Raising a Fox Spirit in My Home Chapter 174

Chapter 174

Sign Language

Sothing was wrong. None of this felt right.

It was the scent. The scent was wrong.

"There, there..." A soft palm patted the back of his head. "Everything’s going to be okay. You’re safe now, Brother Li."

What...? Brother Li?

Li Yundong jerked backwards as though he was burned, causing the back of his head to smash into the wood of the wagon.

The woman in her arms wasn’t Su Chan.

It was iduo.

Shit.

Li Yundong scrambled to his feet and fought down the waves of disappointnt coursing through him.

iduo was staring up at him with confused eyes. "Is... Is everything alright, Brother Li?"

"S- Sorry!" he mumbled laly. Then, he pushed past iduo and ran off before he embarrassed himself further.

"Brother Li! Wait!"

Li Yundong ignored the voice and kept running. Most of the pilgrims were still asleep, so he guessed it was still pretty late... or early, depending on how you look at it. He ran and ran until he reached a small brook nearby. Crouching down beside the brook, he buried his face into his palms.

God damn it. He had got to get his shit together. How was he supposed to pass the Zhuji phase if his head was so ssed up?

But that dream...

It was so vivid.

What was this? PTSD? Shit.

It hit him then that he hadn’t really had the chance to properly deal with the trauma he’d experienced that night at Shengyuan Hotel. He was thrown into training imdiately after the incident and didn’t have ti to make peace with the twins’ deaths.

He reached down and dipped his hands into the brook, then splashed so water onto his face. The brook water felt cool and crisp against his cheeks. A few more splashes later, the fog in his mind began to clear as alertness seeped in.

God knows he needed a clear head after this. He had one more chance. Just one. He couldn’t afford to f*ck things up now; there was just too much at stake.

Footfalls sounded behind him. He wiped his face and turned around abruptly.

iduo was walking up towards him timidly, and she appeared to be hiding sothing behind her back.

"B- Brother Li..."

Li Yundong sighed and rose to his feet. "Listen. I’m sorry about just now. That was inappropriate." He squared his shoulders and looked her in the eye. "It won’t happen again."

Sothing flickered inside iduo’s eyes. She shuffled a few steps closer and peered up at him from under her lashes. "W- Were you having a nightmare?"

"Yeah," Li Yundong answered, then sighed.

It was the most horrifying dream he’d ever had.

He shook his head to block out the ntal images of Su Chan lying in a pool of blood.

"Um... Then are you okay?"

"I’m fine." He smiled. "Thanks for asking."

"Oh. Okay..."

Li Yundong glanced around a few tis, then looked up at the sky. "What ti is it?"

"It’s nearly dawn."

Dawn, huh? It seed like he slept for quite a while after he dozed off on the wagon. He even skipped dinner. Great, now he sounded like his little princess chipmunk.

Li Yundong tore his gaze away from the sky. "Wait. Why are you up at this hour?" He paused in thought, then regarded iduo carefully. "Did you sleep at all?"

iduo shifted on the spot, seeming shy and sheepish all of a sudden. Then, she shook her head slowly.

Li Yundong frowned. "What? Why? Why didn’t you sleep?" Li Yundong paused in thought again. "Was I too loud when I was... you know... having a nightmare?"

iduo’s looked up sharply and shook her head earnestly. Seconds later, she pulled her hands out from behind a back to reveal a pair of cloth shoes.

"F- For you..." iduo held out the shoes timidly.

Li Yundong stared at the shoes for a few seconds, then it all clicked. The thread. The needles. The sewing equipnt. It all made sense now.

Li Yundong’s gaze snapped to iduo. "Y- You stayed up all night to make this?"

iduo nodded shyly.

Oh shit. Even soone like him, who was obtuse 90% of the ti, could see what this gesture ant.

iduo might have developed feelings for him, feelings that he could never return.

Li Yundong must have been quiet for a long ti because iduo suddenly launched into a nervous ramble. "U- Um... Why don’t you try them on! Here! I’ll help you put them on!"

The aning behind iduo’s words struck Li Yundong, jolting him out of his thoughts. Alarm coursed through him, filling his chest.

"Wait, no!" He raised his palms when he saw that iduo was about to bend down to help him put the shoes on. iduo stilled her movents and straightened herself. Confusion swirled inside her eyes.

Shit. Should he refuse to accept the shoes? But wouldn’t that be too harsh? The girl had spent the whole night making it, for f*ck’s sake. What the heck was he supposed to do here?

Once again, Li Yundong cursed his lack of dating experience.

Li Yundong cleared his throat. "U- Uh... I an I can do it on my own."

Understanding flashed inside iduo’s eyes. She bead and handed him the shoes. Li Yundong smiled and took the shoes with both hands. "Thank you," he said, then crouched down to put them on.

God. This was awkward.

The softness enveloping his feet felt foreign to him. Wow. So this was what wearing shoes felt like. He had honestly forgotten after one whole month walking around barefoot.

"Well?"

Li Yundong looked up from the shoes and saw iduo staring down at him. Anticipation shone in her eyes.

"Do they fit?"

Li Yundong nodded and rose to his feet. He jumped on the spot a few tis, then smiled at iduo. "Yep. I think they fit perfectly. And they feel comfortable too." Li Yundong held iduo’s gaze. "Thank you. You don’t really have to do that."

iduo grinned. "Oh. I wanted to! I an... You saved Changbagela’s life. It’s... It’s the least I can do..."

Li Yundong regarded iduo’s expression. Was that all? Gratitude? God, he sure hoped so. Because friendship was only thing he could give this girl. His heart already belonged to soone else.

Regardless, he had to maintain his distance and keep things professional between them. Not that he hadn’t been keeping things professional, but just... you know. Extra precautions were necessary, especially after knowing that iduo had stayed up the whole night to make him a pair of shoes...

Li Yundong cleared his throat.

"When will we set off again? What did Changbagela say?"

"After breakfast," iduo answered in a heartbeat.

An awkward silence spread between them. iduo looked like she wanted to say sothing else, but couldn’t get the words out.

He had to say sothing. Preferably in the next few seconds.

"H-Hey, iduo. Can you read Sanskrit?" he blurted out the first thing that ca to mind.

iduo brightened up instantly, much to his relief.

"Oh, yes I can!" iduo jumped slightly. "I’m pretty good at it actually!"

Li Yundong couldn’t help but smiled at the girl’s enthusiasm. "Well, then I need your help."

"With what?"

Li Yundong chuckled wryly. "You know that book Changbagela gave ?"

A look of recognition ford on iduo’s face. "Oh. Was it written in Sanskrit?"

Li Yundong nodded. "Part of it, yeah." He shook his head. "So parts were written in Tibetan I think."

"So you need to translate it for you?"

Li Yundong nodded. "Yeah." He paused to look around their camp. Changbagela and the others were still fast asleep. "I an we have ti until breakfast, right?"

iduo nodded. "Mm-hmm!"

Li Yundong smiled. "Right! Shall we get started?"

***

"Oh my God!" iduo exclaid, startling Li Yundong so much that he nearly dropped his water bottle.

"Sothing wrong?" He stowed the bottle into his backpack.

iduo was staring slack-jawed at the book. Seconds later, she looked up sharply.

"T- This is the Mahamudra Tantra!" she hissed. "I can’t believe Changbagela gave you the original copy!"

Li Yundong frowned. "What, is that like a sacred text or sothing?"

iduo stared at him like he was nuts. "Are you kidding? This is the Kathok Monastery’s treasure!"

"What!" Li Yundong hissed. "Then you must give it back to Changbagela. I can’t accept sothing like this. It’s too much!"

iduo seed to balk at the idea. "But he already gave it to you."

Li Yundong shook his head. "Return it," he said firmly. "The text belongs to the temple. I have no right to take it."

iduo shook her head. "But it was a gift!"

Li Yundong thought for a mont. "Okay. How about you translate the whole thing for , and I’ll try to morize its contents. That way, you can return the book to the temple after this since I won’t be needing it anymore. Deal?"

iduo gave him a skeptical look. "morize the whole book?"

Li Yundong smirked. "I have a good mory." Oh, you have no idea, he added silently.

iduo sighed. "Fine. I’ll translate it for you." She paused for a second. "You know what, I might as well just read the book to you."

Li Yundong smiled, then hopped onto the wagon and sat beside iduo.

"I’m all ears."

***

Apparently, the term mudra refers to a symbolic hand gesture or hand sign used in Buddhism. And, as iduo had kindly told him before she began translating the words from the text, the Mahamudra Tantra was all about mudras.

---

Li Yundong wasn’t an expert in Sanskrit or anything, but even he could tell that maha ant great. After all, maharajah ant a great ruler.

The book was divided into three scrolls, the first of which was titled Ganga Mudra. In the Ganga Mudra, the author expounded on the three major classifications of mudras: the Truth mudras; the Emptiness mudras; and the Enlightennt mudras.

By the ti iduo got to the end of the first scroll, Li Yundong realized, much to his dismay, that its content was pretty similar to that of the Canon of the Yellow Thearch. He was hoping for a book that contained so hidden secrets in Cultivation, not a bunch of articles whose contents he’d read and mastered from a book that he could literally buy from Xinhua Bookstore for all of fifty yuan.

In essence, both the Canon and the first scroll of the Mahamudra Tantra were about the fundantals of Cultivation, only that they were told from two different perspectives. The Canon approached Cultivation from a dical perspective, whereas the Mahamudra Tantra expounded the basics of Cultivation through Buddhist principles and practices.

As it turned out, they were just two sides of the sa coin.

The second scroll contained a vivid and interesting account on the origins of om mani pad hum, a six-syllable Sanskrit mantra that Buddhists chant as a form of prayer. Disappointnt coursed through Li Yundong when iduo told him that she had reached the end of the second scroll. None of what he heard so far was beneficial to his training. All he got was a bunch of history lessons.

A sliver of light from the east betokened the coming of dawn. So pilgrims were starting to rouse from their sleep.

"Is everything alright, Brother Li?"

Li Yundong smiled. "Nah. I’m fine. Just thinking about the contents." He nodded at the book.

"Shall I read the third scroll to you?"

Would there be a point?

"Sure," he said nonetheless.

iduo flipped to the next page, then suddenly looked up from the page. "Um... Brother Li, there’s nothing else to read."

She showed him the book and flipped through the remaining pages from the third scroll. The pages were filled with diagrams of mudras (hand signs). Below each diagram was a bilingual—Sanskrit and Tibetan—caption. Perhaps the nas of those hand signs?

One unique hand sign caught his eye. The diagram showed a right hand forming a fist with the fingers wrapped around the left index finger.

"What’s this sign?" Li Yundong pointed at the diagram.

"Oh. That’s one of Mahavairocana’s hand sign. The Intelligent Fist."

"Mahavairocana?"

"Yes," iduo said. "He’s one of the five Primordial, or as we Buddhist call it, Dhyani Buddhas."

"Well, what does that an?"

"Primordial Buddhas are celestial buddhas who are self-born. They’ve existed since the beginning of ti."

Li Yundong still didn’t quite get it, but he nodded anyway. He dropped his gaze back onto the page and pointed at another diagram. "What about this one?"

The diagram showed two hands pressed together with each pinky bent inwards until they touched the palms.

"Oh! That’s one of Divyadundubhi ghanirghosa’s hand signs!"

Li Yundong looked up from the page and stared at iduo.

iduo smiled and did a—rather poor—imitation of the hand sign. "We call him the Buddha of the Heavenly Drums!"

Li Yundong smiled politely and returned his eyes to the page.

Monts later, he held out his palm for the book. "May I?"

iduo smiled and handed the Mahamudra Tantra to him.

Li Yundong flipped through the pages of the third scroll. Each page was filled with little diagrams of hand signs and captions. Could it be that the real secrets of the text lay within these hand signs?

Li Yundong flipped back to the first page of the third scroll, then placed the book down on the wagon.

After that he got into a ditative stance.

"What are you doing, Brother Li?"

Li Yundong glanced at iduo, who was looking at him strangely. He smiled. "Learning, of course!"

Then, he began to perform each of the hand signs successively.

When he got to the third page, he realized that he had a real knack for this; the hand signs ca to him almost naturally. It was just like how he could copy and execute a martial arts technique only after watching it once.

Perhaps it had to do with the Renyuan Jindan.

But still, there was sothing mysterious about these signs. Like they held so kind of unknown power.

Then again, maybe he was just deluded. After all, he’d been performing over a hundred hand signs so far and nothing happened.

Near the end of the book, he spotted a short line written in Sanskrit.

"iduo..." Li Yundong turned the book around. "What does this say?"

iduo craned her neck forward and stared at the page. "Oh. That’s a Buddhist mantra!"

Li Yundong frowned. "Which mantra?" He had a pretty good idea which mantra it was, but he just wanted to make sure.

"The om mani pad hum."

Hah! I knew it!

Li Yundong smiled and took the book from iduo. He might have just figured out how the hand signs worked. Perhaps the effect would only co when the signs were perford in tandem with the mantras.

Whispers and footsteps sounded around them as more pilgrims roused from their slumber. Li Yundong glanced at the page again. Now he just had to commit all the hand signs and the mantras to mory. Thanks to the Lianqi phase, he could do that easily.

Li Yundong glanced at iduo and patted the spot beside him. "Co here for a sec."

iduo climbed over and sat down beside him.

"Read out the mantras for while I morize the diagrams."

iduo stared at him in shock. "Y-You can do that? morize all of them?"

Li Yundong smirked. "I guess we’ll see."