Secret Buyer

The wasteland.

"An entire city... just vanished like this?"

Lin Shiyu still found it hard to believe. She had long been fascinated by the boundless vastness of the world of cultivation,

and along the way, having followed the old monk, she had seen a lot of the evils of the human world; at most, it was some sinister cultivators who killed a couple of people and practiced a few evil techniques.

But witnessing upright and righteous Buddhist and Taoist elders slaughtered millions in an instant...

Her worldview shattered.

"Doesn’t the Other Shore World care?" Lin Shiyu asked in bewilderment, gazing toward that distant resplendent Great Realm,

despite being tens of thousands of miles away, the dazzling Buddha’s Light was still visible.

Zhang Taishan, carrying his son, sighed softly, "The Other Shore World never involves itself in worldly affairs, and do you know why there are travelers from the Other Shore undergoing tribulations in the mortal world?"

After a pause, the middle-aged man continued in a deep voice:

"The fundamental reason is to temper the mind of their disciples— but if the mind needs tempering, it means it’s fundamentally incomplete."

"Once such a person gains great power, wouldn’t they do as they please?"

Shi Tianming and the little monk glanced at Zhang Taishan; the former smiled wryly, "It seems Donor Zhang is not simple, he seems to know quite a bit about the Other Shore World?"

Zhang Taishan was silent for a moment before responding vaguely:

"Thirty-three years ago, a former traveler from the Other Shore World disappeared and never returned to the mountain."

The three turned to listen.

Zhang Taishan didn’t intend to hide anything, "The reason was that thirty-three years ago, that traveler from the Other Shore went on a rampage, eventually angering a certain reclusive giant."

As he spoke, they had already found a dilapidated and collapsed Taoist temple amidst the rolling yellow sand of the wasteland.

The temple was in ruins, but beside it, there was a lotus pond, slightly lower than the surrounding ground,

those elevated rocks and soil served as a natural barrier, blocking the ever-present rolling yellow sand of the wasteland, making the lotus pond as clean and smooth as jade.

"It’s quite a marvelous sight," praised the little monk.

The group stopped, gazing at the picturesque scene of rolling sand and a crystal-clear lotus pond, while Zhang Taishan slowly continued his story:

"The reclusive giant struck, and that generation’s traveler from the Other Shore was no match, being stripped of all cultivation within three breaths, rendered a cripple."

Shi Tianming and the little monk exchanged glances, both being pursued and working together for now, temporarily putting aside their differences.

"This seems to be a secret. How did Donor Zhang know about it?" the old monk asked.

Zhang Taishan remained frank:

"The last misdeed that traveler from the Other Shore committed was murdering my wife, exterminating my homeland entirely."

"I personally witnessed the senior great wielding their power, while that crippled traveler from the Other Shore..."

His voice paused, "I brought back home, let the old senior’s secret technique implant a forbidden soul nail in her brow, plucked out her tongue, severed her hand tendons, and bore her two daughters and a son for me."

The light words echoed out, causing all three present to stare wide-eyed.

What???

For a moment, everyone fell into silence, digesting this outrageous information, looking at Zhang Taishan with peculiar eyes.

Zhang Taishan maintained a calm demeanor:

"I had no choice. Starting from my ancestors, none had any cultivation aptitude, and I’m the same. I borrowed the seed of the Other Shore traveler, borrowed the exceptional bloodline, only then did I have my son."

The old monk’s mouth twitched, "No wonder Young Donor Zhang has the innate Buddha seed potential, born with the sign of purple aura from the east..."

Zhang Taishan spread his hands.

"And what about Young Donor Zhang’s mother?"

"To prevent calamity, after she gave birth to Fusheng, I chopped her up and fed her to ninety-nine black dogs."

"The Ancient Technique says, doing so will ensure she never reincarnates."

Everyone fell silent once more, sighing as they walked into the collapsed Taoist temple.

"This place isn’t bad, there are remnants of Taoist charm." The old monk surveyed, while the temple was full of dust,

peculiarly, there were tattered scripture banners on either side, and two statues enshrined above, one being a Celestial Venerate statue, and the other a Buddha statue.

It appeared that this place was initially a Buddhist Temple, later converted into a Taoist Temple, and eventually abandoned.

Shi Tianming heaved a sigh:

"No, there’s a rich Buddha charm... In that case, borrowing this place to form an array may help conceal our celestial secret and delay for a moment or two."

"Delay?"

The little monk scoffed, "No matter how much you delay, that guy will eventually find us. If you ask me, it’s better if we each run our own way, let’s see who gets unlucky first!"

Shi Tianming sneered:

"If we each go our own way, we’ll only die faster. Joining forces, we may not be able to resist that traveler from the Other Shore, but at least we won’t be instantly killed..."

As he said this,

he opened his mouth and exhaled, unleashing a surging flow of glass-like energy to sweep away the dust inside the abandoned temple,

but a strange thing happened.

Despite being able to extinguish a mountain peak or revive a hundred acres of barren land, the glass-like energy circled within the temple but couldn’t remove the dust from the floor, red pillars, scripture banners, and divine statues!

As if every speck of dust was heavier than a mountain!

"Hmm?"

Everyone was equally startled, realizing that this abandoned temple was more extraordinary than they had imagined.

"Strange." Shi Tianming squinted, signaling Lin Shiyu to stick close to him, while Zhang Taishan cautiously placed the unconscious Zhang Fusheng to lean against a red pillar.

"Look at the Buddha statue and the Celestial Venerate statue."

The little monk had somehow snuck behind the enshrined incense burner, looking up at the two statues:

"The faces look identical... But what Buddha is this? I’ve never seen it before."

The others also examined the statue; the Buddha statue was solemn, with a bodhi tree of mixed bronze and gold sculpted in the backdrop,