Chapter 127: A Story from a Thousand Years Ago

"This story from a thousand years ago is a little long. I hope you have some patience."

"It doesn't matter," Gao Tian said. "This has been the longest night of my life."

Yusheng said, "Mother pushed past her physical limits. After knocking open the gates of Longshu Temple and handing me over to the master, she took her last breath right then and there. She died without saying a single word.

"It was as if trekking over mountains and rivers for three days and three nights had exhausted all the strength of her entire life, just to deliver me to the temple.

"If you didn't have the gift of hindsight, from the perspective of that era, I was a helpless orphan whose entire extended family had been slaughtered. In a feudal society, my best chance of survival was being sent to a temple to shave my head and become a monk. I couldn't ask for wealth or status, but I could at least beg a bowl of rice for the rest of my life.

"The temple's abbot—who would later become my master, Dharma Master Jingming—didn't say anything when he saw this. He had people bury my mother, shaved my head, and ordained me. I became a little monk.

"Time passed quickly in the temple, and I slowly moved past the grief of losing Mother. I attended morning and evening chanting sessions with my senior brothers, meditated in the hall, swept the temple, and received pilgrims. My days went well, and I gradually adapted to my new identity.

"That period was the second most carefree time of my life. Only at night would I occasionally miss Mother and sneak to the graves on the back mountain to visit her. Although doing so broke the precepts, my senior brothers and master likely knew about it. I was still young, and missing one's mother is human nature, so no one in the temple ever reprimanded me.

"Looking back now, I frequently reminisce about those days. If possible, I truly wish I could return to a thousand years ago and forever remain an utterly ordinary little monk."

At this point, Yusheng realized he had lost his composure. He slowly lowered his head and chanted scriptures to calm his mind.

Only after calming down did he continue. "Fierce Ghosts causing havoc, the supernatural revival—these aren't things that only appeared in your twenty-first century. Even during the Tang and Song dynasties, restless spirits already roamed and killed.

"It's just that the supernatural events back then couldn't compare to modern times in either their scope or the speed at which they killed. Under normal circumstances, Daoist priests and Buddhist monks could barely manage to deal with weaker ghosts by relying on their ancestral orthodox teachings.

"If they encountered a powerful ghost, even great monks and Daoist masters could only cover their backsides and run for their lives. After all, they were just trying to earn a living. If they couldn't resolve a supernatural event, people died, and that was that. Even the government was helpless. Information moved slowly in those days. It was common for masses of people to die from a natural disaster or a border skirmish. To the common folk of that era, it was just another hardship to endure."

Gao Tian already knew this.

Master Yunshan in the Future Urn had also faced a Fierce Ghost that wiped out his entire village.

He had achieved great mastery in martial arts, only for his entire martial sect to be annihilated. Only then did he turn to cultivation.

"In his spare time, Dharma Master Jingming would help the nearby townsfolk deal with evil ghosts. He didn't do it for money, but out of compassion. My master's lineage was unclear, but he was quite capable. He possessed quite a few Supernatural Items and had some understanding of the basic rules governing Fierce Ghosts. Back then, those things were called dharma artifacts and Buddhist divine powers.

"Among all my senior brothers, my intelligence and aptitude quickly stood out. Even though I was the last to join the temple, I progressed rapidly in everything I studied, mastering it all at a single glance.

"Around that time, for some unknown reason, supernatural events in the towns near Longshu Temple became more and more frequent. Master couldn't handle it all alone and needed an assistant. Although my senior brothers wanted to help, Master considered them too dim-witted. In a supernatural event, a single misstep could kill everyone. Under those circumstances, as the youngest but most clever and quick-witted, I became his assistant instead. I helped him deal with many dead people.

"It was also during that time that he personally taught me many methods for dealing with unclean things through hands-on experience, and bestowed his dharma artifacts upon me. That is why, a thousand years later, after stepping out of Longshu Temple, I managed to survive up to the seventh Green Text Mission in the Living Apartment by a stroke of luck."

The Fierce Ghosts of this era simply spread faster and killed in greater numbers.

In the past, Meme-type Fierce Ghosts relied on carriages and horses delivering letters to infect their victims. They might not even make it out of a single county. After slaughtering everyone in a county, it would take weeks before anyone noticed, by which time the source of infection had long since been cut off.

Modern Fierce Ghosts spread through telephones, the internet, and videos. Within a few days, they could completely infect a megacity. Cutting off the source was almost impossible.

Although the difficulty of dealing with them had indeed increased, for Yusheng, it was simply returning to his old trade. His experience and Supernatural Items gave him an overwhelming, higher-dimensional advantage over everyone else in the Apartment.

Yusheng continued, "My master, Dharma Master Jingming, was a very strange person. In his spare time, he often sat out on the Stargazing Platform, facing the stars in the night sky alone and recording things on paper. These were duties meant for the Directorate of Astronomy in the imperial capital. For a monk to be so interested in the stars in the sky was truly rare.

"I stayed by his side, studying Buddhism and supernatural knowledge. Sometimes, I also helped him carry various instruments and install them on the Stargazing Platform.

"I remember very clearly that back then, Master would occasionally say strange things. For example, he'd say there were more stars in the sky, or that some stars had gone missing. He claimed the extra stars weren't actually stars, but rather filthy things that shouldn't exist. Just as unclean as the restless Fierce Ghosts on the ground.

"Sometimes, Master would test me, asking where the Fierce Ghosts that people became after death came from. I didn't know his true intentions back then, so I answered according to Buddhist scriptures. I said they were people who committed evil deeds in life and refused to fall into the eight great hells after death to accept their punishment, unable to enter the six realms of samsara to reincarnate.

"At those times, Master would remain silent, looking at the stars in the sky. I never knew what he was sighing about. Was it because there was something wrong with my answer?"

Yusheng spoke calmly, and Gao Tian listened calmly.

The story still hadn't reached its main point. But it didn't matter. Yusheng had waited a thousand years, and tonight might be his last night. Why shouldn't Gao Tian keep him company a little longer?

"As I mentioned earlier, even though I had stayed in Longshu Temple for a long time and grown used to the life of a monk, I still often found myself secretly missing Mother. This, too, was human nature.

"The band of bandits that slaughtered my entire village was later caught by the government, paraded through the capital, and executed by a death of a thousand cuts. I had originally harbored a trace of hatred that secretly served as my spiritual pillar. After hearing this news, the last bit of hatred in my heart vanished, and my yearning for Mother grew even stronger.

"It was then that I made a massive mistake. An irreversible, massive mistake.

"I felt that since people could become Fierce Ghosts after death, it proved that souls truly existed.

"There had to be a way to bring the dead back to life. The so-called Fierce Ghosts were simply the result of an incorrect method of summoning souls.

"Overwhelmed by the longing for my family, I did something that broke a major precept. It also led to the drastic upheaval that later befell the entire Longshu Temple.

"I am a sinner. A sinner! After I die, I will surely descend to the deepest of the eighteen layers of hell and suffer endless torment. But I am still alive now, and I must atone for my sins while I live."

As he spoke, blood unknowingly began to slowly seep from Yusheng's eye sockets.

At this moment, half of his handsome, peaceful face was taken over by deformed flesh, weeping blood all the while. He looked hideous and bizarre, truly resembling a Fierce Ghost returning from hell.

His voice remained calm. "I succumbed to greed. I knew that in one of Master's locked pavilions, many forbidden Daoist scriptures were hidden.

"They contained secret arts capable of conversing with the stars in the sky—arts that shouldn't exist in this world.

"Master once strictly warned us never to touch the scriptures in that pavilion. If any senior brother even approached it, they would face punishment at best, or be expelled from the Buddhist order at worst.

"I knew it was because those scriptures could make the stars in the sky notice the people in the mortal realm. I didn't know exactly how it worked. Master had once inadvertently revealed that those extra things in the sky were the eyes of certain entities in the night sky opening. When they gazed down at this great sphere beneath our feet, the people on the sphere could also see the stars in the sky."

"Yes, you heard right. Master called the flat ground we walked on a 'great sphere.' Naturally, I didn't understand it back then. It wasn't until I traveled a thousand years into the future and assimilated much of the knowledge of the people in your era that I realized Master was talking about the Earth."

Yusheng said, "I was entirely blinded by my emotions at the time. I knew that some of the secret arts hidden in the pavilion could allow me to make a wish to the stars. By borrowing the power of some ancient, unknowable thing, I could resurrect Mother from the earth.

"After days and nights of bitter struggle, my impure six senses finally lost to the demon in my heart. I didn't seek wealth or immortality. I only wished for Mother to return to my side, even if just for a single glance.

"Stealing the pavilion key was simple. Master doted on me and trusted me. Sometimes, when he needed something at the Stargazing Platform, he found it bothersome to fetch it himself. Coupled with his growing trust in me day by day, he initially had two senior brothers take me to open the pavilion. Later, he simply gave me the key, allowing me to open the pavilion freely to retrieve the instruments and books he needed.

"On a dark, windy night, I opened the pavilion and took a book I needed from inside.

"Following its instructions and using my photographic memory, I quickly mastered a certain secret art. Following the ritual recorded in the book, I made a wish to one of those extra stars in the sky.

"Let Mother come back. Let her crawl out of the dirt.

"Let her be just as she was when she was alive.

"I won't tell you the process of the secret art. After that incident, Master burned the pavilion to the ground. No one will ever know the method again.

"The star heard my wish. Mother came back.

"Back then, I naively thought the worst-case scenario would simply be summoning another Fierce Ghost. It wouldn't have been the first time I encountered such a situation. Even without Master, I had suppressed many Fierce Ghosts on my own."