Chapter 1 This Pure Land
Look closely, this man's name is Xiao Shuai!
He was tying the rope tightly to a pure gold lotus lamp, swinging it overhead to aim, and then throwing it with all his might toward the hole above...
Ouyang Rong felt that if this was really a prank on him—using a hidden camera to film ordinary people—then soon everyone would probably meet him with this stupid opening line.
"Let me tell you, I don't care if it's a cheesy prank, a nightmare, or even a real paradise... Nobody can stop me from going back to take the postgraduate entrance exam!"
Ouyang Rong squatted on the edge of a lotus-shaped stone platform, his head bowed, his dry lips muttering to himself. His eyes were fixed on the golden lotus lamp in his hand, and he was carefully tying a knot.
This is a secluded underground palace, with some faded murals remaining on the four walls, and a half-meter-high waisted lotus pedestal placed on the ground in the very center.
Apart from that, it was completely empty.
The only source of light is a circular hole in the ceiling about ten meters above it, roughly the size of a manhole cover.
This seemed to be the only exit from the underground palace. A beam of hazy moonlight slanted down from it and landed right on the young man who was squatting on the lotus pedestal without regard for his image.
"I've been preparing for battle from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. for a year, and I'm going to the battlefield this weekend. You think you can trap me by falling into a well? Not even Buddha's well! I'm telling you, it's impossible!"
Ouyang Rong gave the knots one last check, licked his chapped lips, and then jumped up on the lotus pedestal with a 'whoosh'.
He gripped the rope tightly with one hand and held the heavy golden lotus lamp in the other, staring up at the 'well' he had been longing to see for so long.
There are no wells that cannot be climbed out of, only people who are preparing for the postgraduate entrance examination!
However, Ouyang Rong did not take immediate action after being injected with chicken blood.
He suddenly turned around and called out to the darkness behind him, "Hey, you guys come and lend a hand. I'll go up and rescue you too."
He wasn't the only one in this secluded underground palace.
In the pitch black, where the moonlight did not reach, three dark shadows were vaguely scattered:
A monk sat there in meditation, his body very tall, like a small mountain piled up there.
His gray monk's robes were tattered, and his face was withered, making it impossible to tell his age.
An old Taoist priest leaned against the wall, sitting on the ground with his legs spread wide like a dustpan.
He huddled like a water monkey inside a large black feathered crane cloak, his arms wrapped tightly around him, as if he were afraid of the cold.
Only his pointed head was visible; he had a youthful face but white hair, and a Taoist shawl covered his head of silver hair.
Another girl was hugging her knees and burying her face in her hands. She was already slender, but she wore an ancient-style Hanfu dress, which made her look even thinner.
This is also the quietest one in the underground palace.
When she first woke up, Ouyang Rong tried to talk to her, but the girl didn't utter a word. Instead, a pair of eyes as clear as autumn water flashed through the gap between her knees and slender arms.
At this moment, Ouyang Rong was fidgeting under the moonlight, and the slender girl's delicate eyes peeked out from between her arms, silently watching him.
Ouyang Rong scanned the three oddly dressed people again. No matter how he looked at them, they didn't seem like people preparing for graduate school entrance exams, but he couldn't help but mutter, "You guys really aren't going out?"
But in return, he received three looks as if he were a fool.
"You can't go out!"
Upon hearing the word "get out," the withered monk trembled uncontrollably, as if he had just been pulled out of the frozen North Sea.
Why?
The withered monk pointed one finger to the ground and the other to the sky, saying, "This place is the Pure Land of Lotus Flowers, and above it lies the Avici Hell!"
“If I don’t pass the exam, it will truly be an inescapable hell.” Ouyang Rong nodded and turned around.
The monk still couldn't bear it, and chanted a warning: "Namo Amitabha Buddha, benefactor, if you go up there, you will be eaten by the evil creature immediately."
"Don't you dare go out looking for death." The old Taoist priest in the crane cloak sneered, then paused, "If you're looking for death, don't drag us down with you."
“…” Ouyang Rong.
Are you guys making fried dough sticks?
He held back, swallowed his words, and shook his head.
Sure enough, people who still believe in religion these days are all a bit mystical, not as good as the girls who are into Hanfu (traditional Han clothing) circles.
After glancing at the slender girl who remained silent, Ouyang Rong decisively turned his head and began throwing golden lotus lanterns into the round hole above.
Not long ago, he tried to shout for help, but he didn't know if it was because the underground palace was too deep or because it was late at night and no one was around, because there was no response outside.
"I can't put it off any longer." I haven't finished memorizing the vocabulary yet.
Ouyang Rong remembered seeing a wilderness survival video on a video he used to watch while working. In it, a person who fell into a deep pit tied one end of a long rope to a heavy object, threw it out of the pit, and it got tangled in a tree trunk, allowing him to be successfully rescued.
"I remember there were two incense burners next to it before it fell down," the young man preparing for graduate school entrance exams calmly analyzed.
The lotus-shaped lamp he had found in his hand, whether real gold or just painted gold, seemed quite valuable when he weighed it.
But... who cares? Even if it's a cultural relic, it's useless. The lives of the people and their postgraduate entrance exams are more important. The 'people' have been requisitioned!
All I saw was...
The first time, I missed and smashed the ground.
The second time, I hit it! I threw it out!
But when he pulled, he slid back out of the hole.
The third time, I tried a different direction, but I missed...
At this moment, the withered monk clasped his hands together, his face filled with sorrow:
"Why are you so determined to go your own way? You've finally reached this pure land, don't fall back into that hellish abyss."
"It is covered with all kinds of evil things, and breeds all kinds of evil deeds. There are waves that submerge the mountains and fields, there are raging fires that fill the ten directions, there are poisonous gases that fill the heavens and the earth, and there are evil winds that destroy all things..."
"Stop babbling on." The old Taoist in the crane cloak changed his sitting posture to cross-legged meditation, and moved a little further away from Ouyang Rong. He said impatiently, "Good advice is hard to persuade a damned devil, and great compassion does not save those who commit suicide."
The young man preparing to throw the toss suddenly stiffened, lowered his eyes and silently looked at the unfamiliar scholar's robe he was wearing, which he had been deliberately ignoring.
This wasn't the outfit he was wearing before he fell.
Boom—
Suddenly, faint thunder rumbled outside the underground palace, and before anyone could react, the night rain began to fall.
Ouyang Rong looked up, raindrops hitting his bluish eyelids.
No matter how he looked at it, he felt that the round opening resembled a manhole cover—the very manhole from which he had slipped and fallen.
This is a bit of a convoluted story.
Ouyang Rong was a graduate school applicant preparing for the second time. As the exam approached, he was lurking in a small group called "Gentlemen Graduate School Applicant Group (Girls Not Allowed)" when he heard from other members that there was a Donglin Temple in the suburbs that was very skilled at helping people pass the graduate school entrance exam and pray for good marriage prospects. Every year, many people from all over the country would come to fulfill their vows...
After inquiring further, I learned that there is a century-old wishing tower in the temple, and inside there is a blessing bell. After accumulating enough merit, you can ring it to receive blessings and have your wishes fulfilled.
Ouyang Rong was actually skeptical of this from a materialist perspective, but who knows if the anxiety of young people these days is so great that even Buddha knows about it? And Buddha actually took on this business…
Moreover, he really needed these two projects; they truly hit the nail on the head.
Let's just take it as a case of sincerity bringing results.
So early that morning, Ouyang Rong, with a critical eye, took a taxi to Donglin Temple. When he arrived, he was astonished to find that the line to enter the temple stretched all the way to the foot of the mountain, with people around his age in front of him looking down at their phones in the cold wind.
"Getting up so early, you must be a seasoned postgraduate entrance exam taker. Even while queuing, you don't forget to do some practice questions..." Ouyang Rong sighed. Just as he was about to take out his phone, a little monk held up a QR code between two fingers and poked it in front of his nose, asking him to scan it.
Ouyang Rong glanced at it and discovered that it was actually a QR code to download an app called 'Merit Tower'.
Donglin Temple is quite considerate, allowing devotees who don't have time to queue to ring the bell online without leaving home. It truly shows that in terms of concern for devotees, it has reached the level of all temples across the country.
Ouyang Rong didn't waste any time. After downloading the file, he immediately turned around and left, because time is precious for those preparing for the postgraduate entrance exam.
On the way back, he studied it for a bit and quickly figured out the little application.
Clicking into this merit tower reveals a main electronic wooden fish and a blessing bell.
The electronic wooden fish can be manually tapped to make it sound, and each tap adds 1 point to your merit. It also features a helpful counter at the top.
As for the most important one, the Blessing Bell, which can grant wishes, you need to accumulate 10,000 merit points to ring it once.
What's really annoying is that this app even comes with the Great Compassion Mantra as background music, and you can't turn it off...
"Knocking on the electronic wooden fish accumulates cyber merit, grants mechanical blessings, leads to the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, and allows one to meet the mecha Buddha, right? I'm familiar with this." Ouyang Rong was quite confident.
Oh right, there's actually a 'Limited-Time Donation for Merit' option in the bottom right corner of the app, but Ouyang Rong just ignored it. Maybe next time... never mind, next time is uncertain.
Without spending money, you'll have to grind like crazy. Don't be fooled by Ouyang Rong's still struggling with the word "abandon" in his postgraduate entrance exam vocabulary; his hands-on and tinkering skills have been at a super high level since he was a child.
When he was a child, if you found him a slightly straight stick, there wouldn't be a single flower or blade of grass within a ten-mile radius of his house that was as tall as his waist; any passing dog would get hit by the stick; and if you hung a string down for him, not even a tadpole could survive in the pond.
That very night, Ouyang Rong used a motor, gears, chopsticks, and an eraser to create a physical clicker. He placed it and his phone on his bedside table and frantically accumulated merit. After leisurely memorizing vocabulary, he listened to the Great Compassion Mantra and went to sleep.
As a result, his account was banned the next day.
"..." Are you a sore loser?
Ouyang never expected that this small outsourcing app would have an anti-cheating mechanism.
The next morning, still indignant, he went to Donglin Temple again, wanting to reason with them... well, actually he wanted to pretend to be innocent and see if he could get the ban lifted.
But when he arrived at the destination, there was the familiar long queue again, so he simply took a detour up the mountain to see if there was another gate he could use.
As a result, halfway there, a member of the postgraduate entrance exam group with the very righteous name that I used to like to lurk in posted a picture of a righteous and upright person.
"Posting this in broad daylight?" Ouyang Rong subconsciously double-clicked to zoom in for a glance, but that greedy glance caused him to lose his footing as he turned the corner, and everything went black...
...
Ouyang Rong stood on the lotus seat and vigorously wiped the rain off his face.
Judging from the last few frames of his memory, he must have accidentally fallen into a uncovered well in the temple.
Strangely enough, when Ouyang Rong slowly woke up, he found himself lying on his back on the cold, hard lotus seat at his feet.
His cell phone and down jacket were both missing; he searched the entire underground palace but couldn't find them. Instead, he found an unfamiliar white robe.
Furthermore, a white gauze bandage was wrapped around his forehead, resembling a headband, covering a sizable bruise that was still throbbing with pain.
Fortunately, he only fell on his forehead and not his face.
Moreover, he was very familiar with his own face. Although the underground palace was pitch black and there was no mirror to be found, he roughly touched it and found that he was probably right, unless he was a reincarnation of Hu Ge or Edison Chen.
If it weren't for this irrefutable evidence, I would have almost believed the nonsense of that withered monk and the old Taoist priest in the crane-cloak.
No longer worrying about his clothes, Ouyang Rong hesitated for a moment in the rain before continuing to throw.
He changed direction twice along the way.
finally!
On the tenth throw, the lotus-shaped golden lamp thrown out of the hole was not pulled back by him. The steady resistance came from the straight rope and reached Ouyang Rong's chafed tiger's mouth.
His face lit up with joy. He wiped his face hard, spat out the muddy water in his mouth, and began to grip the rope tightly and climb up without caring about his image.
The withered monk, the old Taoist priest in a crane-feather cloak, and the slender young girl behind him were all staring intently at him.
At a height of about ten meters, someone was like a small earthworm climbing a wall, 'arching' upwards with each sway.
The posture was a little indecent, and he blushed a little in front of everyone, especially the girl in Hanfu.
But his life is more important; whether he's handsome or not, we'll talk about that once he's on shore.
Soon, Ouyang Rong climbed up most of the way through the rain. He could now reach the rocks at the wellhead with just his hand, and suddenly he smelled a familiar sandalwood scent.
Sure enough, they were still in the temple! Ouyang Rong breathed a sigh of relief.
Just then, he suddenly noticed that the moon, which was half-hidden by dark clouds, was trembling.
The moon shivers? That was Ouyang Rong's first thought in the first three seconds.
However, it was soon discovered that this was not the case.
The entire underground palace, and he, were trembling.
Ouyang Rong was startled and quickly clung tightly to the rope in his arms.
The sound of rain above his head suddenly intensified, and the wind became stronger, turning the rain that was falling from above into a diagonal descent from left to right.
Immediately following was the sound of water from outside. Unlike the crashing waves of the sea, the sound of water to Ouyang Rong's ears was like the roar of a train approaching from afar. It seemed to be coming from the horizon, sweeping away all the flowers, birds, beasts, mountains, and forests along the way, making the whole world tremble.
Ouyang Rong finally understood the true meaning of the phrases "earthquake" and "the world changes color".
Unfortunately, it came at the cost of a hard fall on his butt.
The lotus-shaped golden lantern that had been thrown out 'loosened' and slid back down, taking Ouyang Rong, who had been temporarily deaf, with him as they fell back to reality...
I don't know how much time passed, but the sudden uproar eventually subsided and everything returned to calm.
The rain, which had been falling from left to right, changed back to falling from top to bottom.
Ouyang Rong sat on the cold, hard ground of the underground palace, his whole body soaked.
Beside him lay a broken half of a lotus lantern, the other half having flown to the corner of the wall, with various jewels scattered around it.
Ouyang Rong's upper body remained in the position of tightly hugging the rope, staring blankly at the round hole that looked very much like a manhole cover.
Just now, at the place closest to the cave entrance, he not only heard the roar of the mountain torrent and the howling of the wind, but also faintly heard... the wails of many people.
Outside, there was a great flood, at least a raging torrent that stretched for hundreds of miles, or even a flood similar to the one described in the Old Testament, the flood that Jehovah destroyed the world.
A weak individual is utterly insignificant in the face of such immense power... and the same goes for postgraduate entrance exams.
There was a long silence.
"Um, what did you just say?"
Ouyang Rong, who was looking up, suddenly spoke without turning around.
Not far behind him, the withered monk, whose face remained calm, made a gesture of pointing one finger to the ground and the other to the sky.
"Benefactor, this place is the Pure Land of Lotus Flowers, and above it lies the Avici Hell!"
Ouyang Rong hesitated, as if he wanted to say something but then stopped.
The question was actually about the line, "Waves may surge, but they won't drown the mountains and fields...and fierce winds may blow away everything," but never mind...
A materialistic graduate student turned around earnestly and asked, "What is your honorable surname, Venerable Monk?"
"..." The withered monk.
"..." Old Taoist in crane cloak.
"..." A slender girl.
(End of this chapter)
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