Chapter 106: Beginning

Chapter 106: The Beginning

Jingxin plunged her dirt-caked fingers into the lacquered box, extracted the pair of blood-red eyes, and gently kneaded them. "Hehe, these are truly exquisite treasures."

With that, she clutched an egg-sized crimson eyeball in one hand and slammed it fiercely into the pitch-black sockets of her own face.

When she lowered her hand once more, the blood-red eyes had found a new master. "Thank you. I can finally see again."

The bloated, hideous, toothless old nun now sported a pair of massive, lidless, blood-red eyeballs on her face, a sight so scalp-crawling that it made everyone else in the room profoundly uneasy.

"Senior Brother Li, is she really a good person? She doesn't seem like one..." Bai Lingmiao whispered from behind Li Huowang, shrinking back.

"Hush, don't speak." Surprisingly, Li Huowang was not at all shocked by Jingxin's bizarre actions before him.

Having unwittingly endured all manner of ordeals, his threshold for shock had vastly increased.

With a deeply solemn expression, Li Huowang stared at the ghastly old face before him and asked, "Now that we have this, when do we begin exorcising Danyangzi?"

"What's the rush? Young people are always so impatient." As soon as Jingxin finished speaking, Li Huowang heard a commotion behind him; turning his head, he saw a row of plump nuns swaying unsteadily and burping.

"What are they up to? Are they planning to burn their bridges after crossing?!" Li Huowang instinctively pressed his hand against the Record of the Myriad Realms.

However, their actions immediately made Li Huowang realize he had misread the situation; the nuns before him were actually beginning to tear down the wall with their bare hands.

Abbess Jingxin's body was simply too massive, and the door too small; to get out, they had to demolish the wall.

Once the entire wall had been completely dismantled, the nuns pushed forward a wooden board fitted with numerous wheels, which served as Abbess Jingxin's mode of transport.

Under the gaze of everyone present, Abbess Jingxin wriggled and squirmed like a gigantic fat grub, inching her way toward the wooden cart.

After shifting her bulk for quite some time, Jingxin snapped somewhat irritably at Li Huowang, who stood nearby, "You really lack eyesight, don't you? Aren't you trying to get rid of your master? Why don't I see you rushing? Can't you see I'm moving slowly? Why don't you come over and push!"

With everyone's help, Abbess Jingxin was finally hoisted onto the cart. The axles squeaked and groaned as the other plump nuns pushed her forward.

Letting go of the rolls of fat, Li Huowang vigorously scratched an itch on the Abbess in a spot she couldn't reach herself.

Stepping back a few paces and looking at the bloated Abbess Jingxin surrounded by a host of plump nuns, Li Huowang inexplicably felt as though she resembled a Buddha statue at this very moment.

"A Buddha statue is merely a statue; becoming a true Buddha is not so easy. Hurry up and follow."

Hearing this, Li Huowang lifted his heels and followed.

The nuns did not push Abbess Jingxin toward the mountain gate, but rather deeper into the innermost sanctum of the Ance Nunnery, a place Li Huowang had never been.

"Take your hand off the Record of the Myriad Realms. I'll let it slide this time, but never bring such things into the nunnery again; they are terribly inauspicious."

Although Jingxin's tone was full of disgust, Li Huowang had no time for such things at the moment; his mind was entirely consumed with what was to come.

"What is the method for the ritual to exorcise Danyangzi? 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? Rest assured, our Ance Nunnery still honors its word. If you can't even trust us, there's no point in mentioning anywhere else."

Abbess Jingxin's words did little to calm Li Huowang's heart; ever since the moment he realized Danyangzi was perpetually haunting him, he had been anticipating this very day.

Now that the crushing burden weighing upon his shoulders could finally be lifted, a multitude of thoughts flooded his mind all at once.

"Don't be so quick to rejoice. Your master's trouble may be gone, but you are still a Heart Essence, and that is the greater issue."

Hearing this, Li Huowang's heart sank. "Abbess, don't be so absolute. Just because you haven't found a way in the past doesn't mean I won't find one."

Hearing this, the Abbess merely smiled. "Do you think you're the only one who thinks that? Every other Heart Essence thought the same, yet their final fates were all much the same."

Frowning deeply, Li Huowang was about to speak but stopped immediately, taking a deep breath before saying, "Whether there's a chance or not, we have to try, don't we? Living a whole life in muddled confusion like Yu'er, do you really think that's a good thing? I certainly don't."

Abbess Jingxin's expression quickly fell, and she reached into her own rolls of fat to pull out her son, gently cradling him in her arms and gazing with pity at his aged face.

"Sigh... what can I do when he's like this? As his mother, all I can do is keep him alive."

Li Huowang reached out and gently stroked the boy's withered white hair, his eyes revealing the exact same tenderness as those of Abbess Jingxin.

The other medicinal guides and the remaining nuns were also looking toward the old man with withered limbs at this moment.

Looking at the old man, Li Huowang spoke in a slow, even tone, "I still remember when he was little, tumbling and swaying as he threw himself at me. It was so much fun."

The Abbess nodded, but a trace of agony immediately surfaced on her face. "When it truly comes to this, it's hard to speak of right or wrong. When I was in the hallucination earlier, watching my mother kneel before me, my heart was truly suffocated with grief."

The agony on Abbess Jingxin's face seemed contagious, simultaneously appearing on the faces of everyone around them.

"Sigh..." Everyone present let out a soft sigh in unison, and the atmosphere grew exceedingly oppressive.

Accompanied by this heavy mood, the small wooden cart squeaked and creaked as it was pushed forward. Before long, another massive, bloated old nun was wheeled out from the left ahead.

Looking at the old nun, a hint of disdain crossed Li Huowang's face. "Junior Sister Jingyuan, could you hurry up? You must know that Danyangzi is altering my perception every single moment."

"What's the rush? We've waited this long, what's the difference of a little more time? If you had looked faster earlier, would you have needed to scrimp on this bit of time?"

As Jingyuan spoke, she picked up a moldy steamed cake from the ground nearby and stuffed it into her mouth.

Jingyuan was not the first; soon, a second and then a third bloated, corpulent old nun was similarly wheeled out on wooden carts. In the end, including Jingxin, six old nuns were brought out.

Accompanied by this group, Li Huowang and the others arrived at a depression in the ground, where a colossal, black, writhing Buddha statue over ten meters tall stood erected.

As they fully stepped inside, a loud buzzing sound filled the air; it turned out that the black, writhing Buddha statue was entirely composed of a swarm of green-bottle flies.

"My stomach is feeling a bit off, why don't you wait for me?" Li Huowang asked, clutching his belly.

"Stop dawdling, hurry up. Do you think it's convenient for us to make this trip?" Jingxin fished a string of brightly polished prayer beads from her rolls of fat and tossed them over.

Li Huowang caught them deftly, and while turning the beads, he began to mutter an obscure and incomprehensible sutra in a low voice.

(End of Chapter)