SS CH111

In that fleeting moment, Ye Fusheng had thought through a great deal. The Western Buddha possessed remarkable abilities. If one were to use underhanded tricks against him, a fatal strike would be best. Yet currently, the man was still alive and well. Beyond death, any other method would likely only trap him temporarily.

Looking at the entrance, there were merely three or four guards. Unless Bu Xueyao was a conceited fool with boundless arrogance, he would never dare to be so negligent.

Bu Xueyao was naturally devious, which meant there had to be another mystery hidden inside this cave.

Logically speaking, when the true state of affairs remained unknown, Ye Fusheng should not let Xuan Su enter alone. However, only someone with superior Qinggong like Ye Fusheng could lure the guards away while scouting other parts of the cave for clues. Furthermore, Xuan Su was not a child like Xie Li who required constant protection; he needed to take every step forward on his own, as he could not be guided by others for an entire lifetime.

Compared to the deeply calculating Ye Fusheng, Xuan Su possessed a nature so pure it bordered on obedient. Moreover, he was completely out of his depth in a place like this. Since Ye Fusheng had spoken, Xuan Su complied readily without the slightest objection.

Ye Fusheng gave him a nod, picked up a pebble, and hurled it toward the passageway on the right.

His throw was executed with exceptional finesse. Due to the peculiar angle, the stone did not drop to the ground after the first strike. Instead, it used the rebound to bounce forward twice more, sounding convincingly like hurried footsteps rushing past.

“Who goes there!”

The guards were caught off guard. Two of them drew their blades and gave chase, while nearby sentries also rushed toward the disturbance, throwing the scene into immediate disarray.

Ye Fusheng signaled to Xuan Su, then moved like a phantom clinging to the wall, darting into the left passageway. With problems erupting on both sides and unable to discern fact from fiction, the guards had no choice but to split their forces in pursuit, drawing away more than half the personnel in the blink of an eye.

Seizing this opportunity, Xuan Su scaled the upper rock face, carefully avoiding the torchlight. Creeping in through the blind spot like a gecko clinging to stone, he concealed himself in a dead angle above the cave mouth, refraining from acting rashly.

Moments later, a guard indeed entered in haste holding a torch, scanning the surroundings with vigilance. Failing to spot Xuan Su, the guard turned and stepped back out to watch the entrance.

Sweat had already formed on Xuan Su’s forehead. The perils he had experienced in this mere half day surpassed the sum of his previous twenty years. For a time, his heart pounded violently, and his limbs felt somewhat weak.

He dared not drop to the ground, terrified that any sound might alert the guards outside. Relying on his Qinggong and arm strength, he crawled along the upper rock face, following the direction of the zither music with great difficulty. Fortunately, Xuan Su possessed exceptionally steady poise and a calm demeanor. He did not lose his head despite the pressing urgency. After the initial struggle, he quickly adjusted and quickened his pace.

Pitch-black and devoid of light, the melody of Asking the Water served as his sole guide. Blessed with extraordinary hearing, Xuan Su confirmed that the sound emanated from the doorway ahead. Shifting his body, he clamped his legs around a sharp, protruding stone, abruptly flipped upside down, and brought both hands to rest against the stone doors.

Carefully estimating the distance he had traveled, he judged that the sound of the stone doors moving would not alert the outer guards. Steelng his resolve, he poured force into both hands and pushed the stone doors toward either side.

Falling dust scattered across his face, causing Xuan Su great discomfort. The stone doors produced a faint rumble, though not loud enough to draw attention. Holding back the urge to sneeze, Xuan Su exerted more strength, slowly parting the doors until a gap wide enough for him to slip through was revealed.

Like an agile monkey, he squeezed through the gap. The moment he withdrew his palms, the stone doors closed once more. Xuan Su landed on his feet, but before he could steady himself, a fierce wind rushed toward his face. In an instinctive turn of his head, a sickly pale hand grazed past his cheek, slamming heavily into the stone door behind him, leaving a faint fist imprint upon the solid rock.

Startled, Xuan Su looked toward his attacker by the dim lamplight inside the cave.

It was a monk dressed in grey Buddhist robes. The fabric was stained with blood, tattered and ruined. His complexion was dark as iron, his eyes hollow and numb, regaining a glimmer of light only upon laying sight on a living human being.

Like a starving wolf catching sight of fresh prey.

A suffocating stench of decay and blood washed over him. Feeling nauseated, Xuan Su shielded his face with a long sleeve. The gentleness in his exposed eyes receded, replaced by the biting chill of spring water freezing over.

This cavern was vast, yet packed with so many people that it felt cramped and suffocating.

With a cursory glance, Xuan Su counted roughly forty people. More than half were monks, while the rest wore varied attire, yet without exception, all were martial artists.

As he made out their faces, his pupils shrank violently.

Over forty individuals, all covered in blood and barely clothed in rags. Many had lost limbs, their wounds torn open with rolled-back flesh, even festering with pus.

Yet they appeared completely insensible to pain. They merely stared unblinkingly at Xuan Su, pure madness and malice spilling from those hollow, dried-up eyes.

Some parted their lips toward Xuan Su as if attempting to smile, but Xuan Su only saw blood-smeared teeth and an empty mouth devoid of a tongue.

Their tongues had been torn out by the roots, likely to prevent their agonizing wails and screams from penetrating the rock wall and drawing outside attention.

The Buddha spoke of six realms in hell, among which lay the realm of hungry ghosts, filled with insatiable starvation, ugliness, and madness.

Xuan Su had entered Daoism in his youth. Due to the differences between Buddhist and Daoist scriptures, his understanding of Buddhist concepts had remained largely superficial until he witnessed “hell” with his own eyes today.

His hands clenched into tight fists inside his sleeves, veins bulging on the back of his hands. Uncontrollably breathing in a mouthful of blood-tainted air, the moment it settled into his lungs, a raging fire of fury ignited in his chest.

“Ge… ge…”

A hair-raising sound rattled from the throat of the monk attacking him. Curling his fingers into claws, the man lunged at Xuan Su’s face, seemingly bent on ripping away a piece of flesh alive.

Unwilling to treat these wretched people with violence, Xuan Su could only evade the claw with awkward haste. Suddenly, his leg tightened as someone grabbed his left foot with a death grip.

It was a woman. Amidst the blood splatters on her face, delicate features could still faintly be recognized. She must once have been a girl as graceful as a lotus in clear water, yet now she crawled on the ground, biting recklessly at his leg while her own legs below the knees had completely festered away.

Teeth tore at flesh through the cloth of his trousers. Even before breaking the skin, it sent a cold sweat down Xuan Su’s spine. Bending down, he tapped a finger against the woman’s hand, using precise force to free his leg. Yet as all forty-odd mad individuals surged toward him, Xuan Su gripped the copper flute at his waist with a backhanded reach, his fingers hesitating, ultimately refusing to unfasten it.

Xuan Su possessed mastery over two martial systems. One was the Taishang Palace’s paramount internal cultivation, Wuji Gong, while the external style was something he had brought with him before entering the mountains. That martial style differed from his gentle disposition, following a ruthless path of swift slaughter, turning into a lethal strike the moment it was deployed. Thus, he had promised his master never to kill anyone who was not guilty of crime, and never to raise a hand against the innocent.

Although these people before him acted with manic frenzy and aimed for his life with every move, they were merely unfortunate victims harmed by others. However ruthless Xuan Su had been when dealing with criminal offenders on the streets of Jialan, he was equally hesitant and indecisive when facing them now.

He parried and dodged, neither killing nor using heavy force. Soon, he found himself stretched thin, retreating step by step until his back pressed against the stone doors, leaving nowhere left to back away.

The frenzied crowd continued to close in, lunging or crawling, saliva dripping from their mouths, their fingernails scraping across the rock walls and stone floor, producing a screeching clamor.

When trapped in a mortal dilemma, can one truly find a boundless horizon simply by stepping back endlessly?

At this moment, Xuan Su’s mind went completely blank, his eyes filled only with these mad people. Naturally, he was unaware that his hand had settled upon the copper flute once more.

Kill others, or let yourself be killed. Which one do you choose?

His fingers twitched, tightening and loosening. Xuan Su ripped the copper flute free, spun it in his palm, and threw it with calculated momentum, embedding it firmly into a crevice in the rocks above.

Simultaneously, a split second before someone seized his arm, Xuan Su grabbed an attacker and hurled him outward with great force, carving out two feet of space. Taking advantage of the opening, he vaulted upward, grasped the copper flute, and hung precariously in midair.

Daring not to delay, his legs swung backward, hooking the eternal lamp suspended directly above the cavern. With a forceful yank, the lamp crashed to the ground. The flames extinguished, instantly plunging the cave into absolute darkness.

Right at that moment, the zither tune of Asking the Water suddenly rose by a pitch. Xuan Su was bewildered. In the pitch darkness where one could not see their own fingers, he could only tell that the zither music came from within this space, unable to pinpoint its exact location.

The zither shifted into a high pitch, its ringing notes echoing continuously. Suddenly, the sound of a xiao flute rose sharply, weaving into the gaps of the zither melody with consummate skill. Layering across three transitions, it climbed step by step, like a river reaching its end to plunge down a waterfall, rushing with thunderous roar, resembling a falling boulder crashing into a deep pool. The massive impact burst out suddenly, sending water splashing in all directions, rattling the ears, eyes, and hearts of all who heard it.

Caught completely unprepared, Xuan Su nearly coughed up a mouthful of blood. He hurriedly circulated his internal breath to suppress the rising surge in his throat, only to notice that the area below had fallen into sudden silence. Those frenzied people had actually stopped moving.

The flute music flashed and faded, and the zither tune gradually came to an end. The two merged almost seamlessly into one. Without an exceedingly meticulous ear, one would never have discerned that sudden anomaly.

The zither player used a palm to silence the lingering resonance of the strings. The flute player, however, seemed as if they had never existed: speaking no word, moving not an inch, blending into the darkness.

The one playing the zither was naturally the Western Buddha, but who was the one using flute music to shatter minds and sanity?

Suspicion churned in Xuan Su’s heart, but recalling Ye Fusheng luring away the sentries, he did not delay any longer. Speaking in a hushed tone toward the direction of the music, he asked, “May I ask if that is Master Sekong?”

An aged voice drifted from the darkness, calm as still water: “Amitabha. This old monk cannot see, which is why I could not recognize the benefactor in time when you entered earlier.”

Xuan Su was taken aback.

Five years ago, when Daoist Duanya passed away, Zen Master Sekong had come in person to pay his respects. He naturally recognized the man’s voice. Yet at that time, although Zen Master Sekong was advanced in years, his eyes were as bright as ever. How had he become unable to see now?

Daoist Duanya had treated Xuan Su with immense kindness during his life, and often expressed profound admiration and respect whenever Zen Master Sekong was mentioned. Xuan Su had naturally grown fond of him as well. Furthermore, when Daoist Duanya passed away, Duanqing and Duanheng had been consumed with managing the sect’s turmoil, inevitably overlooking his grief, until Zen Master Sekong placed a gentle hand upon his feverish forehead before Duanya’s spirit tablet, offering comforting words.

Xuan Su felt deep affection toward Zen Master Sekong. Learning that the other’s condition was so dire, he could hardly keep his composure. Yet just as his body moved, another voice rang out, cold as severed ice and sliced snow, chilling to the bone: “Do not act rashly. State your business briefly.”

This voice was too cold, like solid ice beneath winter snow, rigid and unyielding, causing Xuan Su to shudder so violently he nearly fell.

Barely regaining his balance, his hushed voice trembled faintly: “Uncle Duan… Duanqing?”

How could Duanqing, who was supposed to remain on Wangchen Peak, appear in this place?