Death Scripture

Gu Shenwei stood petrified with shock. He did not believe in the existence of ghosts. However, there was something in the monk’s smile, which made him feel somewhat nervous.

“You finally came. Did the girl come with you? How about you come in and have a chat with me?”

“He’s not Tiger Monk. His voice is deeper, and he also looks older than the dead monk. They may be brothers,” Gu Shenwei thought to himself.

A skeptical person like Gu Shenwei seldom accepted a stranger’s invitation. However, at this moment, he was somehow convinced of the monk’s sincerity. He did not feel threatened by the monk, so he pushed the door open and went in to kneel on a meditation cushion on the ground with his unsheathed saber placed right beside him.

After a moment, Maid Lotus, the murderer of Tiger Monk, came in. She looked even more shocked than Gu Shenwei. It seemed that she was terrified to see this monk who looked strikingly similar to Tiger Monk. However, she still chose to trust the monk and walked into this house to sit on a meditation cushion.

All the three people kept silent and still. During this moment, everything was stationary except the dancing flame on top of the candle.

Suddenly, the monk stopped smiling and dropped his head down, but his lips kept moving. It seemed that he was silently reciting a sad incantation. After a long time, he raised his head up and said smilingly, “Lianxin has already entered the realm of Nirvana.”

Upon hearing his voice, Maid Lotus immediately discovered that this monk was not Tiger Monk. “I’m afraid that Buddha won’t allow a liar to enter Nirvana,” she said coldly.

The monk was not disturbed by what she said and went into a lengthy explanation of the whole thing.

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This monk, whose name was Lianhua, was Lianxin’s brother. He had studied Death Scripture clay slab together with Lianxin for years. During the course of their research, they discovered that this scripture resembled Buddhist mantras a lot. Chanting or hearing someone recite this scripture could vibrate one’s tendons and meridians, which would create a lasting and positive change in the person.

Lianhua and Lianxin were excited by their discovery. They swore to Buddha Sakyamuni that they were going to invent a Buddhist incantation based on this scripture and use it to eliminate people’s killing desire and make every butcher become a Buddha. The people that they wanted most to convert were killers from Golden Roc Fort.

After years of hard work, the brothers successfully created such a Buddhist incantation and named it Breaking Obsession. Shortly after they invented this incantation, Golden Roc Fort came to Four Truths Temple asking for the Exorcism Manuscript. Tiger Monk believed that Buddha Sakyamuni must have heard his prayers and thus gave him this great opportunity to persuade six teenage killers to learn Breaking Obsession. Beyond his expectations, on the second night of the teenagers’ stay in Leftslope Vihara, Maid Lotus went to visit him privately and showed him a page of Death Scripture, which he had never read before.

Tiger Monk was shocked to discover that the slave girl seemed to have a complete copy of Death Scripture. At the same time, he also decided to take this chance to try Breaking Obsession out on her. He made a deal with Maid Lotus. The girl promised to give him a complete copy of Death Scripture in exchange for him teaching her the correct pronunciation of the Chinese characters in the scripture, and he promised the girl not to tell anyone about the complete copy of Death Scripture. After he taught Maid Lotus the correct pronunciation of the characters on the clay slab, which was the beginning part of Death Scripture, he taught her the first chapter of Breaking Obsession, which was called “Changing Misfortune for All Living Creatures Sutra.” He did not tell Maid Lotus that this chapter was not from Death Scripture, and Maid Lotus did not find anything wrong with this part. She accepted it without question and taught Slave Huan all she had learned from Tiger Monk.

Tiger Monk did not think that he was lying to the teenagers since most of the characters in Breaking Obsession were from Death Scripture. He had only put those characters in a different order to create Breaking Obsession.

Tiger Monk kept his promise to Maid Lotus and did not tell anyone else about the complete copy of Death Scripture. However, he could hardly control his excitement and wrote a letter to his brother Monk Lianhua. He told his brother how he had successfully “persuaded” two teenage killers to learn Breaking Obsession in the letter.

When Monk Lianhua came to Leftslope Vihara to collect his brothers’ belongings after his brother’s death, he found several pages of notes left by his brother. After reading the notes, he guessed that the teenagers mentioned by his brother in the letter might have a complete copy of Death Scripture. He was also pretty sure that his brother had deluded the teenagers into learning Breaking Obsession.

Given that, Monk Lianhua insisted that the teenagers should not be held accountable for Lianxin’s death. That was the reason why Four Truths Temple stopped investigating the death of Tiger Monk.

After explaining the whole thing to the teenagers, Monk Lianhua exclaimed, “Lianxin worked hard to create Breaking Obsession, but he failed to break his own obsession. He was so thrilled to get the chance to teach the incantation to you that he never noticed that he himself got too obsessed with it. It was his obsession that led to his death. That’s Karma.”

Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus were speechless. They had never expected that such an eminent monk would have lied to them. Meanwhile, they felt relieved, since they discovered that Monk Lianhua did not know that it was Maid Lotus who murdered Tiger Monk.

Compared to Tiger Monk, Monk Lianhua was such an annoying person. He talked for hours, wanting to persuade the teenagers to give up their killer careers. Nevertheless, most of the things that he talked about were hard for the teenagers to understand. He went on and on even after the candle burnt out. “We’re destined to meet the people we meet. Lianxin has taught you a chapter of Breaking Obsession. That’s Buddha Sakyamuni’s arrangement. I guess that you’ve already noticed the positive change the incantation created in you. I would love to teach you the full text of Breaking Obsession. If you recite it every day, you’ll…”

“No, we won’t become Buddhists,” Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus finally lost their patience and interrupted.

Now, they only cared about one thing. “Tell us how to eliminate the influence of Breaking Obsession.”

“Well, that’s easy. You just need to forget about it.” This time, Monk Lianhua’s answer was very simple and clear.

However, his answer was not helpful for the teenagers. They had taken painstaking efforts to imprint those 5,000 Chinese characters, which did not make much sense to them, in their brains. Those characters would flash across their mind now and then. It was not easy to forget them.

“Is there any other way?”

“No. I mean I don’t know if there’s any other way. You’re the first ones learning Breaking Obsession. To be frank, I’ve never expected it to be so effective, and I’ve never expected you to come back so soon,” Monk Lianhua said while shaking his head slowly.

Gu Shenwei flared up. He picked up his saber and pointed it to the monk while saying, “It’s not as effective as you think. I’m still able to kill you.”

Monk Lianhua did not dodge at all. “You can try,” he said smilingly.

Hearing that, Gu Shenwei was even more furious. He pulled his saber back, ready to impale the monk. “Wait, he must know the correct pronunciation of those Chinese characters in Death Scripture. Ask him to give us the correct version of the scripture,” Maid Lotus stopped him and said.

“Oh, yeah. Maid Lotus is right. This monk said that he and his brother just changed the orders of the Chinese characters in Death Scripture to create Breaking Obsession. That means the monks have already cracked the coding system of Death Scripture. Given that, the fastest way to get rid of Breaking Obsession’s influence is to learn the correct order of those characters,” Gu Shenwei thought while feeling ashamed of himself for forgetting such an important thing.

Lianhua remained calm and peaceful. “I’m delighted to know that you’re also interested in Death Scripture. When you become Buddhists, we can discuss it together. With the help of the notes left by Lianxin, we can quickly decode the rest of the scripture.”

The teenagers did not want to become a monk and a nun, so they tried every means available to force the monk to tell them the real Death Scripture. However, no matter what they did, the monk still insisted that he would only teach them the authentic scripture after they became Buddhists.

Monk Lianhua firmly believed that Breaking Obsession had already subdued the teenagers’ killing desires and made them feel hesitant about murdering a person. Given that, he did not fear their intimidation at all. He just kept telling the teenagers the benefits of being Buddhists, no matter what the teenagers said or did to threaten him.

Gradually, the day began to dawn, but the monk still refused to tell the teenagers the correct version of Death Scripture. Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus felt exhausted and decided to kidnap Monk Lianhua and take him into the city to interrogate him with torture. They took out a rope to tie the monk up and stuffed a rag into his mouth.

Monk Lianhua did not complain during the whole process.

When they were about to leave, a monk, who was more than two meters tall, suddenly crashed into the room through a mud wall while roaring.

“Release Monk Lianhua! Murderers, you killed Tiger Monk and refused to repent. I want revenge!”

Monks in Four Truths Temple always suspected that Tiger Monk’s death was not an accident but a planned murder. Lianhua just did not mention it to the teenagers.

The sudden appearance of the tall monk stunned Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus. It seemed that the monk had been hiding in the next room all this time and had heard the conversations they had with Monk Lianhua. However, these two well-trained killers had not noticed that there was such a big man behind a thin interior wall at all.

They stood agape for a while and then simultaneously raised their sabers to attack the tall monk. Both of them used their best move, which was the sword technique in Death Scripture.

After mastering this swordcraft, they had never been defeated by anyone when they used this skill in real fights.

The tall monk was unarmed, but he reacted with ease. He simply stepped forward to snatch the sabers from the teenagers’ hands and then he easily broke those sabers with his bare hands like breaking twigs. He threw the broken sabers aside and went directly to Monk Lianhua, paying absolutely no attention to the teenagers.

The tall monk ripped the rope apart to release Monk Lianhua and then took the rag out of Lianhua’s mouth. “Amitabha. I’m very sorry. Sometimes, Lianye just can’t control his emotions. I hope you don’t mind. He didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” Lianhua explained.

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After that, Monk Lianhua continued to persuade them to become Buddhists. Monk Lianye paced back and forth beside Lianhua, struggling to control his own emotions. Sometimes, he would chant, “Amitabha.” Sometimes, he would shout, “I want revenge!” He seemed to be crazy.

Seeing that, Gu Shenwei realized that Monk Lianhua had also tamed a “tiger,” which was Monk Lianye. This tall monk’s kung fu was superb. Such a powerful man was even more dangerous than the tiger that Lianxin had tamed.

Gu Shenwei exchanged a look with Maid Lotus. They both realized that they could not get the real Death Scripture or kidnap Monk Lianhua today. Lianhua refused to teach them the actual scripture unless they became Buddhists. Lianye was a kung fu master whom they could not defeat. Under such circumstances, they had only one choice.

They simultaneously turned back and dashed out of the vihara, and then they ran down the hill as fast as they could to find their horses. They galloped rapidly to flee this place. After a long time, they still felt that Lianhua’s naggings and Lianye’s roars were reverberating around their skulls.

In broad daylight, Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus slouched over their horses. They were so listless that they were unable to say anything to comfort each other. They had no idea that their troubles were far from over.