Stealing Incense, Bodhisattva Body

Stealing Incense, Bodhisattva Body

At daybreak the next morning, Ning Xuan was already lying on a soft, fragrant bed.

Every inch of flesh that had once been gnawed by demons now carried the scent of rouge.

Even the breeze outside the window carried that fragrance.

Ning Xuan was in high spirits. He felt every inch of his muscles basking in pleasure.

Just then, someone knocked.

The person outside walked lightly and knocked gently.

"Come in," Ning Xuan said.

Xiao Jie entered.

She stood with her head bowed, crying softly. The embroidered tips of her shoes edged forward in small steps, stopping a foot from the bed.

Without opening his eyes, Ning Xuan said, "After hearing so many stories yesterday, do you want to tell me one too?"

Last night, he had been at Chenxiang Pavilion. The Chaste Maidens there naturally knew who this young gentleman was, so some of them had shared their pasts with Ning Xuan, hoping to stir his pity and persuade him to help them climb the social ladder.

As a result, Ning Xuan had heard plenty of tragic stories and drunk plenty of fine wine with the young women.

The young women paid for the wine.

They even received extra money for it.

That was the gentle haven he had described as "wine, stories, and red sleeves adding fragrance."

Xiao Jie cried, "Young Master, you asked me to buy a residence near Kushi Zen Temple, but I... I searched for a long time and couldn't find one. I could only buy one here. Please forgive me."

Last night, while Ning Xuan had gone to Chenxiang Pavilion, Xiao Jie had been out buying a residence through the night.

In the end, she had bought the residence across from Chenxiang Pavilion—the one with the best light, the prettiest style, and the largest grounds.

"You..."

Ning Xuan sighed. "Forget it. Kushi Zen Temple in Wangyue Prefecture is only three streets away from here. That's close enough."

The tearful expression vanished from Xiao Jie's face. She nodded emphatically. "It really is close!"

Neither of them mentioned that the residence was directly across from Chenxiang Pavilion.

Ning Xuan added, "When you have time, send someone to bring over my horse, dog, chicken, and all my treasures."

"Yes," Xiao Jie replied.

Then she turned and left.

She was sensible. She wouldn't go looking for trouble by bothering her Young Master after he'd returned from enjoying himself at Chenxiang Pavilion.

Ning Xuan watched her go.

Come to think of it, few women could compare to Xiao Jie.

She was not only tactful and capable, but also very light—

She nestled in his arms without weighing him down, and didn't press down on his pillow. Like a delicate swallow, she was truly a beauty of her generation.

And then there was their chance encounter outside Kushi Zen Temple that day.

It seemed Xiao Jie owed him a story too.

The new residence was quiet as could be.

Besides the scent of rouge, there were also the fragrances of flowers and water;

besides the wind, there was the sound of wind chimes.

The noisy wind chimes were Xiao Jie's favorite.

Like a mother beast marking her territory, she would hang them beneath the eaves whenever her Young Master didn't object.

Whenever the wind blew, the chimes rang like waves crashing across a vast sea, making quite a racket.

Ning Xuan liked that racket.

Noise was better than the dead silence of a world where the black moon hung over the white day.

Noise and vulgarity were what he loved.

But after Xiao Jie had gone some distance, he still forced himself to sit up and took out the small box he had brought the night before.

When he'd left Ning Manor, he hadn't brought anything extra. He'd taken only this small box.

Now he opened it.

Inside lay four Bodhisattva Statues.

One belonged to the bear demon, and the other three had been collected on Manfeng Mountain.

The demon was gone, but the Bodhisattva remained. He'd said he wanted to take a look, so Ugly Slave had given them to him.

All four Bodhisattva Statues looked alike—even the Bodhisattva shell the Stealing Incense Rat had revealed that day looked just like them.

Their forms were clear as pure water from head to toe. Their Buddha heads bore coiled hair like blue lotuses; their faces were full as the moon, with a white curl between the brows. Their lowered eyes and smiling lips radiated both solemnity and compassion.

Ning Xuan recalled what the bear demon's third king had said: "It must smell good, your heart must be sincere, and your body must be strong. Only then will the Bodhisattva answer."

With a thought, he summoned the Stealing Incense Rat.

His greatly enhanced mental attributes, together with his Innate Demonic Art, the Stealing Incense Technique, made him see the Bodhisattva not as a Bodhisattva, but as a lifeless jade statue wrapped around the outline of a treasure formed from billowing incense.

There was the Brocade Kasaya, the Yin Wind Banner, and Monkey Sheep's treasure...

He stared at the Bodhisattva Statue, then slowly raised his hand and pressed it down as he activated the Stealing Incense Technique.

He wouldn't burn incense.

He would steal it.

He felt a little nervous.

After all, he had no idea whether these Bodhisattva Statues held some other mystery.

But if the Stealing Incense Rat could steal incense, why couldn't he?

The outline of the treasure inside the Bodhisattva Statue began to blur. As soon as the first wisp of incense was drawn out, the rest followed, pulled free thread by thread and flowing toward Ning Xuan, spreading along his outstretched fingers.

After the time it took to burn a stick of incense, the outline of the treasure within the first Bodhisattva Statue had been completely drained.

Ning Xuan felt a strange power fill his body. It swirled around him like a thin mist.

This was the power of incense.

He hadn't been able to use the treasures themselves, but he had absorbed all the incense that formed their outlines.

He flexed his fingers. The incense power obeyed his thoughts, quickly forming a gigantic golden hand outside his body. It was bigger than he was, just like the Bodhisattva he'd seen that day.

Ning Xuan stopped while he was ahead. He didn't draw out any more incense, but put away the remaining three Bodhisattva Statues.

He would wait and see.

Several days passed.

Ning Xuan's days and nights were reversed.

By day, he yawned his way back to the residence.

It had grown a little livelier, because Xiao Jie had hired a few maids.

But only a little, since there were only a few more maids in the whole residence.

"Has anyone come looking for me?"

Though the answer was obvious, Ning Xuan still asked casually.

Xiao Jie shook her head. "Not a single person."

Ning Xuan wasn't surprised.

These past few days were more than enough for those who needed to know about the "Young Master of the Ning Family" to hear of him, but... they were still waiting for the dust to settle.

Once it settled, either people would leave when the tea grew cold, and it would be even colder than it was now;

or the gates would be overrun, with masters from all around trampling the threshold to find him.

That was right—they would be looking for him, not Old Master Ning.

He would become the new Old Master Ning, and in some ways, he would have an even harder fist than Old Master Ning.

The imperial court was wary of powerful regional officials because they had used Dragon Qi to gather large numbers of loyal subordinates. That was why they could not be allowed to pass their power down beyond two generations. But the court clearly had no qualms about martial artists who had nothing to do with Dragon Qi, could cooperate with Celestial Masters, and could guard the realm for the long term.

The court did not begrudge granting real power to such "special talents."

Ning Xuan went to a large room set aside as a cultivation chamber just for him.

The chamber was spacious, over ten zhang long and wide.

Ning Xuan clenched his five fingers, and the golden hand, over a zhang in size, appeared outside his body once more. It was the power of incense.

After a few days of simple tests, he had found that this incense had no side effects.

He took out the remaining three Bodhisattva Statues and began drawing from them one by one.

Half an hour later.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

He tossed the three Bodhisattva Statues aside too.

At a thought, a radiant golden Bodhisattva gradually unfurled around him, with blue-lotus coiled hair, a face full as the moon, and a white curl between the brows.

He hunched his back, his whole body bent into a crouch. Only like this could he fit snugly inside the ant-hole-sized cultivation chamber without bursting it open.