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墨書 Inktalez
The monk leaned slightly forward, cautious of the unknown territory, each step taken with unusual care. However, after more than an hour of walking, he found nothing.
Aside from the traces left by the raging fire, there was nothing else. It seemed every place was the same.
“Ghostly Veil?”
The monk recited the Six Character Mantra, his hands sweeping across his eyes, a layer of brilliance shimmering in his gaze. He looked around again and saw nothing but thin, blood-red threads.
Furrowing his brows tightly, the monk pondered to himself. He had entered this place in physical form, not as a disembodied spirit. Therefore, this was not the underworld; besides, traversing the shadows was common for him. In fact, there was little difference between the underworld and the human realm. The ghostly and eerie depictions seen in movies and television were merely figments of human imagination.
However, this place felt different. Apart from the brutal and bloodthirsty atmosphere, there wasn't even a trace of microorganisms.
Could it be?
A shock ran through the monk's mind as he recalled what his master had once mentioned: any great power in the world could create their own space. Was he trapped within the Two-Headed Monster Baby's domain?
If so, why had the Two-Headed Monster Baby confined him here without taking action? Was it trying to buy time or had it already exhausted its strength to act?
The monk thought carefully and glanced at the surrounding scorched earth; it was clear that the Two-Headed Monster Baby merely wanted to trap him to gain more time for itself.
The Two-Headed Monster Baby lay limply in the snow like a dog curled up in winter's chill. Meanwhile, Ling Dajun, who had lost control, had long since collapsed in the snow, his breath faint.
The Blood Moon slipped behind dark clouds, and snowflakes drifted down like willow catkins fluttering in spring.
Ling Dajun woke up from the cold; as soon as he turned over, a sharp pain shot through his right hand, and cold sweat broke out on his back. Struggling to maintain balance with one hand and suffering from a severe headache, Ling Dajun first knelt on one knee and took a long moment to recover before slowly standing up.
Under the faint light of the snow, Ling Dajun suddenly realized that he had fallen asleep outside his own door. He shook his head and rubbed his temples, and his muddled mind began to clear a little. It felt like the aftermath of a long, bumpy car ride.
His eyes were glazed over, his body felt weak and heavy, his complexion pale, and his mind was a jumbled mess.
Ling Dajun stood there in a daze for a long while before he vaguely remembered. Around eleven o'clock, he had been jolted awake by a chill. The first thing he did was instinctively reach out to check on his son beside him. However, after groping around with bleary eyes, he realized the space next to him was empty.
This realization startled Ling Dajun fully awake. He sat up and looked around; the fire pit in the center of the room still flickered with flames, but in this small ten-square-meter room, he could see clearly that his son was nowhere to be found.
As fear gripped his heart, he felt even more regret and sorrow—regret for not keeping an eye on his son, and sorrow for the loss of his wife during childbirth. Now that his son was missing, Ling Dajun despondently crouched on the rickety bed, burying his head deep in the crook of his arm.
“Giggle giggle giggle.”
The narrow room echoed with a childish laughter that carried a hint of mockery. Ling Dajun's back went cold as he looked around. When he glanced upward, he met the gaze of his missing son.
At that moment, the Two-Headed Monster Baby hung in mid-air, its completely black eyes devoid of whites, two visible beams of light shooting into Ling Dajun's eyes.
As for what had happened in between? Why had he fallen asleep at his doorstep? He couldn’t recall any of it. Thinking of his son, Ling Dajun pushed aside his fear and began searching frantically. Through the snowlight, he spotted a dark mound not far away. He hurried over and picked up the Two-Headed Monster Baby, turning to head back inside.
However, as he tried to enter the house, an incredibly strange scene unfolded: his foot passed through the Kasa hanging on the door as if it were nothing, allowing him to step inside. Yet when he held the Two-Headed Monster Baby in his arms, it felt as though an invisible wall blocked him from entering.
Desperate to save his child, Ling Dajun didn’t think much about it; he simply yanked down the Kasa hanging on the door and tossed it aside. Once inside, he placed the Two-Headed Monster Baby on the bed and went to fetch some dry firewood from the backyard to light a fire in the house.
Watching as the flames grew larger and filled the space with warmth and light, Ling Dajun wiped the sweat from his forehead. In his eagerness to save his son earlier, he hadn’t noticed how much effort it took; now that he relaxed, every part of him ached.
Ling Dajun took another careful look at his son lying on the bed. In the glow of the firelight, the child's skin radiated a warm hue and his breathing was shallow. Only then did Ling Dajun feel relieved as he leaned against the wall and drifted into a light sleep.
At this moment, the monk was sitting cross-legged on the ground, meditating and contemplating his next move. Only when the heart is calm can one accurately grasp all the details and find a breakthrough.
"Observe the Bodhisattva of Compassion."
"Perceive that the five aggregates are empty."
"Deliver all from suffering."
The Heart Sutra is the supreme teaching of Buddhism. At this time, the monk's demeanor was solemn, and his chanting of the Heart Sutra grew from a whisper to a resonant voice. The sound of his recitation echoed in the stillness of the space, reminiscent of morning bells and evening drums.
Once his heart achieved tranquility, the monk showed a contemplative expression. Ultimately, he decided to take out a white spherical object from his robe; it was a relic known as Shari, left behind after the cremation of a highly accomplished Buddhist monk.
As soon as the Shari was revealed, the monk felt an immediate aura of peace enveloping him. This Shari was said to contain the essence of a High Monk's life, imbued with boundless Buddhist power.
The monk placed the Shari before him and respectfully bowed, saying, "Now that disaster has manifested, I hope my predecessor will assist me in breaking free from this cage and preventing calamity from occurring. Amitabha."
The Shari seemed to possess a spirit of its own; after hearing the monk's words, it slowly ascended into the air amidst his murmured chants. A faint golden light radiated from it, as if tearing open a rift in the blood-red sky above, swirling in a vortex.
Seeing that an exit had opened, the monk joined his hands in prayer and uttered "Amitabha." Then he leaped into the vortex. After a moment of dizziness and weightlessness, he felt a chill; snowflakes were drifting down, and there were chaotic traces in the snow on the ground—evidence of his earlier confrontation with Ling Dajun.
However, as he gazed at the front door of the Ling Family's house, his expression changed. His Kasa had somehow been discarded on the ground and was blown away by the howling North Wind.
A dim light emanated from within the house. The monk formed hand seals to activate the Gang Bei Dou Zhen formation he had previously set up and cautiously approached the house.
Indeed, his suppression array for the female corpse had been destroyed. Ling Dajun was sleeping soundly next to a fire while the female corpse cowered in a corner, afraid of the flames. She held a Two-Headed Monster Baby in her arms, her floral robe lifted to her chest, revealing patches of bruises.
The monk quietly said, "Do not blame the Buddha," even though Li Juying was already a corpse, which seemed insignificant. After all, it was still a female body.
When the monk opened his eyes again, he saw Li Juying's corpse strangely shriveling away. Within a few breaths, it transformed into a deep brown, skin-and-bones figure, resembling a body buried deep in the desert.
The monk's eyes widened in anger as he formed a hand sign and threw the Kasa he had just retrieved. The Kasa seemed to have a mind of its own, darting toward the Two-Headed Monster Baby like a nimble snake, wrapping around it tightly.
At that moment, the Two-Headed Monster Baby was at its weakest, having exhausted its old strength without gaining new energy. It struggled but could not break free from the Kasa, rolling helplessly on the ground like a tightly wrapped zongzi.
"The dead deserve respect. Now that Li Juying is dead, and she is your mother, how can you be so heartless as to use her corpse for your own purposes? You are truly worse than a beast," the monk scolded, spitting vehemently.
"You are the beast; you insult beasts by comparing yourself to them. You are even lower than that."
With that, the monk began to chant with his eyes closed. As his chanting quickened, the Kasa around the Two-Headed Monster Baby tightened even more. The baby’s originally rosy complexion turned an unusual shade of purple due to difficulty in breathing.
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