Chapter 104: Pingkang Mountain Great Prison

The believers' expressions grew ever calmer, and the devotion in their eyes was not feigned.

Amid the orderly, low murmur of chanting.

Hong Lei swept his gaze silently over them, yet felt no peace or tranquility—instead, an inexplicable unease crept into his heart.

He turned and backed out of the main hall, then looked at Shen Yi with some nervousness: "My lord, what do we do now?"

It seemed they had found the right place.

But the scene before them could hardly count as evidence.

This matter was no longer as simple as a private grudge. Along the way, Hong Lei had heard his share of things—how Shen Yi, at Da Shun Zhai, had crushed the better part of Qingzhou City's younger generation with an overwhelmingly forceful stance.

Leaving virtually no room for compromise!

At this moment, countless pairs of eyes within the city had temporarily set aside their hostility, quietly awaiting the outcome.

If he could not maintain his earlier thunderous decisiveness and deal with the Vajra Gate cleanly and crisply.

If he showed weakness before the crowd.

If they discovered Shen Yi was not as dominant and assured as he appeared, what would follow would be an endless tide of counterattacks.

Setting aside other underhanded tricks, at the very least the complaint papers accusing "Lord Shen" of acting wantonly and perverting the law would pile high on the Commander's desk!

Not only outside—even within Zhen Mo Si.

This group of Vice-Captains trusted Shen Yi so deeply that he had won an authority far beyond that of an ordinary attendant Vice-Captain.

But this newly-gathered authority still needed time to solidify. If something went wrong on the very first occasion…

"Get up!"

Two Vice-Captains of the inner camp casually flipped the little novice on the ground over and said coldly: "What trick are you playing? Where's your abbot?"

"The abbot… the abbot isn't here, my lord. We were just leading the patrons in gathering Qi and meditating. What is the meaning of this?"

Before the little novice could finish speaking, he saw the young man whose collar was embroidered with yin-yang fish slowly walking over. He still wanted to beg for mercy, but found the other reach out and flip open his monk's robe, five slender fingers swiftly pressing along skin and bone.

"Just started practicing?"

Shen Yi withdrew his hand and stood straight once more.

"What is my lord talking about? Practicing what?" The little novice's heart lurched. The words of denial had barely reached his lips when a shrill scream tore out: "Ah!!"

A clean, long boot casually ground over his arm; the crack was crisp indeed.

Shen Yi, who had been observing in silence, now slowly walked to the front of the main hall. The aura belonging to the Jade Liquid Realm swept out swiftly, scattering every wisp of pale incense smoke within the hall.

Almost at the same instant, every believer raised their head in confusion; the joy in their eyes gradually faded, then transformed into a certain heart-clawing, liver-rending agony.

They clutched at their hems, veins bulging on their necks.

Soon, the chanting turned into uncomfortable low moans. The people flared their nostrils hard, yet no matter what they could no longer feel the happiness from before.

"Master! I'll write a letter—I'll write one home right now! I'll definitely call my grandson here to sit and cultivate with us!"

"Give me a little more mercy!"

Someone staggered to their feet, as though their essence and spirit had been drained, looking like a walking corpse, and pleaded: "Give me paper and brush…"

Hong Lei and the others of Zhen Mo Si were briefly stunned, then all knit their brows tight.

Shen Yi pried away the withered claw gripping his sleeve, and golden light flared once more in his eyes!

Within the hazy gray view, white mist and golden light still alternated. He did not know how long it had been when, at last, a thread of almost imperceptible crimson seeped up from below.

He withdrew his Qi-Gazing technique and strode forward, coming to a halt before the Buddha statue.

His five fingers clenched into a fist, then he suddenly punched out!

The instant the clay Buddha body exploded, amid the dust a secret passage was plainly revealed before his eyes.

"You lot stay up top and guard."

Shen Yi stepped down toward the depths below; the two inner-camp Vice-Captains cupped their fists in assent.

Hong Lei let out a breath of relief and hurried after him: "They left so many people up on the mountain and built a secret passage—it can't just be to swindle a bit of incense money."

Before he finished speaking, his face changed slightly. He raised a hand to cover his mouth and nose, forcibly suppressing the urge to retch, and continued following behind Shen Yi.

He did not know how long had passed when the quiet staircase reached its end. Beneath his feet the ground was slick and muddy, reeking of several mingled stenches—excrement, the smell of blood, a foul animal musk…

What came into view were cells formed on either side by black iron railings.

Apart from the iron railings, the cells had largely retained the original appearance of the stone grotto. The only fixture was a stone trough, where waste and some sort of paste-like food were mixed together, with traces of medicinal powder clinging to the edges.

Inside the filthy stone trough.

One body after another lay with their upper halves sprawled within it, letting themselves soak in food and excrement. Their sallow, gaunt cheeks were smeared with filth; their gazes were dim, and they mechanically swallowed the paste—filthy as a herd of pigs that knew nothing but eating and drinking.

After a few swallows, they would roll onto their sides on the trough, lap up the medicinal powder with their tongues, then their eyes would bulge as though seized by some madness, their bodies twitching violently until they were spent, their gazes vacant as they writhed across the slick ground.

A few crawled out a short distance, grabbed the iron bars, and idiotically squeezed their heads outward, banging them with a clanging "clang clang."

Hong Lei looked at the cells stretching out of sight on either side and no longer even had the heart to count how many people there were.

In an age of demons and chaos, he had seen scenes more wretched than this.

But an environment this disgusting—truly for the first time.

"Could that old man really stay in a place like this?"

Hong Lei no longer even wanted to use the term "false bald-ass."

"Perhaps he's gotten used to it."

Shen Yi replied softly and continued walking forward.

If one followed what Zhang the Butcher had said, even counting from the slaying of "Yuan Zhi," it had already been many years ago.

"What does he keep these people around for?"

Hong Lei was quite puzzled. If he really liked raising things, he might as well just raise pigs.

Shen Yi halted his steps and gave a slight nod of his chin.

Hong Lei followed his gaze and saw two somewhat elderly men holding wooden buckets, pouring the liquid inside into a large pit.

Crimson and thick, it churned, with streaks of milky white rising to the surface, and chunks of blood mixed within.

The two men put away the wooden buckets and looked coldly outward, as if they had long known of Shen Yi's arrival, yet not a trace of panic showed on their faces.

They simply stood quietly beside the pool, as if announcing something, their voices utterly without ripple: "The two donors have arrived one step too late. You are going to die here."

Looking at those two somewhat familiar faces, Hong Lei quickly recognized their identities—both were senior-generation experts of the Vajra Sect who had achieved mastery in cultivation, at the very least no weaker than Monk Benxin.

"No good." He exhaled a breath, his hand pressing onto the scabbard: "No matter what today, you have to give me one."

"Both are yours."

Shen Yi looked toward the blood pool.

"Both?" Hong Lei tugged at the corner of his mouth, just about to decline politely, when his gaze was likewise drawn to the blood pool.

He saw only the churning surface growing ever more violent, as if boiling, dwindling at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Soon, a bald head was revealed.

His face was pale and beardless, the two eyes he had opened brimming with blood vessels, vacant and foolish.

With each breath, the blood pool poured entirely into his body; between his skin, the colors of mystic white and black surged in alternation, bearing no trace of demonic or evil intent—on the contrary, yin and yang were in harmony, his aura thick and grand, casting the seated abbot in such a light that he resembled a Buddha who subjugated demons.

"Without traversing... kalpas of monks... one attains the dharma body..."

The abbot rose slowly, his movements stiff, his voice as if in a delirious murmur.

"Huh?" Hong Lei gripped the sword hilt tightly.

That verse can be interpreted this way too? Without needing to endure measureless kalpas one attains the fruit position—meaning you let others take the tribulations for you, then obtain the dharma body yourself?

Does this old man read the scriptures literally, word for word?

"Many thanks..."

"Many thanks..."

The abbot's whole body convulsed; he pressed his palms together toward the prison cell, then gathered the two Vajra Sect elders over and embraced them with boundless gratitude.

Beneath those two seemingly emaciated arms, the two men had no time to speak before their eyeballs bulged instantly from their sockets, and their whole bodies emitted a creaking, teeth-grinding sound.

When he loosened his arms, these two experts no weaker than Monk Benxin had already breathed their last on the spot, slumping to the ground like rotten meat.

The abbot stared at his feet in puzzlement, then split his mouth into a sharp grin: "May I today attain the fruit and become the precious king, and likewise ferry across beings as many as the sands of the Ganges... I have attained perfection, and was just about to ferry you across, yet it is you who lacked the fate to receive it..."

As his words fell, he shot up with a thunderous crash; the stone wall, hard and dozens of zhang thick, shattered before his body as easily as tofu—in an instant he had burst out of the underground prison!

"..."

Hong Lei stared dumbly at the two corpses on the ground, his heart already sunk to the bottom.

He had heard that the abbot of the Vajra Sect had obtained half a scroll of a Core-Condensing Body-Tempering Art, but had never believed there was any such thing in the world as a "half-venerated Core Condensation."

Yet what had just happened utterly shattered his understanding.

"Many thanks."

Just then, someone patted his shoulder lightly.

Hong Lei instinctively hugged himself, then saw Shen Yi with a wisp of mystic-white-and-black qi pinched between his fingertips, which he placed into the silver bell at his waist, then turned and walked quickly toward the exit.

"Thanks for what?"

(End of this chapter)