Chapter 149 The Truth of Lingjing

The five words "Blazing Sun and Shadow" seemed to be an unlocking incantation. The golden Buddha opened his half-closed eyes, a pair that concentrated the most filthy and chaotic things in the world.

It was the personification of all "evil," the millennia-old evil spirit in hell gazing upon the human world.

Out of instinct, everyone in the hall subconsciously looked up to meet the golden Buddha's eyes.

Boom!

Everyone's thoughts exploded, memories were disordered, thinking was disordered, emotions were disordered... Blood flowed from their eyes, ears, mouths, and noses.

The members on the prayer mats fell in disarray, clutching their heads and screaming in pain.

"Amitabha..."

At the critical moment, Master Wuhen steadied his emotions, and a Buddhist chant echoed in the hall. The golden Buddha's eyes slowly closed, returning to their half-closed state.

This Buddhist chant contained the power to soothe chaos and trauma, and the throbbing pain in everyone's heads immediately eased.

Painful screams turned into gasps.

Master Wuhen waved his hand gently, and the members disappeared inch by inch as if erased from a painting, leaving only Zhang Yuanqing.

In the large suite on the second floor of the hotel, everyone's figures simultaneously appeared, returning to their original seats. Everyone slumped in the chairs, gasping for breath, their faces pale, like travelers who had just escaped from the jaws of a tiger.

"What happened?" Head instructor Lin Chong staggered to his feet, wearing an expression of doomsday, and shouted, "The Buddha statue opened its eyes? The Buddha statue opened its eyes! Did the Master lose control?!"

The expressions of the others were equally terrified and uneasy, and they turned their gazes to the gloomy "Auntie Guo"—no, Auntie Fang. She was a Level Six Dream Master, in the same profession as Master Wuhen. If the Master lost control, she would be able to detect it.

Auntie Fang said coldly with a sullen face, "What's there to panic about? If the Master lost control, would we still be able to get out?"

Hearing this, everyone's faces improved slightly. Xiao Yuan said in a low voice, "But the Master's Buddha statue did open its eyes. That's a first in decades."

"This shows that the Master almost lost control just now," Yang Bo's tone was unprecedentedly solemn.

Why did the Master lose control?

"It's Yuan Shi Tianzun." The honest middle-aged man revealed a strange smile. "That kid said something to the Master. It wasn't repentance; I'm talking about that last sentence."

Everyone in the room looked at each other, and they all saw doubt and incomprehension in their partners' eyes.

"Didn't, didn't hear it." Kou Beiyue scratched his head. "I only heard him say he was giving the Master a chance to repent. Hiss, giving the Master a chance to repent, is Yuan Shi Tianzun crazy?"

Everyone ignored the rebellious teenager's nonsense.

Auntie Fang said in a deep voice, "Yuan Shi Tianzun's last sentence was wrapped in illusion. The person who cast the illusion is a higher level than me, so it's normal that you couldn't hear it. But what can't be denied is that that sentence did almost make the Master lose control."

"So, what exactly did he say?" Chong-ge widened his eyes.

No one could answer him, because that was exactly what everyone was curious about. "Master Wuhen won't be in danger, right? Is the government going to deal with us?" Zhao Xintong was not very old, but she was extremely good at speculating about others with malice.

"No way!" Yang Bo shook his head. "The government won't let Yuan Shi Tianzun come to his death."

Everyone stopped talking, each fell silent, and tried hard to recall the scene before the Master lost control, trying to remember Yuan Shi Tianzun's lip movements, but he was too far forward, and everyone could only see his back, not his face.

After a long time, the enchanting bank teller啧啧 said, "Today is really interesting. Yuan Shi Tianzun is actually a more eccentric dangerous element than us, and he came prepared, holding back a big move to show the Master."

"Xiao Yuan, you've known him the longest, you're the most familiar with him, do you know about this situation of his?"

Everyone looked at Xiao Yuan.

From the moment she left the Buddha Hall, Xiao Yuan's brows had not relaxed. After thinking for a while, she said, "His mental state does have problems, he's especially extreme, but it shouldn't be so exaggerated, maybe..."

After a pause, she sighed and said, "I didn't tell you the details of what happened in the dungeon. He was possessed by the boss in the dungeon, and paid a great price to reverse the situation..."

Xiao Yuan slowly recounted what happened in the dungeon. Everyone listened in silence. Kou Beiyue already knew these things and didn't want to listen anymore. He looked around and saw the little fatty crouching in the corner, hugging his knees, with an attitude of being abandoned by the world... no, an attitude of not wanting to attract the world's attention.

"What's wrong with you?" Kou Beiyue went up and asked.

The little fatty raised his head, his eyes dull, devoid of any love for life, "Boss, I want to go back to the Southern faction..."

"Why?"

"Just treat me as dead. Social death is also death. When you socially die somewhere, the best way is to develop somewhere else," the little fatty said sadly.

"Oh, then go."

"What? Boss, aren't you going to try to keep me?"

"No need to keep you. I'll spread your past to the black market later. When you die in the Southern faction too, you'll come back."

"Boss, you've been playing the Fire Master all along, haven't you? You're actually a cunning Guhuo Zhi Yao." (Demon of Bewitchment)

"Are you stupid? I was Guhuo Zhi Yao to begin with."

...

In the quiet, antique Buddha Hall.

Zhang Yuanqing gasped for breath, and beads of sweat slid down his cheeks. He panted for a long time before his chaotic heartbeat gradually calmed down, and the tearing sensation in his soul also subsided a lot.

Finally having the strength to speak, Zhang Yuanqing took a deep breath, "Master, do you still remember the Xiaoyao organization?"

"Amitabha, the past is like smoke, why bring it up again?" Master Wuhen's voice was low and filled with pain. "How did Benefactor know about this monk's past?"

"The spirit of the zoo told me," Zhang Yuanqing said.

This time, Master Wuhen was silent for a few seconds before replying:

"Why did it tell you?"

Zhang Yuanqing glanced at the quietly burning candlelight, smelling the curling scent of incense. Now that he was here, he hesitated a little.

Before coming, he had looked at faces, observed constellations, used Xiahou Aotian's divination props to give himself a divination, and finally reported today's itinerary to Fu Qingyang and Fu Qingxuan, brother and sister.

After weighing it in his heart for a few seconds, "Master, may I know my real name?"

Master Wuhen sat silently, not answering.

Zhang Yuanqing stared at his deep one foot and continued, "My surname is Zhang, the Zhang of Zhang Tianshi."

As soon as he said this, the Buddha statue's half-closed eyes seemed to move, faintly showing signs of reopening.

The entire Buddha Hall shook violently, but quickly returned to calm. This Buddha Hall was transformed from Master Wuhen's state of mind. The movement of the Buddha Hall represented the Master's emotions.

After saying this, Zhang Yuanqing went all out, not caring anymore. "My dad is Zhang Tianshi. He passed away when I was just in elementary school. I have almost no memory of him. It wasn't until I became a Night Wanderer and joined the government. In an accidental opportunity, I entered the zoo. Based on my bloodline, the spirit mistakenly identified me as Zhang Tianshi. I consulted the official database and learned about the existence of the Xiaoyao organization. Recently, a series of events have occurred in Songhai. Marshal斬 (zhan, beheaded) 暗夜玫瑰 (Ànyè Méiguī, Dark Night Rose)'s Great Protector and discovered that he was Taiyimen's former elder, Shanhe Yongcun. The government already knows that Ling Tuo is the leader of 暗夜玫瑰 (Ànyè Méiguī, Dark Night Rose)."

"So I found the zoo and confessed my identity to the spirit. It didn't know what happened back then, but it told me your identity, that you are the most mysterious Son of Shadow."

After saying all this in one breath, Zhang Yuanqing straightened his back and leaned forward, "Master, I came here this time to ask you about the past. In 1999, what exactly did you four do?"

There was deathly silence in the hall.

After a long, long time, Master Wuhen put his hands together and chanted in a low voice, "Amitabha! So you are the son of an old friend."

Zhang Yuanqing clasped his hands together and bowed, "Please enlighten me, Master."

"Benefactor Zhang, the past is already smoke, why be obsessed?" Master Wuhen sighed, "What good will it do you to know too much?"

Zhang Yuanqing smiled wryly, "Master, someone told me that my father left me something back then. I guess it's the core fragment of the Guangming Luopan (Light Compass). I'm already in the midst of this. If I can't know myself and my enemy, I'm afraid I won't even know how I'll die in the future. Master, for my dad's sake, for our relationship's sake, please tell me."

He and Master Wuhen also had a relationship.

Master Wuhen was silent for a long time before slowly saying, "The you that was shown in the mirror just now is the most real you. You don't have the core fragment of the Guangming Luopan (Light Compass) on you."

"Master, when I was in high school, something went wrong with the Compass Fragment, and it suddenly tore apart my soul..."

Before he could finish speaking, he was interrupted by Master Wuhen, whose tone was full of solemnity and bewilderment, "What did you say?"

"I said, the Compass Fragment tore apart my soul."

"The Compass Fragment doesn't have this ability."

Zhang Yuanqing was stunned.

"You, you, you..." His expression then became agitated, and his voice turned into a question.

"The Compass Fragment won't tear apart my soul? How is that possible? You saw it just now, my soul was indeed stitched up. This information was told to me by the person closest to me. She wouldn't lie to me. We have a relationship where we can entrust our lives to each other."

Because he was too emotional, he went from sitting cross-legged to kneeling, leaning forward, his eyes staring straight at the Master's back.

Master Wuhen's tone remained unchanged, "It won't tear apart anyone's soul, Yuan Shi. The core fragment of the Guangming Luopan (Light Compass) is not on you. Your spiritual problem originates from something else."

Zhang Yuanqing slumped down, dejectedly sitting down, "Then, what is the reason?"

"This monk doesn't know."

After a few seconds of silence, Master Wuhen slowly told him, "Back then, the four of us used the fragments of the Guangming Luopan (Light Compass) to open a mysterious passage that leads to the deepest part of Lingjing. There, we saw the truth of Lingjing. It was a truth that was despairing."

"We didn't dare to stay for too long and used the Compass Fragment to return to reality. That exploration caused disagreements between us. Ling Tuo believed that this matter should be made public, but Zhang Tianshi felt that this would only cause panic and lead to the collapse of the social structure."

"Before we could argue to a conclusion, a more troublesome thing happened. We were cursed. A terrible curse that even the power of the sun god, which is said to purify everything, could not eliminate. We couldn't find the source, and we couldn't find any problems with the spiritual body or the physical body, but our bodies were deteriorating, gradually approaching decay."

In his daze, Zhang Yuanqing gradually pulled his thoughts back and boldly guessed, "Is it the curse of Lingjing?"

"Not Lingjing, but it can also be said to be Lingjing," Master Wuhen said, "At first, we knew nothing about the curse. Chu Shang and Ling Tuo returned to their families and searched through the materials but couldn't find a way to resolve it. What really made us know the true face of the curse was an experiment that Ling Tuo did."

"What experiment?" Zhang Yuanqing asked.

"Ling Tuo told a secret about the depths of Lingjing to an ordinary person, and the result was that the person was immediately entangled in the curse and died tragically."

Master Wuhen sighed, "The curse was brought out by us from the depths of Lingjing. When we learned the truth about Lingjing, we were cursed. Everyone who knows the truth will be cursed."

Zhang Yuanqing thought for a while and tentatively said, "Have you tried telling a demigod?"

"Ling Tuo tried it. He told the Taiyimen sect leader."

"So, demigods are ineffective?" Zhang Yuanqing sighed, "So, I'm not qualified to know the secret of the depths of Lingjing yet, am I?"

Master Wuhen remained silent.

At least there were still some gains. After thinking for a long time, Zhang Yuanqing said, "You've been sitting here for more than ten years! Is it to fight against the curse?"

Master Wuhen nodded slightly.

"The curse and the characteristics of the evil profession are all there. As the curse deepens day by day, I gradually cannot control my nature, and I am tormented by the desire for blood every day, which is extremely painful."

Hearing this, Zhang Yuanqing put his hands together and piously recited "Amitabha."

Not to the Buddha, but to this Master.

Fighting against his instincts for more than ten years, enduring pain for more than ten years, he admired his perseverance and composure.

Zhang Yuanqing continued to ask, "Do you know how Ling Tuo died? Why didn't Chu Shang use the Mother God's womb to revive Ling Tuo?"

Master Wuhen was silent for a moment, and his low voice echoed in the hall, "Because Ling Tuo, we three killed him."

...

ps: Correct typos first, then update later.

Due to various problems, the address has been changed to Please bookmark the new address to avoid getting lost.