Corpse Buddha

The words on the blood moon seared themselves into Zhang Xuan's eyes like a branding iron.

The former was how the "Celestial Master's Ordination" addressed him; the latter was its answer to his question.

The small words on the blood moon changed again, seemingly offering an explanation of this ability:

[Ming dynasty, Wu Cheng'en, "Preface Presented to Prefect Yu Shao on His Report of Governance": "He possessed the insight to illuminate hidden depths and distant reaches, and the measure to embrace and release, neither hurried nor slow."]

["Hidden illumination" was taken from this passage: illuminate hidden depths and distant reaches, clarify the mind and behold one's true nature!]

[Honored inheritor, would you like to activate "Mystic Eyes of Hidden Illumination" now?]

"Activate!"

Zhang Xuan answered without hesitation, then decisively left the [Inner Landscape].

He could hardly wait to try this new ability.

"Huh? Awake already?"

The instant Zhang Xuan left the Inner Landscape, the crackling of the campfire sounded like chains snapping. In a daze, he heard the monk's voice. The scene before him abruptly changed, and he was back in the ruined temple.

Time flowed at a ratio of 3:1 between the [Inner Landscape] and the outside world.

In other words, three hours spent in the [Inner Landscape] amounted to only one hour outside.

He had discovered this pattern before leaving the Celestial Master's Mansion the previous night, by observing how the red candles in his room burned.

Zhang Xuan had just spent roughly the time it took to drink a cup of tea in the [Inner Landscape], which amounted to only a few minutes outside. That was why the monk had asked.

Zhang Xuan did not answer the monk, because the instant he opened his eyes...

—His pupils jolted violently!

In his field of vision, Monk Sanjie was still sitting beside the campfire, but Meng Changxi, who had been sitting opposite him, had somehow wandered over to the Headless Clay Idol.

He was taking a fist-sized object out of the Shrine on the offering table and examining it closely.

Hearing the sound, Meng Changxi turned around and happened to meet Zhang Xuan's gaze.

That warm, hearty smile still rested on his face. "Master, why have you woken up after so little time..."

But before he could finish, his voice cut off. He had noticed that the young Daoist's expression was deeply abnormal!

Zhang Xuan's face was deathly pale, his gaze frozen. His mouth hung slightly open, yet no sound emerged, as though something terrifying had struck him dumb.

It would not have been an exaggeration to say he looked as though he had seen a ghost.

Even Meng Changxi, some distance away, could see that something was wrong with Zhang Xuan. Naturally, Monk Sanjie, sitting right beside him, noticed too.

"Daoist, what's..."

The monk reached out to support him, only for Zhang Xuan to push his hand away with a trembling hand.

"Put it back!"

Zhang Xuan's voice was hoarse and urgent, but his gaze passed over Meng Changxi, fixed relentlessly on the "Headless Clay Idol" behind him.

As his gaze traveled upward, Zhang Xuan seemed to glimpse some immense horror. He staggered backward until his back struck a cold temple pillar.

A deep blue-green halo rippled outward from his left eye—

Everything before him changed.

At that moment, an unfamiliar term surfaced eerily in Zhang Xuan's mind—"Jingguan."

Unlike a Jingguan, this pile of hundreds of human heads was not something dead, but a "living" monster!

Layer upon layer, densely packed rotting heads formed a mountain. The air reeked of stale blood, mingling with the decay of the ruined temple in a nauseating stench.

The Headless Clay Idol, several meters tall, was gone. In its place were human heads mangled into bloody ruin: elderly people in their twilight years, tender young children, farmers with deeply furrowed faces, and women wearing vermilion hairpins.

Their expressions varied. Some writhed in pain, some brimmed with despair and resentment, and others wept bitterly. All retained the expressions they had worn at the moment of death.

Every head was secured with locust-wood nails, then bound to the others by great smears of pitch-black, foul-smelling blood. Together, they vaguely formed a monster several zhang tall, shaped like a potbellied Buddha.

Strangely, although the monster's entire body consisted of hideous human heads, its neck was utterly empty.

This monster had no head!!!

What frightened Zhang Xuan most was that he saw two familiar faces among those heads...

The old man's shriveled head was fastened inside the Corpse Buddha's neck cavity by several locust-wood nails. His cloudy eyes suddenly turned, and amber pine resin dripped from his cracked lips. "Go... hurry, go!"

The boy's rotting head wailed from the Corpse Buddha's right shoulder. "Daoist brother, it hurts! Gouwa hurts so much..."

Every cry of "it hurts" tore at the heart.

Yet Meng Changxi saw nothing of the terrifying Corpse Buddha mere inches from him. He simply stood stiffly before it, utterly oblivious, holding a strange object in his hands.

Zhang Xuan focused his gaze and finally saw clearly what Meng Changxi was holding—

Another human head!

Only this head was extremely small, about the size of a fist.

The head had two faces. One was the radiant golden visage of a Buddha, solemn and compassionate; the other was a horrifying half-face rotted beyond recognition. Stark white bone showed through decayed skin, and sticky black blood dripped from Meng Changxi's hands onto the floor with eerie little plops.

"Put it back!"

Zhang Xuan growled again, his voice carrying a fear he could not conceal.

Meng Changxi remained oblivious, still holding that "miniature human head." His usual warm smile even lingered on his face. "Master, what's wrong?"

But Zhang Xuan's gaze passed over him, fixed on what stood behind him—

As Meng Changxi removed the "miniature human head" from the Buddhist shrine, the hundreds of heads on the "Headless Corpse Buddha" turned in unison. The scarlet glow within their hollow black eye sockets grew ever brighter, as though they would awaken in the very next instant!

The "Headless Corpse Buddha" stood motionless, yet the hundreds of heads covering its body opened their gaping, bloodied mouths in soundless howls.

Zhang Xuan's heart trembled. Though he heard nothing at all, somehow he dimly understood what those heads were howling—

"A—"

"Mi—"

"Ta—"

"Bha!"

Although Meng Changxi was baffled and deeply reluctant, seeing Zhang Xuan in such a frenzy, he still chose to obey and returned the carved wooden Buddha head to the shrine.

"It's only a shoddy wooden Buddha head. Why get so worked up, Master? I'll put it back, then."

Has this Daoist cultivated himself into a deranged fool? Meng Changxi wondered.

Such people were hardly uncommon. Times were harsh. To survive in this man-eating world, countless pitiable people prayed to Buddha or sought the Dao, hoping to find shelter in faith. People like that were the most likely to go to extremes.

Only after the rotting Buddha head had been returned to the shrine did the red glow in the "Headless Corpse Buddha's" countless hollow eye sockets gradually subside.

Only then did the heads howling soundlessly slowly settle down.

Seeing this, Zhang Xuan, his back against the temple pillar, dropped onto the bluestone floor. His taut nerves finally relaxed a little, and he gasped for breath.

His eyes, however, remained fixed on the offering altar...

[Name: Headless Corpse Buddha]

[Category: Wild god]

[State: Nirvana]

[Threat level: Deep red]

[Verse:]

[On Phoenix-Cry Mountain, a god enthroned on high; in bygone days, sacred radiance lit earth and sky.]

[Chaos ravaged the people, incense offerings ceased; the Dao waned, demons rose, and resolve sank into ruin.]

[An evil heart stirred, enticed by an official; wicked thoughts swarmed, souls sacrificed in blood.]

[A thousand heads amassed resentment and became an evil horror; in the dark and dreadful night, a ghost village wept.]

The small words appearing out of thin air in his field of vision seemed to be annotating the monster...