Chapter Twenty-Five: My Aspiration to Attain Buddhahood

"May I ask, where are you taking these people you've gathered together?" Jian Yi turned his head and asked the two young novices following behind them.

"Amitabha. The Buddha is merciful. Our monastery's abbot wishes to help them rectify their errors. They were merely momentarily blinded by immense temptation, which led them to act irrationally."

"Two benefactors, let us go and look elsewhere."

Liu An felt deeply uneasy, but he followed the young novice's suggestion.

They wandered for a long time, but both Liu An and Jian Yi felt increasingly troubled; it seemed they had only just escaped a tiger's den to fall into a wolf's lair. Liu An could only lament that he had been plagued by nothing but bad luck since descending the mountain.

Suddenly, a brilliant golden light flashed within the Golden Glow Temple. A massive phantom of an ancient Buddha stood between heaven and earth, looking down upon all living beings.

"What is happening, Senior Brother?" Liu An asked, filled with curiosity.

"Nothing much. It is just that little monk gaining enlightenment in the Dharma, resonating with it, and manifesting it in the world. The Buddha image behind him is quite unique; I feel as though I have seen it somewhere before."

At this moment, the pilgrims who had been crowding the debate grounds saw the Buddha manifest and began to kowtow sincerely, kneeling toward the young monk.

"Junior Brother, our chance to escape has come." Jian Yi grabbed Liu An by the collar with his left hand, snatched up the Four-Not-Like with his right, and turned into a gust of wind, drifting toward the distance.

Zen Master Du E, who had been momentarily stunned by the spectacle, was caught off guard by Jian Yi's sudden flight. He spread his divine sense across a thousand miles, but found nothing.

"Damn it! Those two little things are slippery. If I let them escape, I am finished."

Zen Master Du E instantly teleported into a room. There was only a single bronze mirror inside. The Zen Master stood before it and placed a stone into the glass. Soon, the image of Jian Yi, Liu An, and the Four-Not-Like fleeing appeared clearly before him.

"Found you." Zen Master Du E reached his hand into the mirror, grasping toward the two.

Liu An and Jian Yi, who were just beginning to celebrate their escape, had no time to rejoice. They were gripped tightly in a giant palm; Liu An felt his bones cracking under the pressure. Jian Yi let go of the Four-Not-Like, which fell into the river below. Jian Yi let out a roar, and his sword automatically left its sheath, transforming into an ink-black dragon that bit at the arm.

"Oh? I am truly lucky to have encountered a dragon-in-the-making. A fine prize, truly a fine prize!" Excited, Zen Master Du E reached his other hand into the mirror to grab the ink-black dragon.

The dragon, head pressed down by the Zen Master's palm, let out a shrill cry as its body slowly shrank, ending up in the Zen Master's hand.

"The spinal cord of this ink-black dragon is a treasure, and its scales are not bad either. Especially its blood—this is truly a windfall."

"Master..."

The two tried to call out to their master for help again, but there was no response. Their hearts turned cold instantly.

"Senior Brother... *cough*... we are truly done for this time." Liu An managed to gasp out these words before losing consciousness.

"Bald donkey! You cannot kill us! We are both direct disciples of the Master. We have the tokens to prove it—are you not afraid of being buried along with us?" Jian Yi gritted his teeth, using the Master's name as a threat as he was slowly pulled out of the mirror.

Clearly, Zen Master Du E felt a flicker of fear at their background, but it did not last long. He seemed to realize something and said, "I will not kill you today. In fact, I shall invite you to watch a grand performance. By tomorrow, whether you live or die will no longer be for me to decide."

Time slipped by second by second until the sky turned completely dark. The door to the room where Liu An and Jian Yi were held was flung open. A basin of cold water was dumped over them, and Liu An jolted awake, gasping for air.

"Wake up, everyone. Come out and witness the birth of the Buddha."

Liu An and Jian Yi stood up numbly and walked to the front of the Buddha hall. At this moment, the entire Lingxia Temple was shrouded in a blood-red moon, and a crimson coffin stood upright within the hall. Zen Master Du E, his expression ecstatic, hovered in the air, looking down at the monks in the temple.

"The blood moon descends, the Buddha-child arrives! Today, we shall surely see the Tathagata."

"Open the coffin!"

Soon, the red coffin was opened, and a thick, pungent smell of blood permeated the air, forming a bloody mist.

"Is it finally time for me to attain Buddhahood?" A creature that looked human yet not slowly stepped out of the coffin.

"Senior Brother, is that creature a human?"

Jian Yi forced his Heavenly Eye to open a crack to look at the being in the red coffin. "That is not a human. It is a paper effigy wearing a human skin."

Jian Yi's words made Liu An feel as if the world had gone mad—the paper effigy had come to life.

"Begin chanting the Rebirth Sutra."

Following Zen Master Du E's command, all the monks in the temple sat cross-legged, whispering the scriptures. The rhythmic sound of wooden fish being struck and prayer beads being flicked intertwined.

A miraculous sight occurred: the intricate and profound scriptures slowly emerged and organized themselves, drilling into the body of the creature in the red coffin. Subsequently, countless kasaya robes seemed to come to life, flying toward the creature and wrapping around it.

A quarter of an hour later, the creature in the red coffin angrily burst through all the robes. A roar shattered the sky, and Liu An's ears began to bleed. The creature surged into the sky, its appearance gruesome under the light of the blood moon. "You scum above, today I, Six Desires, shall attain Buddhahood!"

"Raise the formation! Release the spirits of all the various human desires gathered here!"

As Zen Master Du E finished speaking, the temple buildings atop the mountain rapidly collapsed, revealing the truth buried beneath. It turned out the entire mountain had been hollowed out and filled with white bones. On the very top were bleeding corpses—evidently, these were the people who had attended the blessing fair that day. Countless wandering ghosts in the sky transformed into vicious spirits, blotting out the heavens.

"Battle Heaven! Battle Heaven!" all the monks shouted in unison.

"Chant the Fudo Myoo Sutra!"

As the monks chanted, a golden body of the Fudo Myoo Bodhisattva manifested, wreathed in fierce flames, holding a sharp sword in his right hand and a rope in his left, embodying the posture of severing all afflictions.

Under the blood-red moon, Liu An and Jian Yi were too astonished to speak. The world itself seemed to come alive, and thick clouds churned continuously. Before long, a being wreathed in lightning parted the clouds and stepped down from the heavens.

"You ants still refuse to give up? Today, I shall reduce you to dust," the lightning being declared.

Six Desires did not back down. "Come then!"

The provocation thoroughly enraged the lightning being. With a clench of his fist, a bolt of purple lightning as thick as a water barrel was hurled at Six Desires. However, it was blocked by the manifested form of the Fudo Myoo Bodhisattva. The impact of the lightning being's strike caused all the chanting monks below to vomit blood.

"Hold on! That was only the first strike; we must endure until the third!"

Seeing his attack blocked, the lightning being reached into the clouds and pulled out a spear made of golden lightning. With one horizontal sweep of the spear, the Fudo Myoo Bodhisattva was severed at the waist and extinguished, and the monks below collapsed, their fates unknown.

Six Desires couldn't help but curse, "Useless trash, all of you."