Jade City was the capital of sins and conspiracies within the whole Western Region. As a result, every resident believed in The Gods. All sorts of temples lay inside and outside the city, and people consecrated all kinds of aboriginal gods from every corner of the world there.
Those hazy Gods, who set themselves high above the masses, were like cinereous vultures feasting on a colossal rotten corpse. The residents of Jade City had a saying, "The more misdeeds he committed, the larger statues he donates," which led to another conclusion, "No sin, no belief." To those monks' and Taoist priests' comfort, there were no sinless people in this city.
Among numerous temples, Four Truths Temple deserved to be their leader. It had to be located outside the city due to its vast coverage area. Thousands of statues of Buddha and over 3,000 monks were there. Without surprise, the major benefactors were Golden Roc Fort and the Meng family in North City.
Four Truths Temple was beyond the mundane affairs and seldom involved in mortal trifles. The reason why Gu Shenwei remembered it was that it once made an exception and sent monks to escort an Avenger onto the mountain.
When Marshal Yang was avenging the Gu family, two monks followed him all the way and disappeared after Marshal Yang died. Gu Shenwei once thought there was animosity between Four Truths Temple and Golden Roc Fort. However, he later realized that this move was to sentence Marshal Yang to death rather than "save" him.
In Four Truths Temple, Marshal Yang took an oath that if he could not go up the mountain to seek vengeance, he would bathe the Jade City in blood. To protect the innocent and rid the fiends, the monks agreed to escort him onto the mountain armed with weapons.
In Gu Shenwei's point of view, this was an extremely sophisticated move to "take care of it."
The fussing affair of "possessed" had eventually come to an end. Lady Meng not only managed to shift the focus of Stone Castle onto her daughter's treatment but also saved the four brown-belt assassins. "They have shared joys and sorrows with my daughter. Thus, they're not guilty and deserve to be rewarded."
Lady Meng personally went to Four Truths Temple in the name of praying. Her team was too vast and mighty to stay in the temple. Therefore, they camped outside.
According to Doctor Sun, he could not cure the Tenth Young Master whereas the Exorcism Manuscript might have an extraordinary efficacy. Tie Hanfeng had always been fighting for a treatment for his apprentice, and it turned out he could do nothing when the opportunity came.
The six youngsters were summoned to the gloomy main hall. Facing many monks and civilians and vague Buddhist statues, Mister Guo from the Whiterobe Academy started pouring out words, proving Shangguan Ru and the others were not killers from Golden Roc Fort, and their entrance did not violate The Agreement.
"These two are the Misses from the Shangguan family. The four teenagers in Daizi Pavilion are still apprentices and have not achieved the killer title yet. According to The Agreement—" Mister Guo showed a piece of white paper with the words printed from the inscriptions on it, 'Killers from Golden Roc Fort shall never enter the desert.' Take a look at 'killers,' which means the others from Golden Roc Fort can enter at will. However, it was New Moon Hall that raided the two Misses, and this apprentice named Slave Huan thought they had to engage in this battle since New Moon Hall were the first to violate the agreement of peace..."
When Mister Guo vehemently spoke, the two masters—now Misses—from the Shangguan family did not feel right, because for the first time they don women's clothes for this affair today. They were uneasy and irritated under the crowds' eyes.
They had to be the Miss as the result of a multi-party consideration. Golden Roc Fort needed outside supports in this war among the killers.
The other four youngsters had prominent brown belts, showing that they were not formal killers.
Slave Huan even had a chance to speak. He described the hazily mysterious woman he had seen and observed the audience, hoping to figure out the complicated relationships among the forces in the Western Region. However, he was asked to leave before he found out anything.
The six youngsters quickly completed their tasks and left the main hall. They heard later that Mister Guo acquired remarkable supports from the crowd. Hence the Supreme King favored him quite a lot.
While the counselors of Golden Roc Fort were arguing strongly on just grounds to convince the crowd, the youngsters were climbing the mountain to visit a key witness.
Master Tiger Monk was famous for the vegetarian tiger that always followed him and was called "Tiger Monk." His religious name was Lianxin, which on the contrary was seldom mentioned.
Also, he kept the Exorcism Manuscript. The most important mission of their trip was to visit this legendary monk.
Master Tiger Monk did not live in the temple. He built several thatched cottages called "Leftslope Vihara" on the left slope and practiced Buddhism there all the time. He wanted peace and quiet. Therefore, a receptionist led them to the cottages on foot.
Shangguan Ru kept pulling her clothes all along. She was distraught due to her ridiculous female dress and her upcoming possibly-ruined 13th birthday. To tell the public that the "Tenth Young Master" was only a joke, she could not acquire the "Young Master" title, not to mention setting up an academy to raise killers.
Seeing her brother Shangguan Fei having all these, she became even more upset and began to smash trees and grasses, killing all those innocent insects. Shangguan Yushi could not make her happy either until she thought about seeing the vegetarian tiger.
The youngsters thought that this eminent monk had to be an old one with a solemn face and a withering body. After meeting him, they found him a handsome middle-aged monk. The only mark left by his penance was his almost transparent pale skin. He modestly treated people neither pedantically nor arrogantly, as if he had small talks with them, regarding every person equally. Usually, he personally handed over six bowls of fresh water to his guests and amiably talked about the latest news.
Master Tiger Monk was quite interested in the giant roc which troubled Stone Castle months ago and seemingly wanted to tame it. Gu Shenwei doubted that the giant red-crowned roc would be into him.
The youngsters saw the well-known tiger lying on its stomach beside the monk. It breathed through a big scary mouth, with the ups and downs of its belly like a bellow, and it seemed bored.
"A vegetarian tiger almost equals to a killer without his saber," Gu Shenwei thought. There was no saber on him, and he suddenly felt agitated and struggled to keep calm.
After 60 minutes of chitchat, they got down to business. Master Tiger Monk turned around, took out a flat cloth-wrapper, and opened it. A clay slab filled with small and closely-written characters came into sight. Clear signs showed that a half of the piece seemed to have been missing.
Shangguan Ru shifted her eyes from the tiger to the clay slab. "Is this the Exorcism Manuscript?"
Master Tiger Monk caressed the clay slab and said, "Exactly. This scripture was written by an unrivaled master. As time flew, the master died along with his language. It was not until 300 years later that some expert decrypted its words and translated it into the Central Plain language. However, this expert decided to keep the pronunciation instead of meaning. Therefore, although the scripture looks like sentences, its actual meaning has been long gone."
Shangguan Ru stared at the clay slab in confusion. "Without meaning, is it still able to exorcise?"
The monk laughed while shaking his head. "This is exactly the profound meaning of the scripture. The expert was concerned that if people were too focused on the literal meanings and mistook false for true, they would eventually be possessed instead of exorcising. So, he intentionally hid the true meanings. Still, some original words have passed down. Since you are from Golden Roc Fort, you must be familiar with them."
The monk reversed the clay slab and pointed at the first line, which was printed as "云泥无分别龙虎无方等有情情不有南柯伐棱叶." However, the monk said, "The soul rises to the Ninth Heaven, and the spirit falls to the Ninth Abysse. The living suffer in grief, and the dead settle in peace."
"Death Scripture!" Almost simultaneously, these youngsters blurted out in unison. These specific words were said when people died in Golden Roc Fort.
"Right, the scripture is named Nanke Goes Woodchopping, which means the dead reborn in Pureland and would be blessed. There's nothing wrong to call it Death Scripture. "
Shangguan Ru scratched her hair on the temples and said, "I see. Those words come from Death Scripture. All these years saying the words, I don't even know the meaning."
"It's not your fault. It's not one of those Buddhist books and records, and few know of this book."
Subsequently, Master Tiger Monk started to impart the scripture. There were only more than 1,000 words on the clay slab, but all words were transliterated and looked profound, inducing readers to explore their meanings, hence forgetting to recite the scripture. Plus, some pronunciations were extremely bizarre, such as "ren" instead of "yun." One would only make further mistakes without a teacher.
Master Tiger Monk taught them word by word, while the youngsters memorized the pronunciations, and the mute Wildhorse was told to read in mind.
The six youngsters had stayed in Leftslope Vihara for a full seven days until they could recite the scripture fluently.
Shangguan Ru did not care much about her being "possessed," and she only wanted to play with the tiger. After three days of making acquaintance with it, she finally stroked its head along with its beard on the following day. She was thrilled and thought this was far more interesting than those ghost exorcising scriptures.
Shangguan Yushi stayed close to Shangguan Ru. She dared to approach it but not to touch it.
Wildhorse spent more time practicing his kung fu. The rule did not allow weapons onto the mountain. As a result, he broke a handy tree branch and stroke and cut the air with it himself.
As to Liuhua, as usual, he disappeared soon after they arrived, and he only showed up during meals and at bedtime.
Only Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus had been earnestly reciting Death Scripture and asking every pronunciation repeatedly. Until the end, Master Tiger Monk spent more than half of his time teaching the two.
In fact, the two were not only interested in the scriptures on the clay slab but also astounded.
The moment the monk displayed the clay slab, they both found out that they had already thoroughly memorized the scripture, which was on the last few pages of the Nameless Swordbook. There were 4,000 or 5,000 words on the book, yet only about 1,000 were on this half clay slab.
Since then, Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus called Nameless Swordbook the Death Scripture. Too many questions arose in their hearts. "Is the scripture's true meaning a cultivation method of Internal Strength? What is the story among it, Golden Roc Fort, and Master Tiger Monk? How did it fall into the abyss and why was it kept by two giant golden-crowned rocs?"
The two privately discussed these for a long time, yet ended up with nothing. Anyhow, they knew the scripture was amazingly effective. Even when they wrongly pronounced their "Peripheral Force" in the Xuanji acupoint was turned into the Internal Strength in Dantian. Would it be even better if they could pronounce the scripture correctly?
The two youngsters had to ask a favor from Master Tiger Monk, which led to him to his death.
()
Comments