Adorable Monster
Stillness!
Silence!
Not a sound!
Everyone stared at Xu Chunliang with wide eyes.
The white-robed swordsman replayed Xu Chunliang's naturally executed kick over and over in his mind, unable to stop himself from murmuring, So that's another way to counter Starving Tiger Pounces on Prey!
The Black Tiger Saber Technique may be a dime a dozen, but that's because it's a classic. There are many ways to counter this move, but I never imagined it could be done like that. A trip like the kind used by common folk in a street fight threw him completely off balance in an instant, using his own force to make him throw himself away!
Brilliant! He merely provided a fulcrum, and the fat saber wielder was flung away by the force of his own lunge.
What's even more brilliant is that he accounted for the black-haired eerie being in the darkness too! He used a terrifying eerie being that others couldn't get away from fast enough as a weapon? And he thought of all those movements the instant the fat saber wielder used Starving Tiger Pounces on Prey! What kind of temperament is that? And how powerful must his calculating ability be!
The white-robed swordsman looked at Xu Chunliang, a great deal more curiosity in his eyes.
Brother Dao, whose eyesight was not as sharp and whose thoughts were not as meticulous, was just like a simpleton! He kept cheering for Xu Chunliang!
Yinjian grew more wary of Xu Chunliang, finding him increasingly unfathomable.
As for the green-robed swordswoman, she showed no sorrow at all over the death of her simp. She shot Xu Chunliang a hateful glare, then turned away from him.
"Brother, I am Li Baiyi. Fate has brought us together today. First, we happened to meet in the same brothel, and now we've fallen into this Ruin Realm together. I hope we can join hands and get through this eerie death trap." The white-robed swordsman, Li Baiyi, walked over to Xu Chunliang and cupped his fists.
Xu Chunliang nodded and introduced himself, then asked curiously, "Brother Li, you call this place a Ruin Realm. What exactly is a Ruin Realm?"
Li Baiyi was surprised, though he showed nothing on his face. He could not understand how an expert like Xu Chunliang could be unaware of something that was practically common knowledge among experts, but he patiently explained, "The Ruin Realm is also known as the Ruin of Gods and Eerie Beings. It often appears in our world, but its appearances follow no pattern, nor does it appear in any fixed location.
"It always appears suddenly, then disappears just as suddenly. And those who enter the Ruin Realm have a slim chance of survival! No one knows why it appears or why it disappears. It's just like the eerie beings we often encounter. No one knows how they come to exist, as though our world was mad to begin with."
A chill ran through everyone when he finished. Xu Chunliang, however, paid no attention to the mention of a slim chance of survival. He asked calmly, "Since Ruin Realms appear often, has the one we're in now appeared before? Is there any information about it?"
Li Baiyi was shocked by Xu Chunliang's composure, but he kept smiling. He too maintained a calm expression.
"No! Never! At least, I've never heard of it." Li Baiyi still wore a faint smile.
"Fortunately, this Buddhist light is protecting us, so we're relatively safe. As long as the light remains and the little girl keeps chanting, I think we'll be safe here."
Listening to the little girl's Buddhist chant murmuring in his ears, Xu Chunliang frowned and said, "What if the chanting stops? Or the golden light disappears? Will we die then? Are we going to wait here forever?"
Everyone looked at Li Baiyi. In this Ruin Realm that had appeared out of nowhere, he was the only one who knew about Ruin Realms, so they could not help looking to him as their anchor.
Li Baiyi shook his head. "Of course we can't wait forever. Setting aside how long the Buddhist light and chanting can last, if no one comes to save us, we'll starve to death."
"There were too few of us before, and it wasn't safe, so we waited here. Now that you've arrived, it's time we explored ahead and saw whether the place where that Buddhist light is flickering might be our way out." A deeply hidden trace of worry flashed in Li Baiyi's eyes.
He believed things would not be so simple here.
At Li Baiyi's urging, the group continued forward, following the Buddhist light and the sound of the little girl's chanting.
"Therefore, proclaim the Prajnaparamita mantra, and say: Gate gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha."
"Brother Xu, do you know what sutra that chant comes from?" Li Baiyi looked at Xu Chunliang, who was walking beside him with his hands behind his back as though out for a stroll, and asked with a smile.
Xu Chunliang listened for a moment, then shook his head. "It sounds familiar, but I really don't know what sutra it is. I just find it quite soothing."
Li Baiyi smiled and nodded. Seeing that the relatively relaxed group around him were all looking at him, he said loudly, "This is the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, also known as the Heart Sutra. The entire sutra is 260 characters long. Among the vast collection of Buddhist scriptures, it is the shortest, the most profound in meaning, and the most influential."
"The saying we often hear, 'Form is emptiness, emptiness is form,' comes from this sutra."
Everyone nodded at his words, their unease over the eerie beings in the darkness easing a little.
Even the martial artists on the outskirts of the group, who had been keeping careful watch, relaxed considerably.
Buddhism urged people to do good, so presumably there would be no more danger in this Buddhist grotto where the Heart Sutra was constantly being chanted.
The Buddhist light grew stronger and gradually became dazzling. At last, they saw the little girl lying on a simple wooden offering table, chanting Buddhist scriptures without pause, and a great Buddha statue taller than a mountain in front of her.
The Buddha statue was so tall that even the golden light from the sarira held between the fingers of its hands, which were forming a seal between its legs, could not reach its face.
Xu Chunliang looked up into the darkness. Somehow, the Buddha statue felt unusually familiar.
It looked a little like...
It looked a little like the life-sized seated Buddha statue he had just seen in the grotto.
Now, before his eyes, the sarira's Buddhist light reached only as high as its neck. Above that was complete darkness, as though its head, too, had been cut off and stolen.
Is it the headless Buddha? The thought flashed through his mind.
A clamor rose beside him. "What an adorable little Buddha girl. So pretty."
Xu Chunliang lowered his gaze and saw that the little girl, who had been sitting cross-legged before the Buddha and chanting the Heart Sutra nonstop with her back to the group, had turned around at some point.
A Buddhist blanket embroidered all over with the text of the Heart Sutra in gold thread was wrapped around her, leaving only her plump little face exposed.
Her small face was pale and cool-toned, her eyes huge and bright, and her hair was tied into tiny braids. She looked extremely adorable.
And the most appealing part was where her lips should have been.
Where a small, cute mouth should have been, there was instead a round, gleaming white pearl, as large as a JJJJ cherry.
The Buddhist scripture that kept reaching everyone's ears came from the vibrations of that pearl.
What kind of monster was this?
Why was it so adorable...