Chapter 266 Two Red Tags (Thanks to the Silver Alliance member "Warm Sunshine"!)
"Amitabha! This humble monk observes the faces of these two female bodhisattvas and is astonished by their celestial beauty. They are no ordinary people, but are extremely wealthy and noble. Their beauty is beyond words!"
At dawn, Master Shandao walked slowly to the front of the Buddhist hall, exuding an air of otherworldly wisdom, stroking his beard and smiling as he spoke.
Apart from the pretty mute girl bowing slightly in polite return of the greeting.
Neither Xuezhongzhu nor Sun Laoguai made any comment.
Master Shandao calmly observed the oddly matched trio, then turned to the seemingly downcast pretty young woman with a kind smile and said:
"I observe that you, my lady, have the appearance of someone who will bring good fortune to her husband. Your beautiful face is very endearing. However, you are likely destined for a life filled with many hardships in love. Right now, you look worried and troubled. Is it because you are heartbroken and unable to have both?"
"And this female bodhisattva, though her face is cold and aloof, suddenly exudes a peach blossom charm, as if she has a karmic entanglement with a nemesis..."
Zhao Qingxiu turned her head to the side and listened in a daze.
The candle in the snow, with its back to the old monk, suddenly felt the air around it cool down.
Master Shandao was still unaware of his own ignorance.
Old Man Sun chuckled and egged him on, saying, "The bald monk is right. If you can talk, then say more."
Master Shandao glanced at the old Taoist priest in the crane-cloak and fur coat, ignoring this fellow practitioner who seemed to be stealing his job.
"As it happens, our temple is very effective in granting marriage requests." The old monk spoke to himself, then turned and gestured towards the Buddhist hall behind him:
"Many lost souls from the foot of the mountain come to this hall seeking guidance on marriage... and many others are fulfilling their vows. Would the two female bodhisattvas be willing to enter the hall and give it a try?"
Old Monster Sun, with his hands tucked into his sleeves, smiled and glanced sideways at Master Shandao, his gaze expectant and encouraging, yet also containing a hint of looking at his future fellow inmate.
But Xuezhongzhu seemed preoccupied and ignored him, walking straight ahead.
Zhao Qingxiu and the others followed.
Master Shandao persisted and caught up with him, rummaging through the sleeve of his robe and pulling out a bamboo tube.
"Please wait a moment, ladies. If you are in a hurry, our temple also offers a simple service for seeking marriage. Simply shake the marriage fortune-telling tube twice with sincerity, and one fortune will fly out. This is specially prepared for those bodhisattvas who are in a hurry on their way down the mountain..."
As if recalling Master Shandao's words, Zhao Qingxiu couldn't help but look at the old monk more often, her steps slightly hesitant.
Master Shandao quickly handed over the bamboo tube.
Zhao Qingxiu couldn't refuse, and just as her fingers touched the divination tube, Xue Zhongzhu beside her suddenly waved his hand.
They touched the fortune-telling container and knocked it away.
Master Shandao was taken aback.
"Clatter, clatter—!" The bamboo skewers inside the tube made a clanging sound.
But then, a rather strange scene unfolded.
The bamboo tube landed and rolled, and most of the bamboo sticks remained intact inside the tube, but two bamboo sticks wrapped in red paper flew out.
And by sheer coincidence, one of the flying sticks struck Zhao Qingxiu's skirt, while another landed near the foot of the candle in the snow.
The atmosphere immediately fell silent.
All four of them stopped moving.
Zhao Qingxiu looked down, picked up the red slip, and carefully unfolded the red paper with her small face.
The old eccentric Sun beside her clicked his tongue in amazement, and the curious old Taoist priest, with his pointed head, leaned closer to take a look and read it aloud for the mute:
"When you think you've reached the end of the road, a new path opens up before you."
"Amitabha! This female bodhisattva is indeed a lucky woman for her husband, a very auspicious sign."
Master Shandao quickly composed himself, pressed his palms together in prayer, adopting the air of a wise and stern deity, and solemnly interpreted the divination slip:
"Though the road of love is difficult, never give up. As long as your heart is firm, there will be a place to return to. When you wake up from your dream, the bitterness will end and the sweetness will come. Remember this well."
Zhao Qingxiu froze, biting her lower lip, staring at the words on the red slip of paper, "Ah ah ee ya..."
After hardship comes happiness...
Old Monster Sun glanced at Xue Zhongzhu, whose face was quite pale, suppressed a laugh, and said with amusement, "I love watching the show!"
"Hey, where's the Great Queen's?"
The old Taoist priest, Zhao Qingxiu, and Master Shandao all turned to look.
At that moment, the woman with golden hair reaching her waist and wearing a white fox fur coat stood still, a bamboo skewer lying in front of her high boots, without her making any attempt to pick it up.
The old Taoist priest in the crane-cloak looked curious and bent down to pick up the bamboo sticks from the ground, but the next second, the bamboo sticks disappeared from his sight.
Beside the candle in the snow, a bamboo stick for marriage was turned to dust by sword energy and disappeared from the world.
"You old bald monk with a bull's nose, are you looking for death?" she said with a cold glare.
"..." Old Monster Sun.
"What are you looking at?" Xue Zhongzhu said irritably to her seventh junior sister, who was staring at her blankly. "Let's go!"
Xuezhongzhu grabbed Zhao Qingxiu's wrist and left with a cold expression.
Old Man Sun obediently followed, and before leaving, he turned back with a righteous expression:
"Do you even know who she is? You've even assigned this person to your marriage fortune telling. I don't know whether to say you have good or bad eyesight, you old bald monk."
"This level of deception is enough to fool a mute girl. Do you think this master is as capricious as a mute girl?"
The old Taoist priest sneered.
The oddly matched trio quickly left.
Master Shandao was left dumbfounded, standing there staring at the ground, rubbing his eyes.
After a short while, looking around and seeing no one, the old monk frowned and muttered something like, "The female benefactors from out of town are so rude," and "Hey, it's so early in the morning, and we've already wasted a whole bamboo tube of fortune sticks before we've even opened for business."
Master Shandao sighed for a while, raised his hand to touch his bald head, and returned to the hall in embarrassment. Just then, he ran into a lively little novice monk with beautiful hair who was carrying a divination tube.
The latter seemed to be running back into the hall when he bumped into Master Shandao and obediently bowed.
"Master."
Master Shandao nodded solemnly and asked in a dignified manner, "Hmm, what are you doing?"
"A new female patron has come to the temple to ask me to draw a fortune stick..."
Xiufa said excitedly, but before she could finish speaking, the new fortune-telling tube in her arms disappeared. The little novice was stunned. He looked down and then looked up, only to see that his master had taken the new fortune-telling tube.
Master Shandao straightened his robe, his face full of compassion, and stepped into the hall, saying without turning his head:
"Alright, I'll go now. You rest for a bit, and by the way..."
Before leaving, Master Shandao handed over an old divination stick container, stained with dust and bearing signs of wear, and instructed him:
"A piece of bamboo slip has fallen off. Go to the back hall and cut a piece of bamboo to replace it."
Xiu Fa stared blankly at her master's leisurely departing figure, speechless.
A short while later, carrying the old and damaged divination sticks, he went to the back hall dejectedly.
The young novice was quick and efficient. He soon shaved a new bamboo stick, took a new piece of red paper from the Buddhist scriptures to use as a bookmark, dipped it in ink, and picked up his brush.
"Huh?"
The young novice monk, who had memorized all the fortune slips, scratched his head with the base of his calligraphy brush and muttered to himself:
"Which one is missing?"
Xiufa rummaged through the existing fortune sticks, but found it too troublesome. She then turned to pick up a book of fortune sticks for marriage, poured out all the bamboo sticks, and compared them one by one with the illustrations, using the process of elimination.
After a moment, he nodded with a look of realization: "Found it."
Inside the deserted main hall, the young novice monk picked up his brush and wrote on red paper, reciting softly as he did so:
"The wind rustles the bamboo, making one think of the tinkling of golden pendants; the moon moves the shadows of the flowers, making one wonder if a beautiful woman has come."
"Hmm, it's a very auspicious sign. Under the flowers and moon, the sounds of chickens and dogs can be heard, the Old Man of the Moon will escort you, and good things are coming soon... This means that a 'perfect match' is approaching, and you have already met him, but the person who drew the fortune stick is still unaware of it."
Xiufa muttered to herself, "This is no challenge for me at all, so why won't Master let me graduate? Is there some secret I haven't mastered yet?"
The young novice scratched his shiny bald head, sighed, and tossed a lucky fortune stick into the bamboo tube to complete the set.
"So many fortune sticks, the karmic causes and effects in this mortal world are truly complicated, so much sorrow."
The hall was empty, and no one responded.
...
In a silent underground palace.
During the day, the light was slightly brighter, but it remained secluded and quiet.
There, a withered monk sat alone in the darkness, far from the central lotus pedestal.
At present, Ouyang Rong, Zhao Qingxiu, Sun Laoguai and others have long since disappeared.
Everything seemed to have been resolved through cause and effect, the dust had settled, and no one came again.
The withered monk, forgotten by everyone in the underground palace, held a packet of mung bean cakes wrapped in oiled paper in his palm and was chewing and tasting them with relish.
This is the mute girl with a sword, full of spiritual energy and connected to Buddhism, who paused before leaving and bent down to hand it to Xiuzhen.
To express her gratitude, Xiuzhen, with a face full of sorrow, recited scriptures for a long time to pray for her after she and the old Taoist priest in the crane cloak insisted on entering the Avici Hell.
Even when a certain reckless young county magistrate climbed up twice, Xiuzhen never recited such a long scripture for him to pray for blessings.
Hmm, I wonder where Xiuzhen learned this "face" from...
After finishing the pastries, Xiuzhen sat there blankly, staring at the vast underground palace.
Alone and all alone.
But if someone were to approach and take a closer look, they would find that this withered monk was not in a daze.
He sat there motionless, his hands clasped together, staring intently at the Jataka tales painted on the wall of the underground palace directly in front of him.
It seemed as if something was deeply attracting him.
To be precise, apart from the Jataka tale of "Prince Sattva sacrificing himself to feed a tiger" on the east wall and the Jataka tale of "King Sibi cutting off his own flesh to trade for a dove" on the south wall, the other two Jataka tales attracted the attention of the monk Xiuzhen.
Xiuzhen stopped viewing the mural "Prince Sattva Sacrifices Himself to Feed the Tiger" on the east side after a young county magistrate first saved Di Gongzha.
As for the mural on the south side depicting "King Sibi sacrificing his flesh to buy a dove"...
On the fifteenth of July, another young county magistrate was kidnapped to the underground palace by Liu's third young master and others in place of Aqing.
Xiu Zhenren was living at home when trouble fell from the sky. He was knocked down by the third young master of the Liu family with a single punch. After slowly waking up amidst a bloody scene of dismembered corpses, he stopped looking at the murals on the south side.
Now, in the eyes of the withered monk, only two murals depicting the Buddha's Jataka tales remain.
Inside the silent underground palace, Xiuzhen stood with her back to the east wall, staring blankly at the Jataka mural "King Kuai Mu's Eye" on the west side.
Xiuzhen, who had recently witnessed a lovestruck mute woman saving her lover, suddenly stood up.
He walked to the murals on the west side of the underground palace.
In the darkness, the withered monk smiled and nodded:
“This humble monk has seen the ‘qi’ (energy). It turns out that even in the Avici Hell, there is a ‘qi’ of light. All the benefactors have stepped out of the painting. Amitabha.”
The monk's expression gradually became solemn, and he suddenly turned around:
"Hey, there's another painting, but why is there no one in it?"
After years of sitting quietly and observing the qi, he was filled with confusion as he looked at the last mural in the due north direction, "King Moonlight Bestows His Head".
A moment later, the withered monk collapsed to the ground, falling into madness once more.
...
Ouyang Rong suddenly realized that it was not a simple "arc".
To be precise... it is a curved surface.
It is neither a point nor a line.
It is the surface.
It is about half a foot long.
If its shape had to be described, it would resemble a petal of a blue butterfly flower—what later became known as the iris.
The "petals" are thinner than paper, transparent like water, and have a clear blue light like a clear blue sky, flowing slowly across them.
At this moment, it was pinched between Ouyang Rong's two fingers and slowly pulled out of nothingness, held between his fingers.
Ouyang Rong stared intently at this unique "petal" without blinking.
It is called "Craftsman's Work," made by an old swordsmith, and is his most prized creation.
Ouyang Rong observed it closely for the first time, becoming the first person in the world to see its true appearance.
After looking at it for a while, he felt both familiar and unfamiliar with it.
The familiarity comes from the curve on this "petal".
Its curve is also the most representative, and it is the shape that previously gave people a subjective impression and misunderstanding.
But Ouyang Rong already felt familiar with it, and now, observing the sword up close, he exclaimed, "Just as I thought."
This perfect arc was achieved using the same technique he had previously employed to fold blue butterfly paper flowers from cardboard:
The arc is made up of equilateral triangles.
Ouyang Rong suddenly threw out an "arc".
The "craftsmanship" danced in a circle and then hovered silently in the air.
Ouyang Rong walked around it once with his hands behind his back, examining it closely.
His eyes flashed with surprise. The "craftsmanship," which was originally a petal-shaped curved surface, seemed to vanish into the void and change its state after leaving his palm.
No matter from which angle you look at it, it is a clear blue "arc".
"Does being touched by the sword wielder bring you back to reality...? When the sword is unfurled, is it a different state when you're suspended in mid-air?"
Ouyang Rong seemed to be deep in thought.
"Having learned my iris origami method..." Ouyang Rong muttered to himself, "The triangle itself is the most stable structure. The 'arcs' formed by overlapping triangles are incredibly stable and are the sharpest in the world..."
He shook his head:
"This is knowledge of geometry, which should not have existed in this world before. As expected of a top-notch swordsmith, such superb aesthetic sense, and the ability to grasp the essence at a glance and apply it with divine skill..."
"A swordsmith who isn't a master of aesthetics isn't a good mathematician, right?"
Ouyang Rong couldn't help but complain.
The clear blue "arc" line that floated silently in front of him was indeed beautiful, so beautiful that he couldn't help but feel an urge to immediately test its sharpness.
Unconsciously, it stirred up the primal killing intent within me.
Ouyang Rong took a deep breath and suppressed his desire.
"Senior Brother!"
Just then, a familiar shout came from outside the courtyard, and a woman rushed out of the gate.
Junior Sister? Ouyang Rong snapped out of his daze.
He immediately closed his eyes and withdrew his spiritual energy.
However, it was soon discovered that the "craftsmanship" that had lost its spiritual energy supply did not become ethereal as before.
It fell alone in the air.
It seems that after being pulled back to reality, she can no longer freely blur the lines between reality and illusion.
Or rather... it finally escaped from Dragon City, the furnace of swords.
From now on, the only option is to rely on the sword wielder's personal space to serve as the furnace for the new sword, providing nourishment.
The fallen "craftsmanship" cleaved the wooden stool below in two as easily as cutting through iron.
"Ding—!" With a crisp and melodious sound, it lay quietly on the ground.
The bright blue color on the sword had faded by most, and now it resembled a piece of light blue glass shaped like an iris petal.
When mythology enters reality, it becomes ordinary and unremarkable.
Even if this sword were worn as a hairpin in a woman's dark hair, probably no one would notice.
Ouyang Rong was in a flurry of activity. With the Mo family's sword box missing, he had a sudden inspiration and slipped the hairpin... no, the cauldron sword, into a thick Buddhist scripture.
The young magistrate, carrying a book in one arm, turned to greet his junior sister...
Warm Sun is a real big shot, sob sob sob! This time, the Silver Party (referring to the massive amount of virtual gifts) finally invited me! So happy!
(End of this chapter)
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