“Heh. This is where you’re wrong, monk. Right now, you and I are bare phoenixes without a single feather. In our current state, even a village chicken is more comely than us, much less my brother.”

Yi Pin chuckled. “More importantly, my brother is unbelievably fortunate even though his cultivation level is so-so. If there exists one person in this world who can help us, then it would be him.”

“Who knows, it might even be my brother who’s behind this commotion. He is one of, if not the biggest trouble magnet I’ve ever met.”

“Pot calling the kettle black?”

The monk’s tone grew a little scornful as he palmed his Buddhist beads. “We wouldn’t be in this situation if it wasn’t for your greed!”

“Where is your conscience, monk? You didn’t say a peep when I made the suggestion!”

Yi Pin immediately retorted, “Besides, who’s the rabbit who ran ahead as soon as I told him that there are treasures in this place?!”

“Indeed. It was you who tempted this poor monk to damnation,” the monk replied leisurely. “Amitabha, this poor monk should have known better than to believe your honeyed lie.”

“The heavens’ blessing right up your fucking ass, you shameless monk!”

Yi Pin burst out swearing, “

I’m

the one who fell for your honeyed lie! If you hadn't urged me to come, I would still be lying in my temple, drinking my wine and enjoying a tune! I would not be trapped in this god forsaken place and be forced to marry a female ghost!”

The monk did not fall for the provocation. “Honeyed lie, I did not tell. Every word this poor monk spoke was the truth. It is not my fault your Dao heart is vulnerable.”

“Who’s the pot calling kettle black now?”

Yi Pin attacked without mercy, “If your Zen heart is perfect, and your faith toward the Buddha is true, then you wouldn’t have dined, wined, whored, and gambled! You wouldn’t have committed every sin under the sun and gotten kicked out of Buddhism, am I right, Uncertain Monk?”

“Amitabha, it is precisely because my Zen heart is flawed that I must dive deeper into the web of red dust, experience all the Poisons there is to offer, and ultimately achieve the state of no lust, no desire, no anger, and no foolishness. Only then can I transcend paramita[1].”

Uncertain Monk said with a straight face, “If I don’t go to hell, who will?”

“Tsk tsk, if I didn’t know you like the back of my hand, I might have fallen for your absolute horseshit.”

Yi Pin let out a deadpan chuckle. “Since you want to go to hell so bad, why don’t

you

marry the female ghost?”

“This poor monk would

love

to deliver that female benefactor out of this sea of bitterness with my flesh and blood, but alas, you are the one she fell for, not me!”

Uncertain Monk mused with regret, “Appearance wise, you are inferior to me. Knowledge wise, you are inferior to me. Cultivation wise, you are still inferior to me, and yet that female benefactor still chose you. What can I do? What can I do?”

Yi Pin barked out a helpless laugh. “Screw you! I deny all of your claims except one: your face is definitely thicker than mine. Not even ten of me can compare to one of you.”

“You know what, you should change your title to Shameless instead. Can’t lose if you have no shame, am I right?”

“Amitabha…”

Uncertain Monk was going to say something when suddenly, he flinched.

The next moment, a strange song came from beyond the cottage.

“I wear my red bridal dress, paint my pink nails red,

Comb my long hair straight, wear my gold buyao[2],

Bid my parents goodbye, and climb into my red bridal carriage.

The carriage shakes left, my heart sways right.

Still I look forward to this day with all my heart.

Come with me into the main hall, bow to heaven and earth by my side.

Once we are together ever after, join me in our bridal chamber,

Sit with me by the red candle light, remove my red bridal veil,

drink my cross-arm wine, and hold my slender hand.

Together, let us be one until our heads turn white.”

As the song played, the white lanterns in the darkness visibly grew in number and floated around the cottage in a circle. A woman wearing a red bridal dress could vaguely be seen amidst the blend of light and darkness. Ȓ𝙖𐌽ỗ𝖇Ěʂ

Even stranger, the candlelight inside the cottage grew increasingly dim as the song continued. It was almost as if it was being eroded by darkness. At the same time, the red groom robe Yi Pin was wearing grew increasingly red, and the word 囍 grew increasingly black and eerie.

Uncertain Monk immediately sat up straight, palmed his Buddhist beads and chanted his Buddhist sutras. Slowly, painfully, the candlelight in the cottage grew bright once more, and a Buddha holding half a dhyana mudra in one hand and a prithvi mudra in the other appeared above the cottage, repelling the evil and suppressing the dark.

A dozen or so breaths later, the dark song coming from beyond the cottage gradually disappeared, and the lanterns turned dark. The world returned to silence once more.

“Phew…”

After peace and tranquility had returned to the cottage, Uncertain Monk let out a murky breath. His face looked a little white, and the bright candlelight shining inside the cottage immediately returned to its normal. The Buddha floating above the cottage too disappeared into nothing.

“The Sarira Cottage is going to hold out for another three days at most. After that, we would have to face the female ghost directly,” Uncertain Monk said worriedly.

They were unlucky. A little over a month ago, he and Yi Pin were searching for opportunities in Kunlun Ruins when they came across a pillar of light. Thinking it was treasure[3], they went to it only to discover that it was a skeleton wearing a bridal dress.

Specifically, the bridal dress was the thing giving off the light.

Yi Pinwas a firm believer that one who did not take advantage of a bargain was a bastard, so he took the bridal dress for himself. That said—maybe it was because he felt guilty—he decided to bury the skeleton and build a grave for it.

Unfortunately, something strange happened that very night.

Yi Pin dreamed of a woman wearing a red bridal dress addressing him as husband and declaring that she would marry him.

Yi Pin, a guy who had been single his whole life, instantly jolted back to reality.

Then, he discovered that he was wearing a red wedding groom robe instead of his usual Taoist robe. No matter what he did, he was unable to remove it.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, both Yi Pin and Uncertain Monk realized that they were caught in some sort of Anomaly. Their surroundings were completely shrouded by darkness.

Neither Yi Pin nor Uncertain Monk were ordinary men. Although their power was nothing like what it was before, their insight and knowledge were still present. Otherwise, they could not have found the legendary Kunlun Ruins and slipped inside. As a result, they were able to escape the Anomaly using a combination of Magia and secret arts.

The problem was that the bride found them the very next night and trapped them inside the Anomaly once more.

Once again, they were able to combine their strength and break free—only to encounter the exact same situation during the third night.

Since then, the bride became their inescapable nightmare. No matter where they ran to, no matter what they did, the bride could always locate them and trap them inside the Anomaly.

Worse, the Anomaly’s power grew stronger and stronger with each passing day.

In the end, they couldn’t even leave the Anomaly anymore.

The good news was that Uncertain Monk owned a Buddhist treasure: the cottage. The cottage’s name was the Sarira cottage, and it was an Ancient-class Strange Artifact created from the sarira of dozens of enlightened senior monks. It was very powerful, and it was the reason Uncertain Monk had betrayed the Lanke Temple and escaped.

That’s right. Uncertain Monk was a member of the Lanke Temple, one of the Two Temples of Buddha.

Their rival, White Horse Temple, put themselves out in the open and actively recruited disciples into their midst. On the other hand, Lanke Temple chose to withdraw themselves from the world and practice Buddhism in seclusion. That was why they had far less disciples and were much more mysterious than their rival.

That said, no one dared to underestimate Lanke Temple despite their paltry numbers and veil of mystery.

1. Meaning perfection in Buddhist. ☜

2. Buyao (simplified Chinese: 步摇; traditional Chinese: 步搖; pinyin: Bùyáo; lit. 'step-shake') is a type of Chinese women's hair ornament. It is a type of Chinese hairpin which was oftentimes decorated with carved designs and jewelries that dangles when the wearer walks, hence the name, which literally means "shake as you go". ☜

3. Lol even Yi Pin fell for the trope. ☜