The hands floating in the water were even more delicate than the hands of the most beautiful woman in the world. The pale, white skin was glowing slightly in the black sea water. The light from these hands made people’s hearts flutter, stunning them with their beauty. It looked like boneless water grass. Even a man with a heart as tough as iron would inevitably get tempted and distracted by them.
But hands like these should not have appeared in this place.
When peerlessly beautiful things appeared at an inappropriate place, the mind would certainly become less bewitched.
Especially when these hands touched his skin simultaneously. They were charming, yet they brought a sense of horror at the same time.
Yun Weisi turned around, having suffered an injury.
As he had been concentrating on his thoughts rather than surroundings, his reaction was a bit slow.
He saw a woman standing behind his back.
She was ineffably beautiful.
One could say that her beauty outshined the moon and put flowers to shame, and could even cause a downfall of a country. However, it would be difficult to use particular words, like “a woman with a rosebud mouth”, to describe her appearance. The reason for this was that her features embodied the dreams of every beautiful maiden, and a lament to the Heavens for having created such an outstanding creation, because in her presence, any woman would be outshadowed and discarded away.
But this face belonged to an evil spirit from the Abyss.
Her long hair was floating in the water, almost merging with it. Under her slender neck, more than ten hands framed her fair nude chest from either side, dancing and grabbing at thin air. These abnormally long hands with sharp nails had tasted the sweetness of blood, and rushed at Yun Weisi again.
The Chunzhao Sword moved faster than Yun Weisi’s body.
As soon as he thought of it, the sword flew forwards, slashing at the nearest arm. Yun Weisi used this chance to retreat, moving a bit further backwards to see the enemy better from a distance.
The lower half of this woman’s body was connected to seaweed so long he could not see their roots. They were wavering together with the water, but never failed to fling themselves at him. Her long nails were almost leaving marks in the water. The wound that Yun Weisi had received earlier had started to burn hot from pain, which meant that these long curved nails were laced with deadly poison.
The arm that had been cut off by the Chunzhao Sword was growing back at a rapid rate, and very soon, it had reached its original length.
This monster had an immortal body.
If even the Chunzhao Sword could not slash her, what else could?
Yun Weisi frowned. The woman moved again quickly, and her hair turned into countless vines, throwing themselves at Yun Weisi’s limbs to bind them. His spiritual power kept on carving at them relentlessly, but some fish had escaped the net, wrapping around his limbs tightly and cutting through his skin, sucking away at his flesh and blood. His spiritual power rushed at them again forcibly.
Kept on carving relentlessly: unflagging efforts
However, like maggots feeding on bones, the vines never interrupted the assault.
Sword, come!
Yun Weisi recited a sword technique, and the Chunzhao Sword flew into his hand.
He brandished the sword!
The true sword intention had no need to be gaudy. Wherever the sword glow falls, every creature bows its head, as the sword sweeps away any obstacle.
Sword intention: (from zhidao & zhihu) intention here means wish, goal, determination and other subjective feelings like this. The intention of a sword depends on and follows the will of its owner. If a person has reached the state where his sword reflects his own mind, his skills must be unprecedentedly high
A glaring light had enveloped his body, and even the temptress was forced to retreat more than a zhang back. As she stared at it with shock, the sword sliced her into pieces, and the pieces drifted apart in the water.
But there was no blood.
The pieces seemed to have been pulled back together by an invisible force, and she merged back gradually, restoring her original appearance once again.
When the beauty appeared in front of him once again, showing him a smile, Yun Weisi no longer considered her attractive.
That was the most evil spirit in the world, a demon that was the best at beguiling people away from the righteous path.
She opened and closed her mouth, as if talking to him.
Obviously, not a single sound came out of it, but Yun Weisi could hear it in his heart.
“You can’t kill me because you have a demon in your heart.”
She came to Yun Weisi unhurriedly, her hair binding him once again. It was soft and tender, like the gentle soothing of a lover.
“You think you have this demonic qi under control, but you are mistaken. It is always here, and if it’s triggered at the right moment, it will appear again there, in your human world. Take a guess, what will happen next?”
The tempress’ hands touched Yun Weisi.
This time, she did not attack him with her nails, because that would have woken him up and let him strike back. Her hair, wrapped around his body, was emitting an intoxicating fragrance.
Yun Weisi’s eyes betrayed his confusion, and his movements slowed down. Obviously, he had started to lose himself to the delusion.
The fragrance was getting stronger, lingering near the tip of his nose and flowing inside him slowly.
“When a forcibly suppressed fire ignites for a second time, it will only cause more destruction. Look at the palm of your hand, hasn’t the red line reappeared?”
Yun Weisi lowered his head in a daze, and vaguely saw the red line that had been subdued by Changming earlier. Now, it was going down to his palm again, winding in all possible ways, wriggling and elongating one turn after another, twisting into an unsolvable labyrinth.
When did this new one appear?
Was it when he could not find his shizun wherever he looked, maintaining a calm appearance yet feeling anxious in his heart? Or was it when the flame was raging in his mind, but he had no way to vent out his troubles?
What the Mirror Stand of Karma reflected was neither the past nor the present life, but the depth of one’s mind, their inner demons they would never mention willingly.
The temptress smiled seductively, but one of her hands had reached out to his back, moved up silently, and then was raised high up—right above his head!
This man’s brain, his flesh and blood, she wanted to have everything!
Suddenly, she froze, her expression panic-stricken!
The confusion on Yun Weisi had cleared away, replaced with his usual completely indifferent expression.
The Chunzhao Sword slashed down to her head, splitting it in half. Her astonished face distorted, becoming ferocious and violent. She opened her mouth, but before she could utter a single word, the blinding sword glow reduced her to dust.
The hair-like sea grass had lost its support, and fell away from Yun Weisi’s body, tumbling into the deepest abyss, right to the bottom of the sea.
Several locks of the hair were unwilling to relent, and still clung to him, putting up a last-ditch struggle. They wanted to use the rest of the fragrance to lead his mind astray.
This time, Yun Weisi did not manage to react in time, and was a bit absent-minded.
His hands, that were about to pull on the hair, dropped down helplessly. The sword seemed to have reflected his inner state, its glow slowly turning dim.
The alarm bells were ringing deep inside his mind, but his body refused to comply. Yun Weisi had trouble breathing, struggling against his instincts on the verge of losing his consciousness, choosing between his Dao heart and his Demon heart.
Yun Weisi! Yun Weisi!
Open your eyes, it’s me!
A voice reverberated in his ears, and Yun Weisi opened his eyes abruptly!
The hair that was tying up his body had fallen off, and the person who had grabbed him instead was quickly pulling him upwards.
The dull Chunzhao Sword brightened up once again.
This deep sea seemed to have demonic powers in its water, as it could pull people down quickly. But, when a cultivator was fully conscious, the sea had no way to compete against them.
Very soon, Yun Weisi was half-dragged, half-pulled to the surface of the water, leaving the territory permeated with the toxic fragrance.
“Are you alright?” Changming said.
Yun Weisi shook his head, grabbing his hand tightly, as if to determine whether whom he was seeing was not an illusion.
Changming understood him, laughed, and did not shake his hand off.
They were drenched after leaving the water, but, unexpectedly, the air was scorching hot. They did not even need to waste their spiritual powers as their clothes had promptly dried up.
“I saw you just now.”
But Changming’s words could not get through to Yun Weisi, while his spiritual powers had been sealed away. He had thought of another method, the one he had used on Yun Weisi once, when the latter was starting to tread the path of cultivation. But Changming was not sure whether Yun Weisi remembered it.
As it turned out, he did. Had Yun Weisi not broken the mirror swiftly, they would have been separated once more, and no one could have predicted how long it would take for them to meet again.
“There’s something strange about this place.”
Changming sighed, got up to his feet and brushed the moisture off his sleeves, while looking around.
“I’ve also seen Xu Jingxian, but hesitated for a moment, and failed to rescue her in time. Haven’t you set off to find the source of the mysterious light? Why are you here?”
Yun Weisi did not answer him for a while, so Changming had to turn his head and look at him.
“Yun Weisi?”
Yun Weisi pulled himself together and hummed in response.
His palm was burning slightly, and he hid it in his sleeve subconsciously.
His mind was gradually calming down, and even this burn was not hurting that vividly.
The words that the temptress had said were still ringing in his ears, but he ignored it subconsciously, or, perhaps, on purpose.
“Sun Buku said that this place is a world created in imitation of the Eighteen Hells.”
Yun Weisi followed the voice.
In the impenetrable darkness, this voice sounded close by, as if he only needed to reach out his hand towards it, but, at the same time, it also sounded as far away as if it was at the edge of the heavens.
“We have three options now,” Sun Buku said, “Either we continue going up or down, or we jump from the staircase, or—”
“Chop them down.”
As soon as Yun Weisi finished speaking, he made a prompt decision, and quickly moved. His sword appeared next to Sun Buku at once.
Sun Buku did not waste his breath either. He raised his Buddhist cane, aiming his attacks at the stone staircase.
“Every appearance is nothing more than a lie!”
His cane quickly landed, and a golden burst of light blew up the stone stairs, breaking them into tiny pieces. The whole staircase, starting from the point where they stood, crumbled, falling into the boundless void. The two of them now had no surface to stand on, yet they did not fall down either.
The Chunzhao Sword and the cane were protecting them from behind, enveloping them with dim spiritual powers, preventing the two of them from dropping down into the bottomless chasm like these crushed stones. After some time, when they had almost gotten used to treading on air with no place to step on, Yun Weisi felt his feet touching the ground.
In a moment, Sun Buku ah-ed lightly.
“Of course, just as I anticipated.”
What were you anticipating?
Yun Weisi kept his eyes closed, listening to the sounds near them. But he soon realized that this place was almost completely silent, and not a single noise apart from their robes fluttering with the air reached his ear.
But there was light under their feet.
“Look, what is this?” he heard Sun Buku say.
Yun Weisi lowered his head. The source of this light was a smooth stone surface.
It did not resemble stone—rather, it looked like a mirror.
The flat mirror was faintly glowing, but he could not tell what kind of light it was at a glance. He felt with his feet that the surface was smooth, and if one was not alert, they could easily fall.
“What is it?” Yun Weisi thought that Sun Buku probably knew.
“Have you heard of the Mirror Stand of Karma that separates yin from yang, seeing through one’s fate before and after death?”
“The Mirror Stand of Karma,” Yun Weisi mulled over these words, “Why would the Mirror Stand of Karma of the Eighteen Hells be here?”
Sun Buku’s intonation was partly amused, partly astonished, and partly lamenting.
“I didn’t expect them to turn the insides of the Buddha’s Drum of Kui Pattern into the Eighteen Hells of Buddhism either. The drum is truly mysterious!”
Yun Weisi: “No matter how mysterious it is, it shouldn’t be more profound than the Nine Layers of the Abyss.”
“Naturally, they’re different. The Nine Layers of the Abyss is a formation that Chi Bijiang had set to be the core, and it’s an enormous place that embraces thousands of things of this world, stretching far and wide and overturning the universe—nothing should surprise you there. Humans, demons, spirits and immortals flock to join that place, and the weak fall prey to the strong. Although it’s not easy to leave it, it became the land of happiness for certain people. But everyone who has fallen into these Eighteen Hells suffers calamities and goes through trials, ensnared by the sins they have committed. First, one has to reveal their mistakes in front of the Mirror Stand of Karma, and it will decide where in the Eighteen Hells they are to be tortured,” Sun Buku seemed deeply interested, “Who would have expected the Wanlian Buddhist Temple to have such wild ambitions!”
Yun Weisi’s thoughts were still on Changming, and he honestly did not understand Sun Buku’s excitement.
In other words, he could never sympathize with Sun Buku.
But now the two of them were trapped in one place, so Yun Weisi could only put his trust into Sun Buku’s reliability for the time being.
“You’ve been guarding the Nine Layers of the Abyss for many years, so surely you know that there’s only one thing that can allow one to leave it—find the core of the formation. This rule is the same for this place.”
Sun Buku walked near the Mirror Stand of Karma and hit it slightly with his cane. He used enough force to make the stone crack, but the mirror surface under their feet did not even tremble, remaining as smooth as ever.
“Take a guess, where is the heart of this formation? Is it really the Wanlian Buddhist Temple, or is everything just a part of the Buddha’s Drum of Kui Pattern?”
The Qingyun School and the Wanlian Buddhist Temple were both large Buddhist clans, but there was little in common between them. The Qingyun School was even disgusted with the Wanlian Buddhist Temple in secret because the latter often engaged in secular matters, coveting having authority in the world of common people. Hence, for the past hundred or so years, it had been quite difficult to snatch a talented person from the secular world, and even the one who claimed to be the best in martial arts, Fozun Shenjue, had joined the Wanlian Buddhist Temple. Unexpectedly, he was defeated by Yun Weisi once, even though Yun Weisi was not the revered Daozun Yun Weisi at that time.
But the You Capital worshipped Buddhism, and the Wanlian Buddhist Temple’s influence could not be shaken easily. Everybody from the Son of the Heavens to the commoners would offer flowers and burn incense on the fifteenth day of every month, and almost every nook and cranny of the city would be full of the scent of sandalwood.
For reasons unknown, Sun Buku never liked the Wanlian Buddhist Temple. He even avoided it subconsciously when he came to the You Capital, and had never set foot on their grounds.
But now, in order to investigate the late school head’s death, and the rebellion of their disciple Bei Shu, he had come to these lands, following the threads of the spider web.
Now it seemed that what he had been avoiding was not the Wanlian Buddhist Temple, but the Buddha’s Drum of Kui Pattern.
This thing was an ancient treasure. An incorporeal force was putting pressure on them from all four directions. Those who obeyed it could survive, but those who went against it perished, and Sun Buku did not want to face it.
He had gone around in circles, but he could not avoid it in the end.
“I can’t guess it.”
Obviously, Yun Weisi was a bad companion. He had no interest in playing along with Sun Buku, and was still trying to figure out the mystery of the mirror surface.
Cries for help were coming from afar as before, but they could not determine the source of that sound. The voice crying out had abruptly risen, turning into a long and sharp shriek full of terror, before quickly going silent.
At the same moment, Yun Weisi observed the mirror platform change. He vaguely saw an image of someone being killed, but it was neither him nor Sun Buku.
The mirror image was gradually getting clearer.
The arms of that person had been stretched out, and were bound with an iron chain, so that he could not move at all. His hair was dishevelled and his body was full of blood stains.
Yun Weisi’s heart suddenly ached, as if something had squeezed it with force. He almost stopped breathing.
He thought it was Changming!
But after looking more carefully, he realized that the man was not Changming.
That was—
Zhou Keyi?
“The master of the Jianxue Clan?”
Sun Buku recognised him as well. He squatted to feel the surface of the stone mirror.
As if Zhou Keyi noticed this, he slightly raised his hand.
The scene that the mirror was reflecting turned clear little by little, and they could now see Zhou Keyi’s agonized expression.
There were stone lotuses clustered around his feet. But these lotuses were grey all over, and seemed relaxed and unhurried, as if they were slowly drawing nutrients from Zhou Keyi’s body.
Zhou Keyi’s expression was as pale as death, as if he was one step away from losing his life.
There was despair and weakness showing in his eyes. He seemed to be looking at them, but at the same time seeing purely imaginary, distant places.
To save him or not to save him?
If they moved, they could very easily fall into a similar situation. Before they had the matter figured out, even though they had high cultivation levels, they would never dare to underestimate the capabilities of the Buddha’s Drum of Kui Pattern.
While the two of them were hesitating, the scene slowly changed once again.
This time, it was Xu Jingxian.
She was encircled by countless shining slivers of light. They seemed exceedingly beautiful, but she looked as if she was confronting a mortal enemy. She was brandishing her thin silk repeatedly to dispel the vivid lights.
The lights flew off, and the two of them saw that those were not lights, but the eyes of poisonous snakes.
These creatures had a quicker reaction than ordinary snakes, and were way more resilient. Under the attack of Xu Jingxian’s spiritual powers, many of them dropped to the ground, but did not die. They swarmed towards her slowly, and charged at her suddenly when she was caught off guard. Their fangs even broke through her protection barrier, and bit her back, making her shed a stream of blood.
“These are not ordinary snakes, but rather evil spirits. Buddhists call them ‘unrelenting wrath’. Rumors have it that in the third layer of Eighteen Hells, the Binding Iron Tree, people who have gone against one of certain precepts of Buddhism, who have fallen into wrath or debauchery, are being tortured there. But the last unrelenting wrath in this world was taken down by Fozun Xu Tiancang, the founder of Buddhist sects.”
Wrath: one of ‘the three poisons’ in Buddhism, that is, one of the three things that cause sufferings
Why would one appear here?
Could it be that even nonexistent creatures could appear as illusions in these Eighteen Hells inside the Buddha’s Drum of Kui Pattern?
No, this was not a world of illusions!
Sun Buku quickly rejected his own guess.
Sun Buku was not an ordinary disciple of a Buddhist sect. His sect used to possess a Buddha’s Drum of Kui Pattern, and he was the only great talent of the Qingyun School. He had seen and touched it himself, and even felt a natural connection with the Buddha’s Drum of Kui Pattern. He knew that this place was not an illusion, but reality.
Then where did these unrelenting wraths come from? Or was everything written in Buddhist scriptures a lie?
Without thinking much, Yun Weisi lowered his hand. However, he was half a step too late, and the Xu Jingxian from the mirror stand had already disappeared.
And was replaced by the previous grey stone surface of the mirror.
Yun Weisi had decided that mere strategy would be useless when confronted with an absolute force, so he called for his Chinzhao Sword. The sword appeared right above the mirror stand, ready to thrust into it.
“Wait!”
Sun Buku stopped him.
“It seems that there’s something going on underneath, listen!”
Knock, knock-knock.
Knock-knock-knock, knock-knock.
Regularly accented beats were heard, as if someone was knocking from the other side of the mirror stand.
“Who is there?” Sun Buku asked.
The knocking sound stopped, but soon started again.
Knock-knock-knock, knock-knock. Knock.
This time, it seemed as if it was trying to convey a message.
Yun Weisi’s expression froze. The sword light that was about to bear down on the mirror swiftly retreated.
It’s Shizun.
Knock-knock-knock, knock-knock. Knock.
This had happened many years ago.
The exact time it happened was during the second year of his apprenticeship at the Yuhuang Temple.
Shizun had told him to meditate in the yard to attempt to gain insight into the matters of this world.
Yun Weisi had still been very impulsive at that time. He had closed his eyes, and every sound he had heard would turn into noise that made him anxious, and he had been stretched like a bow, unable to relax.
After he had spent half a day fruitlessly, his shizun finally came out, and sat across from him.
Knock-knock-knock, knock-knock. Knock.
Shizun had tapped on the wooden corridor under the eaves.
Do you know what that means? Shizun had asked him.
Naturally, Yun Weisi shook his head.
Think about it carefully.
Shizun had said this one line, clapped his hands and left.
Yun Weisi had spent countless days and nights, imitating the rhythm of Shizun’s knocking, and trying to figure out the mysterious meaning of the sound.
But he had lost hope.
Even if he put his ear against the slabs, he could only hear ants crawling underneath, raindrops trickling down the eaves and falling onto the steps, and wildflowers blooming slowly. Little by little, Yun Weisi had stopped torturing himself by trying to guess Shizun’s profound meaning, and had gotten carried away with listening to the living creatures of the yard. Gradually, his mind had settled down as well, and, contrary to his expectations, he had managed to break through the barriers in many techniques he had been failing to understand previously for a month.
Afterwards, he had asked Shizun about the actual meaning of those knocks.
Shizun had answered, The Dao begets one, one begets two, two begets three, and three begets the universe.
The Dao begets one, one begets two, two begets three, and three begets the universe: from Dao De Jing, 42, the transformations of the Dao. There exist different explanations of this statement. For example, ‘one is the Void, two are Yin and Yang, three are Heaven, Earth, and Man’.
This rhythm made Yun Weisi recall these memories in a split-second.
The tip of his sword fell, following his will, and entered the mirror stand!
Boom!
The mirror stand burst into small pieces!
But the one standing beneath it was not the person Yun Weisi had wanted to see the most.
The two of them fell right into an ice-cold sea. A salty wave surged up towards them, and the water entered their mouths and noses, submerging them underneath!
Amidst this total chaos, several slim hands slowly reached them from behind, following the surging waves, and touched Yun Weisi’s shoulders.
Serene, weak and amourous music reached their ears, making them sink into fond dreams.
Obviously, it was Changming underneath the mirror stand—except for him, who could play this rhythm!
But why…
Before Yun Weisi could think it through, the hands on his shoulders suddenly pierced his skin, and his fresh blood permeated the water, slowly dissolving away.
The author has something to say:
How do you think Sun Buku will react after he sees Shifu who has “come back to life”?
P.S. The Eighteen Hells were altered for this story, they’re not the same as the real ones, there’s no need to compare them.
Tn:
At the price of my Weibo account getting deleted, I acquired the following information:
1. Lamei, Jiang Li’s teacher (please don’t ask me how I choose whether the name should be written in one word or separately) should actually be Luomei (confirmed by MXS), I’m changing it. Sorry for this, I have no idea why on earth I chose the least common pronunciation for 落, La, it’s an especially stupid mistake ;;
2. There was also a mistake in c64. MXS originally wrote that the one who mentioned Luomei was Changming, but it should actually be Princess Linglong. I’ve changed it already.
The hands floating in the water were even more delicate than the hands of the most beautiful woman in the world. The pale, white skin was glowing slightly in the black sea water. The light from these hands made people’s hearts flutter, stunning them with their beauty. It looked like boneless water grass. Even a man with a heart as tough as iron would inevitably get tempted and distracted by them.
But hands like these should not have appeared in this place.
When peerlessly beautiful things appeared at an inappropriate place, the mind would certainly become less bewitched.
Especially when these hands touched his skin simultaneously. They were charming, yet they brought a sense of horror at the same time.
Yun Weisi turned around, having suffered an injury.
As he had been concentrating on his thoughts rather than surroundings, his reaction was a bit slow.
He saw a woman standing behind his back.
She was ineffably beautiful.
One could say that her beauty outshined the moon and put flowers to shame, and could even cause a downfall of a country. However, it would be difficult to use particular words, like “a woman with a rosebud mouth”, to describe her appearance. The reason for this was that her features embodied the dreams of every beautiful maiden, and a lament to the Heavens for having created such an outstanding creation, because in her presence, any woman would be outshadowed and discarded away.
But this face belonged to an evil spirit from the Abyss.
Her long hair was floating in the water, almost merging with it. Under her slender neck, more than ten hands framed her fair nude chest from either side, dancing and grabbing at thin air. These abnormally long hands with sharp nails had tasted the sweetness of blood, and rushed at Yun Weisi again.
The Chunzhao Sword moved faster than Yun Weisi’s body.
As soon as he thought of it, the sword flew forwards, slashing at the nearest arm. Yun Weisi used this chance to retreat, moving a bit further backwards to see the enemy better from a distance.
The lower half of this woman’s body was connected to seaweed so long he could not see their roots. They were wavering together with the water, but never failed to fling themselves at him. Her long nails were almost leaving marks in the water. The wound that Yun Weisi had received earlier had started to burn hot from pain, which meant that these long curved nails were laced with deadly poison.
The arm that had been cut off by the Chunzhao Sword was growing back at a rapid rate, and very soon, it had reached its original length.
This monster had an immortal body.
If even the Chunzhao Sword could not slash her, what else could?
Yun Weisi frowned. The woman moved again quickly, and her hair turned into countless vines, throwing themselves at Yun Weisi’s limbs to bind them. His spiritual power kept on carving at them relentlessly, but some fish had escaped the net, wrapping around his limbs tightly and cutting through his skin, sucking away at his flesh and blood. His spiritual power rushed at them again forcibly.
Kept on carving relentlessly: unflagging efforts
However, like maggots feeding on bones, the vines never interrupted the assault.
Sword, come!
Yun Weisi recited a sword technique, and the Chunzhao Sword flew into his hand.
He brandished the sword!
The true sword intention had no need to be gaudy. Wherever the sword glow falls, every creature bows its head, as the sword sweeps away any obstacle.
Sword intention: (from zhidao & zhihu) intention here means wish, goal, determination and other subjective feelings like this. The intention of a sword depends on and follows the will of its owner. If a person has reached the state where his sword reflects his own mind, his skills must be unprecedentedly high
A glaring light had enveloped his body, and even the temptress was forced to retreat more than a zhang back. As she stared at it with shock, the sword sliced her into pieces, and the pieces drifted apart in the water.
But there was no blood.
The pieces seemed to have been pulled back together by an invisible force, and she merged back gradually, restoring her original appearance once again.
When the beauty appeared in front of him once again, showing him a smile, Yun Weisi no longer considered her attractive.
That was the most evil spirit in the world, a demon that was the best at beguiling people away from the righteous path.
She opened and closed her mouth, as if talking to him.
Obviously, not a single sound came out of it, but Yun Weisi could hear it in his heart.
“You can’t kill me because you have a demon in your heart.”
She came to Yun Weisi unhurriedly, her hair binding him once again. It was soft and tender, like the gentle soothing of a lover.
“You think you have this demonic qi under control, but you are mistaken. It is always here, and if it’s triggered at the right moment, it will appear again there, in your human world. Take a guess, what will happen next?”
The tempress’ hands touched Yun Weisi.
This time, she did not attack him with her nails, because that would have woken him up and let him strike back. Her hair, wrapped around his body, was emitting an intoxicating fragrance.
Yun Weisi’s eyes betrayed his confusion, and his movements slowed down. Obviously, he had started to lose himself to the delusion.
The fragrance was getting stronger, lingering near the tip of his nose and flowing inside him slowly.
“When a forcibly suppressed fire ignites for a second time, it will only cause more destruction. Look at the palm of your hand, hasn’t the red line reappeared?”
Yun Weisi lowered his head in a daze, and vaguely saw the red line that had been subdued by Changming earlier. Now, it was going down to his palm again, winding in all possible ways, wriggling and elongating one turn after another, twisting into an unsolvable labyrinth.
When did this new one appear?
Was it when he could not find his shizun wherever he looked, maintaining a calm appearance yet feeling anxious in his heart? Or was it when the flame was raging in his mind, but he had no way to vent out his troubles?
What the Mirror Stand of Karma reflected was neither the past nor the present life, but the depth of one’s mind, their inner demons they would never mention willingly.
The temptress smiled seductively, but one of her hands had reached out to his back, moved up silently, and then was raised high up—right above his head!
This man’s brain, his flesh and blood, she wanted to have everything!
Suddenly, she froze, her expression panic-stricken!
The confusion on Yun Weisi had cleared away, replaced with his usual completely indifferent expression.
The Chunzhao Sword slashed down to her head, splitting it in half. Her astonished face distorted, becoming ferocious and violent. She opened her mouth, but before she could utter a single word, the blinding sword glow reduced her to dust.
The hair-like sea grass had lost its support, and fell away from Yun Weisi’s body, tumbling into the deepest abyss, right to the bottom of the sea.
Several locks of the hair were unwilling to relent, and still clung to him, putting up a last-ditch struggle. They wanted to use the rest of the fragrance to lead his mind astray.
This time, Yun Weisi did not manage to react in time, and was a bit absent-minded.
His hands, that were about to pull on the hair, dropped down helplessly. The sword seemed to have reflected his inner state, its glow slowly turning dim.
The alarm bells were ringing deep inside his mind, but his body refused to comply. Yun Weisi had trouble breathing, struggling against his instincts on the verge of losing his consciousness, choosing between his Dao heart and his Demon heart.
Yun Weisi! Yun Weisi!
Open your eyes, it’s me!
A voice reverberated in his ears, and Yun Weisi opened his eyes abruptly!
The hair that was tying up his body had fallen off, and the person who had grabbed him instead was quickly pulling him upwards.
The dull Chunzhao Sword brightened up once again.
This deep sea seemed to have demonic powers in its water, as it could pull people down quickly. But, when a cultivator was fully conscious, the sea had no way to compete against them.
Very soon, Yun Weisi was half-dragged, half-pulled to the surface of the water, leaving the territory permeated with the toxic fragrance.
“Are you alright?” Changming said.
Yun Weisi shook his head, grabbing his hand tightly, as if to determine whether whom he was seeing was not an illusion.
Changming understood him, laughed, and did not shake his hand off.
They were drenched after leaving the water, but, unexpectedly, the air was scorching hot. They did not even need to waste their spiritual powers as their clothes had promptly dried up.
“I saw you just now.”
But Changming’s words could not get through to Yun Weisi, while his spiritual powers had been sealed away. He had thought of another method, the one he had used on Yun Weisi once, when the latter was starting to tread the path of cultivation. But Changming was not sure whether Yun Weisi remembered it.
As it turned out, he did. Had Yun Weisi not broken the mirror swiftly, they would have been separated once more, and no one could have predicted how long it would take for them to meet again.
“There’s something strange about this place.”
Changming sighed, got up to his feet and brushed the moisture off his sleeves, while looking around.
“I’ve also seen Xu Jingxian, but hesitated for a moment, and failed to rescue her in time. Haven’t you set off to find the source of the mysterious light? Why are you here?”
Yun Weisi did not answer him for a while, so Changming had to turn his head and look at him.
“Yun Weisi?”
Yun Weisi pulled himself together and hummed in response.
His palm was burning slightly, and he hid it in his sleeve subconsciously.
His mind was gradually calming down, and even this burn was not hurting that vividly.
The words that the temptress had said were still ringing in his ears, but he ignored it subconsciously, or, perhaps, on purpose.
“Sun Buku said that this place is a world created in imitation of the Eighteen Hells.”
Yun Weisi followed the voice.
In the impenetrable darkness, this voice sounded close by, as if he only needed to reach out his hand towards it, but, at the same time, it also sounded as far away as if it was at the edge of the heavens.
“We have three options now,” Sun Buku said, “Either we continue going up or down, or we jump from the staircase, or—”
“Chop them down.”
As soon as Yun Weisi finished speaking, he made a prompt decision, and quickly moved. His sword appeared next to Sun Buku at once.
Sun Buku did not waste his breath either. He raised his Buddhist cane, aiming his attacks at the stone staircase.
“Every appearance is nothing more than a lie!”
His cane quickly landed, and a golden burst of light blew up the stone stairs, breaking them into tiny pieces. The whole staircase, starting from the point where they stood, crumbled, falling into the boundless void. The two of them now had no surface to stand on, yet they did not fall down either.
The Chunzhao Sword and the cane were protecting them from behind, enveloping them with dim spiritual powers, preventing the two of them from dropping down into the bottomless chasm like these crushed stones. After some time, when they had almost gotten used to treading on air with no place to step on, Yun Weisi felt his feet touching the ground.
In a moment, Sun Buku ah-ed lightly.
“Of course, just as I anticipated.”
What were you anticipating?
Yun Weisi kept his eyes closed, listening to the sounds near them. But he soon realized that this place was almost completely silent, and not a single noise apart from their robes fluttering with the air reached his ear.
But there was light under their feet.
“Look, what is this?” he heard Sun Buku say.
Yun Weisi lowered his head. The source of this light was a smooth stone surface.
It did not resemble stone—rather, it looked like a mirror.
The flat mirror was faintly glowing, but he could not tell what kind of light it was at a glance. He felt with his feet that the surface was smooth, and if one was not alert, they could easily fall.
“What is it?” Yun Weisi thought that Sun Buku probably knew.
“Have you heard of the Mirror Stand of Karma that separates yin from yang, seeing through one’s fate before and after death?”
“The Mirror Stand of Karma,” Yun Weisi mulled over these words, “Why would the Mirror Stand of Karma of the Eighteen Hells be here?”
Sun Buku’s intonation was partly amused, partly astonished, and partly lamenting.
“I didn’t expect them to turn the insides of the Buddha’s Drum of Kui Pattern into the Eighteen Hells of Buddhism either. The drum is truly mysterious!”
Yun Weisi: “No matter how mysterious it is, it shouldn’t be more profound than the Nine Layers of the Abyss.”
“Naturally, they’re different. The Nine Layers of the Abyss is a formation that Chi Bijiang had set to be the core, and it’s an enormous place that embraces thousands of things of this world, stretching far and wide and overturning the universe—nothing should surprise you there. Humans, demons, spirits and immortals flock to join that place, and the weak fall prey to the strong. Although it’s not easy to leave it, it became the land of happiness for certain people. But everyone who has fallen into these Eighteen Hells suffers calamities and goes through trials, ensnared by the sins they have committed. First, one has to reveal their mistakes in front of the Mirror Stand of Karma, and it will decide where in the Eighteen Hells they are to be tortured,” Sun Buku seemed deeply interested, “Who would have expected the Wanlian Buddhist Temple to have such wild ambitions!”
Yun Weisi’s thoughts were still on Changming, and he honestly did not understand Sun Buku’s excitement.
In other words, he could never sympathize with Sun Buku.
But now the two of them were trapped in one place, so Yun Weisi could only put his trust into Sun Buku’s reliability for the time being.
“You’ve been guarding the Nine Layers of the Abyss for many years, so surely you know that there’s only one thing that can allow one to leave it—find the core of the formation. This rule is the same for this place.”
Sun Buku walked near the Mirror Stand of Karma and hit it slightly with his cane. He used enough force to make the stone crack, but the mirror surface under their feet did not even tremble, remaining as smooth as ever.
“Take a guess, where is the heart of this formation? Is it really the Wanlian Buddhist Temple, or is everything just a part of the Buddha’s Drum of Kui Pattern?”
The Qingyun School and the Wanlian Buddhist Temple were both large Buddhist clans, but there was little in common between them. The Qingyun School was even disgusted with the Wanlian Buddhist Temple in secret because the latter often engaged in secular matters, coveting having authority in the world of common people. Hence, for the past hundred or so years, it had been quite difficult to snatch a talented person from the secular world, and even the one who claimed to be the best in martial arts, Fozun Shenjue, had joined the Wanlian Buddhist Temple. Unexpectedly, he was defeated by Yun Weisi once, even though Yun Weisi was not the revered Daozun Yun Weisi at that time.
But the You Capital worshipped Buddhism, and the Wanlian Buddhist Temple’s influence could not be shaken easily. Everybody from the Son of the Heavens to the commoners would offer flowers and burn incense on the fifteenth day of every month, and almost every nook and cranny of the city would be full of the scent of sandalwood.
For reasons unknown, Sun Buku never liked the Wanlian Buddhist Temple. He even avoided it subconsciously when he came to the You Capital, and had never set foot on their grounds.
But now, in order to investigate the late school head’s death, and the rebellion of their disciple Bei Shu, he had come to these lands, following the threads of the spider web.
Now it seemed that what he had been avoiding was not the Wanlian Buddhist Temple, but the Buddha’s Drum of Kui Pattern.
This thing was an ancient treasure. An incorporeal force was putting pressure on them from all four directions. Those who obeyed it could survive, but those who went against it perished, and Sun Buku did not want to face it.
He had gone around in circles, but he could not avoid it in the end.
“I can’t guess it.”
Obviously, Yun Weisi was a bad companion. He had no interest in playing along with Sun Buku, and was still trying to figure out the mystery of the mirror surface.
Cries for help were coming from afar as before, but they could not determine the source of that sound. The voice crying out had abruptly risen, turning into a long and sharp shriek full of terror, before quickly going silent.
At the same moment, Yun Weisi observed the mirror platform change. He vaguely saw an image of someone being killed, but it was neither him nor Sun Buku.
The mirror image was gradually getting clearer.
The arms of that person had been stretched out, and were bound with an iron chain, so that he could not move at all. His hair was dishevelled and his body was full of blood stains.
Yun Weisi’s heart suddenly ached, as if something had squeezed it with force. He almost stopped breathing.
He thought it was Changming!
But after looking more carefully, he realized that the man was not Changming.
That was—
Zhou Keyi?
“The master of the Jianxue Clan?”
Sun Buku recognised him as well. He squatted to feel the surface of the stone mirror.
As if Zhou Keyi noticed this, he slightly raised his hand.
The scene that the mirror was reflecting turned clear little by little, and they could now see Zhou Keyi’s agonized expression.
There were stone lotuses clustered around his feet. But these lotuses were grey all over, and seemed relaxed and unhurried, as if they were slowly drawing nutrients from Zhou Keyi’s body.
Zhou Keyi’s expression was as pale as death, as if he was one step away from losing his life.
There was despair and weakness showing in his eyes. He seemed to be looking at them, but at the same time seeing purely imaginary, distant places.
To save him or not to save him?
If they moved, they could very easily fall into a similar situation. Before they had the matter figured out, even though they had high cultivation levels, they would never dare to underestimate the capabilities of the Buddha’s Drum of Kui Pattern.
While the two of them were hesitating, the scene slowly changed once again.
This time, it was Xu Jingxian.
She was encircled by countless shining slivers of light. They seemed exceedingly beautiful, but she looked as if she was confronting a mortal enemy. She was brandishing her thin silk repeatedly to dispel the vivid lights.
The lights flew off, and the two of them saw that those were not lights, but the eyes of poisonous snakes.
These creatures had a quicker reaction than ordinary snakes, and were way more resilient. Under the attack of Xu Jingxian’s spiritual powers, many of them dropped to the ground, but did not die. They swarmed towards her slowly, and charged at her suddenly when she was caught off guard. Their fangs even broke through her protection barrier, and bit her back, making her shed a stream of blood.
“These are not ordinary snakes, but rather evil spirits. Buddhists call them ‘unrelenting wrath’. Rumors have it that in the third layer of Eighteen Hells, the Binding Iron Tree, people who have gone against one of certain precepts of Buddhism, who have fallen into wrath or debauchery, are being tortured there. But the last unrelenting wrath in this world was taken down by Fozun Xu Tiancang, the founder of Buddhist sects.”
Wrath: one of ‘the three poisons’ in Buddhism, that is, one of the three things that cause sufferings
Why would one appear here?
Could it be that even nonexistent creatures could appear as illusions in these Eighteen Hells inside the Buddha’s Drum of Kui Pattern?
No, this was not a world of illusions!
Sun Buku quickly rejected his own guess.
Sun Buku was not an ordinary disciple of a Buddhist sect. His sect used to possess a Buddha’s Drum of Kui Pattern, and he was the only great talent of the Qingyun School. He had seen and touched it himself, and even felt a natural connection with the Buddha’s Drum of Kui Pattern. He knew that this place was not an illusion, but reality.
Then where did these unrelenting wraths come from? Or was everything written in Buddhist scriptures a lie?
Without thinking much, Yun Weisi lowered his hand. However, he was half a step too late, and the Xu Jingxian from the mirror stand had already disappeared.
And was replaced by the previous grey stone surface of the mirror.
Yun Weisi had decided that mere strategy would be useless when confronted with an absolute force, so he called for his Chinzhao Sword. The sword appeared right above the mirror stand, ready to thrust into it.
“Wait!”
Sun Buku stopped him.
“It seems that there’s something going on underneath, listen!”
Knock, knock-knock.
Knock-knock-knock, knock-knock.
Regularly accented beats were heard, as if someone was knocking from the other side of the mirror stand.
“Who is there?” Sun Buku asked.
The knocking sound stopped, but soon started again.
Knock-knock-knock, knock-knock. Knock.
This time, it seemed as if it was trying to convey a message.
Yun Weisi’s expression froze. The sword light that was about to bear down on the mirror swiftly retreated.
It’s Shizun.
Knock-knock-knock, knock-knock. Knock.
This had happened many years ago.
The exact time it happened was during the second year of his apprenticeship at the Yuhuang Temple.
Shizun had told him to meditate in the yard to attempt to gain insight into the matters of this world.
Yun Weisi had still been very impulsive at that time. He had closed his eyes, and every sound he had heard would turn into noise that made him anxious, and he had been stretched like a bow, unable to relax.
After he had spent half a day fruitlessly, his shizun finally came out, and sat across from him.
Knock-knock-knock, knock-knock. Knock.
Shizun had tapped on the wooden corridor under the eaves.
Do you know what that means? Shizun had asked him.
Naturally, Yun Weisi shook his head.
Think about it carefully.
Shizun had said this one line, clapped his hands and left.
Yun Weisi had spent countless days and nights, imitating the rhythm of Shizun’s knocking, and trying to figure out the mysterious meaning of the sound.
But he had lost hope.
Even if he put his ear against the slabs, he could only hear ants crawling underneath, raindrops trickling down the eaves and falling onto the steps, and wildflowers blooming slowly. Little by little, Yun Weisi had stopped torturing himself by trying to guess Shizun’s profound meaning, and had gotten carried away with listening to the living creatures of the yard. Gradually, his mind had settled down as well, and, contrary to his expectations, he had managed to break through the barriers in many techniques he had been failing to understand previously for a month.
Afterwards, he had asked Shizun about the actual meaning of those knocks.
Shizun had answered, The Dao begets one, one begets two, two begets three, and three begets the universe.
The Dao begets one, one begets two, two begets three, and three begets the universe: from Dao De Jing, 42, the transformations of the Dao. There exist different explanations of this statement. For example, ‘one is the Void, two are Yin and Yang, three are Heaven, Earth, and Man’.
This rhythm made Yun Weisi recall these memories in a split-second.
The tip of his sword fell, following his will, and entered the mirror stand!
Boom!
The mirror stand burst into small pieces!
But the one standing beneath it was not the person Yun Weisi had wanted to see the most.
The two of them fell right into an ice-cold sea. A salty wave surged up towards them, and the water entered their mouths and noses, submerging them underneath!
Amidst this total chaos, several slim hands slowly reached them from behind, following the surging waves, and touched Yun Weisi’s shoulders.
Serene, weak and amourous music reached their ears, making them sink into fond dreams.
Obviously, it was Changming underneath the mirror stand—except for him, who could play this rhythm!
But why…
Before Yun Weisi could think it through, the hands on his shoulders suddenly pierced his skin, and his fresh blood permeated the water, slowly dissolving away.
The author has something to say:
How do you think Sun Buku will react after he sees Shifu who has “come back to life”?
P.S. The Eighteen Hells were altered for this story, they’re not the same as the real ones, there’s no need to compare them.
Tn:
At the price of my Weibo account getting deleted, I acquired the following information:
1. Lamei, Jiang Li’s teacher (please don’t ask me how I choose whether the name should be written in one word or separately) should actually be Luomei (confirmed by MXS), I’m changing it. Sorry for this, I have no idea why on earth I chose the least common pronunciation for 落, La, it’s an especially stupid mistake ;;
2. There was also a mistake in c64. MXS originally wrote that the one who mentioned Luomei was Changming, but it should actually be Princess Linglong. I’ve changed it already.
