Killing Monks

Guangyuan saw it clearly.

When he saw Lu Fei's body suddenly stop in mid-air, his expression change, and finally be swallowed by crimson and madness, and then rush back into the battle, he knew something was wrong.

Without the slightest hesitation, he slammed his toes on the ground and shot into the sky like an arrow!

He infused the gray monk's robe in his hand with his inner strength, making it taut like iron. His target was clear: the octagonal bronze mirror in mid-air that was still emitting an eerie golden light!

But the mirror's light also shone on him.

The scene before my eyes blurred and distorted...

When his vision cleared again, he was no longer in mid-air above the canyon, but standing on a familiar Jinjia Temple square.

The sound of bells seemed to buzz in my ears, and the aroma of incense filled the air.

Countless familiar and unfamiliar faces emerged from the surrounding illusions, coalescing into a crowd that surrounded him, pointing, whispering, and hurling insults and accusations.

"Guangyuan! How dare you murder your martial uncle, Nengzhi! This is utterly rebellious!"

"He betrayed the temple, fled, and harmed his fellow disciples; he is truly a disgrace to Buddhism!"

"Disgrace! All the years of cultivation the temple has nurtured you have been wasted!"

"You deserve to go to the Hell of Tongue-Pulling, never to be reborn!"

The condemnation of a thousand men is as powerful as metal.

The sound was like a tidal wave, almost drowning him.

Guangyuan's steps never faltered for a moment.

His expression was calm, his gaze fixed straight ahead, as if he were walking through the illusory, noisy figures and continuing to move forward.

Those angry faces and rebuking voices, as he moved forward, slowly dissipated and faded behind him like smoke, failing to leave even a ripple in his heart.

"Guangyuan—! Give me back my life—!"

A piercing roar suddenly rang out!

In the illusion, his uncle, Nengzhi, covered in blood, had a ferocious expression and lunged at him with bared teeth and claws, striking him with his palm!

Guangyuan didn't even lift his eyelids, and his steps remained steady.

"I have already sent my master to the Western Paradise, but instead of being grateful, he is demanding my life. This shows that his cultivation is really inadequate."

The phantom that could be grasped whistled through his body, shattering like a bubble without causing any real impact.

What is fake is fake, and an illusion is ultimately just an illusion.

If you take it seriously, it becomes a demon that can devour people's souls.

If you don't take it seriously, it will just be a fleeting moment, leaving no trace.

The illusion changes again.

A middle-aged monk with a serious face and a thin figure appeared in front of them. His robes were worn and his eyes were deep.

It was his master, who had been missing for five or six years.

There were many speculations in the temple about the master's whereabouts: he was traveling, he was murdered, he went to another temple... Guangyuan never investigated further.

In the illusion, his master stood there quietly, gazing at him.

Guangyuan paused slightly, then nodded very lightly at the illusory figure, as if bidding a silent farewell.

He then walked straight past his "master" without stopping.

The scene suddenly became intensely hot!

An endless sea of ​​red lotus fire suddenly unfolded, its flames raging and intensely hot.

Amidst the sea of ​​fire, the images of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Arhats appeared, some compassionate, some majestic, some wrathful, all looking down upon him as he walked through the flames.

The scene subtly overlapped with his feelings that night when he looked up at the Buddha statue in the main hall of Jinjia Temple.

The Buddha sits high above, on the altar, on the lotus throne, looking down upon the world, upon all living beings, upon everything.

Guangyuan kept his eyes straight ahead and his steps steady.

The scorching flames licked at the hem of his clothes, yet he felt no pain whatsoever.

He knew that it was all an illusion.

Even if it wasn't an illusion, he had nothing to fear.

Finally, the illusion settled on a pale room filled with the smell of disinfectant.

That was his hospital room in his previous life.

On the hospital bed, a man who was emaciated and barely breathing was struggling to move his lips, reciting the Rebirth Mantra with a devout yet numb expression.

That face was that of the person who had suffered greatly from illness in their previous life and, in despair, placed their hopes on the next.

Guangyuan stopped and gazed quietly at the former "Li Lixiang" on the hospital bed.

In that lifetime, life was too short and the pain too long, so I placed my faint hope in the illusory cycle of reincarnation and gods and Buddhas.

But who can live in this world without experiencing pain?

Some suffering is fate, an accident, or a coincidence, while some suffering... is man-made!

Without the slightest hesitation, he turned and continued forward.

As the illusions shattered, he finally "walked" to the real octagonal bronze mirror.

The mirror surface appears as clear as autumn water, with a diameter of one foot and one inch. The handle is made of ebony and wrapped with white cotton rope.

The mirror is carved with a lotus scroll pattern and the inscription "Zheng Nian Guan Ye" (正念观业).

He threw out his monk's robe and swung it out, covering the mirror!

However, although the mirror was covered by the fabric, it was not completely extinguished. A hazy golden halo stubbornly seeped out through the gaps in the fabric. Although dim, it still existed.

Guangyuan's gaze swept over the muddy ground below, stained with blood and dust.

Without hesitation, he bent down and grabbed a handful of filth mixed with dark red blood and dirt from the ground. With a flick of his wrist, he was about to smear the filthy dirt onto the mirror covered by the monk's robe!

Just then, a voice suddenly came.

"slow!"

The octagonal bronze mirror, covered by monks' robes and smeared with mud, suddenly began to tremble as if drawn by invisible threads.

With a soft "hum", the mirror broke free from the cover of the monk Guangyuan's robe and transformed into a phantom that shimmered with a dim bronze light, spinning several times in the air.

Then, with a "whoosh," like a swallow returning to its nest, it flew swiftly towards the top of a steep cliff to the side, disappearing instantly behind the jagged rocks.

Immediately afterwards, that clear and melodious voice came again:

"You little monk, you're quite an interesting fellow. How about we chat?"

As the bronze mirror flew away, the eerie golden halo in Miman Valley completely dissipated.

As the mirror flew away, the dozens of warriors in the canyon who had been fighting wildly and like madmen under the mirror's light froze in their movements, as if all their strength and madness had been instantly drained away.

Their bloodshot eyes quickly lost focus and dimmed, and then, like puppets whose strings had been cut, they collapsed from exhaustion, falling to the ground one after another with a thud.

Lu Fei was among them.

He knelt on one knee, supporting himself with his hand on the ground, breathing heavily, cold sweat pouring down his forehead.

"What...is wrong with me?"

The feeling of being controlled by illusions, burning with hatred, and committing frenzied killing still lingered in my limbs and bones, terrifyingly clear.

If Guangyuan hadn't intervened in time to block the mirror light, he would either have gone mad and died from exhaustion under the pressure of his inner demons, or been hacked to death in the chaos of battle.

Guangyuan glanced at Lu Fei: "You were misled by the illusion of the Buddha soldiers and lost your composure. Now is not the time to discuss this in detail."

He turned his gaze to the cliff where the bronze mirror had flown away and said:

"Come, let's go see who's playing tricks here!"

This mirror, or rather, this Buddhist treasure.

It has an owner.