Chapter 1547: Strange Arms

“Leave finding the true body of the Night Bodhisattva to me.” Ye Qing looked at Feng Qingyou and said, “Go find Miss Meng and see if you can figure out the connection between the Night Bodhisattva and her worshipers.”

“Got it.” Feng Qingyou nodded. The duo stopped conversing after that and observed the Night Bodhisattva in the sky closely.

About two hours later, the Buddhist chant in the air suddenly disappeared, and the world returned to silence once more.

However, the people didn’t wake up immediately. They were still wearing intoxicated expressions on their faces.

Thump!

It was at this moment a gong strike rang.

The gong strike was crisp and melodious, ethereal and fantastical. It slowly spread out like waves.

At the same time, the people rose to their feet, dropped to their knees, and raised their arms high into the air. Their hands cupped together in the shape of a lotus, they began kowtowing to the Night Bodhisattva while chanting:

“Praise the infinite rebirths of the Night Bodhisattva...”

“Praise the infinite rebirths of the Night Bodhisattva...”

“Praise the infinite rebirths of the Night Bodhisattva...”

Every time they kowtowed, their arms would twist, and their heads would touch the ground. They maintained the lotus mudra though.

Every time they kowtowed, they would chant the Night Bodhisattva’s title with a zealous expression.

“Whooooooo!!!” The crowd whooped, and wisps of weak, nearly invisible light rose out of their heads. They looked like smoke.

Individually, the light was so weak that it was almost invisible. However, this land alone had between thirty to fifty thousand people. As a result, the swarm of light lit up the entire night sky.

Whoosh!

It was at this moment the Night Bodhisattva looked down and seemingly exhaled.

The gust of wind she created transformed into a black lotus flower.

The lotus throne boasted nine levels and nine petals. It was a subtle reflection of the idiom, “Nine divided by nine is equal to one,” and symbolized a cycle of completion and renewal. It was profound and mysterious.

As the black lotus rotated slightly, the swarm of weak light rose with the wind and soared into the black lotus, causing it to burst into bright, dazzling fire.

When the lights had all been gathered, the black lotus finally returned to the Night Bodhisattva.

When the black lotus reached the Night Bodhisattva, her chest swung open on both sides like a double door.

Then, a pair of arms—black like charcoal, thin like branches, and withered like a corpse—reached out of the chest and grabbed the flame in a hurry.

“Argh!” However, the hands flinched, and a cry broke out from somewhere when they made contact with the fire.

A few seconds later, the arms slowly reached out from the chest once more. They flinched again right before they would make contact with the fire. It was clear they both wanted and feared the flame.

A few breaths later, the withered hands finally grabbed the bottom of the black lotus and pulled it into the Night Bodhisattva’s chest.

As soon as the fire entered the Night Bodhisattva’s chest, it illuminated her insides as clear as day.

From Ye Qing’s perspective, there was no flesh, internal organs, or blood inside the Night Bodhisattva’s chest. There was only deep, infinite darkness.

The pair of arms were just arms either. They did not have a body. They were arms that ended at the shoulders.

Bones could be seen where the arms had ended. It looked as if someone had ripped out the arms from their sockets.

Bit by bit, the arms dragged the black lotus into the darkness. It slowly became further and difficult to see.

“Are those the Night Bodhisattva’s arms?” Ye Qing furrowed his brow slightly. Unlike the mental avatar of the Night Bodhisattva, those arms were very real and tangible.

Decrepit they might be, they were overflowing with power.

Unless he was sorely mistaken, the pair of arms should belong to the Night Bodhisattva’s true body.

However, the arms were currently departing in an indescribable fashion.

It was as if the Night Bodhisattva’s chest was a door and passage to an unknown, mysterious world, and the arms were passing through it.

In just a few breaths, the arms had become almost unreachable.

Of course, Ye Qing was still in time to stop the arms from leaving.

However, the arms were literally just a pair of arms. The Night Bodhisattva’s true body was nowhere to be found. Therefore, it didn’t seem worth it to do so.

Ye Qing was tapping the table and causing invisible ripples in the air, but he ultimately did not take action.

When the pair of arms and the black lotus disappeared completely into the darkness, The Night Bodhisattva’s chest slowly swung shut, and the mental avatar dissipated like clouds. Soon, not a trace of her was left.

After the Night Bodhisattva disappeared, the people on the floor slowly woke up and rose to their feet in a daze.

At first, their eyes were lightless, and their faces were blank. A dozen or so breaths later, a bit of light finally returned to their eyes and dispelled the empty, disturbing darkness. Their blank faces slowly regained their liveliness as well.

No one seemed to recall the fact that they had prayed to the sky when they were kowtowing just now. They simply focused on discussing the experience or bidding the others good night.

For a time, the town came alive with noise and activity once more.

On the surface, it looked like everyone was as kind, healthy, and down-to-earth as ever. It looked like nothing had changed.

However, Ye Qing’s demonic thought told him that their sapience was weaker than before. More accurately, it was injured.

To be sapient was to be conscious, wise, and capable of judgment. Those without sapience were dumb, foolish, and no different from animals.

To put it simply, sapience was the capacity for wisdom, reason, and self-awareness. Those without sapience might be able to feel, but they could not think, reason, or even know their own existence.

Therefore, the people looked fine on the surface, but they were really stiffer and dumber than before because of their injured sapience.

Of course, this bit of damage was nothing to a normal person. For now, they could even converse and live as normal. But if this state of things continued, then it was only a matter of time before they lost their sapience completely and turned into retarded vegetables.

“I’m leaving now.” Seeing that the time was right, Ye Qing rose to his feet and declared.

“Mm. Be ever careful,” Feng Qingyou warned.

“Got it. You too.” Ye Qing nodded and took one step forward. He disappeared.

......

“Hmm? Where did her aura go?” Ye Qing abruptly stopped in his tracks before a forest, frowning.

He had attached a wisp of demonic thought to the pair of arms earlier. That was how he was able to track it to this place.

However, he had suddenly lost track of that demonic thought.

He could neither sense the arms nor the Night Bodhisattva within a radius of fifty kilometers either.

“There!”

It was at this moment he found a weird place.

He crossed dozens of kilometers and appeared before a hill in an instant.

There was a large rock in front of the hill. The name, “Four Hundred Kilometers Bodhisattva Mountain Range” was engraved on it.