The Butcher Buddha, Part One
Inside the tower, the last jailer also collapsed heavily. The sound of his impact echoed throughout the tower.
"In this way, you will have learned five sword moves from my Misty Rain Pavilion." Lin Zhenna recited the sword moves while on the man's back.
The man treated the jailer like a wooden puppet, constantly practicing his sword techniques.
“But with these, I’m afraid we can’t defeat the Yu brothers.” Lin Zhenna looked wearily at the door on the first floor and said, “If, if we can’t beat them, we must destroy the secret manual first. They’re probably waiting for us to come out from behind this door.”
Even though he couldn't see Nana behind him, the man turned around and said, "We'll win."
Nana breathed a sigh of relief behind the man's ear, rested for a few moments, and said, "I still don't know your name."
The man placed his hand on the door and said, "My master said he found me in the snow. I had nothing. No parents, no clothes to wear, nothing at all."
The door opened, and Yu Lie stood in the darkness, sword in hand, waiting for the two.
"My name is Xiang Wu."
The moonlight in Xiang Wu's hand coalesced into a long sword, and he carried Lin Zhenna across the threshold.
~
"Not bad, you've actually mastered the Moonlit Sword Technique of the Misty Rain Pavilion." Yu Lie praised, looking at the arm-length Moonlight Sword in Xiang Wu's hand. "You've got some talent for martial arts, kid."
"Since you know about the Misty Rain Pavilion, you still killed my disciples and imprisoned me here. You have a lot of nerve. Aren't you afraid that my master will slaughter all your disciples?"
"The three hidden sword sects, your Misty Rain Pavilion is one, and so is my Eternal Life Palace." Yu Lie laughed loudly, "I am not afraid of you."
“So you’re a lowly bastard from the Palace of Eternal Life,” Lin Zhenna spat, “a despicable scoundrel.”
"After all, she's just a woman with narrow-minded eyes," Yu Lie said dismissively, flicking his sleeve. "In terms of seniority, you should call me uncle. I won't stoop to your level."
“Little Master,” Yu Lie turned to Xiang Wu, holding a sword in one hand and pointing to the tower behind Xiang Wu with the other, and said, “I suppose you have obtained the ‘Smoke and Rain’ from Lin Zhenna. As long as you take it out and share it with me, I will not hold it against you for slaughtering my fellow disciples in the tower.”
"Pah! You petty thief!" Nana gritted her teeth and cursed, "Aren't you just deliberately trying to make your so-called 'fellow disciples' die in there?"
“This door is sealed off from the outside,” Xiang Wu said with a smile.
“Oh? Is that so?” Yu Lie paused briefly and said, “Then that means we have nothing to talk about.”
“Draw your swords in the order I told you to,” Lin Zhenna whispered in Xiang Wu’s ear.
Xiang Wu nodded and shouted at Yu Lie, "Enough with the nonsense, make your move."
~
Yu Lie and Xiang Wu exchanged four blows twice before returning to their original positions.
“Not bad, not bad,” Yu Lie said, looking at his torn clothes with a tsk-tsk approval. “The little monk who was once at the mercy of others has grown so much in the blink of an eye. The ‘Smoke and Rain Ode’ is indeed a peerless divine skill, living up to its reputation.”
The moonlight shone around Xiang Wu. Both he and Nana had fine beads of sweat on their palms.
"We can win," Nana murmured.
“However, you repeated one of the four moves just now,” Yu Lie said, making a gesture. “I suppose you don’t know more than six moves right now.”
Yu Lie changed his hand gesture again, holding up four fingers: "Perhaps there are exactly four moves, so I have to repeat one move."
Seeing Xiang Wu's somewhat uneasy expression, Yu Lie laughed loudly: "It seems I was right."
Yu Lie brandished his sword, drawing a semicircle in the air before finally placing the longsword upright in front of him, saying, "But don't worry. Even a lion uses its full strength to hunt a rabbit."
A monstrous sword intent surged from Yu Lie's sword, and fist-sized transparent bubbles floated in the air, gradually eroding the moonlight that shone between the two of them.
Xiang Wu swung his sword, and the cold moonlight, like three thousand feet of silver hair, rushed towards Yu Lie in the night wind.
That unstoppable momentum even surpassed the swordplay that Nana herself could achieve.
Like a hawk following the tail of moonlight, it charged forward with its sword drawn.
Some bubbles swallowed the moonlight, but faced with the relentless sword intent, they were eventually filled and burst. The sword intent that broke free transformed into small whirlpools, which were eventually tamed by the ensuing torrents, flowing mightily towards Yu Lie.
Sweat dripped incessantly down the back of Yu Lie's neck, soaking his entire collar.
"Excellent, excellent!" Yu Lie shouted excitedly, veins bulging on his neck. "My efforts in making these arrangements have not been in vain."
Twisting his wrist, Yu Lie drew the other half of the circle in the opposite direction.
A giant bubble formed above Yu Lie's head, and all the moonlight gathered in the bubble like rivers flowing into the sea.
The violent impact caused the originally round bubble to become grotesque and grow larger and larger.
The light grew weaker and weaker, and even the moonlight high in the sky seemed to be absorbed by this huge, transparent bubble.
Xiang Wu secretly withdrew the moonlight from his longsword. He had one last move, and he couldn't let Yu Lie swallow the moonlight within the sword any longer.
The longsword, like the only shooting star streaking across the night, trailed a long tail and pointed straight at Yu Lie.
No sooner said than done. A bubble burst, and all the light and sound vanished.
It wasn't as deafening as I'd imagined; it was light and clear.
In an instant, Xiang Wu was plunged into boundless darkness.
"Elephantless!" Nana's last cry was instantly lost in the deep darkness.
~
In the final moments before the explosion, perhaps as an unconscious action, he used his silvery sword intent to wrap Lin Zhenna like a silkworm cocoon and send her away from the center of the impact.
Yu Lie retrieved the rubbing of "Ode to Misty Rain" from Xiang Wuyi's pocket and said with delight, stroking the cover of the rubbing, "Finally got it. This hidden wonder."
“This book has a second half, which can only be passed on orally.” Nana spat out a mouthful of blood, struggling to prop herself up, and looked at the motionless elephant lying on the ground.
Yu Lie stared intently at Lin Zhenna with piercing eyes.
“Let’s make a deal,” Nana continued. “You spare his life, and I will pass on the remaining half of the oral transmission to you.”
"How do I know if what you're saying is true or false?" Yu Lie replied hesitantly.
“During the Xuanhe era, the chief eunuch Li Yan used the power of the court to forcibly seize our school’s sword manual, intending to use it to rise to the top in one step.” Lin Zhenna coughed twice. “But he ultimately failed to master it, and I think you must know this.”
“You mean,” Yu Lie’s eyes darted around, “that he didn’t master it because he was missing the second half of the oral instruction.”
“These three extraordinary skills could all be learned from a single sword manual,” Lin Zhenna said patiently. “They have been passed down for hundreds of years, and the secrets would have been revealed long ago.”
"I'm afraid your 'Longevity Manual' isn't so easy to learn."
“What you say makes a lot of sense,” Yu Lie said. “However, after tormenting you for so long, you haven’t revealed a single thing. Now that you’ve changed your tune, it’s hard to say that you’re not trying to trip me up by revealing the sword manual.”
“I told you, even if you take the sword manual, you can’t learn it without the second half,” Nana said calmly. “Whether it’s leaked or not is not important to us.”
Yu Lie pondered for a long time, then suddenly laughed out loud: "I almost got tricked by a junior like you."
With his sword pressed against Xiang Wu's chest, Yu Lie said, "It's true that Li Yan didn't master the sword technique, but that's probably not the reason you mentioned."
"You're not allowed to touch him!" Lin Zhenna glared angrily, channeling her inner energy.
"At worst, I'll just arrest another disciple of the Misty Rain Pavilion and lock him up for a few days. Not everyone is as stubborn as you guys."
Nana waved her hand, and a faint sword intent shot out. However, even this insignificant sword intent dissipated within three steps of her.
Nana felt a tightness in her chest and spat out a mouthful of blood.
“I don’t think you’ll live much longer,” Yu Lie said. “Let me see you off on your journey so we can reunite in the afterlife.”
~
"Namo Shakyamuni Buddha, Namo Shakyamuni Buddha, Namo Shakyamuni Buddha."
Suddenly, the sound of a woman chanting Buddhist scriptures echoed from the horizon.
Her voice was soft as water, yet it revealed a firmness like that of a diamond.
Yu Lie involuntarily stopped what he was doing. Even he couldn't determine the other party's location at this moment.
"Who goes there!" Yu Lie shouted loudly, "Stop playing tricks here."
"The supreme, profound, and subtle Dharma is difficult to encounter even in hundreds of millions of kalpas." Pei Jiangxi ignored Yu Lie and continued to sincerely chant the Buddhist scriptures.
Yu Lie realized that the sound wasn't coming from any one direction, but from every direction. The more he searched, the deeper he felt he was sinking into an abyss.
A chill rose from the soles of his feet, and he knew that if he didn't leave, he would probably never be able to escape.
But before that, Xiang Wu and Lin Zhenna must die, otherwise they will be eliminated by Yan Yu Lou sooner or later.
"Now that I have seen, heard, received, and upheld this teaching, I vow to understand the true meaning of the Tathagata."
"Great hero, save the little monk! The Misty Rain Pavilion will reward you handsomely!" Lin Zhenna sensed the murderous intent in Yu Lie's eyes, screamed towards the sky, and struggled to climb towards Xiang Wu.
Yu Lie looked around and then thrust his longsword forcefully towards Xiang Wu's heart.
The next second, an unexpected voice rang out.
It's the sound of metal breaking.
~
Blood trickled down Wu Nian's forehead, past his eyes, blurring his vision.
"Master, I'm so scared," the young Xiang Wu said tremblingly, clinging to Wu Nian's back.
"Go to sleep, we'll be home when you wake up."
"But what if those bad guys come after me while I'm asleep?"
“Your senior brother and master are here. Go to sleep, the night will pass quickly,” Xiang Yun said gently from the side.
Xiang Wu, perched on Wu Nian's back, blinked: "Don't Master and Senior Brother need to sleep?"
“Silly boy. Of course Master and Senior Brother need to sleep.” Xiang Yun reached out and pinched Xiang Wu’s chubby cheeks, saying, “You forgot about the Sleeping Arhat. Only when you are asleep can the Arhat manifest his power to help Master and Senior Brother.”
"Okay! Then I'll go to sleep quickly."
~
Yu Lie's sword did not penetrate Xiang Wu's body even an inch further.
The sword that had accompanied him in battle for ten years broke without warning.
Xiang Wuyi rose in a strange posture, his cheekbones and forehead bathed in moonlight, while his eye sockets were completely hidden in shadow.
"You are! You are..." For the first time, Yu Lie's face showed a panicked expression.
He started to say something, but then immediately shook his head repeatedly as if denying himself: "Impossible, absolutely impossible!"
With his eyes tightly closed and chanting Buddhist scriptures, Xiang Wu struck out with a series of palm strikes at Yu Lie.
"Who are you?" Yu Lie cried out in alarm.
Each palm strike was more powerful and more profound than the last.
Gradually, Yu Lie no longer had the energy to think about who the other person was.
More and more palms landed on him.
~
Nana saw that every time Xiang Wu struck out with his palm, the air around his arm was crushed into golden powder and scattered in all directions.
The overlap between Xiang Wu's chanting and the ethereal female voice from the horizon grew stronger, and his muscles were gradually covered in a golden hue.
Those bubbles floating in the air, absorbing moonlight, were shattered by the gold dust, just like ordinary bubbles.
A female voice from the horizon chanted: "Subhuti! If someone were to give away the seven treasures filling countless asamkhya worlds, and if a virtuous man or woman, having awakened the Bodhi mind, were to uphold this sutra, even just four lines of verse, and recite and explain it to others, their merit would surpass that of the former. How should one explain it to others without clinging to appearances, remaining unmoved? Why is that?"
Xiang Wu struck Yu Lie's left chest with his right palm.
The overlap between their recitations reached its peak at this moment.
"All conditioned phenomena are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows, dew, and lightning; thus should they be viewed."
Yu Lie received the heaviest blow, but instead of flying backward, he seemed completely unaffected, kneeling down like a devout believer and bowing his head.
Night returned to its natural stillness.
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