Distressing the Mind

Overnight, the damage to Hong Yi's soul was completely restored. "Scholars value composure and tranquility, remaining unhurried in the face of crisis. Even with blades at their throats, their hearts should not skip a beat, nor their brows furrow. It seems I am still far from reaching such a state of mental cultivation." Hong Yi took the Amitabha Sutra out from against his skin, spread it on the bed, and admired it by the starlight outside. Hong Yi could not focus his mind, nor could he find peace, let alone return to a state of mind as calm as a still pool of water. "The reason the Amitabha Sutra is a supreme scripture is not because its techniques are profound; there are no shortcuts in the path of cultivation. No matter how brilliant a technique is, one cannot become a Yang God overnight. The true nobility of this scripture lies in the charm of its calligraphy and artistry... The text and images contain the purest essence of Buddhism. Although I do not worship Buddha, I cannot help but feel reverence for such artistry and charm..." His head felt swollen and painful. His inability to calm his heart affected his writing, making the characters crooked and frayed, his calligraphy losing its standard. These were the elite guards of the Marquis Mansion, the Mo Dao Guard! The torchlight flickered, reflecting off the jade-like face of Marquis Wuwen, Hong Xuanji. "You slept well; it seems as if the sky turned bright the moment you laid your head down." Behind Hong Xuanji stood a row of guards in bow stances, long blades unsheathed, wearing heavy iron armor yet breathing as easily as if they were in silk robes, their fierce, biting aura radiating from their bodies. The sound of thirty blades entering their scabbards was a single, terrifyingly synchronized noise. Upon rushing back to the small courtyard in the northwest corner of the Marquis Mansion where he lived, his soul returned to his body. Hong Yi was still shaken, feeling his heart pounding and his head dizzy as if congested with blood. "Hmm, I should take a look at the Amitabha Sutra." Great joy harms the spirit, as do great sorrow, great fear, great dread, great shock, and great agitation. This is something known not only to practitioners but even to scholars. He collapsed and slept, dreamless throughout the night. When he woke, the sky was already bright. Some scholars, upon catching a glimpse of a beautiful woman, would return home unable to eat or sleep, obsessing all day until they grew thin and fell deathly ill—this, too, was a damage to the soul. Contemplating this Past Buddha, which bore the face of his own past life, Hong Yi's mind suddenly became incomparably peaceful, sensing an endless void, a world so vast that he could roam it freely. "I cannot sleep, and my spirit cannot settle. If I continue to damage my spirit like this, I will lose my soul, and I fear that within ten days, I will wither away and die." Hong Yi smiled bitterly. He lit a stick of calming sandalwood incense, washed his hands, ground some ink to steady his mind, and wrote the character for "Quiet." Such a state was something even Hong Xuanji could not have anticipated. "Even the contemporary master calligrapher Wang Kaizhi could likely not write this character. If I had such penmanship, I wouldn't need to write essays for the imperial examinations; I would pass with high honors just by writing this. The charm of this Amitabha Buddha is also peerless in the world. Even the Painting Saint Qian Daozi, who excels at painting religious figures, could absolutely not paint this..." It is like a martial artist suffering a broken bone or torn tendon. "A broken bone takes a hundred days to heal," but if one has a miraculous medicine, applying it on the first day allows for recovery by the second. If a martial artist had such a thing, how fast would their progress be? How powerful would they become? "The assassin has been slain by this Marquis. All of you, withdraw. Do not make excessive noise to avoid disturbing the family. Collect the corpses and bury them deep. The Crossbow Guard and Mo Dao Guard, withdraw." He did not kneel, for his iron armor was too heavy to perform the full salute. The "Cold Steel Heavy Armor" of the Great Gan Dynasty was forged from cold iron; a full set weighed one hundred and twenty catties. Only a high-ranking general with profound martial arts could move freely while wearing it. The cultivation of the Amitabha Sutra does not lie in the depth of its techniques; its greatest efficacy is in the images. After grasping the charm and contemplating this Buddha within one's thoughts, it can suppress all terror, eliminate joy, and rapidly repair a damaged soul. "My heart cannot be still, so the 'Quiet' character is naturally poorly written. This script reveals the restlessness in my heart... I wonder if my father has discovered me, or if he has seen any clues?" Hong Yi looked at the messy characters on the table and crumpled the paper. Boom! After damaging the spirit, one's energy is exhausted, yet one cannot settle down or rest well. It leads to insomnia, forgetfulness, and agitation day and night. The Painting Saint Qian Daozi is the most accomplished painter in the Great Gan Dynasty, specializing in religious figures. Countless Taoist temples and Buddhist monasteries have invited him to paint deities, and each painting is worth ten thousand gold. Hong Yi woke in the morning and stretched, his breathing clear and refreshing. When he exhaled, there was not a trace of bad breath. For a long time, Hong Yi could not steady his mind; he felt exhausted but could not sleep or rest. The "Mo Dao Guard" in the mansion, though only thirty strong, were all elites from the original "Mo Dao Infantry," Hong Xuanji's personal bodyguards. Hong Yi's wandering soul had drifted out violently, shocked and fleeing in a panic. Hong Yi's mind was incomparably calm, with no trace of spiritual damage. Instead, his soul felt warm, as comfortable as bathing in a hot spring. Even more terrifying were the thirty or forty guards scattered around, holding Divine Arm Crossbows with arrows nocked, aiming vigilantly and ready to fire at any moment. On the ground lay two Taoists pierced through the chest by long swords. Such martial masters, forged in mountains of corpses and seas of blood, were unstoppable by thousands of troops, and ghosts and gods dared not approach! "Extinguish the torches! Do not disturb the family! Carry away the corpses! Bury them in a deep pit!" Hearing Hong Xuanji's command, a leader of the Mo Dao Guard raised his hand. Watching his subordinates withdraw, Hong Xuanji recalled the wandering soul he had sensed earlier: "That wandering soul was already injured by me. Even if it escaped, it is of no consequence. Once the soul is severely shocked and injured, it cannot recover; in ten days or so, it will wither away." "I had only spoken two sentences to the assassin, yet you were already armored and armed. This reaction is three breaths faster than it was back in the army. Why would I punish you?" "In this world, those who can kill me, besides the immortals who have achieved the Yang God, are the Human Immortals who have reached the pinnacle of martial arts. It is a pity that neither of these types of people has appeared in the world yet..." The crossbows in their hands were a dark red, with aiming scales on the frames. The taut strings were filled with power; one look was enough to feel as if the arrow had already pierced through one's body! A precise volley from thirty or forty such crossbows would make even the most formidable martial artist regret their life on the spot. Any one of the "Mo Dao Guard" was a martial master capable of fighting dozens of soldiers barehanded. How much more so when they were fully armored and wielding "Mo Dao" blades? The Buddha in the Amitabha Sutra, the pinnacle of the art of painting, when contemplated within the thoughts of the soul, acts like a miraculous medicine! It has the supreme effect of calming the spirit. Hong Yi knew that the damage to his soul was completely healed. Clang! "But, Marquis, your safety..." Fortunately, he was a wandering soul, formless and intangible, able to pass through walls and objects without obstruction; otherwise, he would have long since crashed and been injured. "The Divine Arm Crossbow can pierce iron armor at fifty paces!" Marquis Wuwen Hong Xuanji said, pressing his hand downward, "Remove your armor and go back to sleep." The torches were extinguished simultaneously, leaving only the starlight. This was the "Crossbow Guard" of the Marquis Mansion! In the depths of Hong Yi's soul, it was as if this Buddha had suddenly appeared, suspended in the void. This time, he was not reading the content of the scripture but purely appreciating the calligraphy and the image in the center. They stood there with their hundred-refined steel long blades, each four fingers wide and nearly as tall as a man, looking so fierce they could seemingly cleave both man and horse in two. The feeling of spiritual damage, terror, exhaustion, and inability to sleep from the previous night had completely vanished, replaced by a sense of infinite confidence and satisfaction. The leader of the Mo Dao Guard stepped forward, stood before Hong Xuanji, and performed a single-knee kneeling salute. Hong Xuanji looked up at the sky, "Bai Ziyue, since you wish to come and cross swords with me, do not let me down." Hong Yi knew that his wandering into the main mansion earlier, combined with the excessive shock and the frantic flight of his soul, had damaged his spirit. These were the specially made "Divine Arm Crossbows" of the Great Gan Dynasty, possessing a draw weight of three shi (three hundred catties). Even a warrior would need to use their feet to cock the string, yet these crossbowmen could pull them back easily with their hands! As this realization dawned, the Amitabha Buddha was deeply engraved into his mind. Suddenly, a realization arose in Hong Yi's heart. "This is damage to the soul..." For practitioners, when the soul leaves the body, it is prone to various injuries, and contemplating the images of the Amitabha Sutra can repair the soul at the fastest speed. "Marquis, this subordinate is late. Please punish me!" But just now, this method had not been working. He had been looking at it with the pure eye of appreciating calligraphy and art... The Mo Dao Guard stood in bow stances with blades drawn to protect the perimeter, the Crossbow Guard stood with iron arrows nocked, and Hong Xuanji stood on the spot, illuminated by the firelight, in his fine robes and purple-gold crown, looking like an invincible giant of martial arts. It was a feeling of surviving a catastrophe. Those were the specialized "Mo Dao" blades. In his youth, Hong Xuanji had led "Mo Dao Infantry" with eight hundred foot soldiers to charge one thousand elite black-armored cavalry of the Cloud Dream Empire, creating the myth of infantry defeating cavalry.