Chapter 1

I. This Land of Pure Soil

Pay attention, this man is called Xiao Shuai!

He is currently tying a rope tightly around a pure gold lotus lamp, swinging it above his head to take aim, and throwing it with all his might toward the hole above...

Ouyang Rong felt that if this were truly someone's prank on him—filming a regular person with a hidden camera—then the way everyone would get to know him in the near future would likely be by meeting him with this set of idiotic opening lines.

"I'm telling you, I don't care if this is a cheesy prank, a nightmare, or truly the Land of Ultimate Bliss... no one is going to stop me from going back to take the postgraduate entrance exam!"

Ouyang Rong crouched on the edge of a lotus stone pedestal with his head hanging low, muttering with dry lips, his eyes fixed intently on the golden lotus lamp in his hands as he earnestly tightened the knot.

This was a secluded underground palace; the four walls faintly retained some faded murals, and in the center of the floor sat a half-meter-high lotus pedestal with a constricted waist and upturned petals.

Other than that, it was empty.

The only light source was a circular hole in the ceiling ten meters above it, roughly the size of a manhole cover.

This also seemed to be the only exit to the underground palace; a beam of gray moonlight slanted down from it, landing precisely on the young man who was crouching on the lotus pedestal without regard for his image.

"I've been preparing for a year, studying from 4 AM to 10 PM, and I'm going to the battlefield this weekend. You think falling into a well can trap me? Even the Buddha's well won't work! I'm telling you, it's absolutely impossible!"

Ouyang Rong checked the knot one last time, licked his chapped lips, and 'sprang' up from the lotus pedestal.

With one hand gripping the rope tightly and the other cradling the heavy golden lotus lamp, he looked up and glared at the 'well mouth' he had been longing for.

There is no well hole that cannot be climbed out of, only postgraduate candidates who climb!

However, after pumping himself up, Ouyang Rong didn't act immediately.

He suddenly turned his head and called out to the darkness behind him: "Hey, you guys come over and give me a hand too. Once I get up there, I'll save you all as well."

This secluded underground palace actually held more than just him.

In the pitch-black area not reached by the moonlight, three dark shadows were vaguely scattered:

A monk sitting in withered meditation, his physique extremely tall, piled there like a small hill.

His gray monk's robe was tattered, his face withered, and his age was indistinguishable.

An old Daoist priest leaning against the wall, sitting on the ground with his legs spread wide like a winnowing basket.

The whole person was huddled like a water monkey inside a wide, black-feathered crane-cape, arms crossed and wrapped tightly, as if afraid of the cold.

Only a pointed head was exposed, with a youthful face and white hair, a Daoist headscarf pressing down on a full head of silver threads.

There was also a girl hugging her knees and burying her face; she was naturally slender-boned, but wearing an ancient-style Han dress made her appear even more frail.

This was also the quietest one in the underground palace.

When he first woke up, Ouyang Rong tried to strike up a conversation with her, but the girl didn't utter a single word, merely flashing a pair of eyes like autumn streams from the gap between her knees and slender arms.

At this moment, as Ouyang Rong tossed about in the moonlight, the slender girl's pair of fine eyes leaked out from between her arms again, silently watching him.

Ouyang Rong scanned the three strangely dressed people again, feeling no matter how he looked at it that they didn't seem like postgraduate candidates, but he still couldn't help muttering: "You guys really aren't coming out?"

But he was met with three gazes that looked at him like he was a fool.

"Cannot go out!"

Hearing the words "go out," the withered monk trembled uncontrollably, as if he had just been fished out of the North Sea beneath solid ice.

"Why?"

The withered monk pointed to the ground with one finger and to the sky with the other, "This place is the Lotus Pure Land; above is the Avici Hell!"

"If I don't pass the exam, then it truly is the Avici Hell." Ouyang Rong nodded and turned around.

The monk still couldn't bear it and reminded him with a Buddhist chant: "Namo Amitabha, benefactor, if you go up, you will immediately be eaten by evil things."

"Don't go out and seek death, damn it." The crane-cape old Daoist also sneered, then paused, "If you want to seek death, don't drag us along."

"..." Ouyang Rong.

Are you guys crazy?

He held it in, swallowed his words, and shook his head.

Sure enough, anyone who still believes in religion in this day and age is a bit superstitious, not even as good as that girl in the Hanfu circle.

Glancing at the still-silent slender girl, Ouyang Rong decisively turned his head and began throwing the golden lotus lamp toward the circular hole above.

Not long ago, he had tried calling for help loudly, but he didn't know if it was because the underground palace was too deep or because it was late at night and there was no one around, but there was no movement outside.

"Can't drag this out any longer, I haven't finished memorizing my vocabulary."

Ouyang Rong remembered watching a wilderness survival video while eating a while back, where someone who fell into a deep pit tied a heavy object to one end of a long rope and threw it out of the pit to wrap around a tree trunk, successfully getting rescued.

"I remember before I fell down, there were two incense burners for scamming coins nearby." The postgraduate candidate analyzed calmly.

Right now, he didn't know if the lotus lamp he picked up was real gold or just brushed with gold paint, but weighing it, it seemed quite valuable.

But... screw it, even if it's a cultural relic, it's useless. The lives of the people and the postgraduate exam are more important. The 'people' have requisitioned it!

Just watch.

The first time, missed, hit the ground.

The second time, hit, threw it out!

But when he pulled, it slid back in from outside the hole.

The third time, changed direction, missed...

At this moment, the withered monk pressed his palms together, his face showing sorrow:

"Benefactor, why be so obstinate? It was hard enough to ascend to this Pure Land; don't fall back into that Avici Hell."

"Above, it is covered with all kinds of evil things, growing all kinds of evil karma. There are waves drowning the mountains and fields, fierce fires filling the ten directions, poisonous gases filling the heavens and earth, and evil winds blowing and destroying all things..."

"Stop blabbering." The crane-cape old Daoist changed his sitting posture to cross-legged meditation, while moving backward away from Ouyang Rong. He said impatiently: "Good words cannot persuade a ghost seeking death; great compassion cannot save those who seek their own end."

The postgraduate candidate, who was preparing to throw again, suddenly stiffened. He lowered his eyes and silently looked at the strange Confucian robe on his body that he had been deliberately ignoring.

This was not the clothes he was wearing before he fell down.

Boom—

Faint thunder suddenly came from outside the underground palace, and before he could react, the night rain fell.

Ouyang Rong looked up, raindrops hitting his greenish eyelids.

No matter how he looked at it, he felt this perfectly round hole looked like a manhole cover—the well mouth that caused him to lose his footing and fall.

This matter is a bit convoluted.

Ouyang Rong was originally a second-year postgraduate candidate. With the exam approaching, while lurking in a small group called "Gentlemen's Postgraduate Exam Group (No Girls Allowed)," he heard group members say there was a Donglin Temple in the suburbs that was very skilled in the businesses of passing the exam and praying for marriage, and every year people from all over the country came to fulfill their vows...

After inquiring further, it turned out there was a century-old Wishing Tower in the temple, and inside was a Fortune Bell. After accumulating enough merit, going to ring it once could grant blessings and make wishes come true.

Ouyang Rong was actually skeptical about this from a materialist perspective, but who knows if the anxiety of young people nowadays is so great that even the Buddha knows about it? The Buddha actually took on this business...

And he really needed these two items, so it truly hit his itch.

Let's just assume sincerity leads to efficacy.

So that morning, Ouyang Rong took his critical, sharp gaze and took a taxi to Donglin Temple. As a result, when he arrived, good heavens, "Don't say you started early, there's always someone earlier." The line to enter the temple stretched to the foot of the mountain, and in front were all peers like him, bowing their heads and scrolling through their phones in the cold wind.

Waking up so early, one look and you know they are veteran postgraduate candidates, not forgetting to scroll through questions and grind even while queuing... Ouyang Rong sighed. Just as he was about to take out his phone, a little monk poked a QR code between two fingers right in front of his nose, telling him to scan it.

Ouyang Rong took a look and found it was actually a QR code to download an app called 'Merit Tower'.

This Donglin Temple was quite user-friendly, allowing benefactors who didn't have time to queue to ring the bell online without leaving their homes. It truly stood at the forefront of all temples in the country in terms of benefactor care.

At that time, Ouyang Rong didn't waste words. After downloading it, he turned around and left immediately; a postgraduate candidate's time is very precious.

On the way back, he studied it a little and soon figured out this small application.

Clicking into this Merit Tower, it mainly had an electronic wooden fish and a Fortune Bell.

The electronic wooden fish could be tapped manually; tapping it once added +1 merit, and there was even a warm counter above it.

As for the most important Fortune Bell that could make wishes come true, it required accumulating 10,000 merit points to ring it once.

What was more devilish was that this app actually came with the background music of the "Great Compassion Mantra," and it couldn't even be turned off...

"Tap the electronic wooden fish, accumulate cyber merit, obtain mechanical blessings, ascend to the Pure Land, and see the mecha Buddha, right? I'm familiar with this." Ouyang Rong was quite confident.

By the way, there was actually a "limited-time donation for merit" option in the bottom right corner of the app, but Ouyang Rong ignored it directly. Next time... forget it, next time isn't certain either.

Non-paying benefactors can only grind like crazy. Don't look at Ouyang Rong still hesitating at 'abandon' in his vocabulary, but in terms of hands-on ability, he had been a max-level human since he was a child.

When he was a child, as long as he found a slightly straight wooden stick, there wouldn't be a flower or grass taller than his waist within a ten-mile radius of his home; passing dogs had to take two whacks; if he was given a string, not even a tadpole in the pond could survive.

So that night, Ouyang Rong used a motor, gears, chopsticks, and rubber to rig up a physical auto-clicker, placed it and his phone on the bedside table to grind merit like crazy, while he leisurely finished memorizing his vocabulary and fell asleep listening to the Great Compassion Mantra.

As a result, he was banned the next day.

"..." Can't afford to lose?

Ouyang never expected that this small outsourced app actually had an anti-cheat mechanism.

Early the next morning, he went to Donglin Temple again, indignant, wanting to find them to reason... okay, actually he wanted to pretend to be innocent and see if he could get unbanned.

But when he arrived, it was the familiar long line again, so he detoured up the mountain, wanting to see if there were any other doors he could take.

As a result, halfway there, the postgraduate group he liked to lurk in, which had a very righteous name, had another dog group member post a picture of righteous energy.

Posting it in broad daylight? Ouyang Rong subconsciously double-clicked to zoom in and take a look, but it was because of this greedy glance that when he turned the corner, he didn't pay attention, his foot slipped, and everything went black...

Ouyang Rong stood on the lotus pedestal and wiped the rainwater off his face hard.

Judging from the last few frames of his memory, he must have lost his footing and fallen into a well in the temple that lacked a cover.

It's just that it was very strange that when Ouyang Rong woke up, he found himself lying on his back on this cold, hard lotus pedestal beneath his feet.

His phone and down jacket were all gone; he searched the entire underground palace and couldn't find them. In their place was a strange white unlined garment.

And a circle of white gauze was wrapped around his forehead, like a headband, covering a collision wound that wasn't small, which was still faintly throbbing at this moment.

But fortunately, he only fell on his forehead, not his face.

And he was very familiar with his own face. Although the underground palace was pitch black and he couldn't find a mirror, after roughly feeling it, he found that it was 80% likely to be correct, unless he was reborn as Hu Ge or Edison Chen.

If it weren't for this ironclad evidence, he would have almost believed the nonsense of the withered monk and the crane-cape old Daoist.

No longer dwelling on the clothes on his body, he hesitated for a moment in the rain and continued throwing.

Midway, he changed direction twice more.

Finally!

On the tenth throw, the lotus golden lamp thrown out of the hole was no longer pulled back by him. A steady resistance was transmitted from the straight rope to Ouyang Rong's abraded web of his thumb.

His face showed joy, he wiped his face hard, spat out the mud and water in his mouth twice, and began to grip the rope tightly and climb up regardless of his image.

The withered monk, the crane-cape old Daoist, and the slender girl behind him were all staring at him intently at this moment.

At a distance of about ten meters, someone was like a small earthworm climbing a wall, "arching" up bit by bit.

The posture was a bit unsightly, which made his old face flush under the gaze of everyone, especially in front of that Hanfu girl.

But his dog life was more important; whether he looked cool or not could wait until he got ashore.

Soon, Ouyang Rong climbed up more than halfway against the rain. At this moment, he only needed to reach out to touch the rock at the well mouth, and his nose suddenly smelled a familiar sandalwood scent.

Sure enough, he was still in the temple! Ouyang Rong felt relieved.

Just at this moment, he suddenly discovered that the moon, half-blocked by dark clouds above, began to tremble.

Can the moon also shiver? This was the first three seconds, Ouyang Rong's first reaction in his brain.

But soon, he discovered it wasn't.

What was trembling... was the entire underground palace, and him.

Ouyang Rong was startled and hurriedly hugged the rope in his arms tightly.

The sound of rain above his head suddenly became louder, and the wind became fiercer. The rain falling from top to bottom began to slant from left to right.

Immediately following, the sound of water came from outside. Unlike the waves of the sea, in Ouyang Rong's ears, this sound of water was like a roaring train approaching from afar. It seemed to be rushing head-on from the end of the horizon, sweeping away all the flowers, birds, beasts, high mountains, and forests along the way. The whole world trembled because of it.

Ouyang Rong finally understood the true meaning of the two terms "the earth moves and the mountains shake" and "the heavens and earth change color."

Unfortunately, it was exchanged for his butt hitting the ground hard.

The lotus golden lamp that had been thrown out was "unbound" and slid back down, dragging Ouyang Rong, who was briefly deaf, down with it, falling back into reality once again...

He didn't know how much time had passed, but everything that had suddenly become noisy returned to calm.

The rain from left to right changed back to falling from top to bottom.

Ouyang Rong sat on the cold, hard floor of the underground palace, soaked all over.

Beside him on the ground was the broken half of the lotus lamp, and the other half had flown to the corner, with various colored beads scattered all over the floor.

Ouyang Rong's upper body still maintained the posture of hugging the rope tightly without letting go, looking up blankly at the circular hole that looked very much like a manhole cover.

Just now, at the place closest to the hole, he not only heard the roar of mountain torrents and the howling of fierce winds, but also faintly heard... the wailing of many people.

Outside was a great flood, at least a mountain torrent roaring for hundreds of miles, or even, perhaps, a flood similar to the one that destroyed the world in the "Old Testament."

A frail individual is simply not worth mentioning in the face of such great power... postgraduate exams are the same.

Silence for a long time.

"That, what did you just say?"

Ouyang Rong, looking up, suddenly spoke without turning his head.

Not far behind him, the withered monk, whose face was always calm, made the gesture of pointing to the ground with one finger and to the sky with the other again.

"Benefactor, this place is the Lotus Pure Land; above is the Avici Hell!"

Ouyang Rong stopped speaking.

Actually, he wanted to ask about the sentence "There are waves drowning the mountains and fields... and evil winds blowing and destroying all things," but, forget it...

A certain materialist postgraduate candidate turned his head seriously and asked sincerely: "What is the high monk's surname?"

"..." The withered monk.

"..." The crane-cape old Daoist.

"..." The slender girl.