Breaking Free

"Royal qi moving east? Merfolk... What is this?"

Zhu Yuanzhang asked.

"The great thousandfold world holds all manner of wonders."

Faci closed his eyes and said no more.

After Zhu Yuanzhang said he could not transform back into human form from his merfolk form,

Faci's attitude toward him grew noticeably colder.

After passing on the complete formula for the Tiger Skin Monk Robe Control Technique and warning him not to go to the Qinhuai River to court death,

he simply closed his eyes, no longer bothering to answer Zhu Yuanzhang's questions.

He entered a deep state of meditation.

Zhu Yuanzhang could only withdraw his questions in disappointment.

He sat cross-legged as well and began trying to incorporate the Sangqiwo Jataka Secret Technique into the Sangqiwo Jataka Secret Mantra.

Three days later.

Inside the meditation room on the right.

Faci, a dried corpse who had been in seclusion for three days, suddenly opened his eyes.

"Senior Brothers Fajue and Faming are both on the verge of passing away."

Outside the meditation room.

Ghostly shadows crowded the air, and a sea of blood surged.

The screams of the palace maids and eunuchs in Taicheng rang out from time to time.

It was a scene straight from a living hell.

"Steady your mind! Hold your breath! Do not be swayed by the horrors outside."

"Three days from now, my two senior brothers will surely die, and the Dao Sin within them will break free."

"Then you may leave on your own and seek a way out of Taicheng."

Faci's voice drifted faintly beside him.

The white tiger that Zhu Yuanzhang had become nodded.

Now that Faming and Fajue had both lost control,

the meditation room, once bright and elegant, began to wither. The walls, which had been painted white, suddenly dried and cracked.

The plaster peeled away, revealing the decayed wooden walls beneath.

Streams of blood poured from the cracks between the walls.

They pooled in the room and formed a blood-red humanoid creature.

"Minghe... Junior Brother Faci."

The creature stood three meters tall, its body long and slender. It had a face familiar to Zhu Yuanzhang.

It was Fajue.

But his head had spun a full 180 degrees on his neck.

He surveyed the entire meditation room.

His eyes were completely black, and his pupils darted at a speed that defied the laws of physics.

They shot left, then right.

They moved so fast they seemed ready to leap from their sockets at any moment.

"Why not show yourselves..."

The blood creature's voice was strange, as though the voices of countless men and women, young and old, had been forcibly mashed together.

It sent a chill through the listener.

"Do you not want to leave Taicheng?"

"Do you not want to know what has become of Tongtai Temple?"

Zhu Yuanzhang did not move at all.

He simply stared through his tiger eyes and silently recited the Sangqiwo Jataka Secret Mantra.

And a miracle occurred.

The slender creature made of blood seemed completely unable to see Zhu Yuanzhang.

It swung its two-meter-long legs and strode straight over him.

Without veering to either side.

Without missing by so much as an inch.

It stepped directly onto the dried corpse that Faci had become.

"Junior Brother Faci..."

The blood corpse bent down, a stiff smile spreading across its face.

It looked as though it had only just learned how to make that expression.

Every feature was awkward and unnatural.

Its wildly twitching eyes moved close to the dried corpse before it.

"You—"

Plop.

As the blood corpse clenched its hand,

Faci's dried corpse shattered inch by inch.

In an instant, it crumbled into a pile of dust.

"Dead?"

A glint flashed through Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes.

"No! There's no White Bone Dharma Image."

"Looks like he faked his death and escaped."

"..."

The slender blood-red figure fell silent for a moment.

Then the false smile vanished from its face.

It became "expressionless."

In the literal sense.

Its features disappeared completely, leaving a smooth, flat, blood-red face like a polished mirror.

"Junior Brother Faci..."

With a sigh tinged with annoyance,

the blood-red figure still refused to give up. It swept its hand across the entire meditation room.

It did not stop until it had smashed every place someone could hide—the cabinets, the beams, the bed—into splinters.

Only then did it reluctantly turn back into a pool of blood and leave.

Zhu Yuanzhang slowly closed his eyes.

He instinctively breathed a sigh of relief.

But a voice suddenly sounded in his heart.

"Never let your guard down. Senior Brothers Minghe and Fajue are not yet truly dead; they are still lurking nearby."

"For these three days, you must recite the Sangqiwo Jataka Secret Mantra at all times."

Zhu Yuanzhang silently nodded in agreement.

The candle, the only source of light in the room, had gone out the instant the blood corpse entered.

The Bright Yellow Tiger remained motionless, still lounging lazily on the wooden floor of the meditation room.

His enormous tiger eyes shifted slightly to look behind him.

A crystalline skeleton, white as jade, had somehow appeared there without warning.

It held the Impure Seal and sat cross-legged in place.

Two faint green flames glowed in its eye sockets.

It silently gazed at the tiger before it.

A chill crept down Zhu Yuanzhang's spine.

Three days later.

Zhu Yuanzhang released the Sangqiwo Jataka Secret Mantra.

He transformed into a Deep One, shed the tiger skin, and bowed deeply to the skeleton behind him.

"Thank you, Uncle-Master Faci, for helping me through this calamity."

Although the skeleton said nothing and showed no expression,

Zhu Yuanzhang could still sense that, when Faci saw he had not turned back into a human, disappointment had flickered across his face.

In the end, Faci let out a long sigh.

"Within this formation, the three of us, brothers in the faith, were originally connected by our qi."

"But now, Faming and Fajue have both perished, their cultivation destroyed."

"My day of passing will surely come within the next few days."

The White Bone Dharma Image that Faci had become gazed quietly at Zhu Yuanzhang.

Zhu Yuanzhang tactfully took the initiative to ask,

"Is there anything I can do for you, Uncle-Master?"

"If you truly escape Taicheng, survive this killing calamity of heaven and earth, and rebuild the legacy of our Tongtai Temple in Jingyang,"

the White Bone Dharma Image's jaw opened slightly.

"Remember to make the Sangqiwo Jataka Sutra a required scripture in our temple."

"And tell the monks of later generations to observe the precepts, study the sutras and mantras, and pay homage to the Buddha."

"They must not meddle in the affairs of the world again."

"Do not let today's tragedy be repeated in the generations to come."

At that, Faci's voice carried a trace of emotion.

Perhaps he was lamenting Tongtai Temple's fate, or perhaps mourning his own.

"This disciple will obey."

Zhu Yuanzhang bowed as he answered.

Although Faci's protection of him had not been entirely selfless,

once he saw there was no opportunity to take advantage of him, Faci had not continued to harm him.

Instead, he had provided Zhu Yuanzhang with considerable help.

So, as far as Zhu Yuanzhang was concerned, Minghe owed Faci a debt of gratitude.

Besides, Zhu Yuanzhang was eager to see what the world of the "Secret History" would be like after he completed his mission.

Would it simply vanish, or would it follow history and continue onward?

Would Tongtai Temple survive after Minghe escaped Taicheng,

or would it ultimately be unable to escape destruction and disappear into the dust?

Moonlight flowed like water, spilling across Taicheng.

After the White Bone Dao Sin that Faci had become devoured the corpses of dozens of innocent passersby, it vanished from the meditation room just as Fajue and Faming had.

Zhu Yuanzhang did not feel relieved. If anything, his heart grew heavier.

According to the connection between the Sangqiwo Jataka Secret Mantra,

Faci's body had not disappeared.

Instead, it had appeared out of thin air somewhere in Taicheng.

[Grand Marshal Gate]

Zhu Yuanzhang climbed the Pagoda and looked out.

Though it was already the dead of night, the palace within Taicheng was still brightly lit.

Clearly, as Hou Jing tightened his siege of Taicheng,

the Southern Liang ruler and his ministers were growing ever more desperate to find a way out.