"The seeking of niches is over. Return to your places and await the Huan Kan Festival!"
Someone announced this. Yang An naturally became the final niche-seeker, but in the eyes of the onlookers, he also became the biggest joke.
Before leaving, quite a few people cast glances his way, their meanings unclear.
Yang An silently stored the Buddha niche in his storage artifact and swept his gaze over the departing crowd.
These people had already begun harboring ill intent.
A faint sneer rose in Yang An's heart. The arrival of the Huan Kan Festival had given this bunch signs of tearing off their true faces, and the ambitions they had hidden in ordinary times would soon be released without restraint.
He was even more eager for the Huan Kan Festival's arrival. He truly wanted to see what ugly faces these people would reveal once they tore off their masks.
Myriad Buddha Hall.
"Since the founding of our Great Virtue Temple, the Huan Kan Festival has cycled through countless times, yet there has never been a Buddha niche without a grade.
"That child Deji truly is extraordinarily gifted."
Bodhisattva Haishu spoke neither hurriedly nor slowly, with a trace of admiration in his tone, though he was talking to himself.
He sat quietly before the many golden Buddha statues, still atop that golden lotus platform, but his expression was gradually changing.
When he first spoke, he had still been smiling, utterly calm and peaceful.
But once he finished speaking, his face darkened, clouds piling thickly overhead, though he maintained his smile throughout.
Faint black vapor escaped from his body—from his eyes, from his ears—growing ever more abundant.
The black vapor became so dense that it wrapped around him, as though forming an enormous cocoon.
The hall fell silent for a time.