Buddhist Grottoes

The room had changed completely. The wooden table had become a stone platform, and the red candles had become thick incense sticks, their tips glowing red as they gave off wisps of blue smoke. The wooden upper room had quietly turned into stone walls as well.

The courtesan's once spacious, brightly lit room had suddenly become an unbearably cramped, gloomy stone chamber.

It was as though Xu Chunliang had been transported to an entirely new environment in an instant.

He reached out and touched the wall before him. It felt cold and hard. He then touched the corpses of the two female specters, which had turned into stone statues. They were just as cold and hard.

Xu Chunliang muttered to himself, "What's going on? Does it have something to do with their deaths?"

"There is no ignorance, and no end to ignorance, and so on, to no aging and death, and no end to aging and death. There is no suffering, its origin, its cessation, or the path. There is no wisdom and no attainment.

"Because there is nothing to attain, the bodhisattva relies on the perfection of wisdom, and the mind is free of hindrances. Because there are no hindrances, there is no fear. Far removed from deluded dreams, one attains ultimate nirvana."

Another ethereal recitation of Buddhist scripture drifted in from outside the door. Xu Chunliang listened intently.

The voice was clear and pleasant, unmistakably that of a young girl.

What kind of Buddhist temple had a young girl? And had her recite sutras?

Curious, Xu Chunliang turned and walked out through the pitch-black doorway.

"Holy... shit!"

Countless stone caves of all sizes filled his vision. Every one of them was pitch-black, like eyes hollowed out of the rocky mountain.

To Xu Chunliang's left was a dark little hole no bigger than his palm. He leaned in for a look.

A Buddha statue no larger than his thumb sat cross-legged inside. In the darkness, Xu Chunliang couldn't make out its face very well, but its jutting horns made it look unlike a human.

Nor did it look like a Buddha.

Xu Chunliang looked to the right. There was a grotto as large as a car.

Inside the grotto was a headless seated Buddha. Someone had apparently pried the head off where it should have been, leaving the stone wall bare.

People steal Buddha heads in this world too? Xu Chunliang shook his head at the thought, finally realizing why this place felt familiar.

These were... Buddhist grottoes.

In his previous life, he had visited the Longmen Grottoes while traveling in Luoyang. The Buddha statues he saw now, carved into the rocky mountain, were similar in effect to those he had seen in his previous life.

There were only some differences in their appearance.

The headless Buddha before him, for instance, sat in a composed, contented pose, the folds of his robes flowing as naturally as water. Behind him, however, were carvings of many-legged insects that resembled house centipedes.

Xu Chunliang didn't know what faith they belonged to.

"All Buddhas of the three ages, relying on the perfection of wisdom, attain unexcelled, complete, perfect enlightenment."

The young girl's Buddhist recitation came again. Xu Chunliang shook his head and thought no more about it. With his vision limited to about two meters, he followed the sound of the recitation downward.

He could hardly be said to be afraid. Although he didn't know how he had been transported here, this was a Buddhist place, after all. Buddhism encouraged people to do good, so there probably wasn't any danger.

After the sound of his footsteps had faded, a head covered in strange feelers emerged from the stone wall above the headless Buddha. It placed itself on the Buddha's severed neck and shook brazenly back and forth.

It was as though the Buddha was supposed to have a house centipede's head.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Xu Chunliang's shoes struck the stone path carved out of the mountain, producing crisp footsteps without the slightest echo.

There wasn't another person around him, yet he showed no sign of nervousness. His face was calm, and he took it all in stride.

Perhaps anyone who had been killed over ten thousand times by that rusty hanging scale, as he had, would take everything in stride.

Following the young girl's recitation downward, Xu Chunliang mocked himself inwardly.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap...

Xu Chunliang finally heard other people's footsteps, and his heart lifted.

But after a moment of shuffling, their footsteps fell silent. Xu Chunliang paid it no mind and walked on.

"Don't move!"

"Don't move!"

"Who are you?"

Three icy blades hovered at Xu Chunliang's heart, throat, and waist.

Xu Chunliang looked up. They were familiar faces.

There were five people in all. One held the edge of a broad-bladed battle axe at his throat, another pressed a broad-backed executioner's saber against his chest, and a third held a long silver sword against his waist. The other two had their backs to the group, clearly guarding against the darkness behind them.

It was a cautious formation. One look told him they had spent years being ganged up on.

They were the same jianghu heroes he had seen in the brothel's main hall.

"Big brothers, were you sent to these Buddhist grottoes too?"

"I don't know how I got here."

The burly man with the axe paused. "You know us?"

"It's you? Weren't you invited upstairs by that maid in blue?"

Xu Chunliang smiled wryly. "I'm just as confused. The sweet-smelling courtesan in front of me suddenly turned into cold stone, and the warm, brightly lit room turned into a dark, freezing grotto. I don't know what happened either."

The three exchanged glances after hearing him, then withdrew the weapons trained on him.

The burly man with the axe reached out with a large hand and patted him on the shoulder. Only then did he say, "Hahahaha! So you lucky brat were just as unlucky after all."

"Just like us! We saw you go upstairs to have fun, and we were so jealous we could hardly stand it. So we pooled some money and went upstairs to hire a girl together. Who'd have thought that courtesan would be so unreasonable? There were a lot of us, so we were obviously giving her good business, and we could have taken turns to send her to heaven."

"But that shameless woman actually said we had to pay extra for so many people? Damn it, if I could afford to pay extra, wouldn't I have hired a top courtesan? Who'd want her playing a symphony solo like Tom Cat, leaving none of us satisfied..."

The burly swordsman beside him saw him getting more and more carried away and quickly reached out to cover his big mouth. "Hey, hey, that's enough, Brother Dao! Stop talking! You might not be embarrassed, but the rest of us are!"

Having stopped Brother Dao from sharing the rest of his experience with the extra charge, he apologized awkwardly to Xu Chunliang. "Brother, I'm known in the jianghu as Yinjian. We were a little nervous after arriving in this unfamiliar place, and we acted rashly because we didn't know whether you were human or a specter. Please don't take offense."

Xu Chunliang blinked. "Brother Yinjian, what a fine name!"

"You're all forthright men. I don't mind, not one bit."

"All right, all right! This place is mysterious and unpredictable, so let's stop talking nonsense here. Brother, I'm Brother Axe. May I ask your name?" The burly man holding the executioner's saber cupped his fists as he spoke.

Xu Chunliang felt his brain couldn't keep up. He pointed at the executioner's saber in the burly man's hand. "You carry a saber, but you're called Brother Axe. He carries an axe, but he's called Brother Dao. Are you two messing with me? Or do you think I'm stupid? By the way, my name is Xu Chunliang."

As soon as he finished speaking, the five burst out laughing.

"Let me tell him! Let me tell him!" Brother Dao bounced up and down with his great battle axe, as innocent as a child.