Chapter 877: Great Dharma Temple

Chapter 877 The Great Dharma Temple

Lu Xiucai gripped the "Daqian Registry" tightly with his solitary hand, the jolting carriage unable to shake the struggle and entanglement within his heart. He still refused to believe that the White Lotus Sect of back then could have become just like the Dharma Sect now; one had to remember that the White Lotus believers had risked their very lives to fight the Dharma Sect back then.

How could the White Lotus Sect have turned into his own enemy in just a few short months?

Yet Lu Xiucai also felt that the words spoken by that sackcloth fellow named Liu Zongyuan did not seem like lies. After all, the man was begging the Master to step in; even if he wanted to deceive someone, he would never have the nerve to deceive the Master.

"Hey, Xiucai, are you really going? You've only got one arm left. Do you really intend to get rid of the last one too and turn yourself into a human stump?" Gowa, who was driving the horse, craned his neck and tried to dissuade him.

"Even if I lose my last hand, I have to go see with my own eyes exactly what is going on. If someone is masquerading as the White Lotus Sect, or if scoundrels have emerged within the sect, I will go tell Mistress and have the White Lotus Sect send people over to clean house."

"Look at the mess you've made of your own life, yet you still have the spare time to worry about this. Don't you care about your father or your niece anymore?"

"Your father is fine; after all, Niuxin Village lacks a village guardian, so your father can fill the spot and live out his days eating from a hundred households. But what about your niece? She is only five years old, her parents are dead, her grandfather has gone mad, and you are her last living relative. Why don't we just turn back?"

Hearing this, Lu Xiucai immediately retorted, "What do you mean by that? Are you just wishing for my death? I'm only going there to scout the path! I am no longer the Lu Xiucai of the past! Besides, even if I only have one hand left, I am still stronger than you!"

Gowa offered no further reply. Hunching his neck, he silently drove the carriage. Only after a good long while did a sentence pop out of his mouth: "You really are his disciple; your temper is looking more and more like his."

Lu Xiucai did not argue back this time. He looked through the carriage window beside him at the stars in the sky. "Before, I always felt that Master refused to teach me because he looked down on me and was hoarding his secrets."

"But now I finally understand that Master actually just didn't want me to walk the path he walked. This path is hard to walk; it is bitter, and it is exhausting."

"Heh heh, you only just realized that? I noticed it long ago." A look of immense pride appeared on Gowa's face. "I certainly can't endure such bitterness. Even though I'm illiterate, when it comes to this one point, I'm smarter than you."

"But there always have to be some fools in this world, don't there?"

Gowa seemed to understand these words, yet he also seemed not to. At any rate, he did not take up the thread. "I don't know what Senior Brother Li is up to right now either, staying away from home day in and day out. Now that trouble has struck the family, it falls on you to shoulder the burden."

"I don't know either, but Master must be doing something grand. Since I am his disciple, I will handle this small matter for him, so he doesn't have to fret over such trivialities."

"Hmph, look at you, so capable, so mighty. If it were me, writing a letter and sending it to Shangjing would be good enough."

"How much time would a round trip take? By the time your letter arrives, they will probably have long received word and fled without a trace. Stop the carriage!"

As Gowa pulled the reins, the sound of horse hooves gradually came to a halt. "What's your hurry? There are still two li left."

"If they really are scoundrels, there will certainly be scouts outside. You can go back now, lest you be dragged into this."

"Oh, my, look at you. You've learned quite a lot after just one trip out the door."

Lu Xiucai could not be bothered to heed the other's sarcastic remarks. Propping his body up with his single arm, he climbed onto the back of the horse pulling the carriage.

He untied the carriage ropes, shook the reins forcefully, and rode the horse along the road.

Watching the receding figure in the distance, Gowa rubbed the white patches on his face and shouted, "If you don't die, remember to come back early. If you do die, I'll help collect your corpse. That shroud will come in handy after all."

Lu Xiucai had only one hand, making him very unsteady on horseback, so he rode very slowly, virtually ambling his way to the Great Dharma Temple that Liu Zongyuan had spoken of.

Upon his arrival, Lu Xiucai finally discovered that the so-called Great Dharma Temple was actually a massive mountain that closely resembled a temple.

He looked toward the pitch-black woods all around, seeing neither any hidden sentries nor encountering any ambushes.

Lu Xiucai reached out his hand, gave a forceful tug, and completely exposed the white donkey tattoo on his back right through his paper bellyband.

Regardless of whether there were hidden sentries or whether those self-proclaimed White Lotus Sect people noticed him, he whipped the horse once more and proceeded up the mountain path toward the Great Dharma Temple.

As the mountain path grew increasingly rugged, a fishy, metallic stench permeated the air. Lu Xiucai recognized this smell; it was the stench of blood.

Reaching the halfway point of the mountain, Lu Xiucai's heart suddenly thudded. There, hanging by the roadside, was a White Lotus banner. Though the characters on it were crooked and misshapen, they were undeniably the propaganda of the White Lotus Sect, and moreover, they were written in blood.

"The Crimson Sun tribulation ends, the White Sun shall flourish. Silt originates where chaos begins; when the White Lotus appears, a prosperous age arises!"

Pursing his lips, Lu Xiucai cracked the whip again, urging the horse onward. Before long, the sound of the hooves abruptly vanished. Lu Xiucai immediately looked down and found a sheet of pitch black on the ground.

He used his copper coin sword to pick up a piece of that black matter to examine it, only to realize that it was all human hair. The entire mountain path was blanketed in human hair.

So much hair—just how many people must have died for this? This could not help but remind him of those rigid human pillars beneath Niuxin Village.

As they neared the mountaintop, the horse beneath Lu Xiucai refused to move forward no matter what, as if some terrifying presence lay ahead, constantly backing up with halting steps and neighing incessantly.

As Lu Xiucai leaped down from the horseback, the wooden spikes piercing into his two legs drove a fraction deeper.

Yet Lu Xiucai, long accustomed to it, leaned on his copper coin sword with his single hand and prepared to walk forward.

Just as he dismounted, he suddenly noticed that a sack was left on the horse's back. When he opened it to look, he found that Gowa's white-haired syringe and Yang Xiaohai's decayed wood ruyi were actually placed inside.

Lu Xiucai smiled. He did not take them, leaving these things on the horse's back. Giving the horse's rump a hard slap, he turned and strained to shuffle toward the summit.

The end of the road was a mountain cave. Looking at this cave, Lu Xiucai felt it bore a slight resemblance to the Breeze Temple cave that Gowa and the others always bragged about.

The wind blowing out from the cave's mouth carried an even heavier stench of blood; it was definitely in here.

And when Lu Xiucai truly stepped inside, he beheld the gilded divine statue atop a colossal lotus right in the dead center of the cave entrance.

But upon a closer look, Lu Xiucai finally discovered that it was actually a hideous yellow centipede coiled into a ball!

The centipede's thousands of hands were pressed together like a monk in prayer. At a sudden glance, it truly looked as if the Thousand-Hand Guanyin had descended upon the world.

"A centipede?" Lu Xiucai was stunned at first, followed immediately by a wave of joy. "I knew it couldn't be the White Lotus Sect! You beast, how dare you masquerade as the White Lotus Sect to commit such evil deeds!"

Just at that moment, a clacking "da-da-da" sound rang out. It was the sound of the giant centipede's prayer-joined limbs parting ways.

But what made one's skin crawl was that this sound came not only from in front of Lu Xiucai, but also from his left, his right, and even from behind him.

(End of Chapter)

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