Chapter 127 – Return to the Human Realm

A pale white hand, a scarlet red sleeve.

The lush and decadent youth seemed to have also become a ghost, the most enchanting puppet in the mortal world and the underworld. His brows and eyes were filled with laughter. You see, if you are the Heavenly Dao, I will be the Divine Lord in white. If you are a vicious ghost, I will be a beautiful ghost in red. It doesn’t matter if I go mad or become possessed.

“A Luo, you can’t leave me alone,” he said softly. “You promised.”

He knelt in the void, and ring after ring of faint, glowing light spread out around him, as if it were a lake separating the realms above and below.

The vicious ghost looked up at him from the bottom of the lake.

The points of starlight scattered from the edge of his sleeve were reflected in the vicious ghost’s pupils, becoming flickering candlelight… A candle with a Bewilderment Wood wick was lit in a corner of the carriage. A long black robe and a pomegranate-colored skirt were piled on the edge of the soft couch. A curtain of Bo stone beads cast shadows on a back that was either bare or half-covered by a warm quilt.

…Don’t get hurt again.

…Alright.

…And don’t leave me alone.

…Alright.

The vicious ghost at the bottom of the lake reached out its hands toward the youth on the surface.

—Those shattered memories were churning, chaotically intertwining, stirring up layers of unwilling desire. Since they had once been so intimately fused, how could they be separated?

“We had an agreement.”

Chou Bodeng smiled, and with a tender, lingering affection, he personally broke the shackles that bound the vicious ghost.

“You’re not allowed to lie to me.”

He leaned down.

The fingertips of the beautiful soul and the vicious ghost touched on the surface of the lake. The next moment, the pale, cold vicious ghost grabbed him and pulled him fiercely into its embrace. The tangible black qi transformed into fine chains, wrapping around his wrist bones, his elbows, spreading up and down like a serpent, like a lock, encircling him.

Caught, locked.

Never to be separated again.

Chou Bodeng tilted his head back.

The scarlet ribbon tying his hair snapped in mid-air, and his raven-black hair floated in the starlight, which was as fine as dust. He completely opened his divine sense, allowing another’s will to enter, no matter how forceful, no matter how little space it left, he accepted it with joy.

Twelve years ago.

The Cangming Sea was vast. Under the white moon, the Heavenly Dao embraced the Divine Lord who was burdened with karma.

Twelve years later.

The Great Wilderness was dark and obscure. In a land without sun, the Divine Lord embraced the Heavenly Dao that had fallen into a demon.

Faint starlight spread, covering the pitch-black chains, enveloping all the fierce and sinister evil qi, like a thin layer of gauze draped over both of them. The darkness on all sides seemed to boil, as if other existences in the Great Wilderness had noticed the anomaly here.

They awoke one by one, and one after another, their wills rapidly spread through the filth, wanting to find out who had broken into the Netherworld.

The vicious ghost’s cold, powerful arms wrapped around the youth’s back, hiding him securely in its embrace. Immediately after, a ruthless killing intent spread out in all directions, about to sever the prying and searching gazes.

Chou Bodeng looked up.

He kissed him, stopping him.

Billions of starlight points took flight in the Great Wilderness, like countless fireflies gathering together, forming a winding river that flowed toward the mortal realm.

“A Luo, let’s go home.”

***

Night enveloped the earth.

Lu Jing slowly emerged from his meditative state of regulating his breath. He opened his eyes to the sight of continuously falling catkins of snow.

The evening wind was light, and the trajectory of the falling snow overlapped with that of falling rain. The strange events of the day had been temporarily suppressed by the City Divination Department. The people of Plum City only knew that the Hundred Bows Manor on the outskirts of the city had collapsed; they didn’t know that beneath their familiar city lay such a terrifying blood pool. Now, the houses at the foot of the mountain had lit their lamps. The dim yellow light shone from the windows, blurred into clusters by the snow.

From a distance, they looked like stars that had fallen to the ground.

Lu Jing stared blankly at the lights in the snow.

Time seemed to have suddenly turned back.

—In Qing Province, there was a small place called “Fu City.” The Little Martial Ancestor of Taiyi who had suddenly descended the mountain, the young master of Medicine Valley who had run away from home, the young pavilion master of the Mountain Sea Pavilion who had been exiled, the nameless boy who had been expelled from the City Divination Department, and the head of the Ten Witches who had disguised his identity to silently watch the Little Martial Ancestor of Taiyi.

A youth in fiery red stood on the treetop.

He held the Taiyi Sword.

He said he had seen the stars in the sky so numerous they couldn’t be counted, seen the earth completely lit up, as bright as could be, seen from billions of light-years away, the thick earth was a brilliant expanse.

“What’s wrong?”

Monk Budu saw him staring blankly and asked.

“Budu,” Lu Jing’s voice was very soft, as if afraid of disturbing something. “Tell me, if the sky were full of stars, how bright would it be?”

“It would be very bright,” Monk Budu replied.

He also looked toward the city at the foot of Heavenly Lake Mountain.

The houses of Plum City, built against the mountain, followed the undulations of the mountain range. Gray tiles and white walls formed continuous rows, following the river valley formed by the melting snow. At night, the lights were like ribbons of stars scattered across the mortal realm. The lights, some bright, some dim, wound their way into the distance, gradually becoming sparser.

Finally, they scattered into the darkness.

“How bright is very bright?”

“Very bright is…” Monk Budu raised his head and looked at the sky. “It’s when, in the future, the stars are like lamps, and the bright moon shines in all four directions. People and demons alike can walk hand in hand on the great earth without needing to light lanterns. The stars in the sky will illuminate the road clearly. At that time, when children climb to the treetops and look out beyond the city, what they’ll see won’t be dead souls and wild ghosts, but mountains high and low. The mountains will be connected, like dragons and serpents.”

Lu Jing didn’t speak, just listened to him.

If there really was such a day, the four seasons would turn, and flowers would bloom and fall.

People and demon spirits could go wherever they pleased.

There would be no more wilderness wanderers.

No longer would they have to hide behind city walls as soon as the Miasma Moon arrived.

“How wonderful.”

“It will definitely be wonderful.”

After a moment of silence, Lu Jing turned his gaze back to the city at the foot of Heavenly Lake Mountain. “Budu, sometimes, I’m quite scared.”

Monk Budu didn’t speak, waiting for him to continue.

“For twelve years, I’ve killed many people, and also many demons. The more people and demons I kill, the more I feel that there’s actually no difference between them. Sometimes, people are even more terrifying. The love and hate of demons are too extreme, and the greed of humans is too immeasurable.” Lu Jing looked down at his own hands. “After a while, I start to feel scared… We’ve dealt with one Hundred Bows Manor, but in places we don’t know, there are ten, a hundred, a thousand more. We can never kill them all, never clean them all up.”

The disputes are endless, the sea of suffering is boundless.

Can they really fill the sky with stars?

Now, even the Heavenly Dao has fallen to a demon, as if to say that this world was ugly from the start. No matter how much they struggle, it’s all in vain.

But he was very scared.

He was afraid that after everyone had worked so hard, they would end up back where they started.

Monk Budu reached out and patted his shoulder.

“My heart is like a clear mirror, without vexation or worry… Alright, I won’t spout nonsense at you,” Monk Budu said, scratching his scalp and becoming a bit more serious. “Have I told you how my master found me?”

Lu Jing thought for a moment and realized he had never heard this guy show off about it.

“My master, that nagging old fellow, actually brought me back from a sacred lotus,” Monk Budu said faintly, his usual playful demeanor gone for once. The light from the snow fell on his face, making it look like jade, pure and transcendent. “He was sent by the Buddha to find me. I was born in the six-colored sacred lotus pond.”

Lu Jing’s eyes widened, his expression as if Budu had just insulted one of his beliefs. He forgot all about his sorrow for the world and blurted out, “Was your father a lotus or was your mother a lotus? Holy crap, you’re actually a lotus spirit! Don’t the storybooks say that flower fairies are usually female and very beautiful?”

—The Drunken Wind Pavilion in Medicine Valley used to have many popular storybooks like this, all about lotuses, orchids, plum blossoms, and so on, transforming into pure and noble fairies who fell in love with clear and bright gentlemen.

A certain now-majestic, white-robed Soul Ferryman, the great poison master of impermanence, had spent his youth indulging in many fantasies from these stories.

“…”

A crack appeared in Monk Budu’s transcendent, jade-like facade.

“What lotus this, lotus that!” Monk Budu jumped up and chopped Lu Jing on the head with the side of his hand. “This is called a naturally pure soul. The sacred lotus is born from the mud but rises above it. I was born without a father or mother, my six roots are truly cleansed, untainted by the mortal world. I was born able to observe all beings, so I am a natural Buddha’s Son! Understand?!”

“No!” Lu Jing said decisively. “Even if you were born from a bamboo, it would be better than this!”

Monk Budu said nothing, and began to unwind the Buddhist beads from his wrist.

—These were not the Bodhi Clarity Beads that the Buddha had given him.

The Bodhi Clarity Beads had been lost by the Xianyi River during the Night of Dusk and Dawn’s Division.

This string of Buddhist beads was made by Monk Budu himself.

Twelve years ago, after Monk Budu became a Buddha, he had been physically “delivering all beings” in his own way. He had killed too many people and demons, and he showed no mercy to any who did evil. The immortal sects had quite a few complaints about him, and there was much controversy within the Buddhist Sect itself. At one point, the Dharma Protector Vajras and Zen Masters had united at the Buddhist Sect’s “Sanskrit Sound Dharma Assembly” to request the Buddha to revoke his title of Buddha’s Son.

Monk Budu’s master, Zen Master Wuchen, could not argue against the crowd alone. There was also another Zen Master whose reputation was on par with Master Wuchen, named “Wujing.”

Zen Master Wujing took up his brush and wrote in gold the great un-Dao-like deeds of the Buddha’s Son:

First, for not observing the precepts, for indulging in wine and meat.

Second, for having unclean six roots, for being attached to the three thousand mortal dusts.

Third, for disregarding karma, for being fond of killing and not delivering.

Fourth…

As he was listing them out, he heard the bell of the Buddhist Sect’s golden pagoda suddenly being struck.

The monks heard the sound and looked up to see a young monk in white standing on the golden pagoda. He put his palms together and bowed to the crowd.

It was the Buddha’s Son, Budu, who had returned at some unknown time.

Zen Master Wujing demanded of him: You do not respect the Buddhist law, and you trespass on the pure land of the Buddhist Sect. What is your intention?

Budu smiled and said: I see that the Buddhist Sect is not pure, so I have come to purify it.

That day, Lu Jing squatted outside the Buddhist Sect, counting the birds that flew over the mountain gate from east to west, and then from west to east. Bored out of his mind, he was about to start counting the ants crawling on the ground when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned his head. The sun was setting, and the Buddhist Sect was bathed in a golden glow.

A monk in blood-stained robes slowly walked out of the golden glow.

He wore white bone beads on his wrist.

Thirty-three Zen Masters and Dharma Protectors, who were supposedly enlightened but had secretly defiled the Buddhist Sect, had since become a bead on his hand. As the years passed, this string of beads grew longer and longer, and fewer and fewer people dared to question the status of the Buddha’s Son. At first glance, the beads were white, round, and quite lovely. But when they were used in a ritual, each bead would transform into a ferocious skull.

Seeing Monk Budu take off his white bone beads, the skulls began to click their jaws. Lu Jing, who was a mere flower stand in close combat, quickly composed his expression.

“The sacred lotus stands tall, unstained by the mud. Apart from you, Budu, who is worthy of being called a natural Buddha’s Son?”

As he spoke, he even stood up and obsequiously offered the rock he was sitting on to Monk Budu, making a “please” gesture.

Only then did Monk Budu re-wrap the Buddhist beads around his hand and, without any ceremony, take up the entire rock for himself.

After this commotion, the sorrow he had felt from watching the wind and snow was mostly gone.

Lu Jing thought for a moment and brought the topic back: “And then? What does you being the Buddha’s Son have to do with what I was saying?”

“I, the Buddha’s Son, with a naturally pure soul,” Monk Budu pointed to his own head. “But what do you see here?”

“Hair.”

Lu Jing said irritably.

He thought to himself, Does this damn baldy like to rub salt in the wound? Doesn’t he know that ever since I couldn’t write my storybooks and couldn’t persuade the great Young Master Chou from his self-destructive path, my hair has been falling out in handfuls? I have to count it nervously every morning. If you show off your thick hair to me again, I’ll shave it all off for you tonight.

Monk Budu, unaware of the “killing intent” his words had provoked, spread his hands and said, “I, this naturally pure soul, born without parents or blood relatives, a carefree Buddha’s Son, am not even pure. I’ve even regrown the threads of vexation. You’re just a mortal with all seven emotions and six desires. It would be strange if you weren’t worried or scared.”

As he spoke, he looked genuinely puzzled and asked in surprise, “Do you really think your state of mind is stronger than mine?”

Lu Jing was speechless.

It was all true, and it made a lot of sense, but why did it make his hands itch so much, wanting to punch this guy in the face?

“Alright.”

Monk Budu grabbed a handful of snow and began to wash the blood from his sleeves.

After receiving Lu Jing’s message from the God-Listening Jade Tablet, he had rushed over without stopping, not even having time to change into clean clothes. His monk’s robe was covered in the blood of the evil cultivators he had just killed. The ancient plum spirit guarding this mountain city loved cleanliness; a person in ragged clothes would never be allowed to climb Heavenly Lake Mountain. This time, it was probably because he was here to guard the Divine Lord that the ancient plum spirit had pinched its nose and allowed such “filth” up the mountain.

Ever since he started his guard duty, large snowflakes had been blown onto him. It seemed as if the spirit, unable to drive him down the mountain, had decided to just bury him in snow, out of sight, out of mind. In the time it took to say a few words, Budu had been buried in snow two or three times.

He had no choice.

He could only start cleaning himself up. He didn’t want to be laughed at by that always-picky great Young Master Chou when he went up to the summit to see him after Chou Bodeng had found Shi Wuluo and successfully brought him back from the Great Wilderness.

They hadn’t seen each other in almost two years.

Now, Zuo Yuesheng was the Pavilion Master of the Mountain Sea Pavilion, stationed in Zhunan, and couldn’t easily leave. Half-Diviner had also taken over Ghost Valley three years ago and was swamped with the low admission rate of new disciples. Monk Budu, on the surface, traveled the Twelve Continents, delivering all beings, but secretly, he was investigating the matter of the demon-summoning lure and had to purify his own sect… Of all the profligates who once gambled and threw chopsticks, only Lu Jing, who had to deliver medicine to Chou Bodeng at fixed times, met with him the most.

Lu Jing hugged his saber and leaned against a newly grown snow-reflecting plum tree, watching him fuss.

“It’s almost midnight.”

Suddenly, Lu Jing said in a low voice.

Monk Budu’s movements paused.

The two of them had been chatting and laughing, seeming relaxed, but in their hearts, they were holding their breath. Only by talking nonsense could they alleviate their anxiety. In the past twelve years, it wasn’t just Chou Bodeng who had entered the Great Wilderness; Lu Jing had also entered with his spiritual sense to find his mother. They both knew very well how cold and terrifying the Great Wilderness was… That time, when Lu Jing’s soul entered the Great Wilderness, he was almost frozen to death in less than a quarter of an hour.

“His hidden ailment hasn’t fully healed,” Lu Jing said, a hint of worry in his voice. “I’ve prepared medicine to protect his spirit, but its effects will only last until midnight.”

Was that enough time for a divine sense to seek out the Yellow Springs and search the entire Netherworld?

Lu Jing and Monk Budu didn’t know.

As they spoke, the bell of the ancient temple in Plum City rang.

Both of their expressions immediately became grave. Monk Budu, no longer caring about washing his clothes, stood up with his white bone Buddhist beads in hand, about to head up Heavenly Lake Mountain.

Lu Jing grabbed him.

“Wait, look!”

The next moment, Monk Budu also saw it…

The stars!

In the night sky.

All the stars leaped out from behind the black clouds, revolving high in the heavens. The starlight gathered together and fell toward the summit of Heavenly Lake Mountain. The entire mountain became a lamp, connecting the mortal realm and the Netherworld. The clouds and mist on the mountain peak suddenly dispersed, revealing the dwelling of an immortal.

Vast red plum blossoms.

A white moon hung from the slanted, flying eaves.

***

The moonlight shone through the window screen.

The deep black, gold-lacquered shamanistic Nuo mask was removed by a pale hand, revealing the youth’s face, as if sleeping with closed eyes. The clear light flowed over his brow like water. The next moment, the youth opened his eyes and met the gaze of a young man whose appearance was no different from before.

The cloud-patterned bronze oil lamp had gone out at some point. The room was cold and empty, with only the moonlight.

Chou Bodeng smiled.

“A Luo.”

He reached out, wrapping his arms around his lover who was lost and found again. As before, he rested his head wearily in the crook of his lover’s neck, his voice light and slightly hoarse.

“Do you know, you owe me a lot.”