"Damn it!"
Zhu Yuanzhang shouted.
Without hesitation, he chose [Start Over].
The murderous Tibetan monk, Yang Lianzhenjia!
The tangled situation at Imperial Awakening Temple!
The factional strife within the Great Yuan court!
The princes' struggle over their fates and the throne!
And those two sinister monk-demons, Minghui and Mingguang! They actually wanted to turn a dignified transmigrator like him into a talent to make up for Crown Prince Zhenjin's lack of fortune!
What the hell kind of place was this?!
Was this really the Great Yuan?
"Choose any one. If you choose correctly, your fate will be given to Crown Prince Zhenjin. If you choose incorrectly..."
When he opened his eyes again, Zhu Yuanzhang didn't wait for Minghui to finish. He immediately thrust his hand into the Kapala Bowl before him.
"?"
The ethereal voice that had taken Minghui's form made a surprised sound.
But Zhu Yuanzhang had no time to humor this easily astonished old monk.
He turned over a bone tile.
"Wax Gold."
The ethereal voice beside him grew delighted.
Zhu Yuanzhang's vision went black.
[You died]
"Again!"
[Start Over]
"Choose any one. If you choose correctly..."
Zhu Yuanzhang turned over a bone tile.
"Gold in the Sand."
[You died]
"Again!"
"Choose any..."
"Gold on the Sword's Edge."
[You died]
"Again!"
"Any..."
"Hairpin Gold."
[You died]
"Again!"
This went on an unknown number of times.
"Choo—"
Zhu Yuanzhang reached out without hesitation and grabbed the bone tile at the very center.
He had a faint feeling.
This time, he was sure to defy fate and change his destiny.
At first, when he saw the six bone tiles, Zhu Yuanzhang had planned to get through by remembering where he had picked each one.
But the same position that had held "Sea Gold" last time now held "Wax Gold."
"The fix is in! This is totally rigged!"
After being swindled so many times, Zhu Yuanzhang glared at the six bone tiles before him, his resolve hardening.
He was taking this thing on.
He had already used countless [Start Over]s to prove that all five Gold fates were among the tiles.
In other words, one of them had to represent "life."
The odds were one in six—no, much lower than that.
If the odds were as high as one in six, he wouldn't have died dozens of times without ever drawing a tile that wasn't a Gold fate.
Darkness churned beneath Zhu Yuanzhang's feet.
But Zhu Yuanzhang, by now intimately familiar with everything, didn't notice.
His mind was as calm as a still pool.
He reached into the Kapala Bowl floating before him.
He chose a tile and turned it over.
[Great Ocean Water]
"Ah..."
A sigh came from all around.
For some reason, Zhu Yuanzhang felt the tension leave him.
A premonition rose in his heart.
He had survived.
"Looks like His Highness Zhenjin truly has no destiny as emperor."
As those words were spoken, the light around them suddenly returned to normal.
Before him was still the dim Mahavira Hall, a grotesque blood-man formed from countless bloodworms, and the dried corpse sitting cross-legged on the Lotus Platform.
Seeing Zhu Yuanzhang survive, a complicated look flashed in the dried corpse's pitch-black eyes, each no bigger than a grape seed.
"Minghe."
"Your disciple is here."
"Envious of my luck? I paid for it with my life!"
Zhu Yuanzhang stepped forward, pressed his palms together, and replied with his eyes fixed on the ground.
"Are you willing to join my lineage and study the Maitreya Descends Sutra?"
The Maitreya Descends Sutra?
For some reason, the name sounded familiar to Zhu Yuanzhang.
He looked again at the hunched dried corpse seated on the white Lotus Platform.
There was no way he could connect this figure with "Maitreya Buddha, plump and compassionate, always smiling."
Wait, no!
Maitreya's Descent? White Lotus?
Wasn't the White Lotus Sect, which had led the Red Turban Army uprising at the end of the Yuan, known for the slogan "Maitreya Descends, the Bright King Appears"?
Seriously, man?
Zhu Yuanzhang looked at the eminent monk who had been rushing around to help Crown Prince Zhenjin inherit the imperial mandate. A look of alarm crossed his eyes.
So you were actually a rebel?
I'd been taking you for a loyal subject—or maybe a spy!
"Your disciple is willing."
Zhu Yuanzhang hurriedly bowed, afraid the other might change his mind.
"Stay in the hall tonight. Once you have mastered the Maitreya Descends Sutra, you may return to your meditation room."
The dried corpse on the white Lotus Platform closed its eyes once more.
Behind Zhu Yuanzhang, a clear image of Maitreya Buddha appeared among the indistinct statues of Buddhas, which had been blurred by the dim light.
The golden Maitreya wore a jeweled crown and stood on a Lotus Platform, one hand raised in the fearlessness mudra. His dignified, compassionate face smiled down at Zhu Yuanzhang.
It should have been a sacred scene.
But with the dim lighting of the Mahavira Hall and the blurred, vanishing figures of the other Buddhas nearby, something strangely sinister crept into Maitreya's smile.
Bathed in the Buddha's light, a scripture appeared out of thin air on the Lotus Platform.
It was the Maitreya Descends Sutra.
Zhu Yuanzhang took the scripture, held it in his hands, opened it to the first page, and read the words softly.
"Maitreya descends, the Bright King appears!"
"When the Red Sun's tribulation ends, the White Sun shall rise!"
Zhu Yuanzhang narrowed his eyes slightly.
Based on what he remembered of the Red Turban Army uprising at the end of the Yuan, these two lines were neither some supreme martial art nor Buddhist scripture.
They were—
"Rebel slogans... or rather... prophecies."
"Had they started planning a hundred years in advance?"
"This is getting more and more interesting."
"What the hell kind of place is this?"
"It's even more crooked than those black-market organ-harvesting outfits!"
"Could that prophecy really be coming true..."
Seeing that he could not change Crown Prince Zhenjin's fate, Yang Lianzhenjia's face took on a sorrowful look as he sighed.
By now, as time passed, skin had grown back over his face, writhing into place under the bloodworms. Apart from his pallor, he looked much as he had when he first entered the temple.
Since entering the temple, Yang Lianzhenjia bowed to Minghui with a disciple's reverence for the first time and asked, "Is it true that the northern barbarians have no fortune to rule for a hundred years?"
Hm?
Zhu Yuanzhang, who had just finished reading the Sutra of Maitreya's Descent, pricked up his ears.
Talk about perfect timing.
He had just been wondering how the White Lotus Sect—or rather, the Buddhist schools of the Han lands—had begun laying plans a hundred years in advance.
"The barbarians will not rule for a hundred years."
This was a line Zhu Yuanzhang had known since his previous life, when he had read about the history of the late Yuan.
Historically, Zhu Yuanzhang himself was said to have uttered it.
Of course, another account held that Song Lian had first written it in his Proclamation to the Central Plains, and that the Ming Taizu later borrowed the phrase.
But now, it no longer mattered who had said it first.
The monks of Yinglong Temple had known that the Great Yuan's rule would not last a hundred years ever since Kublai Khan had just conquered the Song and taken China.
And from the looks of it, this wasn't even a secret.
Zhu Yuanzhang quietly exhaled, closed the Sutra of Maitreya's Descent in his hands, and thought as he watched Master Minghui's calm expression.
"Fate has its limits, but hope has never been denied to anyone."
Master Minghui lowered his gaze. The candles all around the Mahavira Hall blazed brightly, and the hall seemed a little brighter than before.
It seemed that the fate-borrowing art had cost Master Minghui a great deal as well.
"The Borjigin Clan ruled the realm for ninety years, enjoying wealth and glory for five whole generations. Was that not enough?"
Amid the candlelight, Master Minghui sat cross-legged on the Lotus Platform and spoke in a low voice.
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