Chapter 633: Kunlun Sect vs Blood Thunder Sound Temple (9)

Muhak was serious.

He was in dead earnest about applying a Nine Sects quota among Ximen Qing’s friends.

Cheon Bija, listening, was serious too.

He is, after all, the Sect Leader of one of the Nine Sects.

But there was a matter far more urgent just now.

“A Shaolin disciple can’t be put near a woman, so first from the remaining Eight Sects—”

“Er—senior. Pardon me for cutting in, but perhaps first hear how things stand with those Tibetans...”

Only then did Muhak, realizing his lapse, clear his throat with an ahem.

He hadn’t come to see the Heavenly Flower Sword; he’d hurried here answering Kunlun’s urgent call for aid.

“It’s like this. First, near Henan—ah, not Henan Province; from here, roughly five hundred and fifty li to the south (~170 miles). There, bandits...”

Cheon Bija laid out the suspicious bandit bands in Hainan County and their true purpose, the atrocities of the Blood Thunder Sound Temple, and the rescue of the mad monk.

“Tch. Those who call themselves devotees... well. Lamas are closer to rulers by nature—hardly what one would call true devotees. Still, how can those who pretend to serve the Buddha behave so.”

Muhak murmured, regretful.

Apart from that, Cheon Bija’s explanation ran cleanly in time order, easy to grasp.

Wholly because it was his second time telling it.

When he’d explained to Ximen Surin, he’d skipped bits and jumbled the order, stumbling—because it was the first transmission of the events.

And because the Great Mother is, by any measure, a far harder senior to face than Muhak.

The first telling had been awkward; the second, far better.

****

And four days later—the second day of the Spring Festival.

Cheon Bija’s third telling had even grown some flourish here and there, buffed up to artistry.

A fine story had been born—complete with the Heavenly Flower Sword’s feats and a major twist in the Tibetans’ plot.

The middle-aged man who heard that saga breathed admiration.

“Oh? That kid, the Heavenly Flower Sword, is that outstanding? As her senior in the sword, I’m positively delighted. I’d been thinking I should treat her to a great feast anyway for what she did for my boy.”

“Hey. I’m not trying to talk about the Heavenly Flower Sword—those damned Tibetan monks are the problem right now.”

Cheon Bija’s posture—never mind his tone—was slouched and cocked on an elbow; he and the middle-aged man are long-time comrades, old friends.

Outwardly, of course, Cheon Bija looks like a ninety-year-old with those dignified wrinkles.

It looks odd to call a ninety-year-old friends with a man who bears only a few sober lines on his face.

If that rankles, one should have climbed to the Translucent Realm and rolled back the years—like the middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man snorted and waved a hand.

“You’re inventing things to fret over. With Senior Martial Buddha and—no, with Senior Great Mother here, what’s there to worry about? With three at Translucent, they could sack the Imperial Palace.”

“There you go again—watch that mouth.”

“What, did I say something wrong? It’s not like you’re going to run tattling to the palace. As for irreverence—my epithet is irreverence itself; late to be precious about it now.”

The man with the most irreverent epithet among the Ten Great Experts under Heaven.

Sword King Namgung Daero.

Because there’s no precedent for an emperor bestowing a kingly title.

To be styled “king” is, in original terms, treason warranting the extermination of nine clans and the nine of those nine.

But folks call him that anyway; Namgung Daero’s official stance is merely that he’s a humble “sword hand.”

It’s peekaboo with a blindfold, but the palace hasn’t made an issue of it.

Not out of magnanimity so much as because, in an age where peace has let the martial world advance and renew its prime day after day, they cannot touch it lightly.

“Your damned mouth. What did that Sword Fang brat say while still in the womb? That he’d have no wish left if he could be born a sword-crazed fiend. And how’d that turn out?”

“Still—he’s improved a bit lately. At least a man with two sound arms isn’t parading as a one-armed swordsman. Still, that little bastard—hah. Truly.”

Namgung Daero let out a long sigh.

In any case, Namgung Daero stands level with Cheon Bija—

Among the heavyweight seniors of the Ten Great Experts, he’s a notch down in age, one might say, carrying the young blood.

“So—go in, wipe them all out?”

“That mouth of yours. With Senior Martial Buddha here, would you really say ‘kill them all’?”

“Then don’t we kill? Are we not to prevent a war? Set an example, and even those barbarian whelps will drop their foolish notions. Look how those lamas dote on their own people. In the end, cutting them down reduces the innocent blood of Tibetan barbarians—won’t they go happily to the next world?”

“Mm.”

Cheon Bija swallowed a difficult groan.

“I know that’s how you Daoists think, but aren’t your mad monks raving to slaughter them all? So—where’s the problem?”

“Resentment begets resentment.”

“Hmph. They think their land was stolen—resentment or no, do you think they’ll behave? The very claim is laughable. They offered it up themselves out of fear of the Former Dynasty, and only now say it’s theirs.”

“Uuugh.”

“Whatever. I came to lend a blade; I’ll swing where I’m swung. I detest complication.”

With that, Namgung Daero sprang to his feet.

“Mm? Where are you going?”

Namgung Daero shrugged.

“To see the Heavenly Flower Sword. The future Sword Queen—perhaps even the future Foremost Under Heaven, and a swordsman to boot. She’s also my son’s benefactor. How can I just sit? Frankly, if not for her, I wouldn’t have come out to this backcountry at all.”

****

The Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign, for all that he looks every inch a paragon for devotees, spent the whole day sprawled on a brocade bed.

For the monks of the Blood Thunder Sound Temple, who had hoped for a sublime sermon from Tibet’s foremost, or instruction in martial learning, it had been days of disappointment and sighs.

Why does His Celestial Majesty not bestow teaching upon us?

Is it because we are lacking?

Or is it because this is not the main temple but a branch in enemy land?

Of course, the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign cared nothing.

He merely sat cross-legged, quietly shining a halo—like a great teacher laboring only for his own nirvana.

Abbot Lhundup Rinchen of the Blood Thunder Sound Temple was beside himself.

“[Your Celestial Majesty, does the main temple have no further word for us?]”

He said “word,” but he meant support.

To ask outright for more support might be an affront to Tibet’s foremost, so he circled the phrasing.

The Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign cracked his closed eyes halfway and asked, solemn:

“[What is it you fear so?]”

“[Those wicked Central Plains whelps are still so quiet—it weighs on my mind. I wonder if they are gathering martial fighters from the mainland to attack...]”

“[That will not happen. If the dogs of the Central Plains play suspicious tricks, my divine powers will know at once. Do not fear.]”

Of course, those “divine powers” were not functioning at all.

He did, however, have grounds of a sort for confidence.

First, he did not know that the tricks the Blood Thunder Sound Temple had been playing in Hainan County in southern Qinghai had been exposed.

So the best “pretext” the temple had to offer amounted to “disposing of pro–Central Plains, traitorous trash” and “wiping out a few villages of those who forgot their roots.”

They had let the mad monk slip; they would surely use that as the pretext to come.

All to the good.

The mad monk would presume there was only one adept—an abbot—left at the Blood Thunder Sound Temple, the rest withdrawn.

Kunlun, hearing his word, would think the same.

And no one in the Orthodox is more calculating; they will not borrow the Martial Alliance’s strength just to hit a single temple “with all the masters gone.”

Kunlun has its face to maintain; calling in support is, in the end, incurring a debt.

Above all—

The Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign extended his sensing to confirm the silhouette of a woman lying motionless beneath the bed.

Even if support had been requested, at most a single combat team would be dispatched.

But dispatching a combat team is no simple matter.

For the Martial Alliance to gather, coordinate, and move people all the way to Qinghai, naturally people and materiel go to and fro.

And the thing shaped like a woman beneath the bed—filthy, vile, demonic though it only wore a human shell—possessed the strange ability to converse across the Central Plains by “voice over a thousand li.”

From muster to departure of reinforcements, the instant such movements were observed, the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign would hear of it.

Yet Lhundup Rinchen fretted.

The Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign clicked his tongue.

“[I shall whisper the future to you first—hear it, and let your fear be taken away.]”

Those Kunlun colts—those thieves in Daoist masks—will dare to invade the holy mountain.

They do not know the true strength of the Tibetan people; they will grin and laugh, waving their flags in glee.

“[They’ll be giddy to sack the holy mountain and plunder wealth—because every last Central Plains breed is a beast that had dogs and pigs for parents, trash with bandit blood in their veins, filth less than filth, a scourge that must be annihilated and erased from the world.]”

Only here did a thick hatred leak out—one could not even guess what grudge he bore against Central Plains folk.

“[But I am here. How many ‘masters’ does Kunlun have? When I swing my staff—one dies; when I stretch out my palm—another is struck dead.]”

The Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign smiled, chill.

A smile reeking of blood.

“[Then those ruffians will be the first to charge, and they will shed blood together with the trash of the Central Plains. The crime of defiling the holy temple of the sacred mountain is repaid with the blood they spill.]”

At that, Lhundup Rinchen’s lips also curled.

He meant the rabble the Celestial Sovereign had brought—those who held no respect for monks, no reverence even for the Buddha.

He had said they all had their uses; if used thus, their current insolence could be borne.

“[Then, when those Central Plains people, panic-stricken, tremble and drop their weapons and try to flee—at that very moment, your Blood Thunder Sound Temple’s main force will surge in one rush and slaughter them all. Then march to Sun and Moon Mountain, set fire to Kunlun’s Daoist halls, and liberate Sining—proclaim the great will of our Tibetan people to all under heaven.]”

“[O—oh...!]”

“[To me it already sounds as if our people in Sining, freed from oppression, are cheering ‘ten thousand years.’ Do you not hear it?]”

Lhundup Rinchen’s body trembled.

So—he had seen that future!

Impossible...!

Strong! Our Tibet is strong!

As expected of the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign!

“[No! Your unworthy disciple’s eyes were dim and his wits dull—lost in delusion, I trembled in anxiety. But Your Celestial Majesty’s teaching has lit my heart like the bright light of Vairocana.]”

As he spoke, Lhundup Rinchen’s face showed no wavering; all trace of his former unease was gone.

For the glorious victory to come—the future was already guaranteed so clearly.

Perhaps.