Chapter 124: The Scripture
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
Jade City was the capital of sins and conspiracies within the whole Western Region. As a result, every resident believed in The Gods. All sorts of temples lay inside and outside the city, and people consecrated all kinds of aboriginal gods from every corner of the world there.
Those hazy Gods, who set themselves high above the masses, were like cinereous vultures feasting on a colossal rotten corpse. The residents of Jade City had a saying, "The more misdeeds he committed, the larger statues he donates," which led to another conclusion, "No sin, no belief." To those monks' and Taoist priests' comfort, there were no sinless people in this city.
Among nurous temples, Four Truths Temple deserved to be their leader. It had to be located outside the city due to its vast coverage area. Thousands of statues of Buddha and over 3,000 monks were there. Without surprise, the major benefactors were Golden Roc Fort and the ng family in North City.
Four Truths Temple was beyond the mundane affairs and seldom involved in mortal trifles. The reason why Gu Shenwei rembered it was that it once made an exception and sent monks to escort an Avenger onto the mountain.
When Marshal Yang was avenging the Gu family, two monks followed him all the way and disappeared after Marshal Yang died. Gu Shenwei once thought there was animosity between Four Truths Temple and Golden Roc Fort. However, he later realized that this move was to sentence Marshal Yang to death rather than "save" him.
In Four Truths Temple, Marshal Yang took an oath that if he could not go up the mountain to seek vengeance, he would bathe the Jade City in blood. To protect the innocent and rid the fiends, the monks agreed to escort him onto the mountain ard with weapons.
In Gu Shenwei's point of view, this was an extrely sophisticated move to "take care of it."
The fussing affair of "possessed" had eventually co to an end. Lady ng not only managed to shift the focus of Stone Castle onto her daughter's treatnt but also saved the four brown-belt assassins. "They have shared joys and sorrows with my daughter. Thus, they're not guilty and deserve to be rewarded."
Lady ng personally went to Four Truths Temple in the na of praying. Her team was too vast and mighty to stay in the temple. Therefore, they camped outside.
According to Doctor Sun, he could not cure the Tenth Young Master whereas the Exorcism Manuscript might have an extraordinary efficacy. Tie Hanfeng had always been fighting for a treatnt for his apprentice, and it turned out he could do nothing when the opportunity ca.
The six youngsters were summoned to the gloomy main hall. Facing many monks and civilians and vague Buddhist statues, Mister Guo from the Whiterobe Academy started pouring out words, proving Shangguan Ru and the others were not killers from Golden Roc Fort, and their entrance did not violate The Agreent.
"These two are the Misses from the Shangguan family. The four teenagers in Daizi Pavilion are still apprentices and have not achieved the killer title yet. According to The Agreent—" Mister Guo showed a piece of white paper with the words printed from the inscriptions on it, 'Killers from Golden Roc Fort shall never enter the desert.' Take a look at 'killers,' which ans the others from Golden Roc Fort can enter at will. However, it was New Moon Hall that raided the two Misses, and this apprentice nad Slave Huan thought they had to engage in this battle since New Moon Hall were the first to violate the agreent of peace…"
When Mister Guo vehently spoke, the two masters—now Misses—from the Shangguan family did not feel right, because for the first ti they don won's clothes for this affair today. They were uneasy and irritated under the crowds' eyes.
They had to be the Miss as the result of a multi-party consideration. Golden Roc Fort needed outside supports in this war among the killers.
The other four youngsters had prominent brown belts, showing that they were not formal killers.
Slave Huan even had a chance to speak. He described the hazily mysterious woman he had seen and observed the audience, hoping to figure out the complicated relationships among the forces in the Western Region. However, he was asked to leave before he found out anything.
The six youngsters quickly completed their tasks and left the main hall. They heard later that Mister Guo acquired remarkable supports from the crowd. Hence the Supre King favored him quite a lot.
While the counselors of Golden Roc Fort were arguing strongly on just grounds to convince the crowd, the youngsters were climbing the mountain to visit a key witness.
Master Tiger Monk was famous for the vegetarian tiger that always followed him and was called "Tiger Monk." His religious na was Lianxin, which on the contrary was seldom ntioned.
Also, he kept the Exorcism Manuscript. The most important mission of their trip was to visit this legendary monk.
Master Tiger Monk did not live in the temple. He built several thatched cottages called "Leftslope Vihara" on the left slope and practiced Buddhism there all the ti. He wanted peace and quiet. Therefore, a receptionist led them to the cottages on foot.
Shangguan Ru kept pulling her clothes all along. She was distraught due to her ridiculous female dress and her upcoming possibly-ruined 13th birthday. To tell the public that the "Tenth Young Master" was only a joke, she could not acquire the "Young Master" title, not to ntion setting up an academy to raise killers.
Seeing her brother Shangguan Fei having all these, she beca even more upset and began to smash trees and grasses, killing all those innocent insects. Shangguan Yushi could not make her happy either until she thought about seeing the vegetarian tiger.
The youngsters thought that this eminent monk had to be an old one with a solemn face and a withering body. After eting him, they found him a handso middle-aged monk. The only mark left by his penance was his almost transparent pale skin. He modestly treated people neither pedantically nor arrogantly, as if he had small talks with them, regarding every person equally. Usually, he personally handed over six bowls of fresh water to his guests and amiably talked about the latest news.
Master Tiger Monk was quite interested in the giant roc which troubled Stone Castle months ago and seemingly wanted to ta it. Gu Shenwei doubted that the giant red-crowned roc would be into him.
The youngsters saw the well-known tiger lying on its stomach beside the monk. It breathed through a big scary mouth, with the ups and downs of its belly like a bellow, and it seed bored.
"A vegetarian tiger almost equals to a killer without his saber," Gu Shenwei thought. There was no saber on him, and he suddenly felt agitated and struggled to keep calm.
After 60 minutes of chitchat, they got down to business. Master Tiger Monk turned around, took out a flat cloth-wrapper, and opened it. A clay slab filled with small and closely-written characters ca into sight. Clear signs showed that a half of the piece seed to have been missing.
Shangguan Ru shifted her eyes from the tiger to the clay slab. "Is this the Exorcism Manuscript?"
Master Tiger Monk caressed the clay slab and said, "Exactly. This scripture was written by an unrivaled master. As ti flew, the master died along with his language. It was not until 300 years later that so expert decrypted its words and translated it into the Central Plain language. However, this expert decided to keep the pronunciation instead of aning. Therefore, although the scripture looks like sentences, its actual aning has been long gone."
Shangguan Ru stared at the clay slab in confusion. "Without aning, is it still able to exorcise?"
The monk laughed while shaking his head. "This is exactly the profound aning of the scripture. The expert was concerned that if people were too focused on the literal anings and mistook false for true, they would eventually be possessed instead of exorcising. So, he intentionally hid the true anings. Still, so original words have passed down. Since you are from Golden Roc Fort, you must be familiar with them."
The monk reversed the clay slab and pointed at the first line, which was printed as "云泥无分别龙虎无方等有情情不有南柯伐棱叶." However, the monk said, "The soul rises to the Ninth Heaven, and the spirit falls to the Ninth Abysse. The living suffer in grief, and the dead settle in peace."
"Death Scripture!" Almost simultaneously, these youngsters blurted out in unison. These specific words were said when people died in Golden Roc Fort.
"Right, the scripture is nad Nanke Goes Woodchopping, which ans the dead reborn in Pureland and would be blessed. There's nothing wrong to call it Death Scripture. "
Shangguan Ru scratched her hair on the temples and said, "I see. Those words co from Death Scripture. All these years saying the words, I don't even know the aning."
"It's not your fault. It's not one of those Buddhist books and records, and few know of this book."
Subsequently, Master Tiger Monk started to impart the scripture. There were only more than 1,000 words on the clay slab, but all words were transliterated and looked profound, inducing readers to explore their anings, hence forgetting to recite the scripture. Plus, so pronunciations were extrely bizarre, such as "ren" instead of "yun." One would only make further mistakes without a teacher.
Master Tiger Monk taught them word by word, while the youngsters morized the pronunciations, and the mute Wildhorse was told to read in mind.
The six youngsters had stayed in Leftslope Vihara for a full seven days until they could recite the scripture fluently.
Shangguan Ru did not care much about her being "possessed," and she only wanted to play with the tiger. After three days of making acquaintance with it, she finally stroked its head along with its beard on the following day. She was thrilled and thought this was far more interesting than those ghost exorcising scriptures.
Shangguan Yushi stayed close to Shangguan Ru. She dared to approach it but not to touch it.
Wildhorse spent more ti practicing his kung fu. The rule did not allow weapons onto the mountain. As a result, he broke a handy tree branch and stroke and cut the air with it himself.
As to Liuhua, as usual, he disappeared soon after they arrived, and he only showed up during als and at bedti.
Only Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus had been earnestly reciting Death Scripture and asking every pronunciation repeatedly. Until the end, Master Tiger Monk spent more than half of his ti teaching the two.
In fact, the two were not only interested in the scriptures on the clay slab but also astounded.
The mont the monk displayed the clay slab, they both found out that they had already thoroughly morized the scripture, which was on the last few pages of the Naless Swordbook. There were 4,000 or 5,000 words on the book, yet only about 1,000 were on this half clay slab.
Since then, Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus called Naless Swordbook the Death Scripture. Too many questions arose in their hearts. "Is the scripture's true aning a cultivation thod of Internal Strength? What is the story among it, Golden Roc Fort, and Master Tiger Monk? How did it fall into the abyss and why was it kept by two giant golden-crowned rocs?"
The two privately discussed these for a long ti, yet ended up with nothing. Anyhow, they knew the scripture was amazingly effective. Even when they wrongly pronounced their "Peripheral Force" in the Xuanji acupoint was turned into the Internal Strength in Dantian. Would it be even better if they could pronounce the scripture correctly?
The two youngsters had to ask a favor from Master Tiger Monk, which led to him to his death.
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