Chapter 123: Major Discovery

In a gory blur of mangled flesh, the Mirror Ghost's bloody hand forcibly dragged Wang Wenbo inside.

All around them, the starving ghosts bared their stark white teeth. Blood and gore spilled from the corners of their mouths as they chewed with a sickening crunch.

Gao Tian wasn't sure if Wang Wenbo was still alive inside the mirror. There was no time to check.

Countless starving ghost monks paced back and forth beneath the tree. They kept coming until the very last ghost filed out of the main hall, completely packing Longshu Temple's central plaza.

Fortunately, the Diamond Sutra carved into the tree provided a protective barrier. Hiding in the branches offered temporary safety; none of the starving ghosts dared approach too closely.

But stalling up here was not a solution. The Inner World's sky was steadily dimming. Sooner or later, night would fall. Once the bear's roar echoed, they would all face their second total wipeout.

Trapped in the trees, Gao Tian and the others were caught in a complete stalemate.

Dangling the Dog Leash with one hand, Lan Zhu hauled up one of the starving ghosts like a slaughtered chicken. Pressing it against the scripture-carved bark, Lan Zhu began testing the Buddhist text's effects.

The lone starving ghost lacked the slightest strength to resist once snared. The moment it touched the Buddhist scriptures, its emaciated body began to sizzle like meat on a hot griddle. It threw its bloody maw wide, releasing a silent scream.

Even though it was already a ghost and could not die, it still felt every ounce of that agonizing pain.

Lan Zhu "roasted" the ghost against the sutras for a long while without managing to kill it, eventually losing interest.

Gao Tian looked across at Jiang Yang in the opposite tree. "Do you have any ideas?"

"If not, we'll just have to reset this run and enter the third loop."

But they hadn't gathered any useful intelligence during this second loop. It was equivalent to wasting a day.

What else could they even do if they entered Longshu Temple for a third loop? Touching the giant Buddha meant death, but leaving it alone just meant waiting for nightfall to die anyway.

Jiang Yang narrowed his eyes and pointed into the distance, as if he had spotted something.

Following his finger, Gao Tian looked toward the main hall, right at the giant Buddha with the gaping hole in its belly where countless starving ghosts had crawled out.

What was so interesting about a ruined statue?

It certainly held a lot. A belly that could squeeze in at most twenty people had somehow disgorged at least eighty or ninety starving ghosts from its murals, completely overrunning Longshu Temple.

It rivaled an overloaded Indian passenger van.

Wait—

Gao Tian suddenly realized what Jiang Yang was pointing at.

Inside the giant Buddha's belly, the original murals had depicted starving ghosts slaughtering one another.

Once those starving ghost monks manifested physically and left the murals and the main hall, whatever had been hidden beneath those murals was finally revealed.

Densely packed together.

Rows upon rows of—text.

At this distance, however, it was incredibly hard to read.

Someone had written all over the interior of the giant Buddha. It just couldn't be seen earlier because the starving ghost murals had covered it.

He finally understood why Jiang Yang was squinting.

Gao Tian stared at it for a long time without making out a single word, leaving his eyes sore and aching.

If only he could walk into the main hall and inspect the giant Buddha up close.

"It's scripture."

Jiang Yang suddenly spoke up.

"Scripture?"

Gao Tian asked in disbelief.

Jiang Yang rubbed his eyes. Straining to see from this far away was practically blinding him. "I can just barely make it out. Those are rows of tiny text.

"I caught a few keywords.

"Karma, the sea of suffering, the other shore—these are all from Buddhist scripture.

"The monks of Longshu Temple actually carved Buddhist scriptures inside the giant Buddha. I just don't know which sutra it is, why it had to be carved inside its belly, or who it was meant for."

Truly bizarre.

No normal person would ever imagine that someone would carve scriptures completely filling the inside of a statue.

But even if they did, viewing the text required breaking the giant Buddha and releasing all the starving ghosts trapped inside. Only then would the murals vanish and reveal the true scriptures underneath.

Yet once those ghosts were unleashed upon the temple, any explorers would be forced to flee into the Diamond Trees to escape being hunted down.

It was a vicious cycle. If you didn't release the ghosts, you couldn't see the text. If you did release them, you were trapped outside.

Who knew what intentions the person who carved the text had harbored back then.

Jiang Yang was completely captivated by the scriptures revealed in the main hall. "No monk would intentionally carve text inside a giant Buddha for no reason. It's a completely thankless task.

"We have to find a way to read it. I have a feeling it's definitely tied to the secrets of Longshu Temple."

Gao Tian asked, "Did you bring binoculars?"

At this distance, a standard pair of household binoculars would have been perfectly sufficient.

Jiang Yang shook his head. "No."

It made sense. Before setting out, they had only packed standard items for combating the supernatural. No one had expected to need binoculars.

Gao Tian glanced over at Lan Zhu, who was dangling the Dog Leash like a fishing line to haul up another starving ghost, and decided not to ask.

In the distance, the sun dipped lower in the west, and the sky slowly faded to gray.

Honestly, if this weren't a life-or-death situation, the view of the horizon from the trees in Longshu Temple would be quite beautiful.

He couldn't delay any longer. In this loop, they had to at least see the scriptures inside the giant Buddha.

Even if it meant death.

Gao Tian checked the Luck Jar in his hands.

During the previous loop, the terrifying murmurs had forced him to expend more than half of its contents. But in this loop, everything had reset, so the Luck Jar was completely full again.

Without hesitation, he slid down the large tree, opening the Luck Jar at the same time. "I'll handle this!"

He had to move fast.

In Longshu Temple, Ghost Luck drained several times faster. He had to cross over before his good luck completely ran out.

"Gao Tian, you—!"

Jiang Yang was startled to see Gao Tian suddenly leap from the Diamond Tree. That kind of behavior was virtually no different from suicide.

The instant he left the Diamond Tree, the countless ravenous starving ghosts swarmed. With bloodshot eyes and drool pooling on the ground, they threw their jaws wide and reached out desperately to grab Gao Tian.

Black Ghost Luck hovered above his head. Immersed in the endless throng of Fierce Ghosts, he ignored them entirely and sprinted toward the main hall.

A bizarre sequence of events unfolded. The starving ghosts trailing him were either tripped by their companions or shoved aside by other ghosts. The few that finally squeezed their way up to Gao Tian were yanked backward by the ghosts behind them before they could even brush the hem of his clothes.

The massive horde of starving ghosts inexplicably tangled with one another in a chaotic brawl, ensuring not a single one could lay a hand on him. It was coincidental to the extreme.

Like crabs in a metal bucket, the moment one tried to climb up, the others dragged it back down.

Though this chaotic and eerie scene took a while to describe, it was over in a flash. In the blink of an eye, Gao Tian had already sprinted out of the ghost-packed central plaza. Driven by the terrifying murmurs, the Ghost Luck above his head had already been heavily depleted.

He made it.

Having reached the main hall through sheer luck, the first thing Gao Tian did was squeeze into the giant Buddha's belly to inspect the rows of text.

"Step into the shadow of the Buddha's seat with the left foot first. Retreat three times, advance three times. Keep strides to no more than a foot in length. Do not approach directly."

"Upon finishing the turns, face north and stand still. Envision the Buddha's golden light enveloping and protecting the body."

"Press your back against the inner wall of the Buddha's seat, rest both palms over the dantian, and close your eyes. Breathe calmly for three breaths, holding a single thought. If a sudden chill arises, recite the nine-word mantra once more, then rest for another three to five breaths."

Sweeping his gaze across the text, he realized this wasn't Buddhist scripture at all. It was a bizarre set of movements instructing the reader on how to use the giant Buddha's shell to ward off external evils and survive the long night.

This was—

Gao Tian's pupils shrank to pinpricks.

What other evil lurked outside the giant Buddha, aside from the bizarre bear roar that sounded exactly at nine o'clock?

As it turned out, an expert in Longshu Temple had long ago figured out how to counter this fatal Killing Rule and survive past nine o'clock.

The method was to hide within the giant Buddha's belly and follow these instructions, performing a series of strange but subtly profound movements.

Whoever devised this method truly had a cunning mind. If they wanted to save people, why hide this true scripture inside a giant Buddha packed with starving ghosts?

—

An ordinary person who smashed the giant Buddha open would have already been killed by the starving ghosts. They could never stall long enough to read the true scripture.

On second thought, however, this true scripture might have originally been meant for the monks of the temple.

The person who wrote the true scripture surely never anticipated this. For whatever reason, the monks who entered the giant Buddha completely missed the hidden text. Killed by the bear's roar at nine o'clock, they cycled through endless loops, eventually becoming the countless starving ghosts inside the giant Buddha's belly and completely sealing off the path for anyone who came later.

If Gao Tian hadn't exploited the time loop bug and gone through all sorts of coincidences, he never would have discovered this long-buried scripture.

By the time Gao Tian snapped out of his daze and pulled his attention back to reality, the sky outside the main hall had already grown dark.

Oh no. He had been so engrossed in reading that he lost track of time.

Gao Tian looked up. The Ghost Luck hovering above his head was almost completely burnt out, leaving only a tiny sliver.

In the distance, that terrifying bear's roar sounded. Wave after wave washed over them, overwhelmingly sweeping through the entire Inner World in and around Longshu Temple.

"The bear's roar is early—"

At this point, Gao Tian didn't have enough time to finish the full sequence of movements inside the giant Buddha's belly as instructed by the true scripture.

What was more, he was unwilling to survive alone. He wanted to find a day where everyone made it out alive.

"Looks like I'll just have to die here a little early today.

"See you tomorrow, everyone."

Gao Tian turned his head. Outside the main hall, beyond the endless tide of wandering starving ghosts, Jiang Yang and Lan Zhu watched him silently from the Diamond Tree.

When the next wave of the bear's roar hit, the first to fall from the Diamond Tree was Jiang Yang.

Lan Zhu held on for a long while before finally swaying unsteadily, transforming into a stiff corpse amid the rolling waves of sound.

The third was Gao Tian.

Blood dripped from the tip of his nose. His vision blackened, and he immediately lost all control of his body.

With this death, a sixth Ghost Card would be drawn from his soul.

However, just before he died, a faint sliver of Ghost Luck remained above his head.

Coupled with three people dying in this courtyard, the Black Tie had also activated.

Gao Tian's very last thought before dying was the assumption that he wouldn't just instantly drop dead after drawing his sixth Ghost Card.