550 Reflection of Nature

There was nothing but black earth stained with dark red blood as far as his eyes could see, revealing a strange hue.

There were no mountains, water, sun, moon, or clouds here. Only shimmers of light were shining from up high on the body parts and rotten corpses, tinting them with a bright red.

The plain was endless and the only thing that stood out was the black gas, hard to see through winding around in the distance as though it was enveloping something.

After looking for a while, Meng Qi used the Void-stamping Footwork to step on the airflow, producing clouds as he flew close to the ground toward the black gas.

This place was so eerie that he dared not fly fast, for fear that something terrifying was hiding in midair.

While Meng Qi was flying, the smell of blood and stench permeated his nostrils, making him feel if he had entered some ancient battlefield where the corpses had yet to be collected.

Quite a few corpses, looking comparatively intact, came into sight. Among them was a strange corpse standing on one foot like a golden rooster.

He was wearing a monk's robe of patches with no hair on his head. Many parts of his face and body rotted down to the bone with yellow pus, which was rather disgusting. In his hand was his left leg, the root of which was badly mutilated. It seemed that the leg had been directly torn off and sent to his mouth, as the corpsed maintained the posture of biting.

Why would he tear his own leg off... Meng Qi flew a little higher to make a detour.

At the same time, he spread his spirit to sense something more subtle, trying to discover the secrets of this place.

The corpse suddenly jerked upward and swung his rotten left leg at Meng Qi from afar!

With a shivering deadness, the leg grew bigger all at once. Even before it touched Meng Qi, he felt that his skin was beginning to rot.

Meng Qi's skin was glowing light gold and somehow sizzling. He cut the oncoming leg off with a beautiful arc, holding "Heaven Inflicted Pain" in his right hand. The whole scene was extremely changeable just like white clouds changing into pale dogs. This was none other than one of the styles of the Virtual Purity Sabersmanship.

Pop, pop, pop! The saber radiance scattered as if there were white clouds permeating there. Continuous dull noises could be heard only to cut the corpse into fleshless bones from head to toe!

The bones collapsed with a crash and soon deteriorated into a pile of bloody ash.

With the reverberated sound of clattering, the corpses not far away staggered to their feet. They lacked either arms, visceral organs, or heads! In short, none of them were complete!

Meng Qi frowned and opened his Aperture acupoints, thus shining with boundless radiance like a red sun casting itself into the distance.

The longsword gathered the sun's rays and the light spread like water - scorching, heated, sacred, and splendid. Everything was as good as it was, removing the darkness!

The corpses that were swallowed up by the sunlight were rapidly gasified, leading to the emptiness nearby. What was left was the light of the red sun cutting through the sky and heading for the place filled with black gas.

...

The words "Righteousness and benevolence are off-limits" were imprinted on the rock wall. They bore deep Zen Philosophies and glistened with a colored glaze, giving off the feeling of purity like Bodhi and solidity like Vajra.

"Do you know who wrote these words?" Wang Siyuan asked the person beside him. He was quite at ease instead of being nervous or worried as he was in the secret place of Shaolin Temple.

Beside him was a guy wearing a black cloak, whose voice was not yet mature and extremely low. He seemed afraid that the eminent monk waiting at the fork of the road would hear him.

"I don't know."

In addition to Wang Siyuan and the guy wearing a black cloak, there were two other men. One of them was white-haired and rather wrinkled with a hatchet face and a high nose. His breath seemed to carry dust accumulated over the years.

His eyes were closed and he did not say a word. Even Wang Siyuan did not seem to be so relaxed and knowledgeable when facing him.

The other man had ink-like dark hair and a straight back, and he wore a wide robe with large sleeves, dressed as if he was from the medieval times. Apart from being more angular, mature, and masculine, he somewhat resembled Wang Siyuan.

Wang Siyuan chuckled when he heard his reply. "This is the secret passage to the back mountain of Shaolin Temple and these words bear the meaning of Bodhisattva's mercy. Besides, since they remain immortal after thousands of years, they were obviously written by Dharma, the patriarch of Shaolin."

"Dharma..." the black-cloaked man was slightly surprised; he did not expect it to be a legendary figure who had passed away many years ago.

His voice was obviously a male one as it was heavy and thick.

Wang Siyuan stretched out his right hand, gently stroking the words on the wall and said, "Dharma had obtained Kassapa's Dharmakaya and was expected to be the Buddha. Although he did not eventually succeed, he had attained the Bodhisattva Buddhist Realm when he was still alive. He was one of the strongest in the troubled times of the Demonic Buddha. Even if the warning words he left here were eroded as time went by, they were still firmly established as Vajra and kept sealing the door after thousands of years. If no special method is used, even the master with Dharmakaya will be unable to open it. "

The words on the rock wall, bearing meaningful Zen Philosophies, glistened with the light of colored glaze as if confirming what Wang Siyuan had said.

If Meng Qi were here then he would be rather surprised, since the same words he had seen were so common and powerless that they seemed to have been washed away by time!

The cloak-wearing man inevitably had his curiosity piqued, "What on earth is behind the door?"

Wang Siyuan smiled without a word and turned his head to the mountainside nearby, reading aloud the proverbs there,

"If one does not enter the world, does not experience the sea of bitterness and does not learn the disciplines, how can he know about the true meaning of the monastic rules for Buddhists; how can he see through the illusory events; and how can he reflect his own Buddha-nature thus to prove the truth that existence comes from nothingness?"

"Ananda well deserves his status for being able to find a different way out, possessing profound Buddha-nature…" he exclaimed, "But this road is so tough that the slightest confusion may lead to insatiable desires, everlasting destruction, and the suffering of Samsara. "

He seemed to imply something, but the meaning escaped the cloak-wearing man. Instead, he looked at the patterns next to the proverbs. They were pictures of monks waving Buddhist Commandment Blades with different movements. The heart sutras and instructions of difficult movements were annotated separately with small fonts near the pictures. Below, a sentence was left,

"The paths of Ananda the Venerable and I were different, which prevented me from understanding the Gist of Trueness of the bladesmanship. As the impartation was a one-time thing, however, and would no longer exist, I felt very regretful and thus left the scripts here. If the Shaolin Temple no longer exists, I hope the pre-destined ones to discover the Gist of Trueness and bring it back to the original. Dharma."

"Ananda Oath-breaking Bladesmanship..." The eyes of the cloak-wearing man seemed to burn. "Is this the bladesmanship that he practiced?"

"You are different from him. If you practice this kind of bladesmanship, you'll instantly be depraved and no longer be pure." Wang Siyuan coughed. "This location was not a secret when Dharma was still alive but after his Nirvana, the whole Shaolin Temple seemed to have forgotten this place."

The man in a cloak looked back. "What on earth are you planning to do? What can I do for you?"

At this moment, the old man, whose eyes had always been closed, stepped forward and crouched down with no regard for manners. He stroked the small hole, feeling the invisible but seemingly burning flames inside.

"The power of the Monster Saint is immortal despite it transcending throughout ages..." he sighed, his eyes fluttering open.

This was a pair of eyes that made one's hairs stand on end; there were no pupils, but rather only white!

The man in the black cloak stepped back, seemingly frightened by the pair of eyes.

The old man smiled. "I can see both the past and the future, thus I can't see the present."

There was some insight in the words, but the cloaked man failed to understand it as he turned to look at Wang Siyuan.

Wang Siyuan clenched his fist against his lips and gathered his breath. "You don't have to care about other things. Practice the skill first and try to push the door open."

"Me?" the cloaked man was surprised at first but he immediately calmed down and whispered, "I hope you can keep your word after this."

He jerked his cloak aside, revealing his true appearance: ordinary but composed while giving an impression of being strong and honest. He was most definitely the teenage Duan Rui, whom Meng Qi had been trying hard to find!

He was the teenager who became schizophrenic after incorrectly practicing the Muscle-bone Strengthening Scripture. As a result, he would sometimes act like a human and sometimes a demon.

All of a sudden, his eyes darkened and his expression distorted. The teenager converted his breath instantly, looking extremely evil and strange. Meanwhile, strange black gas was beginning to wind around his palms.

He then put his palms on the stone door into which the black gas quietly drilled.

At this time, the tortoise shell was shining brightly and the black and white dots were continuously rotating, gathering quite a few hexagrams and then plunging into the black gas!

Nothing changed in the words "Righteousness and benevolence are off-limits", which were still glistening with colored glaze light; however, the door began to slowly open.

…

The red sun swept through the sky so fast that Meng Qi was able to be freed from the corpses on the black plain and approach the lingering black gas.

The black gas enveloped the dimly visible Buddhist temples, with the Merit Pools, the Seven Treasures such as gold, silver, glass and agate, the shady Bodhi trees, and the mountain peaks at the core. However, they were all in a state of destruction, withered and rotten, and only the rippling water, slightly stained bloody brown, was left whispering.

Meng Qi felt that the surroundings were slightly different from the Dharma and Logos of Heaven and Earth. He felt something similar at the core of Nine Serenities in the Carefree Valley.

Here, the Vital Qi of heaven and earth was in a state of quietness, with a glistening light of seven colored glazes at the bottom and black tints on the top; however, the Dharma and Logos were difficult and the changes were endless. Moreover, the Eight Nine Mysteries and the Grand Sun True Fire were sometimes suppressed and sometimes blessed, and so were the Purple Electricity Thunder Light and Golden Merit. The rest were completely weakened.

Last time, he was able to change into a ghost to adapt to Dharma and Logos, but this time Meng Qi did not know what to turn into in order to ignore the impact. After all, he had not even finished learning the nine changes.

As the light gold flushed against the dark gas, Meng Qi carefully stepped into the destroyed Buddhist temple.

All of a sudden, a half-corroded crystal under a withered Bodhi reflected a figure, white as snow, pure as air, delicate-looking, and faintly smiling.

"Gu Xiaosang..." Meng Qi started and was on alert, but there were no enemies around.

At this moment, a hoarse voice sounded in his ear, "Don't you want to defeat her, seize her, and rape her to let her know the consequences of taking advantage and playing tricks on you?"

"Who?" Meng Qi was even more surprised. Besides being wary of and hostile against Gu Xiaosang, he would be lying if he said that such dark thoughts had never occurred to him. Those thoughts were, however, fleeting and he would never act on them.

Meng Qi was unavoidably shocked and more alert when he was told about his own dark thoughts from the bottom of his heart.

After sensing the area, Meng Qi still failed to see anyone around.

Then a Bodhi leaf fell and attracted Meng Qi's attention as the lines on it seemed to be Jiang Zhiwei's facial features!

The hoarse voice sounded again at that moment, "Don't you hate her? What on earth does she mean by saying 'I'm no longer myself after being beheaded' or 'I will only love Seven-feet Sword throughout my whole life'?"

"I don't!" Meng Qi blurted out.

The human heart was often haunted by dark thoughts which fleeted in a twinkling like thin snow instantly melting in the sun. Yet now, as the dark thoughts were highlighted and the hidden secrets were revealed, Meng Qi felt it hard to calm down and even to face Jiang Zhiwei!

The Bodhi leaf fell down onto the deep grass, while a half-remnant golden lotus was slowly blooming. Inside, the images of Ruan Yushu, Qi Zhengyan, and Zhao Heng seemed to take shape.

"Don't you think they have been holding you back? Don't you want to kick them off as soon as possible?" The hoarse voice rose again.

Meng Qi took a deep breath and said loudly, "No! Who the hell are you?"

"Turn around, and you'll find out who I am." The hoarse voice came from all directions.

Meng Qi turned around with a rush and saw nothing but the running stream which reflected his own face instead.

This was a twisted face - mad and crazy - with darkened eyes.

Meng Qi was extremely thrilled and a tumultuous wave of shock rose in his heart.

Me?

Ridiculous! How could it be me!

When was I invaded by the evil spirit?

"I'm you and you're me, so what I said is naturally true!" When the hoarse voice burst out laughing, Meng Qi saw his own lips moving. "Do you still think you're a good man?"

"He" lowered the voice, as if chanting,

"The human heart is dark and the human nature is evil. You have entered this door and reflected on your true nature, thus righteousness is gone and benevolence no longer exists!"