Nightfall

The mountain was Buddha, while the cliff plateau was his palm. The lofty Buddha’s light, full of stillness and extinct coercion, didn’t come from nowhere, but from the palm of Buddha, as well as from the pious belief of countless monks and believers in Xuankong Temple and wildness in the pit bottom.

That was also the case with the scriptures that were winded around the peaks, which were written by Buddha eons ago and piously chanted by his disciples and believers millions of years later. Buddhahood was the gilt of the scriptures, making the power of Buddha boundless.

Sangsang was silently looking at the cliff plateau, the scriptures floating in the wind, and the ray of Buddha’s light. She captured multiple views with one glance. The Lanke Temple in autumn many years ago came into her mind.

In that year, a ray of Buddha’s light with such stillness and extinction was exposed in Lanke Temple. The light came from the stone statue of Buddha at the peak of Wa Mountain when a clear and crisp bell rang in the hands of Jewel Tree, the chief monk of the Commandment Court.

This year in Xuankong Temple, Buddha’s light was grim but was also beneficent. It came from the cliff plateau and the remains of Buddha’s palm when the bell rang far away behind the Shrine Hall at the mountain peak.

Buddha’s light that year in Lanke Temple was targeted to press and kill the daughter of Invariant Yama. While, this year in Xuankong Temple, Buddha’s light was for the suppression of Haotian. As it was known to all, actually nothing had changed, because Haotian was the daughter of Invariant Yama and that the same power of Buddha’s light was executed.

Everything was clear.

In order to deal with the Headmaster of Academy, Haotian brewed the plot a millennium ago. Yet before that, Buddha had read the Bright Volume of The Tomes of Arcane while taking notes, so that he knew what would happen and foretold that a round bright moon would certainly emerge when the nightfall was approaching. Mysteries merely fell into the uncertainties of Haotian’s advent to the human world and her weakening.

With that, Buddha drew another plot.

Plenty of dharma vessels were left in the human world, such as the Obon Bell and the chessboard. Wherein, the boundless Light of Buddha had been shed under the purpose of keeping the entrance of the Devil’s world closed. However, as mighty as Buddha was, how couldn’t he know the so-called Devil’s World had never existed?

From the beginning to end, she had always been on the hit list of Buddha.

Buddha had been determined to exterminate Haotian.

Yet the Obon Bell was squeezed into a piece of scrap iron, and the stone statue of Buddha at the peak of Wa Mountain was cut into fragments by Jun Mo. The chessboard was taken to the Wilderness by Ning Que and Sangsang.

Nevertheless, the remains of Buddha became a giant mount, infinitely taller than the stone statue on Wa Mountain. The bell in Xuankong Temple was far louder than the Obon Bell. The Buddha’s light was all the more powerful.

Sangsang saw everything clearly. As their minds were closely connected, Ning Que also knew all the causes and effects and that the huge mountain where Xuankong Temple was located was actually the body of Buddha.

He was astonished at the moment when no one was shaken.

There was something to do with astonishment, and much to do with the scriptures floating and winding above the mountain. He looked pale around the grills as the scriptures gradually found its sequence and was about to form a whole text.

One character was as large as a temple. Glittering and floating above the Xuankong Temple, thousands of characters in that size covered a large scale and blotted out the clouds. “Chug.” Ning Que held the knife handle and drew the iron knife in the middle, which had a shimmer that sent chills down one’s bones.

As he was about to draw, Sangsang waved her sleeves.

She was dressed in black clothes decorated with flowers, which looked like the most honorable imperial robe glittering against the boundless light of Buddha.

She was the lord of the world.

Her slight waving in the air made fierce winds roared like a dragon passing through the woods and temples. Countless monks were swept off the cliff. The wind traversed in front of Buddha’s Shrine Hall, slightly wobbling the ancient bell and disturbing its rings.

At that moment, Qi Mei sat down from his former kneeling position in front of Buddha in the Shrine Hall. While wearing a firm and persistent expression, he held a wood staff and heavily knocked at the wood block in front of him, which was shattered instantly.

Nearly at the same time, the Venerable standing beside Buddha dropped the vajra pestle from the air and heavily hit Qi Mei’s head. Qi Mei’s skull was smashed, and his brains and blood were scattered.

Blood stains of contaminated the Buddha statue. After that, Buddha’s Shrine Hall suddenly stabilized and then closely connected with the mount as one. Monks therewith finally steadied their bodies and minds.

Sangsang’s waving sleeves formed wind, the celestial power that couldn’t be annihilated at this point. It was drifted up from the peak and instantly came to the point where the text of scriptures consisting of thousands of characters was floating in the air.

Upper clouds were blown apart, and giant golden characters were dissipated and tossed all around. Amid the flickering golden light, the scriptures that were about to come into being had been disordered to a large extent, resulting in great difficulties of reading.

Sangsang broke the scriptures left by Buddha merely by waving her sleeves. Her expressions were increasingly getting dignified.

The reason was that she gained a better perception of her surroundings. While waving her sleeves, she felt a little puzzled, after surprisingly found that she couldn’t get away from the cliff plateau with Ning Que.

The power of inhibition on the cliff plateau was neither part of the rules nor regular cultivation. The latter was still within the rules, even if the isolated world above the Five States was still part of Haotian’s world. Even with a much weaker body after her advent to the human world, she could still destroy one billion worlds if she were to decide to.

At that moment, it was a macrocosm that trapped them.

How could there be a macrocosm in Haotian’s world?

Buddha transformed his body into mounts with numerous temples, harboring countless believers below.

These mounts didn’t bear any perception, spirit, or life, but Buddhahood had been nurtured here with countless years of uninterrupted incense-burning, sutra-chanting among the mounts and believers’ prostrate worship in the wilderness.

Buddhahood was the awareness shared by monks and believers!

That was why this world had become Buddha land, a true world, a macrocosm of pureness.

This world was in the extremely west, so called the Western Paradise.

…

…

It did not matter that she was in the Western Paradise and unable to leave freely or that she had to fight against at least millions of Buddhist believers. Sangsang didn’t mind at all as she was Haotian, the lord who would never lose.

However, she had stayed in the human world for a long time and had been continuously weakened by its power. Thus, she would pay a heavy price if she was going to break the Western Paradise.

She could have wrecked the Western Paradise, but how would she cope with the other threats in the human world, such as Chang’an, the Academy and God-stunning Array, with an extremely weak body?

Therefore she had a bit of hesitation.

Ning Que had no idea why she hesitated. But he was worried about the terrible situation of how the scriptures were blown apart by the wind but didn’t disappear. Instead, they were scattered and fell toward the cliff plateau!

The temple-sized golden characters gradually shrank into petal-sized ones, and emitted an exotic fragrance during the fall.

It was very beautiful, just like the blossoms that were scattered by the heavenly maids in Buddha land.

Every petal falling on the surface of the big black umbrella weighed as heavily as a large stone.

The Buddha’s light itself was extremely suppressing. It became countless petals falling down and accumulated on the surface of the big black umbrella. This was unbearable for a human being. Merely in a moment, his arm felt like it was about to break.

Ning Que planted the umbrella’s handle into the cliff plateau, with the belief that since the mount aws the body of Buddha, it was surely strong enough to support them.

He glanced at Sangsang who was silently standing in Buddha’s light.

He took out the iron knife and cut through the petals that were falling down.

His knife cut off with traces, the character, the Yi Talisman.

Though they had the appearance of petals, they were actually characters in scriptures.

The Buddha Dharma was so incomparable that the characters weighed heavily as mountains.

If Buddha had left other means, then Ning Que inevitably would have been out of methods to counteract, since his cultivation was within the Five States. He would rather have evaded by going behind Sangsang while grasping her sleeve.

However, he could break through the characters that were falling down.

This was because, as the best calligrapher and most powerful talisman master, he was an expert in breaking down characters. God knows how many characters he had broken down in the old library of the Academy.

Seven Yi Talismans appeared in the air above the cliff.

Once hit with the talisman power, the petals were torn into fabrics and flocks. The characters in the flowers were broken into meaningless lines.

Thousands of characters and thousands of flowers continued to fall, like a long and continuous spring shower.

The seven Yi Talismans didn’t last long. They disappeared due to the coercive power of Buddha.

Ning Que was hardly detected with any traces of fear. While looking at the left part of the scriptures, characters continuously fell down from the bottom of the messy scriptures.

During this time, he didn’t break down any characters, and instead wrote a character in the sky.

He wrote it so randomly that even he had no idea what the character would be.

Even though it was said that Buddha could detect things five hundred years after his death, Buddha himself would not have been able to guess.

The strokes that were drawn by his iron knife seemed more like scribbles.

A few drops of ink could even make even the most learned eminent monks puzzled.

The scriptures of Buddha land were broken down by Ning Que’s random slashes.

He was the freak cultivated by both the Headmaster of Academy and Yan Se. Furthermore, he didn’t belong to Haotian’s world, or that of Buddha. The Western Paradise was the last place that he wanted to stay.

Dealing with Ning Que by the means of characters was like cutting fish slices by the front door of the Headmaster, or selling hot and spicy shredded noodles on Lin 47th Street.

He put the knife back to its sheath and said while looking at Sangsang, “What are you waiting for?”

Sangsang didn’t reply and had an unfathomable aura.

Ning Que shook off the petals that were still on the big black umbrella, and then held it to block Buddha’s light for her.

Sangsang slightly frowned and said, “How could these attacks harm me?”

Ning Que said, “You look too pale to flaunt.”

Sangsang said, “I’m innately powerful. Why would I flaunt?”

Ning Que thought, She was the proud Haotian, the lord so stubborn that she wants to save her honor and reputation even at this point.

He put the umbrella handle in her hands, and then shouted towards the peak, “We give up. How about calling a truce?”

Sangsang frowned again and looked a little unhappy.

Ning Que said seriously, “Look at me, a man who never cared about reputation.”

Nevertheless, it was clear to Xuankong Temple that Haotian would never admit defeat, so they wouldn’t give up either. They answered Ning Que with bell tones and endless solemn sutra-chanting echoing throughout the mounts and cliffs. There was also another sound.

“Since they fight against the lord, why is the Academy still standing beside the lord?” This sound was serene yet august, and more or less could only be described as grand and magnificent after listening carefully. On the other hand, the question hit the core of the point. No one could give a clear and plausible answer.

Hearing it, Ning Que unexpectedly laughed out. “Chief Monk, you should have been buried underground by now. It is amusing how you can still speak energetically. But, it is admirable.”