Chapter 19
DURING THE ENTIRE confrontation, Ghost Face hadn’t so much as glanced at Lin Jing, probably assuming he and his trivial abilities were beneath notice. Overwhelmed with shock and fear, Lin Jing muttered reassurances to himself. “It’ll be okay. Amitabha. Everything’ll definitely be okay.”
Lin Jing craned his neck, trying to get a look at Shen Wei, who was somewhat obscured by the Wangchuan waters. He found himself wishing that he could turn into a large turtle, able to swim and hide at will.
After another furtive look at their surroundings, he called out in the tiniest voice he could manage. “Shen-laoshi…? Shen-laoshi?” There was no response. “Shen—”
Out of nowhere, a youchu appeared, baring its crooked teeth at Lin Jing. Startled, Lin Jing instinctively leaned away and clamped his mouth shut to hide his own tidy pearly whites, afraid that the youchu might see them and become jealous. The youchu, which Ghost Face had presumably sent to keep an eye on them, licked its lips but ultimately didn’t dare take a bite of the things it was meant to guard. Instead, it circled Lin Jing a few times, eyes trained on him like a hunter with prey locked in its sights.
Lin Jing took a deep breath and stared right back at it, trembling. “Hey,” he said. “Do you speak human?”
High-level youchu were intelligent and capable of conversing with humans. This one gave its cunning prey a wary look. “Shut up,” it responded in the peculiar, hoarse voice of its kind.
Being able to communicate was a good start. Lin Jing sat on the ground and deliberately let out a sigh. “Now that the others have all run away, it’s just the two of us here. If I shut up, won’t you be lonely—aaah! Don’t do that! Be civilized, please!” The youchu had come closer, its menacing shark-like teeth on full display. “I’ll shut up!” Lin Jing cried. “I’ll shut up! I’ll shut up right now! Please believe me! Monks don’t lie!”
The youchu withdrew its claws and teeth and slowly backed off to one side.
There was nothing Lin Jing could do. He gave the unconscious Shen Wei another anxious look, but his only real option was to force himself to calm down and silently chant the Great Compassion Mantra. The youchu, seeing that Lin Jing’s eyes were now closed, assumed that he was finally settling down and dismissed him from its mind. It risked a glance up at Shen Wei, impaled on the ancient tree. The youchu whimpered and retreated a tiny bit further. Peace was finally restored to this place, thousands of chi below the Huangquan.
But then the youchu sensed something. Its head snapped up with a start. Lin Jing was exactly where he’d been before, still sitting with his eyes closed like he’d become a statue of a Buddha. Behind him, the Great Sealing Rock was wreathed in a warm white glow, as though responding to something. The youchu shot to its feet and tried to reach over the rock to grab Lin Jing’s shoulder, but as its claws neared the white light, they crumbled to ash, as if they’d touched a blazing hot flame.
Lin Jing, the fake monk, was quick on the uptake. Seeing the howling, screaming youchu told him that this was an effective approach, so he inhaled deeply and began loudly reciting scriptures. The white light on the Sealing Rock glowed hotter and hotter, and the guard dog of a youchu jumped up and down, but it had no way of getting any closer. The halo of white light kept spreading, expansive enough now that it brushed against Shen Wei. An uneasy furrow creased Shen Wei’s brow—the only sign that he was more than a hanging corpse.
The youchu’s spiraling anxiety finally drove it to risk everything. It flung itself forward with a howl, willing to be reduced to coal if that meant it could rip the damned scripture-reciting monk apart. A crackling filled the air as its flesh and skin roasted, but the youchu held fast in spirit even as its body was reduced to ruin. Its mouth, burned down to nothing but teeth, gaped open. It lunged for Lin Jing’s neck.
That was enough to finally disrupt Lin Jing’s chanting. He closed his eyes and yelped, “Buddha! This disciple is close to surrendering his mortal body and ascending to the higher realm! Where did da-shixiong go? Save me! Shen-laoshi! Boss! Da-shixiong!”
He kept up this random yelling until long past when he’d expected those knife-like teeth to sink into his neck. Eventually, he cracked his eyes open, only to find that the youchu had hurriedly fled—as if it had been scared off.
Something prompted Lin Jing to look up. Eyes like icy pools met his. At some point in the commotion, Shen Wei had woken.
“Shen-laoshi?” Lin Jing tried to call out. There was a minute flicker in Shen Wei’s gaze. “A-a-a-a-a-are you okay?”
Shen Wei struggled feebly against his bonds, making the chains around his limbs clink together. Even that tiny movement made the veins on his forehead stand out. Eventually, with great difficulty, he managed a quiet “…Mmh.”
“Why are you here? How did that…um, that person? The one who looks like you? How did he get ahold of you?” Lin Jing asked.
Shen Wei closed his eyes, tilting his head back to rest it against the Ancient Merit Tree. It was as though he had no strength at all. “He attacked me from behind,” he said mildly. “I could’ve dodged, but I was busy taking back the Chaos. I had to take the blow so that our efforts wouldn’t all go to waste. It’s fine—except that he stabbed me in the heart with this icicle made from frozen water of the Huangquan, so I’m unable to move at the moment.”
Lin Jing wasn’t yet aware of who exactly Shen Wei was, but nothing about this situation seemed fine in the slightest. Lin Jing gulped. “Then what should I do? Do you have any way of getting me down from this stupid rock so I can help you?”
There was a long moment of silence before Shen Wei said, “That ‘stupid rock’ behind you is the mark of the Great Houtu Seal, placed there by the Sovereign Wa herself.”
This revelation frightened Lin Jing enough that he didn’t dare lean on it again.
“Don’t worry.” Shen Wei chuckled. “That Chaos King of the Gui has enough to deal with right now. As long as I have Kunlun’s divine tendon, he won’t dare do anything to me. We’re safe for the moment.”
“No, no, let’s figure out a way to save ourselves,” Lin Jing quickly said. “No magical tendon can staunch your wound. If Director Zhao ever found out I just sat back and let you bleed like this, he’d make me the main course of this year’s Lunar New Year’s Eve dinner.”
Shen Wei’s gaze softened at the mention of Zhao Yunlan. After some thought, he said, “If you must try something, please continue reciting your scriptures. The Great Seal originated from Nüwa’s merciful heart. If you’re sincere, it might help you.”
Lin Jing considered that. Since reciting scriptures was all he could really do just then anyway, he sat properly. In a booming voice, with crisp enunciation, he began chanting as though he was announcing the news. The effect was comedic enough to make Shen Wei burst into laughter. With no sound around them but the murmuring Wangchuan waters, he slowly started to listen. The lines of his brows and eyes, ruthless and stern from all the bloodshed, slowly started to soften.
The white light around the Great Sealing Rock gradually grew to an eye-searing brightness. Lin Jing truly was a proper disciple of the Bodhidharma line. Who else could’ve entered a meditative state so easily even under these conditions?
The ropes around his body slowly melted away in the pool of white light, but Lin Jing didn’t even notice. Shen Wei was a bit shocked. Birds of a feather, it seemed, really did flock together. Everyone who’d gathered around Zhao Yunlan seemed to be a little like him, one way or another; for example, when fixated on something, he could focus his whole attention on it and forget everything else.
Guo Changcheng, meanwhile, had successfully managed to keep the families of the missing people in the police station, but the expected good news from Zhao Yunlan and the others wasn’t forthcoming.