Chapter 107: Buddha

Chapter 107: The Buddha

"The practitioner, beholding this, rejoices and leaps with joy. Seeing his own body riding upon a diamond throne, following behind the Buddha, in the snap of a finger, he is reborn in that land. Having been reborn in that land, he sees the Buddha's physical form, fully endowed with all marks; he sees the Bodhisattvas, fully endowed with all aspects..."

The Buddhist sutras chanted from Li Huowang's lips gradually swelled in volume, and buoyed by the resonance of the chanting, his face seemed at this moment to be bathed in a halo of sacred Buddhist light.

At first, there was only his single voice, but before long, this monotonous chanting began to reverberate.

Chants of praise, some high and some low, joined in harmony with Li Huowang.

These voices came from the mouths of the plump nuns and the abbess surrounding him, their faces simultaneously mirroring the exact same devotion as Li Huowang's.

From the temples and houses all around, the synchronized sounds of brass chimes, hand chimes, and wooden fish—these instruments of the Buddhist order—rang out in unison.

Accompanied by these instruments, Li Huowang's chanting grew increasingly solemn and imbued with an ever-deepening Buddha-nature.

This peculiar sound began to alter things that sound should not alter; for instance, the colors of everything around them gradually distorted, as if overlaid with a thick, dark yellow filter.

As time passed and the volume of the chanting grew louder and louder, Bai Lingmiao, Gouwa, Gao Zhijian, and even the child in Abbess Jingxin's arms all began to chant along.

As the sound grew ever louder, the fly Bodhisattva within the sunken pit began to move with awe-inspiring momentum.

Accompanied by the chanting, it slowly drifted toward the crown of Li Huowang's head, and at this very moment, the buzzing of the flies' flapping wings began to harmonize with the melody of the sutras.

When the chanting reached its absolute zenith, the flesh-and-blood Bodhisattva suddenly snapped open its pitch-black eyes and plunged sharply downward. The buzzing green-headed flies instantly engulfed Li Huowang completely.

The sound of the flies' wings began to vibrate frantically, the buzzing overlapping ceaselessly with the surrounding chants of the sutras.

All the people and those millions of flies were, in this moment, inextricably linked in spirit, indistinguishable from one another.

The humans knew the thoughts of the flies, and the flies knew the thoughts of the humans.

With a sudden shift in Abbess Jingxin's mind, the flies covering Li Huowang recongealed, forming a black Bodhisattva seated cross-legged upon a lotus throne, holding a pure vase in its hands; its voice drowned out Li Huowang's, taking the lead as it guided the others in continuing the chanting.

Yet such a solemn scene did not last long before being shattered by a clap of thunder; everyone looked up in unison to see the sky itself torn asunder.

Danyangzi, sporting three heads and his entire body covered in various nauseating organs, hovered there amidst ethereal mists upon a white cloud, his six eyes gazing down mockingly at the entire Anchizhi Nunnery below.

"Heh... child... you are attached to illusions..."

Without any further nonsense, all the corpulent old nuns, including Abbess Jingxin, swiftly drew from the folds of their greasy flesh a string of prayer beads forged from pure gold.

They wrapped them around the tiger's mouths of their hands, left and right, then curled their index fingers and thumbs toward their palms, forming the Amitabha mudra, their postures exuding solemn dignity as they thrust their hands fiercely upward.

"Recite the Buddha! Recite the Dharma! Recite the Sangha! Recite the Precepts! Recite the Giving! Recite the Heavens! A bhikkhu cultivates the six recollections and attains the gate of immeasurable hundreds of thousands of dharanis!"

A sudden, deafening buzz erupted as the black flies forming the Buddha surged into the sky, wrapping the rhythmic chants of the Buddha like ocean waves and flying toward Danyangzi in the air.

Gazing at the black tsunami before him, Danyangzi's three massive faces simultaneously broke into exceedingly mocking smiles; treading upon white clouds with immortal wisps drifting around him, he charged back against the swarm of flies.

With a violent flick of his writhing, tentacle-like palm, a copper coin sword spliced together from eyeballs, tentacles, and flesh and blood sprouted from his palm.

The flesh-and-blood copper coin sword was slashed forcefully, sending chunks of meat flying; any fly whose flesh was splashed instantly twisted and contorted.

Tiny, writhing, screaming heads of Danyangzi replaced the flies' heads, swiftly turning to strike back at their fly kin all around.

Below, Li Huowang sat cross-legged with a solemn expression, unmoved, continuing to chant the sutras, his voice growing louder with each passing moment.

Catalyzed by the chanting, throughout the entire Nianci Nunnery, all the white maggots wriggling upon rotting food rapidly transformed into flies; they flapped their damp wings, rushing toward the immensely chaotic sky.

In an instant, the sky descended into absolute chaos; amidst the fierce battle, it even began to rain dead black flies.

Faced with the increasingly desperate battle, Jingxin appeared unhurried; since she had agreed to help Li Huowang, she naturally had absolute confidence in her plan.

Li Huowang slowly pressed his palms together, his face radiating compassion as he chanted softly, "Embracing the true dharma, abandoning the three divisions, just as all forms enter the realm of emptiness, so too do the Ganges-sand vows of the Bodhisattvas enter this vow; excellent, excellent."

Accompanied by the ethereal resonance of the Buddha, a piercing beam of light tore through the ruptured sky, descending from above and completely gilding him into a golden Buddha of neither sorrow nor joy.

The instant Li Huowang's body was illuminated in gold, the terrifying organs on Danyangzi's body in the air were simultaneously coated in a layer of gold, his movements becoming exceedingly sluggish.

Seizing this golden opportunity, the surrounding swarm of flies immediately took advantage, surging forward and engulfing him entirely.

"Buzz, buzz, buzz..." The ball of flies continuously expanded, ultimately reforming into a colossal Bodhisattva of the Pure Vase seated upon a lotus, slowly descending toward the ground.

For every inch it drew closer to the ground, the Bodhisattva shrank inward by a fraction, and the anomaly tearing open the sky above weakened correspondingly.

The chanting, the wooden fish, the striking of the bells—all sounds gradually began to fade.

On the ground, two plump nuns held brushes the size of mops, their bristles soaked in the ash from the incense burner, staring at the fly-nun with expectant eyes, waiting for something.

Witnessing this, a trace of greed flashed through Abbess Jingxin's mind as she chanted; under normal circumstances, once the ritual concluded, whatever was inside the fly would belong to her.

"This thing is exceedingly rare indeed; I wonder how it tastes."

Just as she thought everything was proceeding favorably, an unexpected mishap occurred.

Li Huowang, shrouded in golden light, suddenly began to cough, and the coughing grew increasingly violent.

"What's going on? I can't sense his thoughts anymore! That brat actually severed our pure minds!" an old nun cried out in alarm.

No sooner had the words left her mouth than Li Huowang, clutching his neck, opened his mouth to its absolute limit, and a profoundly nauseating sound of dry retching erupted.

Immediately after, everyone present witnessed an utterly inconceivable sight: from the mouth of the Taoist priest clad in a red robe, several writhing black tentacles dripping with viscous fluid burrowed out from the depths of his throat.

It was the Black Taisui, yet not entirely the Black Taisui; at the base of one tentacle hung half a face—it was Danyangzi's face!

"Oh no! That Buddha isn't dead! He hasn't fully become a Buddha! The Buddha was actually hiding in Li Huowang's belly, mingling with the Black Taisui all along! We got it wrong! This is the real mastermind!"

(End of Chapter)