"Does Senior Brother think this humble monk has some connection to your sect?"
Tripitaka spoke with a smile.
"Isn't that so?"
Priest Inch's gaze flickered slightly. "Junior Brother knows our sect's methods like the back of his hand, and your divine abilities are so exquisite. That feat of creation just now—when this foolish monk first saw it, I nearly thought the sect had sent fellow disciples ahead of schedule. After all, with Junior Brother's level of cultivation, it would be harder to believe you had no connection to our sect at all."
"Of course not."
Tripitaka shook his head, looking utterly composed. "The next batch of fellow disciples from Senior Brother's sect—one, five petals in bloom, crimson in hue, arriving at the end of spring, falling upon peach branches; the other, a golden wheel appearing, its light restrained, arriving with the peach, shining upon the peak of the full moon. This humble monk is neither one who falls upon peach blossoms nor a guest who bears a wheel, so naturally I am not."
He even knew that!
Priest Inch was even more shocked. According to the clan's arrangements, the next clansmen meant to replace him and Kaguya should have been Momoshiki and Kinshiki.
Yet the timing of those two men's descent, their master-servant relationship, and even the imagery hidden within their names had all been casually laid bare by this young monk in two lines of verse.
This was a secret known only within the Otsutsuki clan, yet Tripitaka spoke of it as though reciting family treasures while insisting that he was not an Otsutsuki.
Who was he, exactly?
"And to behold Tathagata?"
As doubt and alarm churned within him, the young monk continued, an enigmatic curve on his lips. "The method cultivated by Senior Brother's sect—could it be that