This was the first thing Wang Xian had said all day.
The old man froze for a moment, then broke into a wide grin... not because Wang Xian had finally spoken, but because the content of those words showed him another side of the boy.
"What temple? There's no fucking temple!"
The old man shook his head with a bitter smile and slapped both hands against his knees. "That old fellow spent countless efforts building that monastery—carved beams, painted rafters, golden Buddha statues. It took over three hundred years to complete! But what was the result? There hadn't been any incense offerings for a hundred years... It had fallen into ruin long ago!"
His smile gradually stiffened, turning into a long sigh.
"Just a few days ago, on the day he ascended, a fire burned it all to ashes... I stood there watching. The flames were at their fiercest, and he sat in the center of the main hall, his entire body engulfed in fire, yet he recited the scriptures with such calmness..."
"Back then, he made a grand vow to enlighten all living beings in this land. Yet until the day he died, not a single person believed in him!"
The old man threw back his head and laughed, but his laughter carried the sound of sobbing. "Haha, what a joke! If he'd known it would come to this, why bother in the first place? What an idiot!!!"
Wang Xian wholeheartedly agreed.
He recalled the shock he had felt upon first entering the Demon Realm, the struggles that had filled his days and nights, and Ye Honglian's merciless pursuit.
He even thought of the despair he had suffered, blind within his Soul-Suppressing Tower.
If it had been him, preaching here and teaching Buddhist Dharma without yielding results even after