"I am Shixing. By the time you read these words, I will have already died."
Li Ang nearly dropped the stone tablet when he saw the first sentence.
What mysterious resurrection.
He shook his head and continued to read the tiny script.
"I was born in the second year of the Xiande era in Linshui Town, State City, to a father named Qu Twelve and a mother named Jiang Banmei, who ran a ready-to-wear clothing shop in the town.
I was much more precocious than other children my age, able to copy and recite scriptures at the age of three or four. Because I could recite the Buddha Sutras that were kept in the house, the monks thought I had innate wisdom and took me to the White Horse Temple in Chang’an.
Time at the temple cannot be described as either happy or unhappy. Regardless of Zen doctrine, Magic, painting, music, the tea ceremony, or poetry, I only needed to see them once to learn. I gradually grew accustomed to the praise and adulation, or the envy and hostility, of others.
I became indifferent to what others thought of me. My mind was as clear as a bright mirror. Even when I won a debate between monks and Daoists at thirteen and rode through Chang’an City, I felt no emotion.
When I was fourteen, my parents finally made a trip to Chang’an. I rarely felt joy, but I went out of the city to greet them. However, they only uttered my monastic name under the monks’ protection, with anxious humility.
Shixing. Not my birth name, Qu Bai.
Between my biological parents and me, a thick wall had formed.
For Zen, a Buddha’s son should not have parents, nor should they have brothers or sisters.
After that, my heart grew ever more unaffected, like an ancient well without ripples. At fourteen I entered ’Rain Listening,’ at fifteen I ascended to ’Cloud Patrol,’ and by the time I was eighteen, I was only a thin sheet of paper away from the Candle Cloud Realm.
The Zen monks across the world saw me as a future hope. The Academic Palace Master was willing to make an exception and take me as a disciple. Even the Haotian Taoist Sect, which had long ceased to concern itself with earthly affairs, wanted me to teach scriptures at Taihao Mountain.
But what did all this mean?
I had already detached from the world with neither joy nor sorrow.
I smiled and gently touched the palms of the faithful, listening to their troubles and woes, guiding them through life.
I wept for the destitute who starved by the roadside. I called for monks and Daoists to distribute porridge to the disaster-stricken, and used my ’Cloud Patrol’ cultivation to build bridges and pave roads.
I walked among the people, making friends outside the monastery.
I listened to young scholars complain about the examination scrolls in the imperial exam. I heard clerks who despised officials who ascended through their parents’ influence. Prostitutes lamented how the Brothel Madam schemed at every turn to cheat them out of money, and farmwives sobbed over their children who had starved to death...
I listened and observed all manner of things in the world. I didn’t feel what the Buddha Sutra describes as ’the three realms are restless, like a house on fire.’ Instead, I dimly felt that each of us was just a marionette, acting out a vast, chaotic, meaningless drama.
Since it’s a drama, there was no need to invest any emotion—I maintained this thought, sustaining the role I was supposed to play in others’ eyes.
A devoted, intelligent, humble Buddha’s son.
Until her appearance."
Li Ang raised an eyebrow; the ’her’ described in the text was not the Holy Empress but a young girl.
The following text dedicated a considerable length to describing how beautiful, intelligent, and cunning the girl was, like a white fox atop a snowy mountain.
Qu Bai, or should I say, Shixing Monk, was quickly shaken to the core and willing to give up everything for her.
Including following the other party’s arrangements, abandoning his reputation as a Buddha’s son, and compiling the "Great Cloud Scripture" for the Holy Empress.
"I am willing to become a stone bridge, enduring five hundred years of wind, five hundred years of sun, and five hundred years of rain, all for her to cross over me."
Li Ang looked at the words on the stone tablet and couldn’t help but rub his temples, feeling a sense of familiarity with this passage.
The stone tablet doesn’t specify the name of the girl, but it’s likely she was a subordinate of the Holy Empress. It might even be that Shangguan Wan’er.
Li Ang shook his head. He wasn’t interested in Shixing Monk’s love story. What mattered to him were the secrets of the Pure Thought Sect. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ Novᴇ(l)Fɪre .ɴᴇt
"My fate was destined to encounter a catastrophe. So, I deliberately let the Holy Empress kill me and then had my corpse buried in the Pure Thought Sect’s Buddhist Tower beneath the Chang’an Ghost Market. Hoping that sixty years later, I would be revived by the Pure Thought Sect’s Secret Technique to face the prophesied catastrophe."
Li Ang furrowed his brows and calculated the time. This year marked precisely the sixtieth since Shixing Monk’s death. Could this have been his calculation?
But what exactly was the catastrophe mentioned in the prophecy?
"Now, you are me. The Pure Thought Sect’s Secret Technique will erase most memories. Therefore, I have divided all memories related to the Pure Thought Sect and the prophecy into three parts. These are placed in three different locations for you to retrieve. To prevent any leaks, here are the specific locations. Take this Black Lotus to find them."
The text ended there, followed by various pictographic symbols.
Is this... Ancient Siyou Script?
Li Ang paused, recalling what he had seen in the Book Collection Pavilion of the Academic Palace. Legend has it that in the Northern Territory of Yu Country, there was an underground Dark River system similar to the Chang’an Ghost Market. Its scale was even larger.
The tribe that lives within the Dark River and along its currents are the Siyou people.
The Siyou Clan rarely comes above ground, and their customs and culture differ greatly from those on the surface. The most recent sighting was during the Two Jin Period when a poet accidentally fell into the Dark River and was saved by the Siyou people.
Another incident occurred two hundred years ago. An Academic Palace Doctor discovered a pile of giant fish bones inscribed with text along the Yellow River, believed to belong to the Siyou Clan.
Li Ang narrowed his eyes. Siyou text samples were rare and only kept in the Dongjun Tower. Thus, he wasn’t entirely sure whether these pictographs were indeed the true Siyou Script.
But if they were, why would Shixing Monk use this kind of script to convey messages? Didn’t he say that the Pure Thought Sect’s Resurrection Secret Technique would erase most memories? How would he ensure that his resurrected self would remember this script?
After pondering for a moment, Li Ang decisively covered the Dark Lotus and the stone tablet with Mo Si, put on the mask given to him by Ya Jiu, and walked out of the dense forest, heading toward Chang’an.
He would not return to the caves to investigate further.
Firstly, Shixing Monk only cared about the woman suspected to be Shangguan Wan’er and had no true feelings for others in the world.
Secondly, half his brain had been blown away by Ya Jiu. Whatever ’thing’ could survive in such a state was definitely not Shixing Monk himself.
The pressing matter now was to alert the garrison that a Buddha Shedding Monster appeared beneath the Ghost Market.
Those creatures were numerous, fiercely unafraid of death, each as powerful as a Postnatal Martial Artist. If they invaded the Ghost Market or even escaped to the surface, it would surely lead to a disaster.
Just as Li Ang mingled with the crowd and entered the city gate, several squads of garrison soldiers hurriedly drove out from Chang’an City. The leading officers were those he had seen at the concluding phase of the Jianyue Theater Troupe incident.
And their direction of travel was east of Chang’an.
Li Ang was slightly surprised, thinking to himself, That’s right. With the garrison’s capabilities, it is more than possible to plant spies in the Ghost Market with hundreds of thousands of people. They must have heard the commotion and received the message by now.
With the garrison handling the situation with the Pure Thought Sect’s Buddhist Tower, Li Ang felt much relieved. Wearing his mask, he entered Chang’an City, weaving his way back to his home in Golden City Square.