txolops Chapter 59 Golden Sea of Buddha Lotus
Chapter 59 Golden Sea of Buddha Lotus
The giant Buddha, no longer arrogant, solidified the Buddha's light at the point where the azure rainbow stopped, transforming into a semi-transparent golden hand, determined to knock the azure rainbow down from the sky.
But as the giant hand slammed down, the sharp azure light pierced through the Buddha's hand and landed between the Buddha's eyebrows, creating a crack that gradually spread outwards.
No blood flowed from the crack; only countless fine gold dust fell down, as if a thick outer shell had been peeled away.
When the gold dust fell away, what was revealed was not flesh and blood, but rotten, blackened wood and straw that reeked of decay.
With his true form revealed and his Buddha-like appearance damaged, all the gods and Buddhas were enraged. They all raised their golden palms and slammed them down on Song Quyou below.
Song Quyou was too weak to wield his sword. He lay flat on the golden sea as he watched the golden palms slamming down from the sky. The blood that seeped out continuously transformed into crimson fish that scattered and fled, only to be captured by the roots of golden lotuses.
As the Buddha's palm approached, the golden sea receded. Song Quyou felt very tired, exhausted, and heavy, and wanted to fall asleep.
boom!
The sound was deafening, layer upon layer, and the seawater, strong enough to support a person, surged into huge waves.
Song Quyou felt a sharp pain in his body as he was slammed into the sea of gold.
Beneath the golden sea, Song Quyou was struck and sank rapidly, seeing countless corpses floating in the golden light. Some were luminous white, some were decaying yellow, and some were black, layer upon layer. His face was frozen in the fear and resentment of his last moments before death.
After sinking for an unknown amount of time, Song Quyou began to lose his senses.
I could vaguely see a winding dragon corpse lying across the landscape like a mountain range. All its scales had been scraped off, its chest cavity had been cut open, and its internal organs had been hollowed out. In that empty abdominal cavity, golden lotus roots were growing.
The lotus root's fine roots burrowed deep into the rotten flesh and bones of the dragon corpse, sucking the blood and marrow of those who refused to kneel.
This is the Buddha lotus, symbolizing immeasurable merit, and the lush truth hidden beneath the golden sea.
……
The Buddha statues on the rock walls surrounding the stone chamber radiate a dazzling light.
Song Quyou, standing with his sword in hand, had lifeless eyes and was covered in blood.
The old monk, whose eyebrows drooped to his shoulders, had a normal expression, but there was a deep sword scar between his eyebrows.
As for the other monks who stood silently with their eyes closed, they were all pale-faced, drenched in sweat, and their bodies trembled uncontrollably.
Huiming, carrying a golden net, walked up to Song Quyou, looked at the slowly spreading bloodstains on the ground, and then glanced at his injured abbot brother.
He said to the fat cat in the net, "Your master is quite resolute, managing to withstand the Buddha's might and injure my abbot brother in the golden sea of lotus flowers. If it were an ordinary person, they would have already knelt down to take refuge and completed their ordination by now."
After hearing this, Black Charcoal stopped struggling in the net bag, leisurely showing off its buttons, blinking its golden eyes, completely ignoring Huiming.
……
Buddha Lotus Golden Sea.
Song Quyou's body continued to sink.
Suddenly, a corpse blocked Song Quyou's path, slowing his descent.
Song Quyou paused.
The force of the corpse was neither too strong nor too weak, just enough to wake him from his daze.
Song Quyou turned around and looked back. The corpse that had been hit was pure white, with tiny holes left on the bones from the roots of the golden lotus. The empty eye sockets seemed to hold untold stories.
Song Quyou tried to reach out and grab it, but the corpse had already taken his place and sunk into the depths.
Knowing he could no longer remain in a daze, Song Quyou felt a bright light rise in his heart.
Suddenly, the Taiyin Mingxin Mirror appeared in Song Quyou's hand, transforming into a bright, round moon.
The bright moon revealed the illusory images of countless gods and Buddhas.
Suddenly, the Taiyin Mingxin Mirror slipped from his hand and shot into the sky. Meanwhile, deep in the sea, bubbles surged, and something suddenly lifted Song Quyou up from behind.
……
High above, gods and Buddhas, with compassionate faces, bowed their heads and chanted scriptures.
The golden sea, which had just been raging with huge waves, was gradually calmed down by the Buddhist scriptures.
But in the now calm golden sea, a moon's reflection suddenly appeared, its shape shifting and changing with the lingering waves.
suddenly.
The bright moon rises from the sea, higher than auspicious clouds, higher than all the gods and Buddhas in the sky, transforming into a full, bright moon in the heavens.
The gods and Buddhas were so captivated by the sudden turn of events that they completely failed to notice the strings of bubbles rising from beneath the golden sea.
The once calming Jin Hai was stirred up again.
The bubbles surged and boiled, and in an instant, a mountain peak rose from the golden sea.
They carried Song Quyou and rapidly ascended until they could look at the gods and Buddhas in the sky at eye level.
At this moment, they are no longer aloof and unapproachable.
Song Quyou sat atop the mountain, his body covered in blood, yet his spine remained ramrod straight.
He saw the gods and Buddhas opposite him.
Those solemn images sculpted from gold powder, under the clear moonlight, could no longer conceal their mottled appearance.
They also realized that a large belly and round waist are not a sign of divine dignity and good fortune, but rather a sign of a bloated, fat person sucking the marrow from the bones under the blinding light of Buddha.
Song Quyou stood up, his blood-stained Taoist robe transformed into a wide, flowing blue robe; his blood-stained hair was also gently spread out by the wind, flamboyantly displayed.
With a wave of his hand, his blue sleeves fluttered wildly, and the golden sea below the mountain dried up, and the lotus flowers withered.
Where the golden sea dries up, blue clouds rise; where the lotus withers, corpses stand tall.
Once everything was in place, the azure clouds rose gracefully to the same height as the mountains, and the remains within them regained their former appearances: there were delicate women, burly men, thin boys, and hunched old men; they were tall or short, fat or thin.
"Do you still recognize them?" Song Quyou shouted.
The gods and Buddhas in the sky remained silent, their golden bodies mottled and crumbling with powder.
"It's alright if you don't speak; they still recognize you!"
Song Quyou stood atop the mountain, his blue robe sleeves filled with the wind, fluttering like banners.
Above the azure clouds, the corpses that had regained their faces all raised their heads. Their empty eye sockets held no pupils, were dark and deep, making them unfathomable and unfathomable to the countless gods and Buddhas in the sky.
But when the old enemy reappeared before them, the gods and Buddhas in the sky finally panicked, mispronouncing words in their chanting and their hands, which were held in front of their chests, began to tremble.
Because they had humiliated and cruelly abused these corpses, would those same methods be used against themselves? Nobody knows.
The clouds surged, and before the gods and Buddhas could even ponder, the corpses moved. There were no shouts, no roars, only silent footsteps as they stepped onto the auspicious clouds and rushed towards the group of gods and Buddhas.
The gods and Buddhas finally changed their expressions, their kind faces twisting into furious glares. They waved their sleeves, unleashing a blinding radiance of Buddha light, attempting to knock the approaching corpses back into the golden sea. But the moment the Buddha light touched them, the surging blue clouds and the rushing corpses, like the moon's reflection in water, shattered and reformed.
Like a monkey trying to catch the moon's reflection, it all comes to nothing in the end.
The giant Buddha in the center looked down at the gods and Buddhas below, who were overturned by the tide of corpses, their golden bodies stripped away, revealing rotten wood and decaying grass infested with insects.
With a soft sigh, the golden body, along with the surrounding world, disintegrated.
……
Inside the stone chamber, the Buddha's light flickered.
Huiming's hand, holding the net, froze in mid-air. Looking at Song Quyou under the bright moonlight, his handsome face finally lost its composure.
He muttered to himself, "How could he have obtained the Taiyin Mingxin Mirror? I've searched countless times and still couldn't get it. How could he have obtained it so easily?"
Covered in blood, Song Quyou's bright eyes lost their moon-like reflection. With a flick of his longsword, he snatched the net from the dazed Huiming.
Not daring to linger, Song Quyou rushed through the stone chamber and then flicked out a streak of azure sword energy, aiming straight for the necks of the monks.
Huiming's expression changed drastically, and he hurriedly stepped forward to try to stop the old monk and the other monks.
"Amitabha!"
Huiming was stopped by a pair of old, strong hands.
Before the sword energy even reached the old monk, it instantly disintegrated and vanished, turning into countless fireflies.
"Huiming, do you know your mistake?"
Huiming immediately put his hands together, knelt down in front of the old monk, and said, "Junior brother knows his mistake."
"Today's loss is all because of your stolen Taiyin Mingxin Mirror."
The old monk looked down at Huiming kneeling on the ground. The sword scars were still visible on his aged face, but there was no anger in his eyes. He only sighed softly.
"In that case, you shall be punished by continuing to compile the 'Chronicles of the Dragon King' here. You shall not leave the dungeon until the book is finished."
Huiming lowered his head and said nothing more.
The old monk, along with his fellow monks, went outside.
……
As Song Quyou climbed over the courtyard wall, carrying charcoal, he encountered two familiar figures walking on dry branches. One was his senior sister, Su Tang, and the other was dressed as a Taoist priest in a wide robe, holding a sword with dragon and tiger patterns. It turned out to be his senior brother, Wang Xuan.
Su Tang quickly stepped forward and helped Song Quyou up. The Taoist robe was soaked with sticky blood wherever she touched it.
"Junior brother!" Her voice was very low, but she couldn't hide the trembling in her throat.
"Don't worry, senior sister. Junior brother only has superficial injuries and his life is not in danger."
Black Charcoal peeked out of the net, shook his messy fur, and said, "This kid was almost converted in that group of monks' Golden Lotus Illusion, and almost became a new bald monk."
Wang Xuan stood to the side, gripping the Dragon Tiger Sword tightly, and said in a low voice, "Junior Sister, take Junior Brother down the mountain first. Senior Brother will be there shortly."
Su Tang nodded and helped Song Quyou down the mountain.
After breaking free of the net, Black Charcoal stayed behind and climbed onto Wang Xuan. "Your junior brother was bullied. What do you, as the senior brother, plan to do?"
Wang Xuan didn't speak, but instead carried his sword, stepped over the courtyard wall, and climbed to the top of the temple.
A rumble of thunder sounded, followed by a demand: "Monks of Lingfo Temple, come out here!"
As soon as he finished speaking, bolts of lightning descended from the sky, shattering rocks and collapsing houses wherever the silvery lightning struck.
Wang Xuan stood atop the palace roof. The night wind blew, causing his wide robes and sleeves to flutter. His Dragon Tiger Sword was drawn three inches from its sheath, and lightning bolts snaked along its spine.
Suddenly, a phantom image of a Buddha rose out of thin air from the temple below. The phantom image slowly solidified and turned into a golden Buddha statue that was a hundred feet tall.
"Who dares to disturb the tranquility of the Buddhist temple?"
"When you injured my junior brother, where was your Buddhist purity?"
Speaking of the Dragon Tiger Sword, its blade gleamed, crackling with lightning.
As Wang Xuan swung his sword at the golden phantom, a thunder dragon broke free from the sword's edge, growing rapidly in the wind until it reached a hundred feet in size. Its body crackled with electricity, its scales and claws were clearly defined, and its whiskers and eyes were bared in anger.
The thunder dragon collided with the hundred-foot-tall golden Buddha.
The Buddha's light and lightning intertwined, exploding into a shower of silver and gold fragments.
The golden Buddha clasped his hands together, and Buddhist light condensed into lotus flowers, layer upon layer, protecting his entire body. But the thunder dragon paid no heed to the lotus flowers or the Buddhist light; it opened its mouth and bit down, sweeping its tail, shattering the lotus flowers like glass falling to the ground.
Upon seeing the damage to the Buddha's body, the golden Buddha spoke in a voice like the resounding of a bronze bell: "Does the benefactor know what sin it is to destroy a Buddha?"
Wang Xuan burst into laughter, his voice louder than thunder: "Then do you know what crime it is to deceive the disciples of my Shenxiao Temple?"
The thunder dragon tore the lotus apart, its momentum undiminished. It bit into the golden Buddha's shoulder, its fangs piercing the golden body an inch deep, and lightning streamed in through the crack. The golden Buddha cried out in pain, and spiderweb-like cracks began to appear on the surface of its hundred-foot-tall body.
The old monk led a group of monks out of the main hall, looking up at Wang Xuan on the ceiling, blood still seeping from the sword wound between his brows.
"Does this benefactor truly intend to wage an eternal war against my Lingfo Temple?"
Wang Xuan held the Dragon-Tiger Sword horizontally in front of his chest, casting a half-light and half-shadow on his face, and retorted, "A fight to the death? You dare to challenge me?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Wang Xuan made a hand seal with his left hand, and a seal script with flashing blue, red and purple lightning appeared between his eyebrows. He then raised his sword in his right hand and pointed it to the sky.
Above the night sky, dark clouds suddenly gathered, and lightning surged within the clouds like a dragon swimming in an abyss. A moment later, a bolt of azure lightning as thick as a bucket struck down, hitting the golden Buddha's crown.
The golden Buddha statue shattered with a crash.
The hundred-foot-tall golden statue transformed into countless golden dust particles that fell like snowflakes and vanished without a trace.
The old monk felt as if he had been struck in the chest with a hammer, and a mouthful of blood turned into a red rain that shot out several feet away.
Wang Xuan, who had been standing high in the Buddhist hall, vanished from the rooftop in a flash, and reappeared before the old monk in an instant. His Dragon-Tiger Sword was pressed against the old monk's throat, its tip crackling with lightning.
The lightning flashed erratically at the tip of the sword, three inches from the old monk's throat, casting flickering light on his face, etched with the marks of time. The monks behind him held their breath, yet none dared to take a single step forward.
Black Charcoal whispered in Wang Xuan's ear about the things hidden in the underground stone chamber.
Wang Xuan's eyes turned slightly cold as the tip of his sword pierced the old monk's skin, drawing out a trace of blood.
The old monk slowly raised his eyes, blood still seeping from the sword wound left by Song Quyou between his brows. Suddenly, he laughed, his wrinkles deepening into deeper lines: "Does the benefactor think that beheading a golden Buddha and injuring an old monk is enough to settle this matter?"
Wang Xuan sneered: "You bunch of fake monks from the Western religion, always talking about Buddha, always thinking your own Buddha can represent all Buddhas in the world, always trying to drag all the monks in the world down with you. Emperor Wuzong of the previous dynasty destroyed your Western religion once, so why can't you destroy it again in the future?"
The old monk's smile remained unchanged as he let the blood in his throat flow down his neck: "Benefactor, you have quite the big mouth."
But have you ever considered that the previous dynasty's suppression of Buddhism destroyed the very foundation of our Western religion? Yet, only a few hundred years later, Lingfo Temple's incense offerings are even greater than before. Do you know why?
Wang Xuan remained silent.
"Because the true Buddha cannot save all people, but the Buddha of my Western religion can bring peace to the hearts of all people. As long as you pay a little money, you will have merit; as long as you burn incense, you will have merit. People have guilty consciences, how can my Western Buddhism not flourish?"
……
Lightning flashed and thunder roared above Lingfo Temple.
Su Tang tightened her grip on Song Quyou's hand. She turned to look at the lingering blue lightning deep within the temple, and couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, slowing her pace slightly.
"Senior sister, when did our eldest brother arrive in Qiantang?"
"I just arrived today. After meeting you in Qiantang, I sent a message back to the temple through Heitan. The eldest brother originally planned to come to Qiantang in a few months to meet and exchange ideas with the successors of other sects. After learning that the junior brother was also in Qiantang, he rushed over ahead of schedule."