Chapter 291
Chapter 291
His voice seemed to possess a strange magic, compelling me to reach out.
The instant my fingers touched his, countless ripples spread through my mind.
The Copper-Coin Figure before me took on Liu Junyan’s appearance.
Memories came surging forth like a spring.
Every moment I had spent with Liu Junyan played like a film in Retrospection, racing backward from the end to the beginning.
It went from our last meeting, when Liu Junyan gave me the Golden Scale, to the time he carried me back from Hushan, and then even further back… The images flashed faster and faster until they finally froze on the moment when my nine-year-old self knelt before the Black Coffin and begged the Seventh Master to save me.
That was the first time Liu Junyan had saved me.
The image remained frozen for only a few seconds before the Liu Junyan in front of me suddenly changed.
He became younger.
He became exactly like the Liu Junyan in the small portrait I had drawn in Feng Linu’s room on Cangwu Mountain.
The Retrospection continued, pulling me further into the past.
But the memories flashing by no longer belonged to me in this life.
From Feng Linu bidding Liu Junyan farewell on Cangwu Mountain, to the trials they underwent together… all the way back to their first meeting in a cave, when Feng Linu snatched away the fish Liu Junyan had roasted.
The image froze once more.
The young Liu Junyan before me changed again.
This time, he had the body of a monk.
Ordination scars had been burned into his scalp. He wore monastic robes, with Prayer Beads hanging around his neck and looped around his hands… He was Chan Master Dahui, Liu Xingyi.
His eyes were closed and his head bowed in devout worship, every inch the image of an enlightened master.
Yet directly behind him, pressed tightly against his back, stood a figure with his head held high and his entire body covered in layer upon layer of Copper Coin. Though his true features could not be seen, his wild and defiant nature was unmistakable.
He was the Copper-Coin Figure!
The moment those two figures appeared, pressed so closely together, my memories plunged into such chaotic Retrospection that I could no longer make sense of any of the images.
Yet among all the overlapping scenes, one eerie image kept repeating itself.
It took place in the Mount Song Gorge.
Chan Master Dahui stood face-to-face with a girl.
He bent slightly at the waist and bowed to her. “Ah Wu, go back to Cangwu Mountain and have a look.”
The next moment, Chan Master Dahui’s body began to tremble faintly. A figure slowly peeled away from his back, only to find itself unable to truly separate from his body.
The figure seized the girl’s hand and said urgently, “Ah Wu, let’s attain Ascension together!”
“Ah Wu, let’s attain Ascension together!”
The words spoken within the Retrospection overlapped perfectly with what had just happened in reality, leaving me unable to tell what in the world was happening!
It felt as though I had been dragged into an endless vortex. I spun with it, sinking and plummeting ever deeper…
Meow!
The Black Cat’s cry suddenly rang through my mind, jolting me into clarity for an instant.
But in the next moment, the Copper-Coin Figure’s voice sounded again. “Ah Wu, let’s attain Ascension together!”
His voice drowned out the Black Cat’s cry, and my Retrospection returned once more to the Mount Song Grand Canyon.
The Copper-Coin Figure was still holding the girl’s hand as he said, “Ah Wu, let’s attain Ascension together!”
Then I saw the girl called Ah Wu wrench her hand free from his grip.
I watched as Ah Wu rose onto her tiptoes and cupped Chan Master Dahui’s face in both hands. Her red lips pressed against his, and she slowly breathed a long breath into him…
“Ah Wu, let’s attain Ascension together!”
The Copper-Coin Figure’s voice pulled me out of the Retrospection.
A pair of amber slit pupils gazed at me through the overlapping layers of Golden Copper Coin. That familiar, gentle look drew me in until I lost myself in it.
He lowered his head, cupped my cheeks in both hands, and gazed deeply into my eyes. “Ah Wu, let’s attain Ascension together!”
I closed my eyes and rose onto my tiptoes.
The Copper-Coin Figure watched me expectantly.
Just as our lips were about to meet, I snapped my eyes open. I pressed my Sword Finger against the chamber of the Soul-Guiding Lantern, squeezing out fresh blood, then twisted my hand and drove my Sword Finger toward the Copper-Coin Figure’s heart with all my strength.
The four Ghost Faces plunged into the Copper-Coin Figure’s chest along with my Sword Finger. Raising the Soul-Guiding Lantern, I shouted, “Children, hold on tight! We’re breaking this trap once and for all!”
The next moment, I gripped the Soul-Guiding Lantern and threw myself against the Copper-Coin Figure with everything I had.
An immense force pushed back against me, but I refused to give an inch.
Behind me, the hundred junior Mouse Immortals once again pulled together as one, desperately pushing me forward.
Bang!
The Copper-Coin Figure before me suddenly shattered. Golden Copper Coins flew in every direction, only to converge again in the next instant, rapidly forming a long Golden Dragon whose end was nowhere in sight!
He was utterly enraged.
We had broken the Sacrifice formation of the Hundred Children Frolic with the Dragon Lantern!
We had ruined the Three-Eyed Toad’s attempt to Undergo a Tribulation!
And as for this final move…
Those repeated words-“Ah Wu, let’s attain Ascension together”-were both memory Retrospection and memory manipulation.
I had met Chan Master Dahui before.
In the tall tower within Mount Song Grand Canyon, Chan Master Dahui had told me that Ah Wu once transferred a breath to him.
This Retrospection had allowed me to witness that scene with my own eyes.
Clearly, that breath from Ah Wu held extraordinary significance for both Chan Master Dahui and the Copper-Coin Figure.
I didn’t have enough time to determine exactly what that breath could do, but I understood one thing: the Copper-Coin Figure needed it.
No — to be precise, the Great Lama needed a breath from me.
The Copper-Coin Figure before me wasn’t the real Copper-Coin Figure.
He was Liu Junyan. Liu Junyan had entered the scheme in the guise of the Evil Monk and deliberately exposed an opening so the Great Lama could take advantage of it, enter him, and potentially carry out Body Possession…
Let me make a bold guess. What would have happened if I had transferred a breath to him just now?
Would it have allowed the Great Lama to merge completely with the Copper-Coin Figure?
Could it even have helped the Great Lama attain Ascension on the spot?
It sounded unbelievable.
But that wasn’t important.
What mattered was that I hadn’t fallen for it!
At the critical moment, the Black Cat’s cry had alerted me, giving me a brief chance to think and tell truth from deception.
After suffering setback after setback, the Great Lama had clearly grown impatient and desperate for quick results.
He had repeated the same words over and over. His objective was so obvious that he had ended up exposing the flaw in his deception.
I had assumed the Black Cat had followed Zhao Zixun back to Wufu Town, but to my surprise, it had never left.
Could it have sensed Liu Junyan’s aura and gone to find him?
But the Great Lama had permitted Liu Junyan to enter Xiaoyingkou as the Evil Monk, and the Great Lama’s goal was Body Possession.
Later, when the Evil Monk appeared atop the Buddha Head, the Great Lama should already have possessed him.
So how could he have allowed the Black Cat to get close?
No. That wasn’t right. I must have overlooked something.
The Black Cat itself came from the Buddhist Order. In a sense, it and the Great Lama shared the same origin!
More importantly, we had originally rescued the Black Cat from the hands of a Great Lama!
Meow!
All these thoughts raced through my mind in the span of an instant.
The Black Cat’s cry came from within the body of the Golden Dragon formed from Golden Copper Coins. At the same time, the Golden Dragon opened its enormous jaws and snapped down at us from above.
I fixed my eyes on the Golden Dragon’s mouth. The instant its jaws came down, I leaped straight inside…