”
Chu Shici was at a loss for a while, “Wait a minute, is the stone spirit who wants to fight you for your body Dayangtian or Dataiyang?”
Xunzhe fell silent, obviously he couldn’t tell who it is.
Chu Shici thought for a while, “Ge, how did you know that the person who framed you five hundred years ago was Lady Dayangtian?”
“She introduced herself and said that the monk was invited by her. When the eminent monk was fighting with me, he also called her Lady Dayangtian.”
“Then have you seen her face? Are her facial features blurred?”
“She was wearing a mask.”
The reason why Xunzhe said that the golden statue enshrined in the temple was Dayangtian was firstly because of the name of the temple, and secondly because he sensed a familiar temperature on her body.
But the name Dataiyang sounds related to the sun. It doesn’t seem strange to feel the warmth of the sun on her body.
Things suddenly became very complicated, and Chu Shici’s intuition told him that there was something strange about it all.
He asked Zhe-ge what he thought.
Xunzhe completely lost his patience, frowned and said coldly, “Kill them all.”
Dayangtian is his enemy, and Dataiyang has committed extremely evil sins. He fights whomever he sees, and he has no interest in the relationship between them.
Chu Shici also thought this was good and silently supported him.
At this time, the sun had just risen, and the red-clothed ghost had already disappeared. The monks were still sleeping and the temple was quiet.
There are more than 20 chickens within the fence in the backyard, including five roosters. They are all lying in their nests without clucking.
Outside the fence, Xunzhe watched them quietly, trying to find the old monk among them.
Chu Shici shouted several times, “Venerable sir!”
None of the chickens respond.
“Venerable sir, we are here to save you. If you don’t come out now, you will be dragged to lay eggs with hens!”
This time his voice was a little loud, and the chickens woke up in fright and started running around in the pen and clucking.
There was a rooster that didn’t cluck. It walked slowly to the fence.
It looked at Xunzhe for a long time and put its wings together, which was somewhat similar to the posture of a human clasping their hands together.
That’s him, Chu Shici breathed a sigh of relief.
Xunzhe picked up the rooster and quickly went to the cave behind the temple.
There is no sunlight in the cave, and his yin qi remains, so the soul will feel more comfortable here.
He recited the incantation taught by Meng Po, tapped the chicken’s head a few times and pulled out an old soul from the rooster’s body.
The old monk’s soul was translucent, and his body is covered with large and small wounds.
He clasped his hands together and saluted them, “Amitabha, this humble monk, would like to thank the benefactor for your help.”
Chu Shici discovered something strange. The appearance of his soul is different from that of his original body.
___
From the words of the old monk Pu Xin, Chu Shici finally learned what happened in Dayangtian Ming Temple during the five hundred years that Xunzhe was sealed.
Five hundred years ago, this mountain was called Dayang Mountain, and the temple was named after the place. It is read with a pause in front of the Tian character, that is, “Dayangtianming Temple.”
The temples enshrine Buddha and Bodhisattva. Although there is also a Guanyin who is responsible for praying for children, it was not as effective as it is now.
Everything changed suddenly that year.
After finishing his homework, he went to bed as usual. When he woke up the next day, he found that the monastery was missing eight senior brothers.
Their powers are profound and they are the pillars of Dayangtianming Temple. Not only that, when he went to find the abbot* but found that the abbot was also gone.
*(In Buddhism, the abbot is the head of a Buddhist monastery or large Buddhist temple. In Buddhist nunneries, the nun who holds the equivalent position is known as the abbess.)
The abbot had teamed up with other eminent monks to seal the thousand-year-old snake yao just 3 days prior and he had been recovering in the house during this period so no one knew when he disappeared.
Everyone separated and searched around urgently, but the more they looked, the fewer the number of people came back. Originally, there were more than 20 people in the monastery, but after searching for more than an hour, only four monks came back.
The older monks Pu Xin, Pu Yuan, and two young novice monks who are less than ten years old.
The bustling temple in the past has become deathly silent. Even though the sun was clearly in the sky in bright daylight, the sun does not shine into Dayangtianming Temple at all.
There are dark cracks everywhere on the ground and walls, spreading densely like spider webs in the temple.
Knowing that something was wrong, Pu Xin protected the little novice monks and went to the main hall, hoping that the Buddha would bless them.
The Buddha statue sat in the main hall as always, with a compassionate and solemn face.
Pu Xin knocked on the wooden fish to chant sutras, while Pu Yuan searched for their other brothers around the main hall.
In a trance, the monk Pu Xin saw the figure of the Buddha changing little by little, gradually turning into a statue of a woman.
She has a blurry figure, no facial features, and her face is covered with cracks.
Pu Xin quickly took out the demon subduing pestle*, trying to get rid of the evil spirits. But the statue doesn’t react at all, as if it’s just an object.
*(
It’s time for the pilgrims to arrive at the temple to offer incense, when someone knocks on the door* outside.
*(
Pu Yuan didn’t find any other senior brothers in the temple, so he offered to open the door and take a look.
The temple was in trouble, and since they are monks, they should stay here to subdue the demons. But the two little novice monks are still young, they are still children and should not experience this kind of suffering. It is best to ask the pilgrims to take them down the mountain first, so as to save their lives.
Pu Xin felt that it made sense, so he recited the Diamond Sutra and escorted them all the way to the door of the temple.
When Puyuan pushed the door open, there was no one outside.
The door has been opened, but the knocking has not stopped. Dong-dong-dong, the sound of knocking kept echoing in their ears.
There are more and more cracks in the ground, and they can no longer stay in the temple anymore. Pu Xin and his senior brother recited the Diamond Sutra, each guarding a young novice and heading out.
After walking for more than two hours, they not only could not go down the mountain, but returned to the door of the temple.
They can deal with evil ghosts, and they can also fight some yaoguais. Yet, they met this one with extremely deep knowledge and who has cultivated for at least for a thousand years, they are not opponents at all.
No matter where they go, they will eventually return to Dayangtianming Temple.
The temple was completely eroded away by darkness, and there was a human figure kneeling in the hall.
They ran in to see that their brothers were still alive.
It’s just that they kept kowtowing to the statue with a sluggish expression, calling out Lady Dayangtian devotedly and fervently.
The body of the abbot was nailed to the statue of the Bodhisattva with wooden thorns, and blood slipped from the ends of the Bodhisattva’s eyes, like the Bodhisattva was shedding tears of blood.
Fox faces emerged from all around, it was everywhere; on the ground and on the walls.
Pu Yuan happened to look directly at a fox’s face, and he didn’t hold on for long before he also knelt down and kowtowed.
Pu Xin recited the sutra for a long time, but he had also completely lost his strength.
His consciousness became increasingly blurred, and when he woke up again, all he could think of was Lady Dayangtian.
They are still serving as monks in the temple, but they have replaced all the Buddha statues with statues of Lady Dayangtian.
They secretly engaged in the business of body snatching for five hundred years.
During this period, their consciousness was sometimes clear and sometimes blurred. If anyone woke up and wanted to resist, they would be killed by Dayangtian and their souls would be completely eaten.
In the end, out of the original group of monks, only Pu Xin was left alive. The other monks in the temple now were all recruited later.
The cave was very quiet. Chu Shici looked at the old monk in front of him, “Wait, you mean…you have lived for five hundred years?”
Pu Xin nodded, his voice full of vicissitudes of life, “She is afraid that we will reincarnate and tell the underworld about the body snatching. When we are about to die, she will snatch our rightful bodies from us.”
“Senior Brother Pu Xing asked this humble monk to persevere and find a way to spread the truth before he died. But this humble monk waited for five hundred years and still could not help the people of Dayang Tianming Temple.”
He sighed, “I can’t fight, can’t escape, nor can I die. I just live life in such a muddle, helping that demon kill tens of thousands of people.”
___
T/N: Included lots of images here, lemme know if this format is okay or should I put the images below or something. Thanks!
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Update: tmr~
- After becoming enemies with the lord god
- Blog
- Completed
- Don't talk to me!
- Dropped
- Ghost Marriage
- Hunger Academy
- I opened a safe house in the Infinite Stream
- Notices
- Ongoing
- The Dragon Lord is Weak and Helpless but Has a Big Appetite [Interstellar]
- Want to ascend? Then fall in love.
- What can I do, I'm not human.
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