Swordheart as One

Swordheart as One

Three hundred li away stood Hanwu Mountain, with an unnamed temple perched upon it.

Everyone in the surrounding villages knew that a Master Ku'e lived in the temple, devoted to delivering all living beings from suffering.

Those who prayed for a child would conceive that very month. Those who prayed for wealth would find gold and silver in the middle of the night. Even those who prayed to pass the imperial examinations would at least become a licentiate.

Such miracles made the little temple's incense offerings flourish, and every day it was as lively as a market.

The faithful all hoped Master Ku'e would bestow a little good fortune upon them, so they could live better lives.

Master Ku'e was compassionate, too. Every day, he received devout believers and helped them solve their troubles.

Today, however, was different. The faithful who had come before dawn to fight for the first incense stick were all stopped outside the temple. An invisible golden light blocked their way, and no one could enter the temple gates.

They assumed Master Ku'e had manifested his divine power, so they knelt outside and kowtowed again and again. But even after they had finished praying, they refused to leave, hoping that when the golden light dispersed, they could still be the first to rush inside and let Master Ku'e witness their devotion.

Inside the temple, Master Ku'e sat in the main hall. Beneath the Buddha statue, the eminent monk pressed his palms together and chanted sutras. Behind him stood a woman in a goose-yellow robe: Su Chunyi.

She had pursued the murderer for three hundred li without stopping, then searched bitterly for half the night before finally reaching this place.

Her Sword Qi pointed straight at the Ku'e monk before her, but Su Chunyi did not attack at once. She had to get to the bottom of the matter. The Qinghe Sword Sect's rules were strict, and they absolutely forbade killing an innocent person by mistake.

Even if Buddhism these days was either demonic or heretical, Su Chunyi still needed conclusive evidence before she could strike.

But the moment she entered the temple, before she could explain why she had come, the Ku'e monk sealed off the temple and drove all the faithful outside.

Su Chunyi stood with her sword in hand and asked, "Master Ku'e, what is the meaning of this?"

The Ku'e monk chanted, "Amitabha," then said to Su Chunyi, "Benefactor, you are filled with murderous intent. Whatever your purpose, do not harm the others."

Su Chunyi was puzzled. The monk did seem compassionate. Could he really be a fiend who killed people to cultivate his power?

But Su Chunyi trusted the Sword Qi she had painstakingly cultivated. The resentment of all those innocent people who had died tragically clung to the monk. If she listened closely, she could even hear anguished wails and sobs coming from his kasaya.

Su Chunyi had trained hard in the Qinghe Sword Sect since childhood and was not skilled with words, so she asked bluntly, "My sword led me here to track a fiend who has harmed countless people. Master Ku'e, are you connected to the culprit?"

The Ku'e monk shook his head. "This humble monk has never harmed anyone."

"You and I are both cultivators. If you have never harmed anyone, how do you explain that kasaya steeped in resentment?"

"Living beings are ignorant; all living beings suffer. I deliver them from suffering, so naturally I bear the resentment of mortals. Amitabha."

After Master Ku'e chanted those words, a hazy golden light appeared around him, as if he had taken on the golden body of a Buddha.

Su Chunyi furrowed her brow. This supernatural art seemed unusual, and it resembled one of the Buddhist arts recorded in her sect's scriptures. But the Qinghe Sword Sect's texts were too vast for her to remember them all, and in her haste, she could not recall which one it was.

Bathed in Buddha-light, Master Ku'e looked solemn and majestic. He turned the question back on Su Chunyi. "Benefactor, you are full of murderous intent. Have you come here only to kill? It seems you have violated the precept against anger. Why not listen to this humble monk recite sutras and dispel the evil thoughts in your heart?"

Su Chunyi retorted, "Upholding justice and ridding the people of harm—what evil thoughts are there in that?"

The Ku'e monk continued, "You are a cultivator and should not entangle yourself in worldly affairs. This is not your karma, yet you insist on taking it upon yourself. How foolish. Foolish actions bring forth bitter fruit; that is evil thought. If you do not cast it aside soon, retribution will surely follow."

Listening to him, Su Chunyi felt that the monk was twisting the truth, but she was not good with words and did not know how to refute him.

She was about to change the subject and find out whether the monk really was the culprit when she saw golden light appear around him again. Another layer of radiance had formed over the golden body he already bore.

"An art of spoken spells?! No, this is Kaikou Chan. You're a fiend of the Nirvana Sect!"

Su Chunyi's expression changed. Sword light circled around her, guarding her vital points.

The Ku'e monk sighed. "Benefactor, you are tangled in evil thoughts and do not understand the subtleties of the Mahayana Buddhist teachings. Our Nirvana Sect delivers all living beings from suffering. How could we be evil?"

"Your Nirvana Sect delivers all living beings from suffering by slaughtering the innocent?!"

Sword light followed her words, striking the Ku'e monk. Once Su Chunyi had seen through his identity, she did not hesitate for another moment. She would kill him right there.

The Nirvana Sect was a demonic sect.

It claimed that "lay down your butcher's knife and become a Buddha on the spot," and used this as an excuse to gather evildoers from across the land, committing atrocities that shook the heavens.

Back then, the Nirvana Sect's leader had died by the Qinghe Sword Sect's master's sword. The two sects were not only opposed in their beliefs; they also bore deep personal enmity.

Recognizing the Nirvana Sect's divine art, and with the monk steeped in resentment and her Sword Qi warning her, Su Chunyi had no further doubts. She struck then and there, intent on killing the evildoer.

Sword light crashed against the golden light protecting the Ku'e monk, sending a thunderous boom through the air and shaking dust across the entire temple.

Yet of the two layers of golden light around the Ku'e monk, only one shattered. He remained completely unharmed.

Su Chunyi stared in astonishment. She could clearly sense that the monk's cultivation was inferior to hers, yet her full-force strike had failed even to break through his protective golden light?

The Ku'e monk smiled. "You resort to violence the moment we disagree. So this is the face of the righteous path. When you can't win an argument, you kill to vent your anger. Tell me, which of us is the demonic one?"

Su Chunyi said nothing, but another layer of golden light appeared around the Ku'e monk.

That was Kaikou Chan.

Buddhist divine arts were mostly tied to precepts or worked like a contract: once certain conditions were met, they granted effects much like spells.

This Kaikou Chan looked like Words Become Law, but Su Chunyi remembered the elders of her sect saying that if one could refute the other party's twisted reasoning, they could break the art immediately.

But how was she supposed to debate a monk over scripture?

The Ku'e monk seemed to see what Su Chunyi was thinking and mocked her again. "Benefactor, you know the secret of Kaikou Chan, and now you're thinking of reasoning with this humble monk? You don't seek to distinguish right from wrong; you only want to defeat me. Your motives are impure, your heart is malicious—what sort of reasoning is that? Your words belie your heart. A fool will never see through it, and neither will you ever break my Wulou Golden Body."

As she watched yet another layer of golden light appear around the Ku'e monk, Su Chunyi pressed her lips tightly together. Kaikou Chan was indeed formidable. She had held nothing back in that Sword Qi strike, yet had only managed to shatter one layer of golden light.

The monk never stopped talking. Every sentence brought another layer of golden light, and if this stalemate continued, Su Chunyi's spiritual power would not last.

As for debating scripture, Su Chunyi could not help thinking of Chen Ye, whom she had only recently met.

If he were here, perhaps he could break the monk's Kaikou Chan in just a few words. Staying in the mountains to cultivate all the time really does make you miss a lot.

Su Chunyi sighed inwardly, but quickly regained her composure.

Years of hard cultivation had left Su Chunyi poor with words, but they had not been wasted.

The elders of her sect had told her that when faced with divine arts like those of the Nirvana Sect, if she could not defeat her opponent with reason, she should break his golden body another way.

Su Chunyi joined her fingers like a sword. A Green Lotus blossomed at her fingertips, and a dazzling blade emerged from the flower, instantly suppressing the golden light around the Ku'e monk.

"You're nurturing a sword within your body?! Aren't you afraid its edge will turn against you? Your very soul could be damaged!"

The Ku'e monk was stunned.

Su Chunyi had turned her body into a scabbard and nurtured her flying sword within herself. Though this could greatly increase the power of a magical treasure, the Sword Qi coursed through her body, and the pain was more than an ordinary person could bear.

Even in the Qinghe Sword Sect, there were probably few who would cultivate through such an extreme method.

"The sword heart is the human heart. As long as both are sincere and true, why would I be injured?"

Su Chunyi held the sword in her hand, its radiance flowing as if she had descended from the heavens.

"Fiend, die!"

The Green Lotus Treasure Sword thrust toward the Ku'e monk, and ten thousand streams of sword light blossomed like lotus flowers.