Nightfall

Ning Que coughed for he was injured. But he did not know why his Eldest Brother coughed too. Looking at his haggard face, Ning Que worried that he was also injured.

However, the situation then was still full of tension. Even though the Eldest Brother was here, he was not necessarily able to defeat the Chief Preaching Monk who had attained the state of indestructibility.

He asked directly, “Eldest Brother, can you take us away, like how you came here?”

The Eldest Brother shook his head.

“At least one.” Ning Que did not give up and looked back at Sangsang.

The Eldest Brother said with some embarrassment, “My state is not high enough. I can only use it for limited times. So I do not have the ability to take you away. And my state is somewhat unstable recently.”

“Modesty is pride. Whose state is high if your state is not high?”

Ning Que said. Then when he thought that Eldest Brother kept coughing and had an unstable state, he was somewhat worried and asked, “Eldest Brother, what’s wrong with your state?”

The Eldest Brother answered honestly, “One reason is the lack of time to cultivate to strengthen my mind, since I have traveled all over the world this year. But most importantly, I am a little bit tired now.”

A little bit tired… It was such a simple answer. However, what kind of fatigue could unsteady the state of a powerhouse who was over the Five States?

Ning Que looked at the haggard face of his Eldest Brother in a daze. He was so deeply touched that he did not know what to say.

At this moment, the Chief Preaching Monk finally began to speak.

“Does Mr. First really want to save the Daughter of Yama? The catastrophe has gradually kicked off. Do you have the heart to watch all the people in the world die a tragic death like those today?”

The Eldest Brother looked at the corpses lying in a pool of blood. When he looked at the broken limbs and remains of people and felt the soles of his shoes slightly sticky with thick blood, his face turned pale and his eyes showed a dim expression.

Just like himself, his eyes remained clean no matter how bloody or filthy the world was reflected in them. That was why his dim eyes were so disconsolate.

Ning Que knew how kind and gentle his eldest brother was. When he saw his dim expression, he felt somehow flustered and dreaded to meet his eyes.

The Eldest Brother did not hide his emotions and nor did he know how to do so. After indulging in distress for quite a while, he gradually calmed down.

Then he looked at the chief monk and said slowly, “My teacher asked me to send you some words.”

The Chief Preaching Monk felt into silence for a moment. As he flicked his sleeve, a faint Buddhist aura emitted out from his fingers and enveloped the passage in the crowd, isolating the inside and outside.

“In autumn of the 16th year of the Tianqi era, I went to the Xuankong Temple, but you refused to meet me. This autumn, I went there again and you still refused to meet. Since we met today, I can finally tell you those words.”

The Eldest Brother looked at the Chief Preaching Monk and said calmly, “The future that we want is neither an everlasting night or Dharma Ending Period said by the Buddhism Sect. The Academy will definitely not ignore the Underworld Invasion. But my teacher thinks that the Daughter of Yama does not necessarily have to be killed in order to avoid the Underworld Invasion.”

The Chief Preaching Monk said with no facial expression, “The last words of the Buddha have come true in the last two years. The cold aura in the Daughter of Yama is an imprint left by Yama. Once she wakes up, Yama will make the world the Underworld. How can we let her live?”

The Eldest Brother said, “My teacher has never believed in the existence of the Underworld because he did not find it. Even if Yama really existed, my teacher does not believe that he will keep searching in 70,000 worlds.”

The Chief Preaching Monk frowned slightly and asked, “Why did the Headmaster say that?”

The Eldest Brother said, “Because he thinks that the evolution of life always tends to improve wisdom and understanding. Correspondingly, it is a gradual process of giving up the body. As what he said, the more advanced life tends to be lazier. The laziness here certainly does not refer to the ordinary laziness. It means that a person as wise as Yama would never look for the world in such a difficult way.”

As his silver eyebrow slowly fluttered, the Chief Preaching Monk said softly, “But it is the future that the Buddha saw.”

The Eldest Brother looked at his face and said calmly, “My teacher said that what the Buddha said is not necessarily right.”

Devoid of expression, the Chief Preaching Monk said, “The Buddha once said something, while the Headmaster said nothing.”

There were tens of thousands of people in the White Tower Temple. However, the passage in the crowd was isolated by the Buddhist aura, so no one but some people in the passage could hear the conversation.

Master Qi Mei behind the Chief Preaching Monk heard it, so did Ning Que and Sangsang behind the Eldest Brother. Though they heard it, it did not mean anything as their current state would not enable them to understand this dialogue in such a short period of time.

But the next sentence reported by the Eldest Brother was simple, explicit, and easy to be understood. Master Qi Mei became more serious as if thinking of something. Ning Que still looked calm but there were raging waves in his heart.

“My teacher said, if the cold aura in Sangsang was an imprint left by Yama, Yama would know where the world is once it is liberated. Logically, there is no reason for Yama to allow Sangsang to live in this world for so many years before waking up.”

The Eldest Brother looked at chief monk’s eyes and said, “A speculation which is closer to the truth is: Sangsang is not expected to hide her identity forever and find the opportunity to grow up and wake up in Haotian’s world. On the contrary, from the very beginning, Yama knew that Sangsang would die and he is even waiting for her death. Why? Because only if Sangsang died, the imprint sealed in her would be liberated automatically, thus revealing the position of the world. So what we should do is not to kill her, but to protect her.”

It was quiet in the temple, with the lake in front of the white tower rippling. Standing in the crowd, the five people were in a different world. They felt into silence for a long time at the same time.

After Sangsang’s identity as the Daughter of Yama was revealed, she had suffered from the chase of the Buddhist and Taoist Sects and even the whole world. Everyone believed that the imprint left by Yama would disappear and then the world could avoid the eyes of Yama if they killed her. However, no one had ever thought that though Yama had as many as 70,000 children, how could he not be aware of the death of any one of them?

It did not mean that the bigwigs of the two Sects were foolish. It was due to the deep-rooted thought inertia that they could not think of other possibilities. The Buddhist monks believed in the last words of the Buddha while the disciples of the Taoist Sect absolutely believed in the oracle of Haotian and dreaded the Underworld Invasion.

As for the Headmaster, the Buddha was his peer and Haotian, as something supermundane, had no influence on him. Besides, he had no thought inertia. Therefore, he could think of this possibility.