[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-the-dao-dust-pearl":3,"chapter-the-dao-dust-pearl-the-dao-dust-pearl-chapter-947":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","The Dao Dust Pearl",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2360448,4614,"Chapter 947: The Night of Maitreya","the-dao-dust-pearl-chapter-947",947,"\u003Cp>The three parties arrived at the main hall of the Medicine King Temple and paid homage to the Medicine Light King Buddha.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Aside from the Three Eastern Saints in the main hall, the Medicine King Temple had two side halls; one was locked, even its windows covered by curtains, shrouded in mystery.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The other was the venue for this exchange, housing an unknown deity—green-faced, fanged, grotesque and terrifying, resembling a Yaksha.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seeing the Xuanzhen Sect and the foreigners studying the statue, Hua the Physician of the Three Emperors’ Association explained: “This deity is tied to the temple’s origins, which is why it is venerated here as our ancestral master!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhigou sits at a crossroads of north-south traffic, where strange occurrences abound; this Yaksha King of the Medicine King Temple is one such case.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Legend says the temple was originally a Maitreya Temple, built by local devotees gathered by schemers into a incense-burning association, pooling funds to hold rituals, offer prayers, celebrate feasts, and provide charity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Later, the incense-burning association grew larger, and this Maitreya Temple was erected—but after only three years, it was suddenly sealed by imperial decree!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It turned out both leaders of the incense-burning association were disciples of the Red Yang Sect, using the gathering as a base to establish roots.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They learned from the south how to pool funds for associations and used the name of Maitreya Buddha to attract followers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Initially, devout Buddhists pooled money for Buddhist rites; later, the two claimed surplus funds from the rites could be lent out, with profits saved for future rituals to accumulate merit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They began lending money to association members, who competed to pay interest for a share of the surplus.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One Red Yang disciple intercepted the funds by offering higher interest.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After a month, he repaid the full amount—this pattern repeated, gradually building trust; people from miles around rushed to join and pay, and the two accepted all contributions, always repaying interest in full, returning strings of copper coins and silver to the merit box.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On festival days, they used this money to buy wine and meat, dividing portions among themselves without hesitation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The principal remained untouched; only interest accumulated, allowing association members to eat meat once or twice a year…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As the operation grew, suspicion arose: how could this Red Yang disciple earn such enormous profits? An elderly member quietly asked the leader, but he dodged every question.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One day, two idle men conspired: the merchant who always seized the association funds must have a secret trade.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Let’s steal his secret, use our own capital, don’t ruin his business—just follow along and earn a few coins ourselves…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In Zhigou, when it came to money, even gods and buddhas couldn’t frighten anyone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That night, the two secretly followed the Red Yang disciple as he turned left and right, arriving before a dilapidated small temple, where he retrieved a Maitreya statue, prostrated three times with nine kowtows, burned incense, bowed, then poured all the collected silver and copper coins into the statue’s mouth—into its bloated belly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The coins clattered inside, clearly filling half the statue’s belly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then the two Red Yang disciples knelt before the statue and said: “Maitreya descends, Ming Wang manifests! Disciples have gathered a hundred families’ fortune coins; we humbly beg the Ming Wang to cause them to mate and multiply!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No sooner had they spoken than clinking sounds emerged from within the Maitreya’s belly; soon, silver coins cascaded out from beneath the statue’s belly—each coin shaped like copper, yet shimmering with silver light.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Indeed, silver had bonded with copper, giving birth to silver coins.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The two non-monk, non-priest Red Yang disciples conversed before the statue: “Why so few this time?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Maitreya reincarnates, Ming Wang descends to purge demons and usher in the Great Red Yang Era—thus all have fortune, endless silver. Whoever obeys the Ming Wang and recites the Maitreya Rebirth Sutra accumulates fortune coins. We collect their money, place it in this sacred statue; because abundance brings blessings, we consume their fortune to make silver coins mate and produce small coins, then return most of the money to them to continue accumulating fortune!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These two Red Yang disciples were, of course, performing a fraud, deliberately tricking onlookers into witnessing this spectacle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As planned, one thief was terrified and dared not act; the other was seduced into stealing the statue.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They then had the frightened thief expose the scheme to the devotees, gathering a crowd to capture the would-be thief and beat him to death, then publicly reenact the fortune coin multiplication.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thus everyone believed utterly, and the Maitreya Association grew to tens of thousands, building this Maitreya Temple.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At its peak, everyone burned incense to worship Maitreya, pooling vast sums into the statue’s belly; during good festivals, the statue’s belly produced hundreds of taels of silver in offspring coins, each drop leaking out yielding several fen in interest.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In bad years, the silver coins produced would revert to copper overnight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At such times, the two leaders would claim the people’s devotion was insufficient, their accumulated fortune coins too weak, causing silver to revert to copper.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then devout followers would obey the leaders blindly—either expelling some merchant in Zhigou who disrespected gods and buddhas, or beating up officials who opposed the incense association.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Since the incense association gathered tens of thousands, no official dared challenge it; even one county magistrate who tried to dismantle it was driven out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Eventually, the Maitreya Association drew the attention of high figures in the capital—Zhigou was but half a day’s journey from the capital, beneath the Son of Heaven’s gaze; gathering tens of thousands to burn incense and form associations was clearly a thorn in the court’s eye, so they sent a high adept from the Imperial Astronomical Bureau to break their magic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The secret was simple: legend said Yunnan possessed a technique to forge fake silver—arsenic bronze.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Later, the Red Yang Sect acquired from the West a method to smelt nickel bronze; combining both, they forged lifelike fake silver—medicinal silver—and crafted this Maitreya statue capable of transmuting copper coins into medicinal silver, sending agents to deceive and gather funds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Both disciples were transcendent beings of the second step on the alchemist’s path; later, they advanced to the third realm, and the medicinal silver became ever more convincingly real.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They spent this medicinal silver abroad; initially, flaws appeared, so they rallied followers to drive out merchants who refused it—later, merchants feared them and reluctantly accepted it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Moreover, the Red Yang Sect’s secret technique was truly extraordinary; the medicinal silver’s quality was superb, allowing them to purchase nickel ore from overseas through Zhigou’s foreign merchant guilds. Since merchants dared not refuse these coins, they had to find ways to spend them—first in remote villages, where many knew of Maitreya’s fortune coins and gladly accepted them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The foundation of currency is trust.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because this money circulated, merchants gradually accepted it, limiting their use to a degree; though valued forty percent below silver, it could truly be spent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The two Red Yang disciples understood nothing of finance or currency; yet because Zhigou’s commerce was prosperous and its waters deep, they issued money cautiously, weathered the initial disbelief and devaluation, and actually established trust for the medicinal silver.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Later, merely the coin issuance scale yielded tens of thousands of taels of silver annually; their money-lending operations based on medicinal silver earned hundreds of thousands of taels.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Eventually, this self-issued currency institution attracted foreign investment; Zhigou’s major merchants secretly colluded to uphold its credibility, facilitating their own capital circulation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Had it not been for this, the court would never have been driven to desperation, summoning a fourth-rank adept to break their magic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Red Yang Sect’s patriarch personally journeyed north, triggering the Eastern Continent’s first great transcendent duel over financial sovereignty.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To break the medicinal silver’s magic, the court brought the imperial mint’s mother coins and molds; the Red Yang Sect had foreign aid, and eventually alloyed silver and copper to turn fake silver into real silver.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Finally, the court summoned a great master from the imperial household, who broke the medicinal silver’s magic, turning all medicinal silver coins in Zhigou back into copper.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It nearly sparked merchant riots; seven or eight wealthy families in Zhigou hanged themselves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It can be called the first financial crisis of the previous dynasty...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the Maitreya Association collapsed, the temple was razed by imperial order!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thirty years later, a Zhigou master of buried treasure hunting found the site and claimed the Maitreya statue, having been consecrated by the Red Yang Association and worshipped by hundreds of thousands, had truly gained sentience.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The bronze golden body had been refined into real gold.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Moreover, since the two Red Yang leaders failed to ascend to the fourth realm, court adepts prepared to execute them; they used the bronze Buddha to conceal their souls, then sank into the earth three hundred zhang, drawing upon golden qi.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>All the strange occurrences at the ruined temple over these thirty years were the work of their spirits, seeking worshippers to become demonic deities.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To retrieve this golden Buddha, one needed a braid never cut since birth, belonging to a virgin who remained so until age fifty.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only with a pure yin qi could one lift the golden Buddha, buried three hundred zhang deep, drawn by subterranean mineral gold qi, weighing more than ten thousand jin.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thus the treasure hunter summoned three grave robbers and, through a wager with a young, arrogant Daoist at the Tianhou Temple, identified a fifty-five-year-old virgin in a nearby village who had never cut her hair.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But when retrieving the treasure, the yin spirit within the bronze Buddha emerged to wreak havoc, killing two grave robbers; after lifting it, a stench of copper fumes suffocated the treasure hunter and all villagers lured by the golden Buddha.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only the fifty-five-year-old virgin survived.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet stranger events followed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The lifted golden Buddha, its magic broken, rusted and was utterly destroyed; the fifty-five-year-old virgin returned home pregnant, her belly swelling visibly day by day—everyone nearby deemed it an ominous affair.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A virgin conceiving—those foreigners who understood some Eastern Continent languages turned pale!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Profanity!” a foreign priest interrupted Hua the Physician, furious: “I will burn this place, burn the witch who defiles the sacred!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hua the Physician laughed nervously: “It’s just a story—happened centuries ago, in the previous dynasty! Why the panic? Village women and fools’ tales—why take them seriously?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Jing, the official beside the Crow, sneered, studying the foreigners, and said: “Let him try.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Crow also said coolly: “Continue. You keep talking about burning things to worship demonic gods? Our Xuanzhen Sect burns too—and better, more skillfully. When the Boxer Uprising raged, our sect master hadn’t yet joined us—we shattered the mysteries of this world. We missed the spectacle of burning sheep; now, another round won’t hurt.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The foreign priest sat quietly, never again uttering the word “profanity.”\u003C\u002Fp>",1816,"2026-06-21T05:40:02.617Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","7bc8fa9ee3ffc18c86b131af61ea96687e01cbe79b5598222e2ece2bf64f7804","the-dao-dust-pearl-chapter-948","the-dao-dust-pearl-chapter-946",1000,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-dao-dust-pearl-cover.jpg"]