Chapter 252
Chapter 252
The arrival of two sect-master-level ghosts in succession was enough to turn Eighth Master Chang’s serpentine face green with fear.
“Y-young master physician, if we retreat to the Yin-Yang Realm now, we might still make it…”
Chen Daji was frightened too, but habit compelled him to needle Eighth Master Chang.
“Eighth Master, could you show some backbone? We’re all ghosts here. Why should we be scared of them? And… and no matter how strong they are, could they be fiercer than Bald Brother?”
Little Wuxin, who had been hiding behind Hua Jiunan, seemed to be provoked by something. His tightly closed eyes snapped open. In the hollow sockets, there were only two drops of boiling bloody tears.
“Namo Amitabha. Brother, I dislike that fat benefactor. I want… I want to deliver him before the Buddha to confess his sins.”
With danger at hand, Zhao Fei followed Deaf Granny’s instructions and took out his father’s Great Seal, gripping it tightly. A faint layer of green light spread around the entire group.
“Boss, who is that fat monk? Bald Brother is so easygoing. Why does even he find the guy disgusting?”
Hua Jiunan watched the scene ahead with a grave, cautious expression.
“Faqing, master of the Maitreya Mahayana Sect. The other is Luo Menghong, master of the Luo Sect.”
Seeing Hua Jiunan’s solemn face, Chen Daji finally grasped how dangerous the situation was.
“Boss, are those two things really that strong? If you, Bald Brother, and Eighth Master jumped them together, could you take them?”
Hua Jiunan slowly shook his head.
“Those two are real bastards, and they’re extremely powerful.”
For the record, the monk Faqing was born during the Northern Wei dynasty. He styled himself “Mahayana” and founded the Maitreya Mahayana Sect, the earliest folk religion founded in the name of Buddhism recorded in the historical sources of China.
Its basic doctrine preached salvation through Maitreya and the so-called deliverance of the world by three Buddhas in three kalpas.
Human history was divided into the Blue Yang Kalpa, ruled by Dipankara Buddha and representing the past; the Red Yang Kalpa, ruled by Shakyamuni Buddha and representing the present; and the White Yang Kalpa, ruled by Maitreya Buddha and representing the future.
The White Yang Kalpa was said to mark the coming of the world’s greatest catastrophe. Maitreya Buddha would descend to rule the faith and save the surviving souls, returning them to the heavenly palace.
Faqing’s doctrine sounded pleasant enough, but the man himself was a vicious murderer. Not only did he kill countless people, he incited his followers to slaughter the innocent, dressing it up with the claim, “He who kills one person is a first-stage bodhisattva; he who kills ten is a tenth-stage bodhisattva.”
He was equally brutal toward Buddhist clergy. It was said that under the cry, “The new Buddha has appeared; cast out the old demons,” his followers burned temples and scriptures and murdered monks and nuns.
“They destroyed temples, slaughtered monks and nuns, and burned sutras and sacred images.”
“They mixed maddening drugs and made people drink them, until fathers, sons, and brothers no longer knew one another and thought of nothing but killing.”
In short, Faqing did none of the things a human being should do and every last thing a human being should not.
Luo Menghong, the master of the Luo Sect, was marginally better.
In the doctrine he compiled for his sect, he fashioned a supreme deity from folk myths and legends: the Sacred Ancestor of the Infinite, also known as the Unborn Parents.
From the Sacred Ancestor of the Infinite later arose the Unborn Venerable Mother, hailed as the supreme goddess of the world, both Creator and Savior.
The scriptures of folk secret religions said that she dispatched such deities as the Buddha of Innate Truth, Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha of Great Intention, and the Grand Supreme Elder Lord into the mortal world. Their purpose was to gather the Unborn Venerable Mother’s 9.2 billion royal children, then lost in attachment to the dusty mortal realm and variously called Buddha seeds, primordial humans, or the worthy and good, and return them to the True-Void Homeland, the heavenly palace.
Of the hundreds of folk secret religions active during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the overwhelming majority directly or indirectly revered the Unborn Venerable Mother as their highest deity.
After hearing Hua Jiunan’s explanation, Chen Daji instantly became even more timid than Eighth Master Chang.
“Ahem, Boss, maybe we should listen to Eighth Master and withdraw. They’re working so hard while we stand around watching. Feels kind of rude…”
Hua Jiunan shook his head firmly.
“Brother, we can’t retreat. If those two break the restriction and escape into the human world, we’ll have a catastrophe on our hands.”
He raised his Copper Coin Sword and chanted aloud.
“Round is Heaven, square is Earth. Nine chapters bind the laws. Beneath my brush, ten thousand ghosts submit. Five Thunder Shattering Firmament Righteous Method, arise!”
A bolt of purple divine lightning appeared above Luo Menghong and crashed down upon him.
At Hua Jiunan’s current level of cultivation, using the Five Thunder Shattering Firmament Righteous Method no longer brought a backlash. Nor did he need much time to prepare the spell.
The instant Hua Jiunan attacked, Chen Daji joined in.
“Everybody, get him! Beat the bastard down!”
Whether it would help or not, he hammered his own nose with several thudding punches. Sure enough, he managed to knock out billows of black smoke. He grabbed loose stones from the ground, coated them in the smoke, and fired them at the obese monk Faqing.
“Don’t chicken out, Eighth Master! Giddyup! Let’s take him together!”