Chapter 2390 - The Guardian of the Hall of Mourning in Yellow Sands City

Treasure Leaf had joined his enemies’ camp in order to avenge a departed friend.

He’d paid an enormous price to do so. He’d endured for countless years, hiding his fangs and claws, all the while waiting for an opportunity.

No one knew how Treasure Leaf had gotten on all these years, nor did anyone understand why this dazzling demon ancestor who’d once intimidated the Endless Ocean would endure so much.

But now that the Dipankara Buddha had revealed all his cards, all of his forbearance had come to naught! All of his long years of waiting had been in vain, and all of his time and effort had gone to waste.

That wasn’t all. In the end, the Dipankara Buddha was using him to do something sure to end in tragedy.

All of this came as an unquestionably heavy blow to the Treasure Leaf Demon Ancestor. How could he accept it all at once?

His expression shifted, and he stood there in silence.

After a while, he let out a long breath. “I should have followed Yan Chizhen’s example back then. Even if I’d died in battle... I could have at least slain a few bastards first.”

The Dipankara Buddha remained seated, eyes closed. He didn’t say a word.

Treasure Leaf stared at him for a moment, but in the end, he said nothing. He just turned and left.

After he’d vanished from view, Gu Huaxian reappeared and asked, “You’re just letting him go?”

"The Paired Heart-Guiding Worms might be unseemly, but oftentimes, unseemly little tricks like them are unbelievably useful for controlling someone,” said the Dipankara Buddha, slowly opening his eyes. “Even if he tries to play tricks to avoid killing Demon Venerate Five Desires, I’ll naturally seize control of his awareness and help him finish the job.”

“This must be one of the three things you agreed to do for me,” said Gu Huaxian. “What are the other two?”

“After the battle of Skybright Mountain, Die E went into hiding. No one knows what he’s planning, so I want to borrow Su Yi’s hands to test him.”

Gu Huaxian’s pupils constricted. “You’re insane! If Di E learns your intentions, there’s no way he’ll let you off lightly!”

“You’re wrong,” said the Dipankara Buddha. “I’m helping him.”

“Then... what do you plan to do?”

“Just wait and see,” said the Dipankara Buddha.

“Then what’s the third thing you had in mind?” asked Gu Huaxian.

“A few years ago, Di E sealed the entrance to the Boundless Battlefield. Li Fuyou’s old friends are still trapped inside,” said the Dipankara Buddha. “If I’m not mistaken, Su Yi is sure to try to save them before the Dark Days of Legend.”

Gu Huaxian laughed coldly. “Ah? You plan to set a trap in the Boundless Battlefield, too? That blasted place is entirely unpredictable, and home to countless strange and taboo perils. We fought Li Fuyou and his allies there for countless years, but our side suffered greater casualties than theirs!”

The Boundless Battlefield! A perilous forbidden zone in the eyes of even Master Gods.

Long, long ago, Li Fuyou had lost his life there.

His enemies, like the Dipankara Buddha and the Angler, had suffered badly there too. Many of their allies had perished inside.

“No, there’s no need for me to arrange anything,” said the Dipankara Buddha. “So long as Su Yi goes there, things won’t end well for him! My task isn’t to set a trap, but rather, to create an opportunity for Su Yi to go to the Boundless Battlefield.

“The worst case scenario is simply Su Yi saving his old friends, but if Su Yi meets with disaster... he’ll be truly doomed!”

Gu Huaxian still seemed confused. “But if he dies in there, what will become of the power of reincarnation? And what of the Epoch Spark?”

The Dipankara Buddha’s lips curved into an inscrutable smile. “Then we’ll just have to leave things up to fate.”

......

Sands swept across the sky, dyeing the firmament a dull yellow.

This was a little city built near a boundless ocean. It was called Yellow Sands City.

Those who lived here were all ordinary mortals, and they lived difficult, impoverished lives.

Anyone the least bit capable had long since grown sick of this remote, dingy backwater and left for greener pastures. Most of those who remained behind were elderly or infirm.

The God Domain was endlessly vast. It had an abundance of towering divine mountains and blessed grounds, but it also had plenty of remote, barren places like Yellow Sands City.

Night was already fast approaching. Amidst the raging sands and fading light, the setting sun resembled an egg yolk.

A thin old man crouched on the run-down stairs of his home, his turbid eyes gazing listlessly into the setting sun.

As the sandstorm blew past, it coated his entire body in sand, and his white hair and scraggly beard and mustache fluttered about in the wind.

He squinted, his thin face covered in wrinkles so deep, it was as if they’d been cut open with a knife. His bony frame was curled up there, like an old dog watching over its master’s house.

“Master, it’s time to place the incense,” said a hoarse, raspy voice.

The doors opened, and a lame, one-armed, one-eyed old servant emerged.

“Peh!” The old man coughed up a mouthful of phlegm mixed with grains of sand.

Only then did he get up and go inside.

His “house” was actually just a run-down little courtyard with only three rooms. Everything was covered in dust. The window lattices were broken, and more than half of the roof tiles had sloughed off.

The old man walked toward the one room in comparably good condition: a hall of mourning. The offering table was covered with memorial tablets, each carved with a name, and each illuminated by its own candle.

There was an incense burner in front of the offering table.

The lame, one-armed, one-eyed old servant had already prepared three sticks of incense, which he gave to the old man.

“Whose anniversary of death is it today?” asked the old man.

“Master, it’s the anniversary of Ling Weng’s death,” the old servant responded solemnly.

“Ling Weng... so, it’s that little guy... back then, he was the youngest of us, and the most stubborn, but also the most talented. Argh... it’s a pity.” The old man murmured prayers, then approached and placed the three sticks of incense into the burner.

Then, he looked up, sweeping his gaze across the memorial tablets before pausing on the one all the way in the corner.

That tablet had no name, nor was there a candle burning in front of it.

It looked entirely unassuming, but the old man seemed to have recalled something. His wrinkled face shifted erratically.

After a while, he sighed. “Give me three more sticks of incense.”

The old servant silently turned and left.

But even after a long time passed, he didn’t return.

The old man seemed to realize something. His brow furrowed, and the depths of his turbid gaze glowed with anger.

“He was just an ordinary mortal with few years left in this world. Why was there any need to kill him?” the old man said hoarsely.

“According to our agreement, anything with any connection to you, no matter who they are, must die.... Mortals... aren’t exempt.”

As this light, airy voice rang out, a man in ink-black robes walked inside. He was scholarly and elegant, the picture of an elegant youth.

But a one-armed, one-eyed corpse with a bad leg lay on the ground beyond the doorway. No matter how hard the winds blew, he didn’t stir.

“To tell the truth, I don’t want to do this either. I certainly don’t want to be in this backwater so remote that not even birds poop here,” the man in ink-black robes sighed. “But there’s nothing for it. I can’t go against the sect’s orders.”

He looked at the bony old man and smiled. “I’ve always been curious. Just who are you, anyway, old man? Why are you willing to remain trapped here? Haven’t... you ever considered just leaving?”

The old man looked at the swaying candlelight before the memorial tablets and said, “You don’t understand.”

The man in ink-black robes smiled, took a step forward, and waved his sleeves.

Whoosh!

All of the tablets clattered to the ground, and the flames went out. Next, he kicked over the incense burner with an audible bang.

Only then did he turn to look at the old man, a playful expression on his first. “Go on, tell me again that I don’t understand.”

The old man’s turbid eyes filled with uncertainty. He stood there in silence for a long time, but in the end, he said nothing at all. He just started gathering the scattered tablets.

The man in inky robes frowned, then shook his head. “You really are an old waste. You have no courage whatsoever. It’s truly boring.”

He turned to leave, but when he left, he saw something unexpected. He wasn’t sure when they’d gotten there, but there was a stranger standing in the courtyard.

He wore a monk’s robes, and his features were beautiful and unearthly. He had a golden lotus imprint at the center of his forehead.

He stood beneath the light of dusk, winds sweeping past him, yet nothing touched him.

“Who are you?” asked the man in ink-black robes. His pupils instantly constricted.

“Why kill someone so weak?” asked the monk, gesturing to the one-eyed old man’s corpse.

The man in inky robes forced a smile. “A half-dead old man, that’s all. He wasn’t a cultivator, so he was no different from a blade of grass or a grain of sand.”

“A blade of grass? A grain of sand?” The monk’s gaze was calm. “If that’s what you think, then I’ll use that same reasoning to justify killing you.”

The man in ink-black robes looked flabbergasted. “I...”

But before he could finish, his body split into pieces, crumbled into ash, then scattered into the wind.

The monk didn’t even look at him. He just walked into the hall of mourning and looked at the old man covered in wrinkles. “A measly little yao immortal dared to kill one of your people. Why didn’t you stop him?”

The old man has been gathering the fallen tablets this entire time. Every time he picked one up, he wiped it off with his sleeves before putting it back in its original position.

It was only after all of them were in place that the old man said hoarsely, “This is my punishment.”

The monk gazed intently at the white-haired, disheveled, wrinkled old man, and... the deathly, heavy aura emanating from him.

After a while, the monk sighed. “If I hadn’t seen you with my own two eyes, I could never have imagined that the famed Demon Venerate Five Desires would wind up in such a wretched state.”

The old man shook his head. “The former Demon Venerate Five Desires died a long time ago. The current me is just a sinner paying for his crimes.”

Only then did he slowly turn around to look at the monk. “I can tell that you’ve done quite well for yourself since converting to Buddhism and joining the Western Paradise Spirit Mountains.”

His voice was tinged with mockery.

The monk looked away and sighed. “Had I truly joined them, the Ol’ Dipankara wouldn’t be forcing me to kill you today.”

The old man’s turbid eyes narrowed.