The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 698 Shiranui

The blue flames swayed silently, like flowers from hell, blooming quietly.

Master Chunshen was sitting in an empty meditation room with his eyes closed, and his human bone Buddhist beads were moving rhythmically.

The arched roof looks like a giant bat, as if something is hiding in the beams.

Chun Shen didn't open his eyes, but he knew that Jiuheng Yui had come.

“Now that you are here, please show yourself!
Two young monks stood on each side of the host, and a Go set was spread out on the tatami between the monks and the host.

The four monks stared at the chessboard, motionless. If they were not still breathing out hot air, people would probably mistake them for wooden or stone statues.

"You've been at the shrine for three days, and you still don't know the rules of the Mononji Temple?"

Master Chunshen did not move his lips, but he shouted with full strength.

The monk quickly stepped forward and searched the girl.

"Jiuheng Yui, the way you're peeking around outside looks a lot like the assassin who killed our master a hundred years ago."

"That assassin was eventually thrown into the abyss of the Unknown Volcano and torn to pieces by wild beasts."

Chunshen host stared at the girl's face and recalled the distant past.

"Time flies so fast. Another hundred years have passed in the blink of an eye."

"Come here!"

Kugaki Yui was hesitant, but finally, driven by some force, the girl obeyed the wizard's order and walked towards the host involuntarily.

"Please take a seat."

Yui hesitated for a moment, lifted the hem of her kimono, knelt down in front of the mage, and stared down at the blue flames in the furnace.

The firelight illuminated the girl's pretty face, making it bright and beautiful.

"All right."

Master Chunshen's tone was like that of a naughty child who wanted to end a game as quickly as possible.

One monk held down Kugaki Yui while the other began to search the girl carefully.

With a series of crisp clanging sounds, dozens of weapons were shaken out by the monks.

Chunshen picked up an exquisitely shaped musket.

Chunshen's face looked very young under the reflection of the blue flames.

The four monks drew their swords at the same time, the lights further elongating their sturdy figures. Yui was submerged in the shadows, her eyes firm.

"A musket, a dagger, a bottle of poison, a rope, an iron hook, Master, she also brought gunpowder..."

The abbot Chunshen laughed and said, "Are you here to blow up the entire Meneng Temple?"

The four monks around laughed out loud.

The mage's smile froze and the monk shut his mouth.

"Where are your accomplices?"

"No, it's just me."

"Why? Why did you come back to assassinate me?"

Chunshen placed the musket in his palm and chanted a spell.

Soon, a ball of orange-red flame ignited in the palm of his hand, and the flintlock pistol with a wooden handle turned into red molten iron, flowing onto the tatami, and the floor was sizzling with smoke.

"Are you the assassin sent by Liu Zhaosun?"

"See? Firearms can't hurt me, sharp blades can't hurt me, no one can kill me."

The wizard grasped the dagger, cut his palm with the sharp blade, and the ancient spell sounded again.

"My God gave me a new life."

By the blue candlelight, the girl saw that the wound that was still bleeding a moment ago healed in an instant, like...
"It's like nothing happened, right?"

Chunshen's tone was light and full of pride.

"Our family has transcended life and death. A thousand years ago, my father accidentally obtained this divine power from the deep mountains."

Jiuyuan Yui couldn't help but interrupt:

"Your father, he's dead."

Chunshen stood up suddenly like a stray cat whose tail was stepped on.

"That was an accident."

The girl murmured, "Isn't life full of surprises? I believe you can also be killed by an accident. That's why I came."

"Baga! Don't be rude to the abbot!" The angry monk swung his scabbard and hit the girl in the face.

Kugaki Yui flew a few steps away, her face covered in blood.

She struggled to stand up, but the demon monk had already teleported to her. He gently lifted the girl's chin and said kindly:

"You've overestimated your own strength. Now, please tell me, where did you get all these weapons? How did I offend you to make a weak woman like you travel hundreds of miles from the Choshu domain, desperate to take my life."

Jiuyuan Yui tried to lower her head, but Chun Shen held her chin tightly, preventing her from moving. "I found it on the road. In Nagasaki, you threw babies into the alchemy furnace for cultivation. Here, you throw barren girls alive into the mountains to feed wild beasts. Your crimes are so heinous that anyone would come to kill you. If I can't kill you, someone else will."

Chunshen smiled nonchalantly, but when he heard that someone was coming to kill him, he covered his chest with his hands, and his thick black eyebrows turned white one by one.

He chanted a spell to stop the aging process, and after a moment, his eyebrows turned back to jet black.

"Did you see it yourself?"

"My sisters, escaped from the Kikyo River of the Unknown Volcano."

"Kikyougawa? This name sounds familiar."

The mage raised his eyebrows slightly, and the monk next to him came up to him and whispered a few words.

"Oh, that Kikyo River in Nagasaki, the famous madwoman. It's a pity that I couldn't cure her madness. What a pity... Were you bewitched by Liu Zhaosun to kill me?"

Jiuyuan Yui said loudly:
"What Liu Zhaosun? Yesterday, I saw with my own eyes that a dead woman was thrown into the abyss by you."

"Ah, you saw it," Chunshen put down the Buddhist beads and rubbed his rosacea with his idle fingers.

"Don't look at what is inappropriate. Sometimes, seeing something may not be a good thing." The host's eyes moved up and down the girl's graceful figure like a greedy snake.

"Just like I saw you, your qualifications are obviously better than that crazy woman, more suitable... If it weren't for my protection and the blessing of the Meneng Temple, who knows where those girls would have fallen?"

To emphasize this point, Chunshen continued:
"They would be subjected to endless humiliation by the patrons of brothels and Noh performances, and then died tragically. Their bodies were left on the streets of Edo and fed to stray dogs. I and all the monks of Shiranui took in these poor people in pursuit of justice."

Jiuyuan Yui retorted sharply, "Is it justice to imprison a helpless woman in Baxian Mountain, in your palace, for your pleasure and abuse?"

The monk snorted and laughed, a murderous look on his face.

The abbot Chunshen cleared his throat and patiently explained, as if he was giving guidance to a new generation who had just completed ordination:
"You should have stayed in Changzhou. Why bother getting involved in this mess? What you see may not be true. The truth only exists in your heart."

As he spoke, the wizard quietly took out a bell-like instrument from the drawer of the cabinet behind him and gently shook it.

Hisagi Yui's attention couldn't help but be drawn to the magic weapon. The magic weapon made a rhythmic tinkling sound, and the girl's eyelids began to become heavy.

Chunshen continued to talk to himself and continued to explain his actions:
"All beings are equal, sharing and possessing everything, all things return to their source."

"Those young girls who came voluntarily from the various feudal domains dedicated their bodies to the ancient gods for twenty or fifteen years. When they grew old and left the shrines and temples, they would receive a considerable sum of money, equivalent to thirty years' salary for an average samurai. With prices soaring and the people of the various feudal domains struggling to make ends meet, this money was very important to them and their families."

"I am doing good deeds."

Master Chunshen's pupils suddenly widened.

Like a passage, Kugaki Yui's consciousness slid along the old monk's pupils into another world.

The black, tree-like thing passed through the old woods of my hometown and stood on a high hill.

It used its spider-web-like mouth to pray loudly to the rocks, praying to the ancient evil god in the mountain.

Kugaki Yui didn't know how she knew how it prayed - by putting its mouth on the ground.

Maybe she had seen it, but she didn't want to look back.

Those densely packed mouths are exactly the same as the mouth of Master Chunshen who is standing in front of me...

The hill beneath her feet began to shake violently, and a huge crack soon appeared in the ground. When Kugaki Yui tried to escape, an octopus tentacle stretched out from the crack and wrapped around her slender waist.

······
The wooden window creaked and was blown open by the wind, and a cold and fresh breeze blew in my face.

Kugaki Yui shuddered and woke up from the chaos.

She calmed down and found herself tied up and tied to a black pillar.

The volcano monk left his seat, his feet dangling in the air, floating on the roof like a jellyfish suspended in the sea.

She looked around hurriedly and found that the layout of the Zen room was completely different from before.

The tatami mats underfoot were removed and the floor was filled with burning candles.

A huge, strange symbol resembling an octopus limb spread out in all directions with Yui Kugaki as the center.

Four monks wearing black cloaks and holding oil lamps stood at the ends of the octopus's limbs.

The air was thick with the smell of burning animal fat.

"Let me go, you beasts!"

Master Chunshen lowered his head and glanced downwards. He was wearing a strange mask on his head, so his true expression could not be seen.

"Jiugaki Yui, remember, this is your honor, to benefit the common people and help me practice."

"Assholes, you're using babies as medicine for alchemy, and you still have the nerve to say you're doing good for the people! Let me go!"

Heavy breathing was heard in the darkness and the earth began to shake. Was it an earthquake?

The octopus graffiti slowly cracked, and Yui didn't dare to look at it anymore.

Everything is your own illusion.

"If the richness of the mortal world is nurtured by a river, then the Shiranui Shrine or Temple, and we, are the source of this river. And the source of the source is not you or me, but the ancient gods."

"No matter how high-sounding your words are, it won't change your crimes! You're just like your perverted master. You imprisoned women for twenty years, made them pregnant, and took their babies to use in making elixirs. You're both beasts!"

The darkness from the rooftop poured down like a waterfall, swallowing the girl in an instant.

(End of this chapter)