Nightfall

Translator: Larbre Studio  Editor: Larbre Studio

In the records of the Buddhist Scriptures, there was a handsome monk with great virtue who looked a lot like Buddha. Many followers mistakenly believed that he was Buddha and worshiped him. The monk with great virtue was ashamed and cut his own face with a sharp cutlass, for he thought being mistaken for Buddha would mislead the followers. After he became ugly, he covered his face with his hands every time he went out. When seen in public, children would throw little stones at him and dogs would chase and bark at him. He used to be worshipped by the world, but now he was loathed. However, he never said any abusive words or showed any vicious expressions. He just endured all the sufferings and never fought back. At last, he mastered the Divine Ability and became Phra Pidta.

Ning Que didn’t understand why Monk Qingban became the legendary Phra Pidta just by wiping his face with sleeves. After a moment of silence, Ning Que said, “You are already dead. Even though you’ve become Phra Pidta here, you are still dead. How can a dead man make us stay here?”

“Thinking is intention, and intention is power. If I don’t want you to go, then you have to stay.” Monk Qingban covered his face with his sleeves. He could talk even though he had no eyes and lips on his face. His words revealed sorrow and compassion, and the Light of Buddha shone through his sleeves and it looked magnificent.

Before the sound of Qingban’s voice had died away, his sleeves fell to Ning Que’s face, full of the Power of Buddha.

Ning Que was prepared for his attack. He took out the iron cutlass and swung it vigorously.

The sleeves and the iron cutlass met silently. Being blown by the fierce wind, the trees by the lake were all bent. Countless trees broke, revealing the white stubbles.

There was a sleeve floating in the wind.

The iron cutlass broke out of the sleeve and fell on the neck of Monk Qingban. The black blade had already turned red.

Monk Qingban had no facial features, so it was hard for him to express emotions. But he was clearly shocked at this moment.

He couldn’t understand why Ning Que’s iron cutlass was able to break his Power of Buddha so easily.

“I killed you once in Chang’an. I have proven that I don’t worship Buddha in my ocean of consciousness. Although I have been practicing Buddhism for many years, the situation remains the same.” Ning Que slid the blade through the neck of Monk Qingban and said, “So I can kill you again.”

As the blade was retracted, Monk Qingban’s head fell from his shoulders like a mellow fruit, landing on the floor and then rolling forward to the broken tree by the lake.

Monk Qingban was still standing, and there was a lot of golden liquid flowing out of his neck, slowly evaporating into the air.

Under the tree, Monk Qingban regained his facial features.

He managed to blink and remembered all the years he spent in the White Tower Temple reading Buddhist scriptures and practicing Buddhism, only to learn that all his efforts were in vain.

Looking at the east, he was hit by sorrow and sadness and then closed his eyes. Presumably he would never open his eyes again.

Only until then did Monk Qingban or Daoshi really wake up and finally died.

Many cracks suddenly appeared on the surface of the headless body of Monk Qingban and gradually widened, and the golden liquid continued to flow out from the cracks, turning into the purest Light of Buddha after encountering the wind.

Looking at what happened in silence, Ning Que didn’t notice that Sangsang who sat by the lake behind him frowned and turned pale when she saw the golden Light of Buddha.

In addition to the reasons he had previously said, the most important reason why he killed Phra Pidta was that he had become so powerful that it was even beyond his own imagination.

In the Divine Halls of West-Hill, Sangsang cut off his flesh and limbs, and then he was resurrected with Haotian’s Divine Power. After experiencing numerous rebirths, he was very pure, without any dirt on his body.

In the cliff cave of the Xuankong Temple, he completed the task arranged by Master Lian Sheng, which was to cultivate Buddhism before cultivating Devil’s Doctrine. Buddhism and Devil’s Doctrine all originated from the same source and could be connected. The person who connected them would be extremely powerful.

Lian Sheng once said that connecting Buddhism and Devil’s Doctrine would lead to the state of God. At this point, Ning Que had connected Buddhism and Devil’s Doctrine, and he had mastered Haoran Qi with the help of Headmaster of Academy. He had already reached Knowing Destiny Zenith, and even approaching the threshold!

At this point, Ning Que could kill people with his cutlass or even through meditation. He even could kill people as powerful as Elders of Commandment Hall of the Xuankong Temple with his cutlass, let alone Monk Qingban who was just a fake Buddha.

Sangsang murmured, “Oh, so it is.”

She had already seen through the sky and all things in this world. Chaoyang City was fake, the White Tower Temple was fake, the tree and black crow in the small courtyard were fake, the vegetables in the market, and the pickle jar in the kitchen were also fake. If these were all fake, then what was real?

This was the world inside the chessboard.

At the cliff yard of the Xuankong Temple, she entered the chessboard with Ning Que to find Buddha, which was a mistake that wasted thousands of years of her time, just like the time she entered the chessboard in Lanke Temple back then.

She was carried away in the dreams.

When she was on that mountain back then, she saw the truth and the illusion, and experienced endless loneliness. No one accompanied her and no one talked to her.

Compared with the past, she seemed to be less lonely since she had Ning Que beside her. But she understood that Buddha couldn’t trap her in the chessboard for so many years if not for Ning Que.

She stood up and looked at Ning Que, “After eating that green pear, we have wasted thousands of years here. You have wasted thousands of years of my time here.”

Ning Que ignored her and was thinking about how many years they had lived in this chessboard world. He felt unsettled, for he couldn’t remember clearly what happened in the earlier years after so many years. “Master Qishan once said that a moment inside is a year outside if we were to enter the chessboard from the front, and a year inside is just a moment outside if we enter the chessboard from the back. Do you remember from which side we entered? How many years have passed outside?”

Sangsang was about to get angry but suddenly realized that Ning Que wouldn’t care about her anger after she heard his question. After a moment of silence, she answered, “Buddha wouldn’t get his way so easily.”

Ning Que asked, “Can you calculate how many years have passed?”

Sangsang thought for a while and said, “At most several years.”

Even though Ning Que had reached Knowing Destiny Zenith, he still couldn’t understand the concept of time. But for Haotian, it was not so difficult.

“It is very dangerous.”

Sangsang looked at the east and said, “We almost lost in time.”

“Fortunately, we wake up now.”

Looking at the sky, Ning Que thought about the sound of the axe and was puzzled.

But at this point, he understood that it was very dangerous to practice Buddhism in the White Tower Temple. As one was gradually fascinated by Buddha Dharma, it would be difficult to wake up from a world full of peace and joy even though he had reached a very high state. If Ning Que hadn’t woken up, he would have never seen through the world of chessboard, let alone going back to the real world.

Fortunately, his ocean of consciousness contained fragments of consciousness left by Lian Sheng.

Lian Sheng was a great monk, but was also a bloody devil. He used to be obsessed with Buddhism, but also hated Buddhism. Being such a complex man helped himself maintain consciousness in the vast Buddha Dharma and turned the fragment of his consciousness into a sharp axe to strike Ning Que’s head, trying to wake him up with pain. But who struck Ning Que with the axe from the sky? Who else wanted to warn Ning Que?

Sangsang said, “If you hadn’t woken up, then I probably would have never woken up. In this case, you owe me nothing, and I won’t punish you.”

Ning Que knew what she meant. If not for him, she wouldn’t be sentimentally attached to the human world, and she would never be trapped by the chessboard like this.

He smiled, but didn’t say anything.

At this moment, a few rays of light suddenly appeared on the dark sky.

Ning Que looked solemn. He had seen such pure lights in the chessboard last time in Lanke Temple, so he knew that every ray of light represented the rule of the chessboard world.

The rule of the world was collapsing, which revealed the most horrible power.

He was not afraid, for he had experience in dealing with this kind of situation.

He took out the big black umbrella and said to Sangang, “Shall we go?”

He asked for her opinion about whether or not they should leave, for he was unsettled and worried that she might want to stay in the chessboard and continue to find Buddha and kill him which seemed like an impossible task at this point. Besides, he also worried that she would go back to Divine Kingdom after leaving the chessboard.

The old Sangsang would definitely choose to stay in the chessboard world and continue to search for the Buddha who had trapped her for hundreds or even thousands of years without her knowing. She wanted to kill Buddha, for she was the Great Haotian.

But to Ning Que’s surprise, she walked to him and said calmly, “Let’s go.”

Ning Que was stunned, and then handed the umbrella over.

With a soft sound, Sangsang opened the big black umbrella.

The dim light of the night covered Sangsang and Ning Que.

A moment passed, a quarter of an hour passed, one hour passed, and then one day and night passed.

But nothing happened. The black umbrella was still by the lakeside, and Ning Que and Sangsang were still under the umbrella. They couldn’t leave the chessboard.

Ning Que remembered what Monk Qingban said before his death: “I don’t want you to go.”

The world didn’t want them to go.

He turned pale, and his hands which held Sangsang trembled slightly.

But why?

When they entered the chessboard back in the Lanke Temple and the rule of the world chased Sangsang, they opened the black umbrella and then just disappeared. The rule of the world couldn’t find them back then.

But why didn’t the big black umbrella take them away?

Looking at the dark sky, Sangsang was silent for a few moments and then said, “I can’t sense the outside world.”

She was the rule. As long as she could communicate with the rule of the world outside the chessboard, she could return to the human world, just as she could return to Divine Kingdom even if she had died.

The big black umbrellas could turn them invisible from the rule of the world, and could also help her communicate with the rule of the outside world. If she couldn’t sense the outside world, then there were only two possibilities.

It was either the umbrella was broken or that there was something wrong with her.

The big black umbrella was not broken, so there must be something wrong with Sangsang.

Before Ning Que said anything, she explained, “I am not as powerful as before.” She was a little confused.

Even though she became weaker and weaker for she was still infused with the power of the human world by the Headmaster of Academy and had many connections with the world due to her relationship with Ning Que. She was still calm and confident. It was because she still still possessed unimaginable power even if she was weaker than before.

But now she found that she was much weaker than she had thought.

She closed her eyes and began to figure out the reasons for this.

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