Chapter 625: Kunlun Sect vs Blood Thunder Sound Temple (1)

The operating policy of the Repentance Hall is thorough neglect.

Which means they don’t make you do anything.

That is far harsher than forced labor.

If you’re locked in for ten, twenty, thirty years with the same lot without taking a single step outside, you eventually run out of anything to say.

Even to have a conversation, something new has to happen to become a topic, doesn’t it.

You woke up, ate, and slept.

Long years pass with not even the slightest stimulation—only the years being wasted.

They were even left ungelded.

So they could have passed the time with men’s specialty smut talk, or at least spent some hours comforting themselves.

Even so, the one and only diversion was Flick-stone and High Chess.

And then?

The newbie took all of it—and got dragged off to the slaughterhouse.

“Dog of a bitch. At least return the flick-stones before you go.”

“Shit, they said a newbie came in so I figured we wouldn’t be bored for a while.”

The mood in the Repentance Hall sagged.

They say once a person’s food and shelter are secured, the hardest emotion to endure is boredom.

But no matter how bored you get, there’s nothing to do.

So they just go limp and do nothing, and time—how damned slow it is—refuses to move at all.

That is how the Repentance Hall makes prisoners slowly rot.

Just then—

“Tada! This body returns!”

A bright voice rang through the Repentance Hall.

The prisoners were dumbfounded.

Now she didn’t even bother having a Kunlun lackey escort her; she slipped in on her own two feet, strolled, and planted herself squarely in the corridor.

“Hey—how the hell did you come back alive—”

“Who am I? The Institutional Supreme King Deity. And Molsal’s Dayeoreum. In all under heaven there is no door I cannot open; even an enemy’s heart I throw wide with eloquence and receive forgiveness. Ah, so even my tongue is the strongest—truly, being excellent is a crime, a crime. I am the sin-laden supreme.”

It was the sort of talk that shuts mouths.

At that, Dumpling-Ear—petty, incapable of hiding his hostility—sneered.

“So in the end you bawled snot and begged forgiveness, is that what you’re saying?”

“Hmph. Idiot. Enemy my ass. You think ‘Molsal’s Dayeoreum’ is called ‘Annihilation’ for nothing? Unlike you clowns I don’t leave sprouts that will grow into enemies. Especially you, Dumpling-Ear. What was that? ‘Kill them all because they could bring trouble later’? That’s exactly why you’re here a screwed-up wreck. A gelded bastard too sloppy to even clean up after himself.”

“This fucking bitch—I’ll rip your mouth—”

“Oh yeah? Go on, rip it. Rip it. Mm-hm. What got ripped were your balls, though. Ah, right. Since I was out anyway I should’ve looked around for a pig’s balls. With nothing down there you’re so empty and shrill, screeching like some woman. If I hang a pair down there maybe you’ll carry yourself with some weight.”

“You—you—you bitch...!”

“Tsk-tsk. Don’t use curses that are too strong. Makes you look weak.”

Dumpling-Ear flushed beet red—mm, what is that, Fire-Chicken Dumplings? Mm, I want fire chicken.

If I boil knife-cut noodles and glaze spicy chicken broth to toss it, maybe I can get close to the taste?

I should try it when I get back to the Divine Lady’s Gate.

Women like spicy food anyway, so everyone will probably love it—but what if they love it too much?

What if they name a dish after me like with braised pork?

Mm, Cheong Noodles? Since it’s spicy noodles, Cheong Ramen?

Anyhow, the prisoners of the Repentance Hall admitted at least one thing.

She’d said even her eloquence was the strongest; certainly, her tongue-work was no ordinary skill.

Qing was unsealed now.

She had grasped the true meaning of the Repentance Hall.

Which meant she could tease them all she wanted, didn’t it?

“Annihilation this, annihilation that—at the end of the day an enemy still came looking for you, didn’t he?”

“Heh, you’re dumb. Enemy my ass. You think I’m a fool like you lot who only fill their own mouths? I’ve given unstintingly; now it’s time to collect. It’s all one operation to rescue Lady Dayeoreum here. I checked Kunlun and took the lay of the land—nothing special, really.”

“What? So he wasn’t an enemy? Then what?”

From the next cell, the Poison Quack, who at least used a refined manner of speech, showed a satisfied reaction.

“Heh, that’s the difference between you and me. True friends come to help when times are hard. I keep several true friends; you lot had only sycophants clinging to you—ha, I don’t even need to see it to know. You paraded them around as your ‘retinue,’ didn’t you?”

Qing began tossing out whatever came to her tongue.

“Look at you now. When you were riding high they called you boss and great man and sucked you raw so hard your skin chafed, had you thinking you were kings. And look now—of the lot who said they’d come to fetch you in at least ten years, as long as thirty-five, not one has shown, right? Wow, you lived your lives real thriftily. Tsk tsk.”

“Ahem.”

The prisoners let out awkward coughs.

Right on cue, Fire-Chicken Dumpling-Ear picked a fight again.

“Stupid bitch, you’re real happy to flap that mouth. You think I’m some kind of idiot who’ll just watch?”

“Why? Gonna tattle like a housewife? Go on then, do it. You think I’m running my mouth for nothing? ‘The guy everyone thought was an enemy actually turned out to be a partner planning a prison break!’ Wow, so shocking!”

Qing snickered and kept the mockery going.

Dumpling-Ear’s face now was as red as if painted with cinnabar.

“All right, attention. My friends say they can maybe take one person along.”

At that, the prisoners’ eyes changed.

Half doubt, half hope.

Even someone who isn’t a champion of positive thinking would call it ‘half hope’—a massive change worthy of startled admiration.

In eyes that had been dull like rotting fish, a sheen flooded in for a moment.

Wow. Look at these shitheads’ eyes.

Of faith, hope, and love, the greatest is hope.

Even in the calamity box Madam Pandora threw open, what was sealed in the deepest place was hope.

Because hope is the cruelest, the most merciless and dangerous blade in the world.

Which is why Qing drew it as her weapon.

“Ah. Of course. If things get tangled on the way, we’ll ditch you. To be honest, we might use you as bait. We might use you as a time-buying tool. But—if things go well, we could all slip out nicely, couldn’t we?”

Their suspicious look eased by a notch.

Because “we might use you as bait” sounded, perversely, more trustworthy.

“Now—pick one. Naturally, if something goes out, something has to come in. In exchange for freedom, what can you give me?”

A sinister smile spread across Qing’s lips.

She bared white teeth—especially those sharply pointed canines.

“For reference, I don’t take payment after the fact. You know that, right?”

****

Lundup Rinjin. In Tibetan he is called the Abbot who “exists as brightness itself,” pronounced Lhundup Rinchen—the abbot of the Blood Thunder Sound Temple.

But contrary to the name, his vigor had lately withered so much he couldn’t even manage his own head properly.

His bald scalp had grown a bluish fuzz and lost its luster.

You could say he wasn’t living up to his name.

No matter how bright a light, if it holds a great worry within, how could it blaze without shadow?

Lunrin paced without direction, unable to stand still.

The pursuit party sent to arrest the traitor to their people had not returned.

Even with one arm lost, a mad monk is still a mad monk—a bastard as vicious as he is eccentric—so he had assigned two Harmony-level experts to him.

If it were merely that capturing the man took time, it would be one thing; but what if not?

What if they had been seized by those Kunlun lackeys?

If so, those lackeys with a righteous pretext—the Central Plains’ cat’s paws who oppress the people of Tibet and work them as slaves—might seize the moment and come pressing in.

Yet the elites of the Blood Thunder Sound Temple, the Vajra Adepts, showed no sign of returning—no letter, nothing.

Even as Blood Thunder Sound Temple, if he alone was the only expert left, there was no guarantee of defeating the Kunlun Sect.

There were defenses at the main seat layered over long years, so it wouldn’t collapse without a fight.

But what if they drew in the civil authorities?

Before cannon, what use are the fortified facilities of the main seat, the arrays, the traps?

So Lunrin fretted anxiously, all his years of cultivation wasted, his heart in knots.

[“Must we withdraw from the main seat even now? But to leave our compatriots on the Qinghai land—no, Blood Thunder Sound Temple, symbol of the spirit of Tibet, cannot retreat. Haaah... what am I to do?”]

He planted a palm to the wall, then turned to stare out the window and exhaled a long sigh.

His shoulders moved stiffly, awkward; he clenched and opened his fists for no reason, then rolled his rosary and chanted.

[“When in the world are the reinforcements from Potala arriving? The Great Master clearly promised unreserved aid for the righteous cause.”]

That was, in truth, why he hadn’t already packed up and fallen back despite the sense that something had gone wrong.

There had been a promise from Potala to send reinforcements to reclaim Qinghai—the Foremost of Tibet, the supreme monk, the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign, would come.

Originally, “Heavenly Kings” is what the Buddhist fold calls the guardians of Mount Sumeru, the abode of the Original Buddha at the center of the cosmos.

The commonly spoken “Four Heavenly Kings” comes from this—namely the four Heavenly Kings who guard the east, west, south, and north of Mount Sumeru.

So how lofty a name is Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign.

A pagoda is a Buddha pagoda—it means the Dharma itself.

And not merely a pagoda, but a great pagoda—great wisdom, the great Dharma among Dharmas.

Not merely a Heavenly King, but a Celestial Sovereign—a truer guardian higher still.

Thus the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign is a rank worthy of being called an incarnation of the Original Buddha!

They said the Foremost of Tibet had already entered a profound and mysterious state.

Just then—

[“Abbot, a guest has come from Tibet. He says the Great Master sent him.”]

Come! At last!

Lunrin’s face brightened as if all his anguish had been washed away at once.

Of course, it was a frivolous smile unfitting a Buddhist.

In the Buddhist fold, the best smile is one worn faintly with a subtle flavor; they do not highly rate a face bright as a child’s.

At last, the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign—the Foremost of Tibet—revealed himself at the abbot’s quarters.

Skinny—what looked like a mountain’s skeletal remains walked in.

[“Ooh—has the Celestial Sovereign arrived! Truly, the Master bears a most austere appearance!”]

This is because the lama monks count as virtue a thinness that shows the shape of bone.

In Tibet, religion, bureaucracy, and the martial world are one; monks are officials and warriors, so the power of a lama monk is boundless.

So they often eat well, rest well, play well—and grow flabby.

Thus the culture that praises thinness is a minimal safety device born of that power, a guard against indulgence.

By comparison, Lunrin’s figure was imposing—he had put on a fair bit of flesh.

Why?

Because Blood Thunder Sound Temple is in the Central Plains and so follows Central Plains norms?

As if.

A virtue is a virtue because it is hard to keep.

Even if the highest virtue is a skull with flesh scarcely clinging to it, there are few who actually achieve it.

And precisely for that reason, the thin are praised as having high virtue.

Had Qing seen this, she would have recognized at a glance that, for all his oddities, Amukhablap was, in his way, a proper monk.

But Qing still doesn’t know Central Plains culture well.

To demand of such a Qing an understanding of Tibetan culture as well would be too cruel.

Best not to expect it at all.