Chapter 284
Chapter 284
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: [TBD]
Chapter Title: Fists of Reason at Moon-Grasping Hall
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The grounds of Qixia Temple weren't expansive. The enshrined deities were two bronze statues. The two hundred-zhang divine manifestations Chen Shi had glimpsed earlier were the extraordinary power that had coalesced within these bronze images after long years of fervent worship and thriving incense offerings.
Chen Shi entered the main hall, lit incense before the two bronze statues, and bowed in reverence. Only after seeing the statues accept his offerings did he finally relax.
He was a country boy at heart, and he held his Godmother's views in high regard.
Of course, if these two Godmothers proved ungrateful, Chen Shi wouldn't hesitate to drag them into his little shrine and let Lady Shishi give them a proper lesson.
An odd aura permeated Qixia Temple—ancient and profoundly weighty. The two bronze statues radiated the same aura.
Yu Lingzi said, "Qixia Temple was built atop ancient ruins. Many of its halls stand on those very foundations. These statues could be relics from the True King era, or perhaps prehistoric remnants."
Chen Shi asked, "You're a Daoist prodigy. Do you recognize them?"
Truth be told, the countryside was full of similar artifacts—origins unknown, ages forgotten.
Some were stone carvings, others bronze. There were wooden effigies of gods and demons, towering stone pagodas, bronze bell towers, ancient wells, or weathered steles. Many villages revered such objects as their Godmothers, not always living trees.
Whether remnants or True King era holdovers, prolonged villager worship awakened their spirituality. Over time, they gathered incense energy into extraordinary power, becoming local guardian Godmothers.
Yu Lingzi said, "Our Daoist records on the myriad gods are mostly lost, with only scattered scriptures surviving. Countless texts on Daoist deities have vanished.
My sect elders told me the first Daoists to reach West Ox New Continent brought many divine mounts. They disappeared without a trace."
Chen Shi asked, puzzled, "Divine mounts?"
Yu Lingzi explained, "The sacred steeds and soldiers nurtured by our Daoist ancestors, sustained by incense across generations, wielding divine might to this day."
Chen Shi understood at once—like Granny Sha's Five Ghost Kings.
The Five Ghost Kings weren't particularly mighty, but had Granny Sha passed them to heirs with unbroken incense rites, handed down generation after generation and worshipped for millennia, they could surely ascend to god-demon levels.
That was the origin of these ancestral divine mounts.
Taihua Azure Palace must have imported plenty from Huaxia Divine Continent to safeguard the palace and suppress West Ox New Continent's evils and fiends.
Yet why had they vanished?
Why did even Taihua Azure Palace lack any record of their disappearance?
Yu Lingzi led him to meet Fan Kongliu and the others. "Yesterday, I discussed this with my three uncles. They said your grandfather once came to Taihua Azure Palace and pored over those
scriptures. He sought the lost deities to revive the Luotian Grand Rite, Zhoutian Grand Rite, and Putian Grand Rite. No one knows if he succeeded."
Chen Shi recalled the Luotian Grand Rite Grandpa had passed to him. "Grandpa half-succeeded, but my troubles got in the way."
Yu Lingzi blinked in confusion. "Your troubles?"
"I died," Chen Shi said.
Yu Lingzi remembered then: Chen Shi, the boy genius scholar, whose innate Dao embryo had been carved out, dooming him to a gruesome death after the county exams.
Chen Yindu had been probing the True King era's end and the gods' decline when he heard the news. He rushed over, went berserk, massacred Xijing, then devoted himself to reviving Chen Shi until his lifespan ebbed away and he died an old man in Huangpo Village.
They reached Qixia Temple's rear courtyard. Chen Shi looked up to see a white jade path rising from the earth, stretching into the sky.
No more than three or four zhang long and a scant foot and a half wide, it hung unsupported in midair.
Yet this slender white jade path supported an entire palace hall, standing steady and unshakable.
The path evoked an ineffably ancient presence.
As Chen Shi climbed it, the hall ahead felt less like a building and more like a gateway to some enigmatic realm.
"This white jade path is likely a prehistoric relic," Yu Lingzi said. "Legend holds that during Xijing's founding, a white-robed celestial appeared at its far end each night, hand outstretched to mortals—as if inviting them to ascend as immortals."
"Many in Xijing fell for her allure," he continued. "They climbed the path, seized her hand at its end... and vanished. Rumors say
she wasn't a true immortal, but a ghost immortal. Those she took weren't enlightened—they were devoured, transformed into ghosts."
Before Yu Lingzi could finish, a resonant voice boomed from above. "Disappearances mounted until the Cabinet's Grand Secretary ordered Moon-Grasping Hall built to suppress the path. The white-clothed ghost immortal never appeared again. This monk dwells here hoping to glimpse her after dusk. Alas, my wish remains unfulfilled."
Chen Shi, rapt, asked, "What happened next?"
He looked up to see a white-robed monk at Moon-Grasping Hall's entrance, smiling down at them.
This was Fan Kongliu of Water Moon Sanctuary, famed for his romantic entanglements with Xijing's women—yet his Buddhist arts were profound, his cultivation formidable.
Fan Kongliu wore flowing white robes, his bald pate gleaming, skin pale and flawless, nose aquiline, features handsome yet blending masculine resolve with a hint of allure. Barefoot, he approached with a one-handed salute. "Fan Kongliu greets Benefactor Chen."
Chen Shi advanced to Moon-Grasping Hall.
Fan Kongliu eyed him steadily. "Yu Lingzi's ever the hothead, can't sit still. Yesterday, hearing of Shen Hongniang's mishap, he dashed off to find you. Word is you injured him for it. Benefactor Chen, this monk demands justice for Yu Lingzi today!"
Yu Lingzi bristled with fury, itching to retort—it was Fan Kongliu who'd egged him on—but the words stuck, fueling his rage.
Chen Shi asked, "Fan Kongliu, what art do you practice?"
Fan Kongliu smiled faintly. "My master bestowed the Buddha Crown Victory Dharani Sutra upon me. I've cultivated it ever since."
Chen Shi mulled it over. "It includes the World-Honored One Golden Body. How far have you progressed? How does it stack against the Shanti Golden Body or Great Reward Nation Temple's?"
Fan Kongliu grew solemn. "No difference in attainment. But Great Reward Nation Temple's derives from a mere golden bodhisattva. Ours in Water Moon Sanctuary traces to Shakyamuni himself. Our canon, the Finger Moon Record, tells how Boundless Body Bodhisattva beheld the World-Honored One's golden form and snapped a sixteen-foot bamboo to measure its sixteen-foot height. He measured sixteen feet after sixteen feet—from the desire realms to the Brahma heavens—yet never reached the crown."
He smiled. "A sixteen-foot golden body, limited to sixteen feet? How could a bodhisattva's compare to the World-Honored One's?"
Yu Lingzi scratched his head, thinking, *Uncle Chen came to talk sense, not debate golden bodies!*
Chen Shi said, "I'll give you time to invoke your World-Honored One Golden Body. My strikes come fast—most foes lack time to prepare before I end them."
Fan Kongliu frowned suspiciously at Yu Lingzi. "What's this about?"
Even as he asked, he activated it.
The World-Honored One Golden Body was a sixteen-foot form, roughly sixteen feet tall. But activation cloaked it in a nascent soul or spirit force field: the closer the foe approached, the vaster it loomed. Up close within the field, it towered like Mount Sumeru—invincible!
Worse, it retained its sixteen-foot scale, preserving blinding speed.
Foes faced not just immensity, but that colossus hurtling at impossible velocity, pulverizing them in the next instant! The sixteen-foot golden body was battle-tested Buddhist wisdom.
Combat proved it optimal: tall enough for reach, nimble enough for agility. Shorter lacked menace; taller sacrificed coordination.
Fan Kongliu's erupted—his frame elongating in segmented surges, tall and lean, skin gleaming gold with inner radiance.
His spirit field brimmed with sacred glows, his face compassionate, eyes fixed on Yu Lingzi. "What's the meaning of this? You bring Chen Shi to fight me? Explain yourself today!"
Guilt gnawed Yu Lingzi; he opened his mouth—but Chen Shi bellowed, "Explain your granny!"
Thunder crashed inside Moon-Grasping Hall. Yu Lingzi's ears rang as if blasted point-blank, deaf to all else. The air evacuated; space warped.
Chen Shi's fist shattered Fan Kongliu's spirit field, surging to his abdomen amid thunderous ripples. Fan Kongliu countered with a Buddha-seal palm—but as Chen Shi struck, spine bones erupted along his back, foiling the blow!
Fan Kongliu reeled backward, toppling a bucket-thick bronze pillar before slamming the wall!
Chen Shi shadowed him, snapping a kick to the golden monk's groin. Even indestructible vajra frailty twisted his face! The impact bulged the rear wall outward.
Chen Shi's hands knifed into the kidneys at his waist.
Unbearable agony lanced through; ruptured organs spelled death.
Fan Kongliu contorted, knees buckling. The downward force cracked the floor; Moon-Grasping Hall listed sideways! Desperate, he yanked free, steadied, and intoned a mantra.
The World-Honored One Golden Body required an eighteen-syllable incantation—a seal in itself. His first syllable died unspoken as Chen Shi's fist crushed his larynx.
One blow. Throat shattered.
Chen Shi's knee smashed his jaw; Fan Kongliu's skull nearly flew off, head snapping back—till Chen Shi's sweeping leg clipped his neck!
*Thud!*
He cratered the opposite wall. Moon-Grasping Hall quaked, fissures spiderwebbing. Fan Kongliu clawed to rise—Chen Shi pinned his hand, flattening him.
"Not bad, World-Honored One Golden Body—a top second-rate art. Surviving my barrage? Impressive." Chen Shi seized a finger, wrenched back. Fan Kongliu screamed; it snapped.
Another finger. *Snap.*
Yu Lingzi watched aghast, realizing how merciful Chen Shi had been yesterday.
Silently, Chen Shi snapped all five, shifted his foot over the writhing monk to the other hand. "Now, let's talk reason."
He gripped a finger, pausing. "You sicced Yu Lingzi on me at Guangji Library yesterday?"
Sweat beaded Fan Kongliu's brow. Hoarsely, "Benefactor Chen, why say that? Brother Yu Lingzi—did this monk utter a word yesterday urging you after him?"
Yu Lingzi wavered, then shook his head. "No... but you implied..."
Fan Kongliu gritted out, "I never said it outright! Benefactor Chen, see reason..." *Crack!*
Chen Shi snapped it, seized the next. "And your flings with all those women."
Pain-tears streamed. "For their sakes, Benefactor Chen! You misunderstand Buddhism. We practice body almsgiving—bodhisattvas incarnate as women, offering flesh to sever mortal lusts. Post-act, desire dies; they convert. My bodhisattva path gifts my body to quench their fires! Where's the sin?"
*Crack!*
Chen Shi broke it. "Shen Hongniang lined up plenty for you. So you used Yu Lingzi to probe me! Admit it?"
"This monk..."
Fan Kongliu's eyes bulged, darting wildly. Two denials, two breaks—denial meant pain!
"You're right. Shen Hongniang brokered conversions, but I distrusted her hold on it! A leak would shame Buddhism. I used you to eliminate her, repaying the favor. Didn't know your power—wanted no direct clash."
He spilled it all. "Yu Lingzi's naive, so I prodded him yesterday. But I'm not alone—others are involved too! Others!"
*Crack!*
Third finger gone; Fan Kongliu writhed near death. Chen Shi stepped over the sixteen-foot form. Fan Kongliu exhaled shakily—then Chen Shi said, "Yu Lingzi, you're up."
Yu Lingzi's rage ignited. He stomped the hand, clutched the last two fingers Chen Shi-style, yanked viciously! *Crack! Crack!*
Fan Kongliu blacked out. "Satisfied?" Chen Shi asked. "Xijing's great, save one flaw: no casual killing. Else we'd send this lecher to bliss right here."
Yu Lingzi paled, waving frantically. "I'm good! Done!"
Chen Shi sighed wistfully, heading out. "Fan Kongliu's settled. Next: Li Tiangan, Ma Xueqing, the rest." As he spoke, Moon-Grasping Hall shuddered. They bolted; atop the white jade path, it collapsed behind in thunderous ruin! The temple's guest master hurried over—but Blackie Pot's glare made it seem trivial.
Chen Shi eyed the path's end eagerly. "Tonight, that white-clothed fairy might appear... Yu Lingzi, hurry—let's hunt the others!"
Yu Lingzi gaped. "You're still beating them?"
Chen Shi descended leisurely. "Reason persuades best when backed by a thrashing. Untouched, why submit?"