Chapter 661: Qingqiu

Chapter 661: Qingqiu

Hanging upside down beneath the strata of rock, young Xiaohai tilted his head back, utterly ignorant of what the churning, monstrous waters above him truly were; at this moment, he felt only his body melting away and his consciousness dissolving.

"Quick! Move!" Li Huowang pulled young Xiaohai along as they continued their frantic dash, their bodies gradually shrinking as well, while beneath them the ground had entirely transformed into a living, roaring ocean. It bellowed and howled.

The splashing seawater lashed out like tongues, incessantly licking away at everything that dripped from their bodies, determined to swallow the two of them whole.

By now, young Xiaohai felt his head grow dizzy and his limbs turn weak, and just when he felt he could hold on no longer, he spotted an upside-down temple appearing ahead.

Gilded sutra pillars, treasure-vase ridge ornaments, and towering pavilions—vast spans of stalactites clung to the structure like a spine, dragging this monumentally grand building to hang inverted from the stone ceiling.

The entire temple was as massive as a mountain, so much so that parts of its roof plunged directly into those bizarre sea waters without being shaken in the slightest.

"Senior Brother Li, there's a temple there!" Bracing his spirits, young Xiaohai shouted in excitement.

"I see it! That is the Bardo Temple, the exit is right there! Hurry!" As they ran closer, the hanging temple appeared increasingly massive, radiating a suffocating sense of oppression.

Just as young Xiaohai stepped into the bounds of the Bardo Temple, a resounding chime of a bell rippled out from within, breaking their frantic momentum and causing Li Huowang to come to a halt before the structure.

"Oh? Young Xiaohai? How peculiar." Hearing these words, young Xiaohai turned around to find Li Huowang looking him up and down with the corners of his mouth curled slightly upward.

This repetitive behavior of his was identical to how scholar Lu had acted just moments ago.

"Young Xiaohai, how did you get here?" Li Huowang reached out and waved gently, signaling for him to come out from inside.

Yet after a moment of hesitation, young Xiaohai shook his head slightly, refusing to comply.

"What are you standing there for? Come over here. I want to ask you something."

As Li Huowang spoke, he took another step toward the Bardo Temple, but the moment his foot lifted, the bell tolled once more, freezing him in place. "Young Xiaohai? How did you get here? How peculiar."

"Senior Brother, are you... are you dead too?" young Xiaohai asked him in terror.

"Dead? Perhaps, though my condition should probably be considered being forgotten. Come here, I'll take you away from this place."

At this point, young Xiaohai could no longer care about Li Huowang's shouting; with a face full of horror, he turned and fled toward the inverted Bardo Temple.

Senior Brother Li was truly dead; just like scholar Lu before him, he was gone, and the current Senior Brother Li could not even be counted as a ghost—he was merely a recurring phantom lingering in the mortal realm.

The moment his front foot stepped inside the temple, everything behind him vanished instantly; both Li Huowang's shouting and the roaring of the ocean disappeared.

The empty, desolate surroundings filled young Xiaohai's heart with apprehension; this place did not look like a temple, and there was not a single monk inside.

"What is going on? Didn't Senior Brother Li say this was the exit? Could he have lied to me again?"

Just then, young Xiaohai suddenly heard a movement above his head. Looking up, he realized that the Buddhist statues and the monks were all present—it was just that they were all above him.

Rows upon rows of lamas clad in crimson monastic robes turned their golden wheels, chanting Buddhist scriptures in a resonant, undulating harmony.

Young Xiaohai had failed to realize until now that he was actually the one hanging upside down from the ceiling; no wonder he could not find anyone a moment ago.

Before young Xiaohai could react, those obscure and unintelligible scriptures drifted into his ears; the instant he heard them, a sudden numbness washed over his body, and his willpower collapsed in a flash.

"...Om... Ni... Mu... Ma... Ha... Om... Ah... Mi... Ah... Hum..."

Having completely lost consciousness, young Xiaohai collapsed limply, merging entirely into those scriptures, ultimately spinning over and over within the prayer wheels gripped by skeletal handles.

"Master! Master! You cannot die!!" In his dazed state, young Xiaohai seemed to hear a voice, a deeply familiar voice.

"Master, if you die, how am I supposed to live!! Waaah..."

As the voice grew a bit louder, young Xiaohai tried to force his eyes open to take a look, though it was no easy task, as his eyes were completely sealed shut by bloody scabs.

Accompanied by a sharp pang of pain, young Xiaohai finally forced a slit open, and through it, he saw Zhao Xiumei's tear-stained face.

"Master! You're awake! You're finally awake!" In her excitement, Zhao Xiumei hastily picked up the gourd in her hand, poured out a few pills, and fed them into his mouth.

"Cough... You cannot take too many Blood-Moistening Pills, or else all the blood in your body will coagulate..." young Xiaohai swallowed three, then spat out the rest.

As the water gourd was pressed to his lips, young Xiaohai took a few gulps, and his groggy head finally cleared up considerably.

Forcing himself to look around, he found that he was currently inside a narrow, deep fissure in the earth. The previous Bardo Waters and the ocean were entirely gone, leaving only rock and soil on either side.

"Master? Are you alright? Do you still remember who I am?"

Hearing this, young Xiaohai looked down at his own body, only to realize that his left arm was completely smashed out of shape, his fingers twisted haphazardly in a terrifying manner.

Furthermore, his head throbbed severely; it seemed he had struck his head when he fell, and his tumble down here had been quite disastrous indeed.

"Master, what's wrong with you? Don't scare me, your brain didn't get broken from the fall, did it?" Terrified by young Xiaohai's dazed expression, Zhao Xiumei was on the verge of tears.

Beside them, the three monkey-children circled around anxiously, leaping up and down and scratching their heads.

Young Xiaohai reached up to touch his head, feeling a clot of blood tangled with his hair, then reached into his robes, finding that the decayed wooden ruyi he had brought out from Niuxin Village had returned.

"I... I think I just had a dream, a very bizarre dream. I dreamed of scholar Lu, and I dreamed of Senior Brother Li. They... they are all dead."

Young Xiaohai's tone was filled with uncertainty; he could not tell whether what he had just witnessed was real or fake.

"Master, say no more, let us get out of here quickly."

As Zhao Xiumei spoke, she carefully hoisted him onto her back, took the rope from the monkey-children to tie him securely, and grabbed the dangling rope beside them, preparing to climb up.

"Xiumei, you... you cannot get up like this. Let me rest a while to recover some strength."

"I am no pampered lady who never steps past the courtyard gates. Back when I was ten, I was already following my father into the fields to plow; I have plenty of strength." With that, Zhao Xiumei wedged her feet against both sides, climbing upward step by step.

The three monkey-children needed no ropes, deftly scrambling up and down the rock walls on either side, chattering away to cheer her on.

Finally, after Zhao Xiumei's clothes had been soaked through with sweat twice over, she emerged from the gaping fissure.

With great effort, young Xiaohai lifted his head to survey the surroundings, only to find that the entire topography of Qingqiu had changed its form; some of the distant, swelling hills had vanished, while new ridges had risen from the earth.