Wu Gou chanted the Cleansing Heart Mantra, his clear Buddhist voice constantly boring into the malicious thoughts that had shattered into countless pieces on the ground and were still churning.
The malicious Taotie was still struggling.
The countless human faces scattered across the floor wept and cursed, but Wu Gou remained completely unmoved.
The umbilical cord formed of flesh and blood extended from the base of his spine, slowly pulsating and winding through the air.
The surface of the umbilical cord was covered in a network of fine blood vessels, with dark red blood flowing slowly within. Suddenly, the end of the cord split—one into two, two into four, four into eight.
Thousands of flesh-and-blood tentacles, thin as strands of hair, branched out from the umbilical cord. Each tentacle tipped with a drop of crystalline blood that radiated a soft halo under the golden Buddhist light.
The tentacles pierced into the fragments of malicious thoughts on the ground. In an instant, the expressions on every human face changed.
The twisted agony seemed to transform into an indescribable sense of liberation.
The tentacles began to suck and writhe, drawing the resentment, pain, and hatred from the malicious fragments into the umbilical cord bit by bit.
The umbilical cord swelled at a speed visible to the naked eye.
What had been only as thick as an infant’s arm gradually grew stouter. The surface vessels became more pronounced, looking like dark red earthworms wriggling beneath the skin.
The flesh on the umbilical cord began to differentiate.
Flesh buds bulged in various places, growing rapidly into round, ball-like masses of meat.
Each fleshy sphere was the size of a fist, its surface covered in fine wrinkles that seeped dark red liquid, emitting a sickly sweet, fishy scent.
They hung beneath the umbilical cord, swaying gently to the rhythm of Wu Gou’s chanting.
Watching this scene, the face of the malicious Taotie filled with terror. It bore an eerie resemblance to the moment he had been shared and eaten during his life.
“You... what are you doing?!”
Wu Gou extended his right hand, fingers curved like claws, and plunged them into the nearest fleshy sphere.
The sphere was torn open, and dark red liquid gushed from the wound, trickling down Wu Gou’s fingers.
Wu Gou tore a piece of flesh from the sphere.
The flesh was still warm, even throbbing with a pulse, as if it had just been carved from a living creature.
Holding the piece of flesh, Wu Gou walked toward the nearest fragment of malice.
The fragment bore the face of a middle-aged woman who was emaciated beyond recognition, with sunken eyes, high cheekbones, and cracked, bleeding lips.
The woman’s mouth was open, letting out a silent wail.
Wu Gou held the piece of flesh to her lips.
“Eat.”
His voice was very soft, like he was coaxing a starving child.
The woman froze, the agonized expression on her twisted face turning stiff.
She looked at the flesh in Wu Gou’s hand, then looked up at him.
Wu Gou’s face was devoid of skin, a blur of blood and muscle that hid his expression, but his eyes were bright and clear, like two pools of spring water.
The woman seemed to possess little consciousness. After being swallowed and imprisoned for a hundred thousand years, only the instincts of hunger and resentment remained. She opened her mouth and took a bite of the flesh.
In that moment, the agony on her face dissipated slightly.
She began to eat in great gulps, ravenous and fierce, as if trying to make up for a hundred thousand years of starvation.
The malicious Taotie’s pupils shrank violently.
“No... impossible!”
“How can you possibly...”
The malicious Taotie’s voice was trembling.
“You are feeding them?!”
“Why are you feeding them?!”
“They are the ones who ate me! They are the ones who killed me! They are the ones who dug my wife and daughter out of their graves!”
The malicious Taotie’s voice grew increasingly hysterical.
“Why would you save them?!”
“They don’t deserve it!”
Wu Gou tore another piece of flesh from the sphere and handed it to another face.
It was a middle-aged man with a coarse, fleshy face and dried blood staining the corners of his mouth.
The man took a bite of the flesh, and the ferocity on his face faded slightly.
The malicious Taotie went completely mad.
“Stop! Stop it right now!”
“What right do you have to save them?!”
“On what grounds?!”
Wu Gou smiled. “Since ancient times, there have been Buddhas who sacrificed their bodies to feed tigers and cut their flesh to feed eagles.”
“This monk is a Buddha of the Aspect of All Beings, a Saint of the only true god in heaven and earth.”
“Currently, the common people are drowning, the Six Paths are in disorder, and all beings are struggling in a sea of bitterness, unable to find liberation. What harm is there if this monk sacrifices this body of flesh to deliver all beings?”
The malicious Taotie roared and screamed, sounding like a wail from the depths of hell.
“Deliver all beings?”
“Hahahaha!”
“You say you want to deliver all beings?”
“Then what about me?!”
The malicious Taotie’s face twisted even more severely.
“Am I not one of those beings?!”
“I was eaten by them! I was skinned and deboned by those beasts, eaten until nothing was left!”
“You deliver them, but who will deliver me?!”
“You let them eat their fill and find liberation, but what about me?!”
“I have been hungry for a hundred thousand years! I have hated for a hundred thousand years!”
“You’re just a bald ass! What right do you have to tell me to be magnanimous?!”
The malicious Taotie’s voice echoed in the darkness, shaking the entire space.
Wu Gou watched it quietly. Only after it finished shouting did he offer a slight smile.
His bright white teeth were exceptionally striking against his blood-mangled face.
“That is why this monk has also come to deliver you.”
The malicious Taotie froze.
Wu Gou continued, “This monk did not ask you to be as magnanimous as he is.”
“You are allowed to hate.”
“They ate you, and you ate them.”
“It is fair.”
“A cycle of karma has reached its end.”
“But you have remained obsessed with the pain of your life, trapped on that single day for a hundred thousand years.”
“Think about it. If your wife and daughter knew you were trapped here for a hundred thousand years, would they be happy?”
“Moreover, the one you truly should hate is not these poor souls who struggled through the famine just as you did.”
“Think about it. Who was it that caused the world to mutate, causing nations to fail and families to break, leading your family to become displaced and commoners to eat their own kin?”
“And who was it that threw the Six Paths into disorder and caused the Underworld to collapse, while they hid behind the scenes watching powerless mortals slaughter each other, leaving you with no one to guide you after death, forcing you to become a man-eating evil ghost?”
“Who is the real culprit?”
“You and those who ate you are all merely victims of this catastrophe.”
Taotie muttered to himself, “It was... the Heavens—”
Wu Gou extended a blood-drenched hand, gently stroking the bloated, obese face of the malicious Taotie.
“Shh. It is enough that you know.”
“So, if you want to hate them, you can.”
“But you must also know who you truly should hate.”
“And also... stop hating yourself.”
The malicious Taotie’s body jolted violently.
Wu Gou began to chant the Rebirth Mantra.
Golden Sanskrit characters flew from his lips, imprinting themselves one by one onto the malicious Taotie’s face.
The characters were like brands, deeply embedding themselves into the face composed of countless human countenances.
With every character that landed, the malicious Taotie’s body shrank by a fraction.
Those human faces began to peel away from it, drifting up one by one and floating in mid-air.
The sound of the Rebirth Mantra echoed pleasantly. Golden light erupted from within Wu Gou, growing brighter and denser, like a sun rising from the darkness.
The faces gradually became clear and complete in the golden light, transforming from twisted countenances into whole human forms.
They knelt before Wu Gou one after another, palms pressed together in prayer, bowing deeply.
Then their bodies began to turn transparent, dissipating bit by bit starting from their feet, turning into specks of golden light that drifted toward the sky.
With every person that dissipated, a beam of golden light shot up from the ground, piercing the darkness like a sharp sword.
Ten beams, a hundred, a thousand.
Ten thousand beams of golden light rose simultaneously from the darkness, illuminating the entire trial space as bright as day.
The lights intertwined, forming a massive pillar of light that connected heaven and earth.
Within the pillar, countless silhouettes rose slowly. Their faces no longer bore pain or distortion, only peace and serenity.
The malicious Taotie’s body grew smaller and smaller. The monstrous form cobbled together from countless faces constantly collapsed and dissipated in the golden light.
Finally, only one face remained.
It was the face of Zhao Daniu.
That ordinary farmer, that poor man who had been shared and eaten by his neighbors.
His face was covered in tears.
Wu Gou looked at Zhao Daniu and smiled slightly.
“Are you willing to let go?”
Zhao Daniu opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but the words died in his throat.
He closed his eyes, tears sliding from the corners of his lids.
“I miss my wife, I miss my daughter, I miss my mother.”
“I cannot let go.”
Wu Gou nodded.
“Then do not let go.”
“Take them with you.”
Zhao Daniu snapped his eyes open.
Wu Gou extended his hand, palm up. Golden Buddhist light gathered in his palm, gradually condensing into three small light-orbs.
One was slightly larger, two were smaller.
Zhao Daniu looked at the three light-orbs, his body trembling violently.
“This... this is...”
“Their souls,” Wu Gou said. “They have been trapped inside you by your obsession for a hundred thousand years.”
“Now, you can take them with you.”
Zhao Daniu knelt on the ground, his hands shaking as he received the three light-orbs.
He cupped them in his palms like he was holding the most precious things in the world.
Tears fell one by one onto the light-orbs.
The orbs vibrated slightly, then slowly drifted up, circling Zhao Daniu three times before coming to rest on his shoulders.
Zhao Daniu looked up at Wu Gou.
“Master, I...”
“Go,” Wu Gou interrupted him.
Zhao Daniu bowed deeply, knocking his head against the ground three times.
Then his body began to turn transparent, dissipating bit by bit starting from his feet.
The three light-orbs on his shoulders dissipated along with him.
Four beams of golden light shot into the sky simultaneously, intertwining like a family holding hands as they slowly ascended.
The golden light in the entire space reached its peak.
Thousands of souls rose slowly in the golden light, their faces wearing smiles, tears, and the look of liberation.
Wu Gou sat cross-legged in the golden light, palms pressed together, chanting the Rebirth Mantra.
Golden Buddhist light poured from his body, enveloping him entirely.
His blood-mangled body became solemn and sacred under the radiance of the Buddhist light.
...
Outside the mental world, Taotie stood on the gravel plain, his body frozen.
His eyes were still red, but the blood-color in his pupils was rapidly receding.
The voices that had roared in his mind for a hundred thousand years, the nightmares that had kept him from sleeping, and the hunger that had left him eternally unsatisfied—all of it vanished in this moment.
He suddenly felt very light, as if a mountain that had pressed on his shoulders for a hundred thousand years had finally been moved away.
Taotie looked down at his hands.
They were no longer trembling.
He tried to circulate the ghost qi in his body and found that the death qi flowed more smoothly than ever before.
The meridians that had been blocked by obsession and the death qi that had stagnated because of hatred were all cleared.
His cultivation... had actually improved.
Although his cultivation was suppressed at the second symbiosis contract, he could feel that his foundation was much more solid than before.
The malice that had gathered in his sea of consciousness without dispersing seemed to have vanished entirely. He felt free.
Taotie’s eyes grew hot, and tears poured out without warning.
A hundred thousand years of struggling, a hundred thousand years of pain, and a hundred thousand years of loneliness all turned into tears in this moment, pouring out of him.
He knelt on the ground, facing Wu Gou’s direction, and bowed deeply.
“Master...”
Tears and mucus flowed down Taotie’s face, his voice choked with sobs, unable to form a complete sentence.
Wu Gou walked out from the golden light. The Buddhist light had not fully dissipated, forming a faint halo behind him.
He walked up to Taotie, reached out, and gently patted Taotie’s head.
“There is no need to thank this monk.”
“It was you who were willing to let go.”
“If you were unwilling, no matter how much this monk said or did, it would have been useless.”
Taotie looked up at Wu Gou through tear-blurred eyes.
Wu Gou’s face was still a blur of blood and muscle, but to Taotie, that face seemed more compassionate and solemn than any other face in the world.
As the echoes of the Rebirth Mantra lingered, Taotie’s body began to turn transparent.
He was being delivered. A man-eating evil ghost who had committed every atrocity had finally waited until the day a true Buddha took pity on him and guided him to transcendence.
Taotie took one last look at Wu Gou and bowed deeply.
Then his body transformed into specks of cyan light, dissipating across the gravel plain.
Outside the light screen, the great hall was deathly silent.
Xuandu stood on the high platform, looking at the images on the screen, unable to suppress the smile at the corners of his lips.
He had originally thought it would be good enough if this little monk barely managed to pass the trial.
And the result?
Not only did he pass, but he even delivered Taotie from his inner demon.
Such a Buddhist heart, such cultivation, such compassion.
Xuandu smiled and shook his head, whispering, “Not bad, not bad at all.”
His voice was very soft, but his tone was filled with complete satisfaction.
Dongming stood in the corner, arms crossed, expressionless.
He stared at Wu Gou on the screen for a long time. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, but in the end, he said nothing.
Don’t think he couldn’t tell that this little monk had cheated.
With a cultivation at the second symbiosis contract, how could he possibly have Buddhist light of that intensity?
It was clearly that kid Chen Zhou boosting his cultivation from outside the field.
But...
A deity and his subordinate gods were originally one.
Just like how they, the Five Direction Ghost Emperors, belonged to the Great Emperor's Palace and were once a part of the Northern Great Emperor.
If one really wanted to be pedantic about it, it was considered reasonable.
Dongming snorted coldly and looked away.
Though he wouldn't admit it aloud, he actually acknowledged it in his heart.
This little monk really had something.
As for the other six of the Seven Evils...
The Chained Ghost’s eyes were bulging, his mouth hanging open, unable to close it for a long time.
Hong Xiu used her round fan to cover half her face, but her eyes behind the fan were frighteningly bright.
The Tall Thin Ghost and the Withered Ghost exchanged a glance, both seeing the same thing in the other’s eyes.
The Tall Thin Ghost wiped the sweat from his forehead and muttered in a low voice, “Fatty... has met a noble benefactor. What luck.”
As colleagues, they mostly knew about each other’s past experiences. Who among them wasn't a soul with a bitter history?
In the hundred thousand years they had practiced in the ghost mansion, how many were there who could not let go of their past memories and red-dust obsessions?
Rate on N.U.
