Chaos

The boy proved quite capable. Though one foot was bare, he ran swiftly, pointing out the way as he led Mu Liang'er through woods and across ditches toward his maternal grandfather's home.

After roughly an hour, a farmhouse appeared before them, its earthen walls mottled and its roof weighed down with thatch. The nearby fields had long since gone to ruin. Weeds stood waist-high among sparse rice stubble; plainly, no one had tended them for a long time.

A dim lamp burned inside, its light wavering against the window paper. Before they drew close, they heard a fierce argument within.

A loud voice was shouting, "Father! Listen to your son for once. Put your faith in the Wisdom King! Believe in him and become an abbot at the temple. Why would you need to worry about the crops then? When the Wisdom King's dharma body descends into this world, sweet dew will rain down everywhere. You'll sit at home in the Ning Household with all the food you could want. Why won't you listen?"

Mu Liang'er approached the window and looked inside. A gaunt old man in coarse cloth stood trembling with rage. Kneeling before him was a bald man, his clean-shaven scalp gleaming bluishly under the lamplight. He wore a dingy gray Kasaya and gazed up at the old man with utter devotion.

The old man pointed at the bald man, his finger shaking violently, his voice cracking. "You plague-stricken beast! We have fields, yet you won't farm them. Instead, you shave your head like this and put on this blasted hide. You nailed your wife and child into those iron pillars. You—you beast!"

Despite the abuse, not a trace of shame appeared on the bald man's face. As though he had heard nothing, he remained kneeling perfectly upright, chanting, "Father, listen to me. The Wisdom King said, 'Perceive that the five aggregates are all empty, and pass beyond all suffering.' You've farmed your whole life. Hasn't it been bitter? Haven't you been tired? Believe in the Wisdom King, and the five aggregates become empty; suffering passes away of its own accord. What does it matter whether the fields yield a harvest? The Wisdom King once made a great vow: 'If any living beings, with utmost sincerity and joyful faith, desire birth in my land, even with only ten thoughts...'"

Before he could finish, the old man swung his arm and slapped him. With a sharp crack, the bald man toppled sideways.

The old man roared, "Get out! Out, out, out! Without fields, you're not worth a fart! The Wisdom King? Can the Wisdom King put food in my mouth? I'll sit right here today and see how you monsters, you beasts, mean to destroy me and my fields!"

The old man's face was savage, but his eyes were wet. Looking at this vicious ghost wearing his son's skin, he felt only terror and despair.

Mu Liang'er had come to do what she could, to bring out as many surviving mortals as possible. The sight made her frown. What qualifies this old man to become an abbot? And his mind is clear, so he probably hasn't been bewitched. Yet this man hasn't killed him?

Suspecting some hidden mystery about the old man, Mu Liang'er immediately formed a spell gesture and cast it. The bald man pitched stiffly to the floor. Her figure flashed, and she approached under the old man's astonished gaze. "Sir, I'm a cultivator from the Peaceful Way Abbey."

The Peaceful Way Abbey practiced cultivation amid the mortal world. Its members often descended the mountain to bring mortals with spiritual aptitude and the light of wisdom back to cultivate, to say nothing of coming down to rescue mortals during the demonic scourge every thirty years.

Joy spread across the old man's face. The dullness in his eyes vanished at once, and he hurriedly knelt, kowtowing over and over. "Immortal lord, immortal lord, you've finally come! Please, my lord, save my son. He..."

This was Mu Liang'er's first journey down the mountain, and she had little guile or worldly shrewdness. She answered bluntly, "Your son's mind has already been clouded. His heart and eyes are filled with nothing but the Wisdom King. At any moment, he might throw himself onto an iron pillar and become a Kasaya for him. I've come to take away those who are still unharmed. Please show me the way."

Hearing that his son was beyond saving, the old man wept again. "What decent people are left? Those beasts took them all away and nailed them to death."

Mu Liang'er felt she ought to comfort him, but had no idea what to say. After turning it over in her mind, she finally found a compromise that might also answer her question. "Then why aren't you dead yet?"

The words were like a knife gouging into his heart. Grief welled up, and he sobbed beyond speech, tears and snot streaming down his wrinkled, yam-like face. "I watched him take his mother away. He said the Wisdom King would not look upon aged yin, so he threw her into an old well to drown. I watched him take his wife away. He said building the temple was arduous, and the Wisdom King couldn't bear his believers' bitter toil, so she went to reward the monks building it. I watched him take my grandson away. He said the Wisdom King's dharma throne lacked a boy attendant, so he raised another spike and nailed my grandson to death... A coward like me, worthless as a husband, a failure as a father, useless as a grandfather, clinging miserably to one wretched mu of land—I don't know why I haven't died. Why won't I die..."

As he spoke, he shakily opened the front of his clothes.

One glance made Mu Liang'er recoil, her brow drawing tight in horror.

Knife wounds covered the old man's shriveled chest and belly, packed as densely as a honeycomb or an ant nest. Through them, she could vaguely see a pitch-black hue among his organs. A sharp knife was still embedded over his heart, most of its blade buried, leaving only the handle exposed. Yet the old man was still alive.

Only then did Mu Liang'er understand why those bald donkeys wanted him to become an abbot.

If he could not die, he could be an abbot.

The grotesque sight left Mu Liang'er stunned for a long while.

After a few more sobs, the old man had no strength left. He looked up at Mu Liang'er and saw that she was only a young girl. How could he fail to realize that this supposed immortal from the Peaceful Way Abbey was no one he could rely on? He stopped begging.

His gaze hardened. Gripping the knife in his chest, he ripped it out. The blade emerged with scraps of flesh clinging to it, and blood splashed across the floor.

He struggled to his feet, staggered a few steps, and stopped before the man felled by the illusion spell. Looking down, he saw a face that was still his son's. Yet that bald head and gray Kasaya plainly belonged to a man-eating ghost, a monster.

The old man gritted his teeth and savagely drove the knife into the man's body, muttering, "Beast... beast..." He stabbed again and again, shredding the gray Kasaya, until at last he hacked the man's head clean off.

Yet no matter what he did, the man's face retained a smile, the corners of his mouth curved as though encouraging his father to continue.

By the time the old man came to his senses, half the man's body had been stabbed into a bloody honeycomb. Trembling, he carefully tucked the spilled intestines back inside. Then he stripped off the ruined Kasaya, threw it aside, and fetched a clean set of new clothes from the heated brick bed, dressing him with painstaking care. He placed the lifeless head back on the neck and covered the bald scalp securely with a cloth cap.

When it was done, the old man could hold himself up no longer. His knees buckled, and he collapsed over the man's body, wailing. Again and again, he murmured only one thing: "My son... my son..."

Mu Liang'er closed her eyes and remained silent for a long time.

Much later, the old man recovered himself and said numbly, "Immortal, there are no living people left here. If you want to save someone, go save the people in another village. I'll show you the way."

Mu Liang'er sighed. "There's no need. I'll take your grandson with me. He should know the way."

Mu Liang'er turned to leave, but a moment later, the old man shook his head. "All the children in this village are dead. I don't know the one beside you."

"What?"

An icy chill filled Mu Liang'er's chest. She had already opened six apertures, possessed magical power, and regularly took fasting pills. By rights, heat and cold should no longer trouble her, nor should she break into a cold sweat. Yet now sweat streamed down her spine to the small of her back, and waves of cold swept along it.

Only at that moment did she abruptly come to her senses.

Everything before her was far more than monsters wreaking havoc or the Wisdom King's sacred arrival. This thing was beyond her ability to handle. She had delayed leaving for so long that she might already have lost any chance of escape.

She pressed a hand to her Storage Bag and pulled out her longsword and horsetail whisk. As her Dharma Power circulated, it finally dispelled some of the bone-deep chill. Holding her sword across her front, she braced herself and shouted sharply at the boy, "Who are you, really?"

The boy with the red mark between his brows pressed his palms together. A hint of seductive charm appeared in his features, mingled with solemn dignity. Smiling, he said, "Big sister, I'm the Wisdom Consort. Come, big sister. I'll take you to enjoy bliss with the Wisdom King."

"Beast! What sort of Wisdom Consort are you?"

Before the words had faded, a hand with sharply defined knuckles reached in from the side and clamped firmly around the boy's skull. Its five fingers tightened gently, and before Mu Liang'er's shocked eyes, crushed his head outright.

The boy's corpse did not fall. Instead, it dissolved into a scarlet stream of Blood Qi that dispersed with a puff, leaving only a crimson talisman saturated with that energy, held securely between the hand's fingers.

Li Fuchan looked at the Mirage Pavilion talisman, now fouled by Blood Qi. A flicker of heartache rose in his eyes, and he repeated, "Ruined. Ruined."

The newcomer was, of course, Li Fuchan.

He had arrived some time ago, but his naturally cautious disposition had led him to first fashion a Qi-Form False Body and send it in to scout. Whatever dangers arose, he would have an easier time escaping.

Who could have expected that the moment the Qi-Form False Body slipped inside, a mob of bald donkeys would swarm it and seize it, clamoring to take it away to become the Wisdom King's Wisdom Consort?

In no time, Blood Qi had fouled the double. Aside from still sharing fragments of its senses, even he could no longer control it. Just then, through the double, Li Fuchan witnessed the horrifying sight of the flesh-and-blood Wisdom King inside the temple. Shocked and enraged, he turned and fled without hesitation.

This certainly did not mean he was disobeying Jia Hua's instructions.

Jia Hua had told him to deal with the demonic scourge in Longzhu Forest. But the trouble here was bald donkeys, not a demonic scourge. The situation could not have been clearer:

This was not Longzhu Forest.

He needed to find a Longzhu Forest with a demonic scourge.

Yet he had barely run for a moment before an invisible barrier blocked him. Examining it carefully, he discovered that the entire area within a hundred li of Zongshedu Mountain was sealed tightly beneath a ward. One could enter, but not leave.

Only then did Li Fuchan realize he had been set up.

Later, he discovered that a female disciple of the Peaceful Way Abbey had also entered the area and was even pretending to have been captured. Seeing the Storage Bag at Mu Liang'er's waist and the faint spiritual energy radiating from her ritual robe, Li Fuchan immediately felt reassured.

Setting me up to die is one thing, but surely they wouldn't sacrifice their own direct disciple as well.

And so Li Fuchan could only grit his teeth and turn back.

He looked down at the Mirage Pavilion talisman in his hand, soaked through with Blood Qi until it gleamed translucently, and sighed. Golden lightning and crimson fire suddenly burst from his palm. With a crackling hiss, they burned the talisman into a pinch of ash that drifted down.

Please keep reading!!!!!