Chapter 9
Chapter 9: Lanruo Temple—Through Spring and Autumn, Reborn Upon the Locust Tree
Lanruo Temple.
Known throughout the surrounding area for the efficacy of its incense and prayers, its grand hall stood towering and majestic, visited by pilgrims without end from morning till night. The sound of chanting and the haze of sandalwood smoke lingered perpetually throughout the grounds.
Before the temple gates, a constant stream of worshippers came and went.
Yet in the very heart of this Buddhist courtyard grew an enormous locust tree.
Such trees were regarded in Daoist tradition as "Ghost Trees That Gather Yin"—and yet here it stood, magnificent and sheltering like a great canopy, held in reverence, with prayer red silks tied by pilgrims covering every branch.
Jiang Linxian did not dare approach during the day. However, at one point he witnessed a Minor Demon being pursued and, in its desperate flight, rush straight into Lanruo Temple. The monks there, in a manner rarely seen, did not make things difficult for the Minor Demon—they even provided a simple dressing for its wounds before letting it go.
This seemed to truly be a temple of great virtue.
Had he not seen it with his own eyes, Jiang Linxian would never have believed how vastly different this Lanruo Temple was from the one he had known in his past life.
Even so.
Jiang Linxian waited until the sun had tilted far to the west, until the pilgrims had grown sparse and the courtyard had fallen into an expansive, quiet calm, before he slowly drew near.
He climbed the courtyard wall and looked toward the locust tree at the center. He could sense a thread of Yin energy within it, but what he felt far more of was Spiritual Energy.
Even a Ghost Tree could change, bathed day and night in the dharma recited by monks.
But gathering Yin was the locust tree's instinct.
The moment the temple monks left, it was only a matter of time before this place lost its dharma's suppression and became a Yin ground.
Serpents were of the water element—they favored the Yin.
This locust tree had stood for at least several hundred years, making it more than fitting as the site for Jiang Linxian's Skin Shedding.
He would not have come here at such risk otherwise.
Under cover of darkness, Jiang Linxian approached the locust tree. He looked up at it—if nothing went wrong, this ought to be the true form that tree demon would one day inhabit?
Drawing upon the accumulated wisdom of his past life, he arrived at this conclusion as a matter of course.
Without hesitation, Jiang Linxian climbed straight up the locust tree, scaling ever higher. He did not simply go to the very top. After observing from multiple angles, he selected a spot amid dense foliage in the middle of the canopy—a position where he could curl up and just fit.
The concealment was best here, and the vantage point was the finest.
With his position chosen, Jiang Linxian could no longer hold back the exhaustion and pain consuming his entire body, and he sank into a deep sleep.
No one noticed that the locust tree swayed without any wind, its branches drawing closer together to wrap around Jiang Linxian and envelop him completely.
Whether from above or below, no one could possibly discover that a white serpent in the midst of Skin Shedding lay coiled in the tree's heights—not unless they climbed it themselves.
Spring passed, autumn came.
Lanruo Temple, in the delicate balance between humans and demons, passed through a stretch of rather peaceful time.
Until one deep autumn afternoon.
Pudu Cihang descended.
He was draped in that resplendent kasaya threaded with golden lines, so brilliant it was nearly blinding. Auspicious clouds bore him aloft, and Buddhist chants rang out wave after wave.
The locust tree stood silent, its leaves making a soft and scattered sound in the wind.
The white serpent kept its eyes closed, its presence merging with the pulse of the locust tree, as though sinking into the very earth.
Pudu Cihang did not discover the white serpent in the locust tree—or perhaps one of Lanruo Temple's high monks had seen through his disguise and was watching him without flaw.
Pudu Cihang came into conflict with the eldest monk in the temple, the Venerable Huiming.
He opened by seizing the initiative, accusing Lanruo Temple of "making no distinction between humans and demons, defiling the purity of a Buddhist sacred ground," and declared he would use "swift and severe measures to cleanse this corruption."
His voice was thunderous, carrying with it a resonance that beguiled the mind.
Venerable Huiming held an old broom, his brows and beard entirely white, yet his eyes were as clear and still as an ancient well.
He was not overwhelmed by the false Buddha's imposing aura—he rebutted him with calm composure.
"Purity lies in the heart, not in appearance. Lanruo Temple shelters all living beings under Heaven and Earth, and guides those souls with a destined connection. What the Master calls 'cleansing,' I fear, is nothing more than burning the zither and boiling the crane—needlessly creating the sin of slaughter."
"Hopelessly stubborn!"
Pudu Cihang's voice shot abruptly higher, and a crack appeared in that solemn disguise.
The Buddhist light blazing around him suddenly intensified. Within the golden radiance, countless enormous, ghostly centipede legs seemed to flash and vanish in an instant.
Venerable Huiming likewise began chanting dharma to repel the false Buddha's golden light head-on.
The Minor Demons and the monks did not intervene—beyond a certain level, numbers counted for nothing.
A cold light shifted within Pudu Cihang's eyes.
He realized the foundation of this Lanruo Temple was far more troublesome than he had anticipated. Forcing an outright confrontation here and now might not yield him any absolute advantage, and could instead expose more of himself.
"Hmph. A place of filth—karma shall have its reckoning."
In the end he withdrew his golden light, restored that compassionate and aloof countenance of a holy image, as though he disdained entangling himself with corruption.
Venerable Huiming watched Pudu Cihang depart and made no move to stop him.
This demon's power was formidable and its mastery of Buddhist teachings profound. Even if he intervened, he could not be certain of taking it down—and if he lost, it could bring catastrophe upon all of Lanruo Temple.
More days passed.
On a morning when the mountain mist was at its thickest, 2 serpents, one white and one blue-green, arrived with graceful ease.
They had come seeking someone.
The white-robed one was coldly reserved; the blue-green-robed one was vivacious—yet the cold and the vivacity were both surface masks, with sorrow mingled within.
Their beautiful eyes swept and glimmered. Their senses poured out like liquid silver, searching carefully across every inch of wall, every roof tile.
The blue-green-robed one even leapt up into the locust tree and sat on a branch just 3 chi from where Jiang Linxian rested, dangling her feet and grumbling aloud.
The white-robed woman stood beneath the tree, gazing up at the dense and sheltering foliage. She had the nagging feeling that this tree was… too still, and too unfathomably deep.
But in the end, she could not see through it.
They exchanged a few low words, carrying some trace of confusion and disappointment, and drifted away like a curl of light smoke.
The locust tree remained wordless as ever.
Only in the depths where no eye could see, its roots drew that sleeping figure in a little more snugly—like a mother holding a young child.
Every leaf shimmered with a faint gleam in the moonlight, each one like a layer of silent enchantment.
And so Jiang Linxian was kept—in the embrace of the tree, in the gaps between passing time—hidden away completely and without a single flaw.
Another year of spring and autumn.
Jiang Linxian finally woke from his slumber. His first act was to assess his own condition.
His body length had grown by more than double, reaching 8 meters.
By Jiang Linxian's former frame of reference, 8 meters meant—a python at its utmost limit reached just over 8 meters; tigers and black bears were no bigger than kittens before him now.
Cultivation: 30 years.
Jiang Linxian had expected to gain at most 10 years' worth—30 years of cultivation far exceeded his every expectation. The white scale patterns across his body had grown ever clearer and more distinct, and every wound on him had healed completely.
This locust tree was truly no ordinary thing.
When Jiang Linxian tested his cultivation, he found that even his pace of progress was faster here than it had been within Lady White's Cave Dwelling.
However, this behavior was essentially the same as plundering the Spiritual Energy of the locust tree.
This was because it was far more difficult for plants and trees to become Sprites than it was for mountain-dwelling wild demons.
The locust tree had been steeped in the dharma day and night and had already gained awareness. Jiang Linxian's smooth progress had relied entirely on the locust tree's gathering of Yin and absorption of Spiritual Energy.
He owed this tree a debt of gratitude.
"Ssss."
Jiang Linxian did not know whether the locust tree could understand him, but he vowed that one day he would return to repay this kindness.
He also had no idea how long he had slept. He noticed that the pilgrims and monks at Lanruo Temple seemed far fewer than before.
But none of that had much bearing on him. It was time to leave.
Jiang Linxian's current cultivation was now sufficient to begin refining the Cross Bone—in other words, he now had the foundation to walk his own path in the Martial World.
Only this was not the Martial World of mortals.
Before leaving.
Jiang Linxian turned back one last time to look at the locust tree. Its branches and leaves swayed without any wind—as though bidding him farewell.
That stirred a thought in his mind.
Could this tree truly be the one who would become that notorious and wicked tree demon in the days to come?