Chapter 308: Where you are is my home

Liu Junyan really came back.

He stood before the clothes rack in Nan Shu Fang, a corner of the black cloth lifted, and he was earnestly looking at that human-skin figurine.

During these days he was away, I had imagined many possibilities.

I thought he might have stayed on Song Shan and gradually become entirely a Copper Coin Person.

I thought he had fully awakened Dahui Chan Master's Buddha nature, directly set out from the Great Dharma King Temple, and begun wandering the world.

I also thought he would come back, but that mostly came after he had struggled a lot, possibly needing a long time.

I never imagined he would return to the pawnshop so quickly.

Morning sunlight slanted in through the doorway, enveloping Liu Junyan.

Summer had arrived; even though the time was early, the sunlight still carried a hint of heat.

I came running, stood at the small door of Nan Shu Fang near the Funeral Shop, but suddenly stopped, afraid to go forward.

Sunlight fell on Liu Junyan, casting his shadow on the ground… but there was more than one.

One was a solid, normal shadow; the other shadow seemed to lie atop it, revealing only a faint outline of a head.

Liu Junyan heard the footsteps, turned, and looked at me.

As he turned, the two shadows quickly merged together.

Our eyes met, and I keenly noticed that Liu Junyan's eye color had changed.

His pupils had always been amber, but now a ring of gold surrounded the amber.

It was beautiful, noble, yet it made me a little afraid… he had changed; I wasn't sure if he was still the same him.

But the moment Liu Junyan saw me, his eyes instantly filled with a smile, and he opened his arms to me.

I almost instinctively ran to him and held him tightly.

I didn't care.

No matter what he became, he was Liu Junyan, and he was mine!

Liu Junyan chuckled lightly, hugging me while rubbing the back of my head, teasing, "We've only been apart a few days, yet it feels like we haven't seen each other for hundreds of years."

"It feels like an eternity." I buried my face in his chest, voice trembling, "I was afraid you wouldn't come back."

Liu Junyan tightened his hold on my arms; I felt him kiss the top of my head, then whispered, "How could it not be? Where you are is my home."

I lifted my head to look at him and asked, "Then on this trip to Song Shan, did you get answers to what you wanted to ask, and figure out everything you wanted to know?"

"I've figured out some things, but there's still more I need to verify."

Liu Junyan brought me back to the room.

It seemed the Big Family had agreed, as no one came to disturb us.

Liu Junyan first said to me, "I know that day in the carriage you probably guessed some things; this trip to Song Shan was to clarify the true relationship between the Copper Coin Person and Dahui Chan Master, and whether my gradual merging with the Copper Coin Person can be left alone, needs immediate suppression, or even forced removal."

Indeed, it was roughly what I had guessed.

I asked, "What did the Empty Silence Abbott say?"

"He told me not to doubt, the Copper Coin Person is essentially part of Dahui Chan Master, but not wholly formed from his desire." Liu Junyan said.

I grew more curious: "Besides desire, what else?"

Liu Junyan pondered, then said: "This is a secret about Dahui Chan Master; now besides the Empty Silence Abbott, probably no one else knows it, and even what the Abbott knows is not complete.

He told me that Dahui Chan Master once came close to breaking his precepts and returning to secular life."

I let out a small "ah," then realized: "Is it because of A Wu, right?"

Liu Junyan nodded: "But whether it's Dahui Chan Master or A Wu, they both bear a mission; they are perhaps each other's karmic entanglement. Dahui Chan Master, to sever that affection, forcibly stripped away that desire, suppressing it with a hundred-year-old bronze coin offered before the Buddha. He never expected that desire would not only break the coin's restraint, becoming the Copper Coin Person, but also coexist with Dahui Chan Master."

I could hardly believe what I heard: "Just a desire, yet it could actually be cultivated into an independent being?"

"Perhaps such cases really exist." Liu Junyan said, "So I want to go again to the Special Affairs Handling Office to look up records and find evidence."

I immediately said: "Then I'll contact Old Fang's side to have him help arrange it."

Liu Junyan nodded: "Good."

After thinking, I asked again: "So, is it a good thing for you to purely merge with the Copper Coin Person's power, right?"

"It's considered good, but it also brings some bad consequences." Liu Junyan said, "According to the Empty Silence Abbott, after Dahui Chan Master's passing, the Copper Coin Person became its own entity; later events, Mo Qiong has already said.

But what Mo Qiong and they don't know is how arduous the Copper Coin Person's journey has been, due to its special bodily structure, with too many ill-intentioned folks trying to seize it; it was finally sealed in the pawnshop, perhaps related to this."

"That matches!" I exclaimed excitedly, "The Copper Coin Person's both arms are covered in white scales, and lately they've been dripping blood..."

I told Liu Junyan about the recent changes in the Copper Coin Person and what happened in Wufu Town, such as the Ghost Opera Stage, human-skin figurines, and so on.

We talked for a long, long time.

In the end, we both had a strong feeling: the person who almost seized the Copper Coin Person might be the same one who deceived Chen Ping.

Actually, I still wanted to ask: could that fellow also have some connection with Liu Junyan, after all the white scales on the Copper Coin Person's arms look exactly like Liu Junyan's true form.

Perhaps Liu Junyan had thought of something too, but he didn't pursue the topic, so neither did I.

After all, we have too many problems to solve; digging deeper only makes the pit bigger, and one slip could bury us ourselves.

First, solving the immediate problem is most urgent.

Liu Junyan's hand kept kneading my earlobe as he said, "Xiao Jiu, about Ling Hai..."

"I've thought of it! I finally figured it out!"

Liu Junyan was about to say more when suddenly Jiang Si Que's excited shout came from behind, followed by the sound of running footsteps, deng deng deng.

The two of us then went out together.

Seeing us, Jiang Si Que first greeted Liu Junyan, then eagerly told me, "Xiao Jiu Zhanggui, I've thought of it: embroider a bud of corpse-fragrance konjac on the back of the human-skin figurine; the plant takes seven to ten years from seed to first bloom, after flowering it emits a rotting smell to hunt, and that smell should also be very enticing to the human-skin figurine."

I know little about secret embroidery: "You mean to use the rotting smell after the corpse-fragrance konjac blooms to attract the hidden human-skin figurine? But will the bud embroidered on the figurine really blossom? Its flowering period is so long; do you have a way to make it bloom at the right time?"