Chapter 107
Chapter 107
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 107
>Chapter Title: Beginning
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Jingxin's hands, with dirt crammed under her fingernails, reached into the lacquered box and scooped out the pair of blood-red eyes, gently kneading them.
“Hehe, this is truly a good thing.”
She held one egg-sized red eyeball in each hand and suddenly slapped them into the pitch-black sockets of her own eyes.
When she lowered her hands again, the blood-red eyes had a new owner.
“Thank you, I can finally see again.”
The bloated, ugly, toothless old nun now sported a pair of huge, lidless blood-red eyes on her face—an unnerving sight that made everyone else in the room deeply uncomfortable.
“Senior Brother Li, is she really a good person? She doesn’t seem like one...” Bai Lingmiao whispered to Li Huowang from behind him.
“Shh, don’t talk,” Surprisingly, Li Huowang wasn’t all that shocked by Jingxin’s actions.
After going through so many things unconsciously, his tolerance had grown tremendously.
With a grave expression, Li Huowang looked at the creepy old face before him and spoke.
“We have the item now. When do we start driving out Danyangzi?”
“What’s the rush? Young people are always so impatient.” After Jingxin spoke, Li Huowang heard movement behind him. Turning his head, he saw a row of fat nuns, swaying drunkenly and belching.
“What are they doing? Planning to burn the bridge after crossing it?!” Li Huowang instinctively pressed his hand to the *Great Thousand Records*.
But their actions quickly made Li Huowang realize he’d misunderstood. The nuns were actually tearing down the wall with their bare hands.
Abbess Jingxin’s body was too massive, and the door too small. To get out, they had to demolish the wall.
Once the entire wall was cleared away, the nuns pushed over a wooden platform on wheels—Abbess Jingxin’s means of transport.
Under everyone’s gaze, Abbess Jingxin writhed like a gigantic fat worm, inching toward the cart one twist at a time.
After struggling for a while, she irritably snapped at Li Huowang beside her.
“You really have no manners. Aren’t you eager to shake off your master? Why aren’t you anxious? Can’t you see I move slowly? Come push!”
With everyone’s help, Abbess Jingxin was finally hoisted onto the cart. As the axles creaked into motion, the other fat nuns pushed her forward.
Once free of the heavy flesh, Li Huowang reached into the spots she couldn’t scratch and gave them a good itch.
Stepping back a few paces, he watched the bloated Abbess Jingxin surrounded by the cluster of fat nuns. For some reason, she struck him as a Buddha statue at that moment.
“Buddha statues are just statues. Becoming a true Buddha isn’t that easy. Hurry up and follow.”
Hearing this, Li Huowang stepped forward to keep pace.
The nuns didn’t push Abbess Jingxin toward the temple gate. Instead, they headed deeper into the unexplored depths of An’ci Nunnery.
“Take your hand off that *Great Thousand Records*. We’ll let it slide this time, but never bring something like that into the nunnery again. It’s far too unlucky.”
Though Jingxin’s tone dripped with disgust, Li Huowang paid it no mind right then. His head was filled with thoughts of what was to come.
“What method will the ritual to remove Danyangzi use? Is it guaranteed to work?” Li Huowang asked, a trace of anxiety in his voice.
“Isn’t it a bit late to be asking that? Relax, An’ci Nunnery keeps its word. If you can’t trust us, you sure can’t trust anyone else.”
Abbess Jingxin’s words did nothing to calm Li Huowang’s heart. From the moment he’d realized Danyangzi was always clinging to him, he’d been waiting for this day.
Now that the crushing weight on his shoulders could finally be lifted, a thousand thoughts raced through his mind.
“Don’t celebrate too soon. Your master may be trouble, but you’re still a heart elemental—that’s the real issue.”
Li Huowang’s heart sank at her words.
“Abbess, don’t be so absolute. You never found a way, but that doesn’t mean I won’t.”
The abbess laughed upon hearing this.
“You think you’re the only one who’s thought that? Every other heart elemental has. And they all end up more or less the same.”
Li Huowang’s brows furrowed as he opened his mouth, then stopped. He took a deep breath and said:
“Doesn’t matter—we have to try, right? Do you really think living in a daze like Yu’er is for the best? I don’t.”
Abbess Jingxin’s expression fell. She reached into her folds of fat and pulled out her son, cradling him gently against her chest and gazing pityingly at his aged face.
“Sigh... What can I do about him like this? As his mother, all I can do is keep him alive.”
Li Huowang reached over and gently stroked the old man’s withered white hair, his eyes reflecting the exact same tenderness as the abbess’s.
The other medicine primers and nuns all looked toward the shrunken-limbed elder as well.
Gazing at the old man, Li Huowang spoke slowly in an even voice.
“I still remember when he was little, tottering toward me. So adorable.”
The abbess nodded, then her face twisted in pain.
“It’s hard to say what’s right or wrong anymore. Back in the hallucination, seeing my mother kneeling before me... it really clogged up my heart.”
The abbess’s pain seemed contagious, spreading across the faces of everyone around her.
“Sigh...” Everyone present let out a soft sigh in unison, the atmosphere growing oppressively heavy.
Accompanied by this mood, the little cart creaked onward. Before long, from the left ahead, another massive, bloated old nun was wheeled out.
Li Huowang looked at her with a hint of disdain.
“Junior Sister Jingyuan, can you hurry it up? Danyangzi’s altering my perceptions every moment.”
“What’s the rush? We’ve waited this long—why skimp on a little more time? If you’d come sooner, would you even need to save these moments?”
As Jingyuan spoke, she picked up a moldy rice cake from the ground and shoved it into her mouth.
Jingyuan wasn’t the first. Soon, a second and third bloated old nun were wheeled out on their wooden carts. In the end, including Jingxin, six old nuns were brought out.
Surrounded by them, Li Huowang and the others arrived at a depression where a black, writhing giant Buddha statue over ten meters tall loomed.
As they drew close, a buzzing hum arose. The black, writhing Buddha was actually piled from countless green-headed flies.
“My stomach’s acting up a bit. Mind waiting for me?” Li Huowang clutched his belly and asked.
“Quit stalling. Get on with it—you think it’s easy for us to come out?” Jingxin fished a string of gleaming prayer beads from her fat and tossed them over.
Li Huowang caught them deftly and, twirling the beads, began chanting obscure, guttural sutras under his breath.
(End of chapter)