Nightfall

After saying that, Sangsang had her flow of Qi suddenly changed. She was then sharing the same umbrella with Ning Que, and stood there under the pear tree on the cliff plateau. Yet in the eyes of Ning Que, she instantly looked countless-times taller compared to a minute ago, as if she was about to touch the firmament at a commanding position over the White Tower in the air.

Facing the extremely powerful means of Buddha, she corresponded with boundlessness in the Buddhist perspective. Ning Que witnessed the so-called boundlessness of others, the Dean of the Zhishou Abbey and the flagon alike. Only her boundlessness was truly immeasurable.

Once they found her changing, the monks of Xuankong Temple didn’t halt the bell tones and the sutra-chanting. Instead, they increasingly resounded, following the changes of her flow of Qi.

Each character of the scriptures, chanted by these monks in temples, was as heavy as a temple. Out of the coercion, loose stones gradually flew from the two mounts of the west and east. Tens of thousands of monks were unstably shaken. They continued to chant, even with fresh blood gurgling out of their mouths.

Ning Que was quite worried after he found a slight paleness climbing up on Sangsang’s cheeks. She knew what he was thinking and peacefully said, “This is my world. No one can trap me.”

Nevertheless, this is Buddha land, a prodigious world.

As the bell rang in Xuankong Temple, the bell also rang in the seventy-two temples in Chaoyang City in the autumn rain: the bell rang in Lanke Temple on Wa Mountain rang at the extremely remote sea shore, the bell rang in Chang’an, in Myriad Goose Temple where no honking was heard, in the Red Lotus Temple, which was burned and ruined long ago. Only a distorted bell sounded and whimpered like a sobbing ghost when the autumn wind blew.

An extremely shabby Buddhist nunnery was located outside the capital city of Yan Kingdom, which had been ruined for years. Since last year, dozens of widows who were unable to bear any children were evicted from farms and houses. The widows gathered in the beat-up nunnery, and shaved off their black hair. They were ready to spend the rest of their long lives in despair with the ruined Buddha in flickering lights, or the chance of meeting a sudden and tragic death after falling into the hands of robbers at night.

They heard a sudden bell tone from afar.

Tortured by their cold and restless lives, the widows had already felt hopeless. However, the bell tone seemed to have injected some sort of strength into their bodies. They stood up, ran toward the ruined bell at the back of the nunnery, and clenched their fists to continuously hit the bell. Their fists were bleeding, as though they were leashing out their rancor and despair that had accumulated over the years in order to seek comfort.

The bell rang very hoarsely and uncomfortably, as it was howling.

In Chaoyang City, countless monks kneeled down before the statue of Buddha, and chanted the sutra. Numerous believers also kneeled down and prayed to Buddha, just like the time at White Tower before it disappeared.

At the Myriad Goose Temple of Chang’an, monks stunningly listened to the bell tone ringing behind the court, as if these stone statues of the Venerable were about to resurrect. At the Lanke Temple on Wa Mountain, the Buddhist Abbot Monk Guan Hai silently kneeled by the stone statue of Buddha at the peak, while wearing a solemn appearance.

In both cities and countrysides, everyone who were once helped by sadhus, piously kneeled down and prayed under the ubiquitous bell tone towards Buddha that no one knew where to find.

Bell tones, sutra chanting and praying rang at every corner in the human world, making it Buddha’s land. As long as sharing the belief of Buddhism, people would enter into the macrocosm he had left — the Western Paradise.

Sangsang looked increasingly paler because she had underestimated the coercion and power of Buddha. She didn’t fluster, though. A clear clue dawned on her that Buddha was definitely alive, as long as he had made all these arrangements.

That was to say the key was to find Buddha and kill him for good, so that the paradise he had set up in the human world would be destroyed accordingly, and all this would become a bursted bubble.

She had already detected Buddha’s whereabouts.

Ning Que was very worried when he saw her expressions.

Sangsang turned around to look at him all of a sudden and said, “Eat the green pear that is in your sleeves.”

Ning Que was confused. He did have a green pear in his sleeve, which was the first fruit from the pear tree alongside the cliff before. He was puzzled why she would want him to eat it at this crutch of time.

He solved the mystery in no time because he remembered that he once ate a green pear which allowed them to enter the chessboard of Buddha. It was the the year when they were below the statue of Buddha on Wa Mountain and in Master Qishan’s cave cottage.

Was entering the chessboard the way out of the Western Chessboard?

Ning Que had faith in Sangsang. It was not because of their relationship, but because she was Haotian, the lord who could precisely calculate everything on earth. But at that moment, he couldn’t refrain from some doubts due to what had happened last time after he ate a green pear. Back then, only their consciousness or so-called souls entered the chessboard, while their bodies were blocked outside. Even if Sangsang were able to drag their bodies into the chessboard by utilizing her great divine ability, what sort of danger would they face in it?

While looking at the chessboard and the lines on it, a very dreadful suspicion came into being: what if Buddha was actually hidden in it?

“Definitely, Buddha is in the chessboard.”

The scripture petals were drifting down from the air. Buddha’s light, putting forth from the cliff plateau, covered Sangsang and Ning Que. The White Tower was slowly falling down. While watching all of these, Sangsang put the big black umbrella away, and said, “After I came to the mountain, both Xuankong Temple and Buddha fell into silence. I am Haotian, so who dare harm me?”

Ning Que didn’t understand her and asked, “Why would they harm you?”

Sangsang replied while looking at him, “Because the green pears on the tree matured and you picked them up. Now you have one.”

Ning Que watched the little green pear in his right hand and the chessboard in his left hand. Then he seemed to have some clue. That year when the powerful figures gathered at Lanke Temple, the Second Brother destroyed the dherma-vessels and the statue of Buddha. Only the chessboard was left.

“Since the green pears have ripened, we can enter the chessboard to see the real body of Buddha. That’s why these monks started to fear, and so did Buddha. And that’s why they would rather fight with whatever they have to stop us.”

“That year when we went into the chessboard at Lanke Temple, why didn’t we see Buddha?”

“That year, I hadn’t woken up yet, so we couldn’t see him. In the other way around, it was meaningless for him as well to see me back then.”

“What does that mean? That Buddha is also waiting to see you since you’ve become Haotian?”

“Right.”

While staring at the chessboard in his hands, Sangsang was wondering why she was not able find any traces of Buddha in the human world, and why Tian Xin’s attention had always returned to Ning Que when they looked for it in Xuankong Temple. It was not because I couldn’t leave this man, but because I had already detected Buddha was hidden in the chessboard. That’s terrific.

Ning Que felt that the chessboard in his hand was much heavier than it was a minute ago. Anyone would have had the same feeling after finding out that they were carrying the world after Buddha’s nirvana, which was also Buddha’s coffin.

“Knowing that Buddha is in it, why are we still planning to go in?” He was restless.

Sangsang said, “I came here to kill Buddha. Of course I should follow the trace.”

Ning Que was about to say something, before something entered his mouth. The fragrant, sweet, and delicious pear juice flowed into his stomach. He ate the green pear just like that.

What’s done was done. He ate the pear. Things that had already happened cannot be changed. He accepted the cruel reality very shortly, and then walked to the green tree on the side of the cliff.

“What are you up to?” Sangsang asked.

Ning Que was trying to reach a pear and said, “You haven’t eaten one.”

Sangsang said, “I do not have to. I have entered the chessboard once, so it is my world too.”

After saying that, an extra chess piece was found between her fingers.

Years ago, she and Master Qi Shan played the last round of the three Wa Mountain games in Lanke Mountain. The master asked her to choose a side, and she chose the black without any hesitation, which made the Master sigh.

Two years ago, the chess piece in her hand became white in the Wilderness. The Headmaster of the Academy in the carriage observed that, and the universe changed its color later on. The Headmaster knew all the causes and effects. Then he took her and Ning Que to start the long trip in the human world, in order to make arrangements ahead of Haotian’s advent to the human world.

That chess piece had always been in Sangsang’s hand. At this point, it was hard to tell what color it should be, as it was continuously changing from black to white and then white to black. It was like the god’s will, impossible to be predicted.

Ning Que looked at the chess piece in her hand and recalled a lot of memories. He held the chessboard in silence.

She put the chess piece on the chessboard.

No sound or wind.

Ning Que and Sangsang had disappeared from the cliff plateau.

The chessboard stayed in the air for a while, and then fell on the cliff plateau. Drops of of rainfall splashed.

Rainfall flowed out from the side of the cliff formed several giant waterfalls, rolling down with thundering torrents.

Free from the blockage of the lord’s prowess, the White Tower far from Chaoyang City cracked the sky and fell, and then heavily hit the chessboard. With another blare, it was recoiled towards the old temple behind the cliff.

The old temple was shattered into ruins. The road to the cave on the cliff was blocked by the White Tower.

The chessboard was sprung several times on the cliff plateau, and then became static, stirring up a very soft breeze.

A breeze passed by and the green tree by the side of the cliff wobbled for a while. Numerous green pears falling down.

Before the White Tower bursted out of the clouds, a large volume of water came from Chaoyang City, as if a rainstorm had flushed the cliff plateau. Nevertheless, the green pears couldn’t be knocked out then. Now, the green pears were falling down like rainfalls in the wake of the refreshing breeze.

Tap, tap, tap, tap. Accompanied by the rainfall-like noises, green pears dropped to the cliff plateau, macerated by the rainwater. In a blink of an eye, all of them were vibrated into juice, only with hundreds of pear cores left.

These pear cores were swirled by the breeze, and fell down alongside the huge waterfalls to the abyss down the mount, with no trace at all.

The pear tree was planted by Buddha years ago. It blossomed every five-hundred years, and ripened five days later. Once they touch the ground, they become oakum and fade away without any traces.

Over countless years, only three green pears were left in Xuankong Temple.

When he left Xuankong Temple, Master Qi Shan took all the three pears with him to the human world. It was because he was the bastard of the first-generation Scripture Chief Monk that no punishment was implemented.

The first green pear was used by Master Qi Shan to treat tens of thousands of victims of epidemics after natural disasters. Because of this, his meditative mind was compromised from being absolutely null to disabled.

The second green pear was used by Master Qi Shan to convert Prince Lian Sheng, who realized the truth through isolation and meditation by the pear tree on the side of the cliff. It can be said that it was his fate or predestined to be a Buddhist.

The third green pear was shared and eaten by Sangsang and Ning Que, which revealed Sangsang’s true identity to the master. After that, the human world fell into a fugitive journey to get away from a bloodbath of disaster.

Five-hundred years later, the pear flowers on the green tree were in blossom and bore hundreds of green fruits in Xuankong Temple. Only one fruit survived and was eaten by Ning Que. This time it was a relatively simple thing to decide.

This green pear tree would decide one’s life or death — the life and death of Haotian and Buddha.

…