Qin Shi of Flying Peak smiled. "Junior Brother Zhou, I'd like to hear the details."
Seeing that the people in charge of this trial from both Cloud-Reaching Peak and Flying Peak were giving him such respect, everyone could not help but take a few more looks at the youth within the tent.
You explained unhurriedly, "This matter dates back to the end of Great Qi. Aside from natural disasters and human calamities, Jiangnan Circuit was suddenly struck by a strange plague. Those infected first broke out in red blotches all over their bodies, then danced madly day and night without stopping, until they finally died of exhaustion."
"At that time, a sect arose in response to the times. It was called the Wheel-Turning King Sect."
You paused, then continued, "According to the Brief Account of Bandit Pacification in Southern Yu, government troops once destroyed one of its demonic altars and found an eerie statue being worshipped within."
"That statue was neither Buddhist nor Daoist. It was a black-faced bodhisattva seated cross-legged atop a sea of blood. A thousand arms grew from its body, and an eye grew in the palm of every hand—some furious, some sorrowful, some crazed. Its head was a blooming lotus dais, within whose heart a distorted human face could vaguely be seen. This statue was called the Dark-Yellow Wheel-Turning King."
Everyone revealed puzzled expressions upon hearing this, for this book was not some secret of the cultivation world, but a secular historical record.
Yang Chen frowned. "I have also leafed through the Brief Account of Bandit Pacification in Southern Yu. It is hailed as the greatest strange book of the late Great Qing era, yet I never saw this passage recorded within."
You smiled faintly. "It was added by later commentators, not part of the original