Blood Rain Fell from the Sky, Red Tears Bodhisattva

Amid the secondhand smoke, Gu Qingfeng could not help but see "chivalry," and discovered that the sensations in all five of his senses had changed.

He felt as if he were floating.

After Huang Qu finished smoking a tael or two of tobacco leaves, he found that Gu Qingfeng remained unmoved. "Brother Gu, something this immortal—aren't you going to give it a try?"

Gu Qingfeng shook his head. "Whatever I do, I prefer just looking. Generally, I don't buy."

Huang Qu could not help sighing inwardly. So this bastard just likes freeloading!

Huang Qu continued, speaking as though reciting a family treasure list, "You smelled that fragrance just now. You don't know this, but only the Immortal Leaf in Red Tears City—especially the Immortal Leaf from Ghost Hand Apothecary—has that scent!"

"That's the most authentic kind!"

Gu Qingfeng shook his head again. "Unfortunately, it's too expensive."

Huang Qu said with feeling, "Expensive things have their reasons. It makes you an immortal—paying a little more is only fair and reasonable."

Gu Qingfeng said, "With this method of becoming an 'immortal,' even being a test subject for medicine wouldn't withstand many rounds. You might not get to be an 'immortal' many times before the person is gone."

As though something had occurred to him, Huang Qu said, "Then would you rather be an 'immortal' for a while, or live an ordinary, mediocre life as a mortal before dying?"

Gu Qingfeng said, "Is becoming an 'immortal' even something you get to choose for yourself?"

At those words, faint regret and fear appeared on Huang Qu's face.

He had once imagined whether his life might have become another world altogether if he had never gotten hooked on this stuff.

But he did not dare think about it. Thinking was useless anyway!

Spilled water could not be gathered again. He was already rotten to the core, and there was no way he could stop smoking.

Thus, he could only assume the air of an old hand of the jianghu and forcibly salvage his dignity. "When one is in the jianghu, one's body is not one's own."

Then he remembered something else. "Brother Gu... sigh, forget it. You still have a choice, so don't touch this lightly."

"Oh, right. You can't try that medicine again tomorrow either."

Gu Qingfeng replied easily, "We'll talk about tomorrow when it comes."

Huang Qu's cheeks twitched. He could not help scratching his head, his expression complicated.

Honestly, for the sake of "A Way Out for Two," he had been the one to persuade Gu Qingfeng to come along this time. It could be said that he had dragged someone else into the water, yet now he was urging that same person not to try it.

It was like persuading a respectable woman into prostitution, only to urge her to reform after she had followed him to a brothel to inspect the surroundings. It was inevitably awkward.

All at once, Gu Qingfeng lifted his head.

Because of the secondhand smoke, his perceptions seemed to drift upward.

He felt that it was about to rain.

And then it really did rain.

Only, when the rain fell, he was utterly bewildered.

Because the rain was red!

Blood rain?!!

The rain came suddenly, and the reaction of Huang Qu, the smoking addict beside him, was equally sudden.

Unlike Gu Qingfeng, who was dumbfounded at the sight of red rain, Huang Qu's mouth flew open in an instant, and he began wildly catching the rain with it.

Only when he noticed Gu Qingfeng still standing there in a daze did he remember that Gu Qingfeng was a country bumpkin. He said urgently, "Brother Gu, quick!"

"This is Tear Rain!"

"Red Tears Rain!"

"Drink it, quickly!"

The rain came suddenly, but the street was abruptly filled with people.

Their reactions resembled Huang Qu's. Every one of them opened their mouths wide to "catch the rain," their faces filled with fervor.

The rainwater was a deep crimson, like blood. The entire city seemed to be bathing in blood.

And the sight of everyone reveling and thirsting amid that bloody rain was, for a moment, wicked and bizarre.

Yet it was clear that the people here had long grown accustomed to this.

More precisely, they yearned for it.

"Even the outer city got this much this time!"

"The Bodhisattva has bestowed grace! The Bodhisattva has bestowed grace!"

Gu Qingfeng saw clearly that the rain was scattered from a dark crimson cloud in the sky.

That cloud, neither deviating nor straying, happened to cover the skies above Red Tears City.

Seeing everyone act this way, Gu Qingfeng opened his mouth as well and let some of the blood rain fall into it.

As a cultivator who had reached the third realm, the True Essence Realm, through his own unique path, Gu Qingfeng's perception of the rainwater was far sharper than that of ordinary people.

After the blood-like rainwater slid down his throat into his stomach, it unexpectedly produced faint specks of burning heat.

The heat was not intense, yet it could stimulate one's blood and vitality. He even felt the true qi throughout his body becoming somewhat more active.

Of course, the sensation was not particularly strong—only faint.

If he could swallow more of this blood rain, the effect should be better.

At that moment, a series of croaks rang out.

Down the slope, four burly men suddenly dropped to the ground, shaped like toads.

As they croaked, their cheeks rapidly swelled, nearly stretching their skin translucent.

Then, as they opened their mouths, a vortex-like suction force immediately surged forth, sucking all the nearby rainwater into their mouths.

It could be said that the rain around them was nearly sucked dry, forming a vacuum.

"Croak! They're Toad Gang members! Hurry and change locations!"

The crowd that had been standing nearby immediately cursed their bad luck and hurried elsewhere to swallow rain.

This rain came quickly and went quickly.

The ground was only slightly damp. Many people in the streets threw themselves down and tried to lick it, but before long, every drop of rainwater on the ground had vanished without a trace.

Afterward, people discussed it fervently, as though what had fallen from the heavens was not rain, but money.

Some simply sat down cross-legged. While circulating their cultivation, they chanted, "Bodhisattva's Red Tears, aid my cultivation!"

Clearly, they were attempting to refine this "rainwater."

Gu Qingfeng asked blankly, "Bodhisattva's Red Tears?"

Seeing his expression, Huang Qu, the smoking addict, could not help saying, "You country bumpkin really don't know anything."

"You don't know Bodhisattva's Red Tears, and yet you came to Red Tears City?"

"Red Tears City is packed to the brim inside and out. Some people once had considerable fortunes, but would rather become beggars than leave this place. Some women arrived as pure and immaculate as fairies, but now they receive customers in alleys and still refuse to go. Isn't it all for this little bit of Bodhisattva's Red Tears?"

Gu Qingfeng had come to Red Tears City with the Liu Household caravan.

He only knew that Red Tears City was a large city and had never looked deeply into the origins of its name. He had assumed it was named for the many perverted fiends within the city who often made women shed crimson tears from their beautiful faces.

Who would have thought that Red Tears City truly shed tears?

According to Huang Qu, legend had it that undying immortals and Buddhas still wandered the skies of the Returning Ruins.

Among the most renowned of these immortal deities was the "Red Tears Bodhisattva."

For hundreds of years, the Red Tears Bodhisattva, with the heart of a bodhisattva, could not bear to see the people of the Returning Ruins struggle so bitterly in seeking the Dao. Thus, she transformed her own bloody tears into Red Tears Rain, sweet dew bestowed upon the mortal world.

When Red Tears fell, all things grew, and cultivators could advance further in their cultivation.

Yet even the widely known Red Tears Bodhisattva of the Returning Ruins had always remained hidden like a god, only sending down red rain above Red Tears City once every month or two.

This was also one of the foundations that allowed Red Tears City to become a great city of the Returning Ruins.

Gu Qingfeng could not help looking at the dark crimson cloud in the sky. "Does a Bodhisattva really exist?"

Huang Qu said solemnly, "Possibly. I've never seen one, anyway! But quite a few great cultivators of the Divine Sense Realm once used their spiritual awareness to investigate the red cloud. They all claimed they could sense the image of an enormous Bodhisattva within it.

Some great cultivators even fell ill because of it, saying that the Bodhisattva's true form was not something mortals could casually glimpse."

"Furthermore, the Red Tears Bodhisattva has ties to every generation of Red Tears City's lords. The current City Lord, Xi Yunlei, personally flew into the clouds and beheld the Bodhisattva's true form."

"Rumor has it that when the City Lord returned that day, she wept without cease. When others asked why, she said that the Red Tears Bodhisattva's true form was already half white bones, having exhausted more than half of her vital blood for the cultivators of the Returning Ruins.

"Since then, the entire city has revered the Red Tears Bodhisattva even more."

To Gu Qingfeng's ears, this was clearly a moving tale about the Red Tears Bodhisattva's compassion for the world, yet he could not help feeling threads of fear.

Because the account sounded exceedingly bizarre, steeped in the colors of ghosts and gods.

And he felt that the account was likely partly true. But was the Red Tears Bodhisattva truly doing this for all living beings?

Gu Qingfeng looked at the cloud in the sky, his brows knitting slightly and his gaze focusing.

He wanted to see whether there truly was a so-called "Red Tears Bodhisattva" within those clouds!