"You are right, little monk!" The Heavenly Dragon's head emerged from beyond the oil lamp, while its entire body swam once more amid the emerald green.
"Then... then why did you come here, Senior? And why did you build this Changsheng Hall for Manjushri Bodhisattva?" Guzhen asked cautiously.
"Alas, Manjushri Bodhisattva, when he was still a little monk, once asked this old man the very same question!" The Heavenly Dragon gave a bitter laugh, its voice steeped in sorrow. "I remember it clearly. That day, this old man was protecting a Buddhist cultivator who was about to attain the Arhat Buddha Fruit through bodily cultivation. Yet that cultivator's cultivation was insufficient, and he was attacked by heavenly demons. We Heavenly Dragons had been ordered to protect him, but through one moment of carelessness, this old man fell into the heavenly demons' scheme and entered a crack in the void. Moreover, that crack in the void was exceedingly strange. By the time this old man broke free, I had already arrived in this Pure Land World! This old man was originally a Heavenly Dragon of the Buddha-realm, so naturally I could not survive in the mortal world. Just as I was about to dissipate into smoke and vanish into thin air, I encountered that little monk, who had only just cultivated to the Zhuling realm..."
At this point, the Heavenly Dragon's voice grew long and distant, as though it were recalling events from a hundred thousand years ago. Guzhen did not dare interrupt. He listened quietly, while towering waves surged within his heart.
What the Heavenly Dragon described was truly inconceivable. The monk who had been Manjushri Bodhisattva's previous incarnation had already cultivated to the Origin Energy Eighth Rank, and he happened to possess Qianxin Bi—the very thing Guzhen now saw