Chapter 261: Mystical Realm

Xiang Hou gazed at the statue, seemingly thinking of something else in his heart, and said, "This drop of true blood indeed comes from an Luo Han, but the fruit position he attained is not one that already exists within the Buddhist school. This is all I can tell you."

After another moment, Xiang Hou seemed to return to his senses and smiled, "If I were to give you a drop of true blood from a Buddhist Luo Han, you would likely become an Luo Han yourself in a few hundred years. By then, wouldn't the Immortal Lords of your Grand Beginning Palace have to exterminate me?"

"Isn't this drop of true blood also Luo Han true blood? Could it be any different?" Wei Yuan asked.

Xiang Hou said meaningfully, "Not entering the Dharma lineage, not attaining reincarnation."

Wei Yuan immediately did not want to listen any further; it was common knowledge that the less one knew about such Buddhist matters, the better. Once you know, you become entangled in karma, and those great monks are quite unreasonable.

Xiang Hou said, "Let us prepare to begin. The Luo Han true blood is here, but not in this realm. True blood carries its own fruit position and has already formed a realm of its own. This place is merely the entrance."

"Many years ago, a young man came here, accepted the inheritance, and shouldered the karma. This temple was built by him. Yet, he exhausted his entire life trying to eliminate the karma, only to die young. What he did not finish repaying must be repaid by his descendants, generation after generation, until this very day. Ru'er, come here!"

The maidservant walked into the small temple and stood beside Xiang Hou.

Xiang Hou said, "She is a descendant of that young man from back then. This time, she will enter the mystical realm with you. Most of the karma will be borne by her, while you will only be tainted by a tiny bit. With your strength, you should not be affected. As for how much benefit you can obtain from the true blood, that depends on your own fortune."

The maidservant came before the Buddha statue and meticulously wiped away all the dust. Afterward, Xiang Hou took out a white jade lotus basin and placed it on the offering table in front of the Buddha.

Clear water rippled within the basin, neither spilling out nor drying up. Petals of lotus flowers floated in the water; it was actually a concrete and miniature lotus pond, with each lotus flower only the size of a grain of rice.

"This is the Bai Yu Merit Lotus Pond, imitating the Merit Pond of the Pure Land. Being able to possess one ten-thousandth of the original efficacy, it can be considered a rare treasure. The grain of blood ink I gave you last time, did you bring it?"

Wei Yuan took out the blood ink and handed it over. Xiang Hou then dropped the ink grain into the lotus pond. The clear water in the pond instantly turned into thick blood plasma, the color so deep it appeared black!

The maidservant took out a short blade, slashed her wrist, and poured a stream of fresh blood onto the blood pond. Then, with a casual wipe, the wound on her wrist vanished into thin air.

Xiang Hou handed Wei Yuan a short blade and said, "Use this blade to cut your wrist, fill a cup with fresh blood, and then I will send you both inside."

This way of entering the mystical realm looked bizarre no matter how one viewed it, completely out of sync with the Buddhist style. Wei Yuan then said, "Wait a moment, I need to make some preparations first."

Immediately, Wei Yuan drew a simple formation on the ground of the temple, found a withered branch to stand in the center of the formation, and then flicked a few drops of white-gold water onto various positions of the formation.

Xiang Hou looked at this formation, feeling it somewhat resembled a Feng Shui formation, yet also like a Spirit-Detaining formation. He was not very proficient in formations and could not quite tell what kind of formation Wei Yuan was setting up. Although the formation itself was crude, the spiritual objects Wei Yuan used to set it up were no small matter; they actually possessed a trace of immortal spiritual aura, making Xiang Hou not dare to underestimate it in the slightest.

A gust of wind rose within the formation, and the branch swayed, but it simply would not fall.

Wei Yuan suddenly remembered something, left the small temple, handed his new spear to his Senior Martial Sister, and then returned to the temple. This time, the branch fell.

Wei Yuan was very satisfied, took the short blade, and said, "We can begin."

Xiang Hou was somewhat curious and asked, "May this Marquis ask what that formation just now was for?"

"That was a divination formation, asking about the possible outcome of a certain matter. Oh, I divined whether my two senior martial elders could kill you, Marquis. Once I got a positive result, I felt at ease. If there is nothing else, I will head in first."

Xiang Hou's expression was wooden. He activated the Merit Blood Pond, and a mass of blood light diffused, enveloping Wei Yuan and the maidservant. A moment later, the blood light dissipated, and both Wei Yuan and the maidservant had lost their traces.

Only then did Xiang Hou look toward the formation on the ground. At this moment, he could still feel a trace of residual immortal spiritual aura. The corners of his mouth could not help but twitch, and he cursed inwardly: "Quite the investment!"

Having utilized immortal spiritual energy, and with the relevant people all present, the result of this divination should be quite accurate.

But the more Xiang Hou thought about it, the more wrong it felt. How could those two young juniors really be able to kill him? Looking at Wei Yuan's reaction, they shouldn't have been able to kill him at the start, and then he gave his elders a spear, and then they could kill him.

Was that spear too miraculous, or was it the final straw that broke the camel's back? Xiang Hou was not satisfied with either answer. Most importantly, could they really kill him?

When the blood light diffused in his field of vision, Wei Yuan lost consciousness. Then, he felt himself drifting, as if he heard someone calling his name.

The calling voice became clearer and clearer, and Wei Yuan finally heard it clearly: "Little Stone, wake up quickly, it's time to pay respects to the Buddha!"

Wei Yuan turned over and got up in a daze, as if the instinct of this body was doing so. He rubbed his eyes hard before he could see clearly that he was in a crude earthen house. The sky outside the window was still dark, and a middle-aged man in ragged clothes was holding a dim candle, calling him.

Wei Yuan remembered: he was an orphan in the village, and the person in front of him had adopted him since he was small; he was his foster father. This village had always had a tradition of paying respects to the Buddha. Every day before dawn, the whole village had to go to the temple to perform morning lessons. Once the one-hour morning lesson was finished, the sky would just be brightening, which was the beginning of the day.

Wei Yuan got up, put on his clothes, left the room, and followed his foster father toward the outskirts of the village. Every household in the village had people coming out, and together they arrived at the small temple at the head of the village.

In the courtyard of the small temple, straw mats had already been laid out one by one. The village chief's seat only had one more wooden board than everyone else's. Wei Yuan still remembered his spot, so he came to a straw mat in the corner and sat down. At this moment, a familiar figure appeared beside him. Wei Yuan turned his head to look; it was a familiar young girl, sixteen or seventeen years old, whose body had already developed very well, stretching her clothes until they were bulging.

Seeing Wei Yuan, she stuck out her tongue and then quickly sat down properly.

This was the daughter of a neighbor, who had played with Wei Yuan since they were small, but in the last year or two, the feeling between the two seemed to have changed somewhat. Wei Yuan had mocked her for her figure becoming deformed, bloated, and ugly, which had angered her so much that she hadn't spoken to him for several days.

She looked much better now than before... Wei Yuan suddenly had such a thought.

How long ago was before? It seemed like just a moment ago.

At this moment, a monk walked out of the temple and struck the wooden fish, interrupting Wei Yuan's train of thought. Then, the sound of chanting, which was rhythmic despite being modulated, rose up, and the morning lesson began.

When the monk chanted, he used another language. Wei Yuan couldn't understand the scriptures at all, but the scriptures themselves possessed a power that led him to chant along.

The scriptures were not long, and they were finished very quickly. After chanting through once, Wei Yuan suddenly felt that his body was a bit more transparent, as if some filthy and dirty things had disappeared. It was just that there seemed to be a large piece of opaque stuff in his body. Previously, Wei Yuan didn't even know this thing existed, and only now did he perceive it.

The monk began the second round of chanting. After Wei Yuan chanted along once, he felt that he was even more transparent, and a crack appeared on that large piece of stuff in his body. Although this crack was only a negligible bit, the Dharma master seemed to have said that this was the beginning of eliminating karmic obstacles, which was a great good thing. As long as one persevered, all karmic obstacles would be eliminated, and in the end, everyone could open their Dharma eyes and wisdom, attain the Luo Han fruit, and turn the human world into a Pure Land.

The entire morning lesson consisted of nine rounds of scriptures in total. When it ended, Wei Yuan felt that he was much more transparent, and even his body felt somewhat light. He was inexplicably in a very good mood, feeling as if he were one step closer to attaining the true fruit.

When leaving, the order was particular: the village chief and village elders left first, followed by the heads of each household, then the elderly, and finally the juniors like Wei Yuan and the neighbor's little girl.

!.

When exiting the courtyard gate, Wei Yuan and the neighbor's little girl accidentally squeezed together. Wei Yuan had always felt that she was cumbersome, and this collision prevented both of them from getting out of the gate, which further confirmed his thought. It was just that this was at the entrance of the temple, so Wei Yuan still let her pass first; the two of them couldn't walk together, and even her turning sideways wouldn't work.

Before leaving, Wei Yuan looked back and saw the monk moving the Dharma instruments back into the main hall one by one. The monk looked exceptionally clean, his face as if carved from jade.

"Didn't expect the Dharma master to be so young..." Wei Yuan thought, and then his hand was suddenly grabbed. He turned his head to look and saw it was the young girl.

"Brother Stone, you forgot that we were going to sneak a peek at Uncle Sankui hunting today to learn archery, didn't you?"

Only then did Wei Yuan remember that there was such a thing, so he followed the young girl and ran along the mountain path into the mountains. But they hadn't run far before the young girl had to stop, panting heavily.

Wei Yuan complained in his heart that it would be a miracle if someone who grew up like this could run fast. However, out of the loyalty of growing up together, Wei Yuan didn't intend to abandon her and go learn archery alone.

It was with great difficulty that the young girl caught her breath. Just as she said "let's continue," they saw a burly hunter walk out from one end of the mountain path, his leather clothes barely able to contain his bulging muscles.

The young girl exclaimed, "Uncle Sankui!"

The hunter laughed and said, "If you want to sneak a peek at skills, your movements have to be nimble. If you're as slow as you two, the prey would have run away long ago."

The hunter walked past Wei Yuan and the young girl. On the hunting fork carried on his shoulder were several pieces of prey, among which a white wolf was particularly eye-catching.

The young girl exclaimed again, "A white wolf! You caught it!"

"This beast eats a lamb every day and has bitten several people. If I don't catch it, all the sheep in the village will be eaten up! You have your father send me a jar of his treasured fine wine, and I'll give this wolf skin to you two as a wedding gift!"

The young girl was so shy that her face turned bright red, and she stomped her feet. As a result, her body shook and swayed, and Wei Yuan was worried she would fall right there.

At this moment, the sun finally rose. Wei Yuan looked up and saw a huge red sun leap out from the mountains, spilling rich red light over the world, painting everything in a dim red color, as if it were blood that couldn't be wiped away.

For a moment, Wei Yuan couldn't tell if it was morning or dusk. In the dim red sunlight, there was a hint of gold, as if it were getting closer and closer.

It should have been midsummer now, but the sunlight felt colder as it spilled down, and Wei Yuan subconsciously shivered. He found it strange; why would he be afraid of the cold?

Under the reflection of the sunlight, the hunter's back was also dyed blood-red, and even the white wolf hanging there turned red.

For a fleeting moment, Wei Yuan suddenly discovered that what was hanging on the hunting fork wasn't a wolf, but a bloody person!

He was greatly shocked, and when he looked carefully again, what was hanging on the hunting fork had turned back into a white wolf.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 262 =====