Chapter 154 Prajnaparamita (A burst of energetic electric guitar music)...
Xue Chao withdrew his consciousness from the electronic cemetery, and his main body also responded to the players who found the cemetery, asking them what was going on with these mechanical spirit towers.
Some players also tried to connect to the mechanical spirit tower through prosthetics to enter the electronic space, but all of them failed.
Xue Chao was a little surprised, but after leaving the cemetery, he understood. The host had stronger mental power and was better at mental activities, making it easier for him to enter the electronic space and act through his consciousness. Players didn't have much experience in this area.
Thinking back to his first time doing AI, I feel like my head is about to explode.
The Seven Treasure Pond is constructed from the seven treasures of Buddhism, including gold, silver, and lapis lazuli, and is shimmering with color. Above it stands the magnificent Wuliang Temple.
The pool water was also multicolored, making it difficult to distinguish whether it was the light reflected from the pool or the oily shimmer of chemical wastewater.
The pool was very deep, with water cascading down like a waterfall. At this moment, the bottom of the pool folded, transforming into a mechanical lotus. The main body of the lotus was bluish-gray metal, covered with machine oil, like a strange film. The edges of the petals were outlined with dazzling fluorescent powder, and golden light emanated from the flower.
As the water level recedes, the lotus flowers, some as small as cartwheels and others as large as suspended houses, are scattered at varying heights.
Before the water had drained, Xue Chao wrapped himself in a transparent protective layer he had bought from a store, plunged into the wastewater pool, grabbed a lotus stem, connected it to the back of his head with an electric wire, and sent his consciousness into the lotus flower, taking over its programming and forcibly creating an opening.
He climbed up the lotus stem and into the flower, swiftly and decisively knocking out the ascetic monk who was sitting cross-legged.
Fortunately, the ascetic monk did not have a prosthetic body; his consciousness took over the lotus, and no alarm was triggered.
All the buildings in Wuliang Temple are independent and not connected to the network. The electronic cemetery is heavily guarded, and the Thousand-Hand Guanyin statue only opens when someone enters and operates it.
Fortunately, these lotus flowers were in the same pond, and although there were electronic walls between them, his consciousness was adept at taking advantage of any gaps.
Suddenly, his senses, which had been searching for Subhuti, jerked with alarm—the sense of danger wasn't coming from inside the lotus pond; something outside had entered.
Xue Chao had previously removed one of the eyes from the Thousand-Hand Guanyin statue, and now it was stuck in the petal base, secretly monitoring the situation above.
The visitor was a lay Buddhist from the wealthy district who came to chant sutras today. Xue Chao saw him in the main hall.
Behind the layperson followed a tall person, wearing a long white cloak, whose cold, white hands were like frozen jade.
Xue Chao was momentarily distracted. This time, Jiang Ming wasn't wearing the coarse cloth-textured women's mourning hat. From a distance, he looked like a sculpture draped in white gauze. What was this guy up to now?
This lay Buddhist was one of the first outsiders to come to Wuliang Temple to chant sutras. His devout practice of converting to Buddhism seemed excessively radical among a group of taciturn monks.
He had some serious assets, including catching two infiltrators. He didn't seem like someone chanting scriptures or worshipping Buddha; he seemed like someone eradicating heresy for Buddhism.
Xue Chao initially thought he was a fanatical believer of the new era who didn't understand Buddhism but was captivated by the power of Wuliang Temple. However, he turned around and fawned over the evil god.
That look in his eyes was even more fervent than when he looked at Amitabha Buddha.
They stood by the pond, and the layperson spoke eloquently: "This is the Seven Treasure Pond, filled with the Eightfold Water, also known as the Eightfold Merit Water. When the water is released, it flows through the entire Pure Land, bringing blessings..."
The evil god casually raised his head, and the layman immediately shut up, retreated behind him, and patted his head like a dog. The layman then lay down on the spot and fell asleep peacefully.
He glanced at the lotus pond through the white cloak: "I rarely come here, aren't you going to greet me? How distant."
There was no answer from the pool. Jiang Ming threw the lay Buddhist into the pool and slowly walked along the edge of the pool: "I get a headache listening to these guys chanting 'Amitabha, Amitabha,' so I changed their faith code, and it's much quieter now."
The eyes of the Thousand-Hand Guanyin followed the layman in the turbid waves. Xue Chao saw code flowing across the curved screen the size of his palm on the back of his head, but it wasn't scripture. Instead, it was chaotic red and white lines, like the scribblings of a mental patient without any rules, the strokes full of madness.
So, is the prayer wheel actually a form of faith encoding, manipulating people's thoughts? If so, Subhuti's "Compassionate Voyage Project" in the electronic cemetery seems rather grandiose.
“When I don’t care, I let them jump around. But when I really want them to submit, they automatically kneel down, and they are so grateful that they shout that they have taken refuge in Buddha. Why didn’t I think of this good method? Occasionally, there are some clueless people who jump in front of me. I really have a good temper.”[1]
The Seven Treasure Pond is located directly below Wuliang Temple, without any obstruction. Occasionally, the chanting from Wuliang Temple will drift into the pond on the wind.
Now, the solemn chanting stopped, and a burst of energetic guitar music suddenly erupted in the eerie silence, rock music resounded throughout Wuliang Temple, and neon lights flashed wildly, sweeping across the sky.
The DJ even launched into a gruff opening line: "Ladies and gentlemen!"
Xue Chao: "...?"
"[Blessings]?"
"【Wang Siqi】?"
"【Huang Haitao】?"
...
The comment section erupted in laughter after they realized what had happened.
"【Wang Siqi】...What a sudden change in style!"
"[Lear] Whoever did this is incredibly talented, hahaha!"
"【Blessing】(A burst of energetic electric guitar music) (thump thump thump) (holding a rose) (another burst of energetic electric guitar music) (striking an electronic wooden fish) (Amitabha! jump! jump! jump!)"
"[Zhang Wei] The person upstairs is cracking me up, this is rock and roll!"
"【Holly】(Tap electronic wooden fish) Press 1 Buddha forgive me!"
"【Shen Lang】(tapping an electronic wooden fish) 1111"
"【Huang Haitao】(tapping an electronic wooden fish) 1111"
...
The culprit, the evil god, said shyly, "I've recently taken a liking to rock music."
Xue Chao: 0 people asked.
The electronic music party at Wuliang Temple was so high that the largest mechanical lotus in Qibao Pond was awakened, neon lights flowed along the edges of the petals, and the rock music was extinguished in the end.
A cold, clear voice came from within: "What brings you here, benefactor?"
That's true good temper. Xue Chao couldn't help but sigh, this guy actually managed to hold back, no wonder he's the manager of Wuliang Temple.
Jiang Ming's face turned cold, and he said in a theatrical manner, "Introducing weapons, stirring up bloodshed, and replacing their parts with machine parts, you set up an ascetic monk. Is it out of respect for the flesh, or out of fear of being invaded by a demon like me?"
He turned and smiled again: "It's wonderful to think about. With just a gentle touch, you will convert to me. Isn't that good? What Buddha can't give you, I can."
Subhuti, inside the mechanical lotus, replied with only four words: "All sentient beings must save themselves."
Jiang Ming raised an eyebrow, while Xue Chao secretly rolled his eyes. What was going on was incoherent. They had already come up with the Compassionate Voyage Plan, yet they were talking about self-salvation?
Subhuti then said, “It is a pity that the Dharma has perished and the Way has vanished, and people in the world are stubborn and unrepentant. I am just giving them a push.”
The final boss's speech.
Moreover, unlike traditional Buddhist disciples, or the reclusive masters in cemeteries who spout riddles, the new era has created new monks?
Jiang Ming feigned concern: "I should be lamenting that all the invitations I've sent out recently have been rejected. Will my sect's appeal decline? Who's been foolish enough to whitewash our reputation?"
“Sects?” Subhuti repeated, “Religions explain the world, persuade people to do good, but don’t mention ‘good’ that has nothing to do with you. You’re even too lazy to explain death to them.”
He even paid attention to the unlucky god, which was such a destructive act to one's purity and cultivation. Xue Chao felt that he was the one who was like a corrupted company employee.
Xue Chao listened as he softly recited, "Blood is not offered to Heaven, life is not given to Earth, great joy and great sorrow will not end well. Just this one doctrine makes them pursue the ultimate like madmen. You are poisoning them."
Jiang Ming: "Deception is indeed the style of us evil gods, but I'm even more reluctant to lie about death. Here, explaining death, explaining the world?... Hmm, telling them about the Western Paradise and the Six Paths of Reincarnation?"
His voice carried a veiled chuckle, yet also a chilling sense of mockery.
“If there is no Pure Land, then create one, and you will see it soon,” Subhuti asked. “As for the six realms of reincarnation… don’t you believe in it?”
The scene fell into an inexplicable silence. Xue Chao, hidden in the lotus flower, was startled by the quiet, as if the silence was directed at him.
Jiang Ming casually skipped over the question: "I'm not here to save them. They can do whatever they want, hate if they want, kill if they want, or even if someone wants to be a saint and is willing to give their own life to save another's. It's all up to them. No matter how twisted or greedy they are, they are still themselves. Their madness in their final obsession is the grace I bestowed upon them in this world."
The evil god slowly opened his hands, blood dripping from his lips, spreading in the pool, crawling into the stem of the mechanical lotus, and flowing upstream.
Sensing the intrusion of a foreign object emanating a strange aura, Xue Chao immediately withdrew from his consciousness. His true form once again submerged into the pool, following the waterfall. Just as the largest mechanical lotus flower was forcibly pried open by the evil god's virus, he leaped into the flower and stabbed at the monk.
The monk's figure flickered a few times and then disappeared. It was just a holographic projection.
Xue Chao hadn't held out much hope, but as the lotus rose from the curtain-like pool, Jiang Ming was already gone.
He didn't panic, but turned around as usual, and sure enough, he bumped into the evil god's cold embrace. His skin was like soft scales, coolly pressed against his neck: "Why did you walk so fast last time?" He asked with a hint of reproach.
"I was afraid you would take me back to marry me, and in the end, wasn't it you who let me go?" He passed the lucky check in the end, and it was a great success.
The evil god clung to him stickily. Xue Chao pushed his head away while scrutinizing him. He looked like "Jiang Ming" from the campus novel, with long black hair under his cloak. His appearance was seven parts similar to his pale original form.
Xue Chao looked at him, but was still thinking about his appearance and words just now. A strange thought popped into his mind—even as an evil god, he was very serious about it.
The evil god himself glanced at him with a strange look: "There, you will naturally have all the good fortune."
Where is that? A tavern?
The evil god hugged him tightly: "You're also here to find the boss, want to cooperate? Let's cooperate!"
Xue Chao said with disdain, "This instance doesn't want to kill me anymore?"
The evil god tilted his head and thought for a moment: "I don't have any murderous intent right now, I just want to get close to you, or maybe we can kiss, or... go for it..."
Xue Chao pressed down on his dog-like head, grabbed his cloak collar, and left: "If you say another word, get out. Subhuti is the boss?"
“Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here,” Jiang Ming said with a grin. “My appearance fee is very high.”
"Ha, a rock star's price tag?"
"whee."
The two hit it off immediately, but the process was difficult. The lay Buddhists, players and other outsiders in Wuliang Temple, as well as the artificial prayer wheel program, were all invaded by the Xisangshen virus of Jiangming. These Protestants spread the virus to every temple and building.
However, Jiang Ming also failed to find the consciousness of this Subhuti.
Xue Chao: "Are you sure you didn't miss him? You don't know him?"
Xue Chao still remembered that Jiang Ming called Lamia an "old friend." Because Helena had changed her face, she didn't recognize Rosedale. But from his words, he was also familiar with that strange tavern. His conversation with Subhuti also indicated that they had a connection. Xue Chao was even more certain that this Subhuti was the unawakened boss.
Jiang Ming: "I won't miss my prey, and there's something you misunderstood. It's not that the boss hasn't awakened yet, it's that there isn't a boss yet. Just like Helena is constantly forming a cocoon and then breaking out of it, she's not in her initial, completed state."
Xue Chao: "Then you're so sure it's him? Couldn't it be some other NPC or monster that evolved into a boss?"
“It must be him,” Jiang Ming said softly. “The dungeon has a story setting, like fate. Who will fall to the deepest point in the middle is all predetermined. Have you forgotten Helena?”
Why does he keep bringing up that strange butterfly today...? But Xue Chao had indeed seen Jiang Ming at his most unpredictable and erratic with the strangest mood swings during that campus drama.
Feeling inexplicably uneasy, as if infected by his mood, he changed the subject: "Shall we wait until he becomes the boss before killing him?"
To kill Lamia, Ming must wake her up first.
"I'm getting a little tired of this," Jiang Ming yawned. "Let's just kill them."
He was tired of glancing at them every time, trying to verify a question he would never get the answer he wanted.
Xue Chao noticed that he was unhappy again, and glanced at him: "Whatever."
Jiang Ming, however, seemed to glean something from those two lazy words and clung to them even more affectionately.
If Xue Chao hadn't vaguely seen his true form, he would have thought he was an octopus, with one tentacle torn off and the other seven enough to tie him into a gift and put a bow on it.
Xue Chao didn't want to put in too much effort, so he let him be: "What about the electronic cemetery? Maybe this Subhuti is also dead, without a physical body, and is already in Subhuti's consciousness family."
“No, that collective consciousness is the program of the Compassionate Voyage Project,” Jiang Ming said. “Maybe it’s waiting for this Subhuti to return to his position so that the program can be completed.”
"Wouldn't killing him be fulfilling his wish?" Xue Chao frowned, something seemed off. "Would Wuliang Temple really wait until then?"
After learning about the Cihang Plan, Xue Chao realized that with so many people in the Pure Land, Wuliang Temple couldn't wait for everyone to die naturally before implementing the plan.
The plan hasn't been launched yet because the consciousness of living people hasn't been fully collected. It's due to a lack of technology or time, not because the monks have a conscience.
When the time comes, whether you are alive or dead, your consciousness will be forcibly uploaded to the Mechanical Spirit Tower.
Where is this Subhuti? He must be hidden in the program, able to control the whole situation... that is the Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara statue.
The sense of being watched by the Guanyin statue did not come from a thousand Buddha eyes, but from the consciousness of Subhuti within the Guanyin statue!
Rather, the Thousand-Hand Guanyin statue is the prosthetic body of this Subhuti; he is a "new human" who has completed mechanical evolution.
As Jiang Ming began to chatter in a coquettish manner, Xue Chao winked his blue eyes at him, his long eyelashes fluttering like butterfly wings, casting a deep shadow, like the ocean reflected in his eyes.
Jiang Ming paused subtly, then said, "You're right, there's something unusual about the pool." He understood his implication.
The tears shed by the holographic projection of Amitabha Buddha are actually the machine oil flowing from the Thousand-Hand Guanyin statue at the highest point. All the machine oil from Wuliang Temple flows into the Seven Treasure Pond, and after being treated as "Eight Merits Water," it flows through various parts of the Pure Land. But has that wastewater really been purified?
The water was clear when it first came out of Wuliang Temple, but it wasn't just Wuliang Temple that had wastewater. The water became murky again after flowing a few steps. Where is the merit?
If it's not just a random allusion found in scriptures, then it must have some other purpose.
The wastewater dumped was all generated by the operation of machines, and almost all of the machines used in Pure Land Temple were produced by Wuliang Temple, because they all had prayer wheels.
Even if Shenzhou Company brings its own machines in, as long as they haven't been in their hands for a long time and haven't passed through the hands of the Pure Land's original human, the prayer wheel will definitely take advantage of the situation.
All the water in the Pure Land can be considered wastewater from Wuliang Temple.
“The water of the Saha world is heavy, so it can only flow downwards, while the water of the Pure Land is soft and light, flowing up and down.” Jiang Ming looked at the pool water that had suddenly risen, “That boring plan has been launched.”
A miraculous sight appeared in the Pure Land: the water in the waterway began to flow backwards back to Wuliang Temple.
Instead of returning to the bottom of the Seven Treasures Pond, the mechanical lotus flowers bloomed fully, extending mechanical pipes like stamens, leading to all the palaces.
The dynamic murals were lit up one by one with golden light, and all the energy moved towards the electronic cemetery.
Just then, the virus that had invaded Ming forced half of the water to change course, rushing towards the tallest and furthest Thousand-Hand Guanyin statue.
The overflowing wastewater violently washed over the Guanyin statue and seeped into the eye hole dug by Xue Chao. The evil god's virus invaded and, as expected, caught Subhuti off guard.
The ascetic monks in Wuliang Temple really thought they were cultivating a living Buddha, but in reality, they were just using the abbot, who had sculpted his entire body into a prosthetic body to resemble the Thousand-Armed Guanyin, as a front.
"The hands on the chest, and the Amitabha Buddha image above the head." Having connected with the Thousand-Hand Guanyin statue, Xue Chao accurately pointed out the hiding place of Subhuti's consciousness, instantly chasing after Ming's viral consciousness.
On the other side, the four characters "Compassionate Voyage Across the Sea of Suffering" appeared on all the prosthetic bodies within the Pure Land, submerged in dense scriptures, and forcibly uploaded everyone's consciousness amidst the fear and powerless struggle of the crowd.
The mechanical spirit tower in the cemetery shone brighter and brighter until all consciousness was uploaded, the "Paradise" consciousness space was established, the Compassionate Voyage Project was completed, and at the same time, the consciousness of this Subhuti was strangled.
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