Begin your practice with the crane-shaped stance.

Chapter 102 Bliss

Eighty miles outside Lin Yuan Prefecture, a dilapidated ancient temple, hidden among barren mountains and withered trees, stands silently.

Beneath the ancient temple lies a hidden paradise.

Inside a spacious and secluded underground palace, the underground dragon was burning extremely brightly, and steam was rising from it.

The walls were inlaid with thick, red tallow candles, their dim yellow light illuminating the underground palace, and the air was filled with a unique sandalwood fragrance that was so rich it was almost cloying.

Ci Xiang stood expressionless in the center of the underground palace, casually tearing off his tattered dark red robe and throwing it on the ground.

His skin, which originally shone with a dark golden luster, was now covered with a layer of lingering, pale blue frost. His swollen cheek, in particular, looked extremely comical and ferocious on his once dignified face.

Master Guyue's Xuan Tian Great Handprint not only shattered his protective Buddhist light, but also crushed his years of pampered life and self-importance into a pile of mud.

Physical injuries are secondary; the most fatal blows are to one's Zen mind and mental well-being.

"Come." Ci Xiang sat cross-legged on a warm, white jade cushion, his voice low and hoarse.

At his command, twelve beautiful young women draped in transparent veils emerged from behind the gauze curtains surrounding the underground palace.

These girls were beautiful, with fair skin like jade, and their eyes revealed an almost fanatical obedience and a deeply hidden fear.

They are the "flesh lotus flowers" that Cixiang painstakingly cultivated with countless efforts and elixirs.

The girls moved with light, graceful steps, like twelve flower petals, surrounding the compassionate face in the center of the flower.

Barefoot, they obediently pressed themselves against the imposing, mountain-like body of the Buddha, their light veils peeking through the steam, their graceful curves clinging tightly to his cold, stiff golden Arhat statue.

Cixiang formed the "Root Mudra of Joy" passed down from the Red Lotus Temple with his hands, his eyes slightly closed, and his eyeballs twitching violently under his eyelids.

The techniques of Honglian Temple have always taken an unconventional and unorthodox approach.

Buddhism emphasizes purity of mind and few desires, but they do the opposite, advocating "using desire to control desire, planting lotus in fire."

As the Dharma seal was activated, the dark golden flesh and blood of the compassionate figure began to pulsate rhythmically.

The twelve "flesh lotuses" nestled beside him let out a sweet, muffled groan in unison, their fair skin instantly flushing an unnatural red, like ripe peaches.

Streams of pure Yin energy, mixed with the vibrant life essence of the young girls, were forcibly drawn from their skin and warm breath, flowing into Cixiang's body.

The temperature inside the underground palace continued to rise.

The girls' breathing became increasingly rapid, their bodies glistening with sweat, the light gauze clinging tightly to their skin, outlining breathtaking curves.

Their eyes gradually became hazy, and their bodies trembled slightly due to the significant loss of their vital energy, as if they were enduring some kind of torment that was a mixture of extreme pleasure and extreme suffering.

Meanwhile, at the center of the vortex, as the pure Yin essence flowed in, the dark blue frost on Cixiang's body began to melt and evaporate at a visible speed.

The swollen cheeks gradually returned to normal under the powerful repair of life.

However, the return of vital energy brings not only the healing of injuries, but also a surge of primal desires like a tsunami.

Two fresh and delicate bodies rubbed and intertwined in his arms, their warm fragrance and sweet breaths filling his nostrils.

Ci Xiang's breathing became heavy as a bull's, and the blood in his body seemed to be completely ignited. The extreme lust and greed almost burned away his reason.

This is the most dangerous stage in the Red Lotus Temple's martial arts, the Burning of Lust.

If one is not careful, one will become a slave to desire, go mad, and die from a sudden explosion of the body.

"The Lonely Moon — Summer and Winter —"

Ci Xiang let out a beast-like roar in his heart.

He clenched his teeth, transforming the extreme humiliation and hatred he had suffered in the council hall during the day into the sharpest knife, hanging over his heart.

He did not indulge his body in those shameful acts, but instead forcibly maintained his composure and guarded the sliver of clarity in his mind amidst the raging sea of ​​desire.

He would use this almost maddening lust as fuel and shame as a bellows to reforge his golden body into an even more indestructible form.

As time passed, several of the weaker "flesh lotuses" finally succumbed to the draining of their essence. Their eyes rolled back, and they collapsed to the ground limply like dehydrated flowers, their fate unknown.

Ci Xiang suddenly opened his eyes, the deathly gray in his eyes replaced by an eerie dark red.

#m

Inside the underground palace, the qi and blood surged, and spring colors intertwined with the eerie.

Ci Xiang exhaled a long breath, feeling the Buddhist power within his body returning to its fullness. The palm print on his face had completely faded, and his body once again radiated an indestructible dark golden luster.

Using the blazing fire of desire, he not only healed the visible wounds from the slap from Master Guyue, but also felt a slight loosening of his long-stagnant cultivation.

A smug, cold smile crept across his face.

:

The old hag, Gu Yue, her methods are nothing more than this.

However, just as his tense mind relaxed and he thought his injuries had greatly improved, his condition worsened.

A sudden change has occurred!

An extreme chill, without warning and penetrating to the very core, suddenly burst forth from the deepest marrow of his body, like a long-dormant frost serpent.

This chill was not an external invasion, but rather a trace of the original source of Taiyin divine light that Master Guyue had long ago implanted into his body and hidden deep within the gaps of his bones and blood!

Just now, in order to heal his injuries, Ci Xiang frantically absorbed pure Yin essence and used extreme lust to push his own blood and qi to a boiling point.

At this moment, his blood and qi were as hot as magma, and he was like a piece of raw iron that had been heated to a bright red in a furnace.

This sudden burst of Yin cold was like a mouthful of icy water from the Heavenly Pool above the nine heavens, mixed with the deathly stillness that froze everything, poured without reservation and violently onto this red-hot iron!

"laugh!"

Extreme heat and extreme cold collided violently within Cixiang's body.

If it were a normal bump or knock, with his cultivation level approaching the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment, he might be able to withstand it.

But at this moment, he was completely unprepared, in the deepest part of his body, where his meridians were fully engorged.

The physical body of the compassionate one was simply unable to withstand such an extreme change in temperature that defied common sense.

"Well----"

Ci Xiang's eyes bulged out instantly, his eyeballs covered with spiderweb-like blood vessels, and his deathly gray pupils suddenly contracted.

He opened his mouth to roar, but only a gurgling sound came out of his throat, because his trachea had been frozen solid in an instant.

Then came a chilling cracking sound.

His originally strong and open meridians, after being frozen in an instant, were suddenly ruptured by the surging blood and qi within his body, like fragile icicles.

The violent magical power that had gone mad from the cultivation was no longer restrained by his meridians, and it ran rampant and exploded within his body like a wild horse.

"Bang!"

Ci Xiang's massive, dark gold body shuddered violently, and countless fine blood lines instantly burst open on his skin.

A grim, dark red blood gushed from his eyes, nostrils, ears, and wide-open mouth.

In just a few breaths, the once imposing and arrogant high monk of Honglian Temple fell heavily onto the warm white jade futon like a piece of dead wood, his body stiff and lifeless.

Inside the underground palace, a deathly silence lasted for a moment.

The "flesh lotus" girls who were originally slumped on the ground or still nestled around were stunned by this sudden change.

When the warm, foul-smelling blood splattered onto their fair skin, when they saw clearly the demon-like figure bleeding from all seven orifices...

When he saw the gruesome death of the vicious monk, extreme fear finally burst through his throat.

"what!"

A piercing, terrified scream tore through the somber silence of the underground palace.

The girls, disregarding the fact that they were only covered by light veils, scrambled to their feet and fled frantically towards the narrow exit of the underground palace, like a flock of startled birds.

The dim candlelight flickered, illuminating the mess and the glaring blood on the ground.

No one could have imagined that this eminent monk of Honglian Temple would pass away in such a way, with his meridians severed and his spirit possessed, amidst this debauched and bizarre scene of ecstasy.

The tallow candles in the underground palace burned to their end, making a series of faint crackling sounds before going out one by one.

The intense smell of blood completely overwhelmed the original sweet sandalwood scent, plunging the entire underground space into a deathly cold and darkness.

I don't know how much time passed.

A strange fluctuation suddenly arose from the dark gold corpse, which was bleeding from all seven orifices and stiff and cold.

A thick, inky shadow, like a venomous insect struggling to crawl out of rotting flesh, emerged from the cracked crown of the Buddha's head, dark and extremely twisted, little by little.

It struggled to break free from the heavy skin, writhing and pulling on the white jade cushion stained with dried blood, finally slowly unfolding and coalescing into a blurry, distorted human figure that exuded a chilling aura.

This is a vengeful ghost born from the intertwining of extreme resentment, lust, and unwillingness in an extremely yin and evil environment.

It had no eyes, no facial features, and the memories and reason that belonged to the high monk of Honglian Temple during its lifetime had long been completely stripped away and shattered along with the breaking of its physical meridians.

It was reduced to a grotesque spirit, composed of pure malice and obsession, wandering aimlessly in the desolate underground palace, like a soulless puppet.

"Summer——Winter————"

In the empty depths of the underground palace, a cold, eerie murmur, like the grinding of cast iron, suddenly rang out.

The sound did not come from the throat, but was a mournful ghostly sound produced by the violent churning and friction of Yin energy.

Although his memory was fragmented, the extreme humiliation he suffered in the council hall of the thousand households at the moment of his death, and the overwhelming hatred that he could not express, were like red-hot steel nails, driven firmly into the deepest part of this vengeful ghost.

In its remaining chaotic instincts, that insignificant Eagle Wolf Guard commander was the culprit who caused it to be publicly humiliated, ultimately leading it to go mad and end up in such a miserable state.

"Summer——Winter————"

The vengeful ghost abruptly stopped its wandering and let out another mournful whisper.

Its distorted phantom churned and expanded violently, instantly forming a thin layer of frost in the surrounding air, exuding a chilling resentment and murderous intent.