Free Web NovelChapter 121: Chapter 39: Inside the Buddha’s Belly
A bloody hand reached out from the mirror in Gao Tian’s arms, pulling him directly into the Mirror World.
Just as he’d expected, inside Longshu Temple, the Mirror Ghost’s abilities were restricted.
First, the bloody hand extended at an incredibly slow pace, as if it were stuck in thick jelly.
Normally, he could enter the mirror within two seconds. But in Longshu Temple, it took around five seconds.
When trying to escape, that delay could be fatal.
Inside the Mirror World, the long, white path that resembled the Milky Way was cut off at both ends.
Trying to move forward led only to an endless, dark void. There were no more mirrors ahead.
In other words, the area he could move freely within the Mirror World was only about the size of a single room.
The only mirrors left standing on the path were the ones he had brought into Longshu Temple himself.
The connection to the mirrors at other locations in the Inner World had been severed.
In summary, the Mirror Ghost was still usable, but its speed and range of movement were severely compressed by Longshu Temple.
His original plan had been to use the Mirror World to temporarily leave this place before the bear’s roar came.
However, the path ahead on the white road was cut off. If he hid in the Mirror World but stayed too close to the mirrors in Longshu Temple, he would still hear the bear’s roar after nine o’clock.
In the outside world, Jiang Yang, under Wang Wenbo’s direction, aimed at several spots on the Great Buddha’s stomach—up, down, left, and right—and pulled the trigger, riddling it with bullet holes.
Afterward, Wang Wenbo brought over two of the thickest, hardest fallen branches from under a Blood Leaf Tree, one for each of them. Aiming at the Great Buddha’s stomach, they began to charge with all their might, like they were using battering rams. They were determined to shatter the outer shell completely and force out the starving ghosts inside.
One hit, two hits. THUD, THUD.
With each of their impacts, the entire frame of the hollow Great Buddha began to tremble slightly. Several dark holes had already been punched through the weak points on its stomach, leaving it riddled with wounds.
Gao Tian emerged from the mirror and saw what they were doing. For some unknown reason, a shiver ran down his spine, and a sense of foreboding began to grow.
He wanted to open his mouth and tell them to stop, but if asked for a reason, he couldn’t have given one. It was just a simple, uncomfortable feeling.
After all, in the previous cycle, Gao Tian hadn’t tried to open up the Great Buddha. He didn’t know the consequences of doing so.
In an instant, the upper shell of the Great Buddha’s abdomen was mostly torn apart, revealing a hollow, pitch-black space inside.
Logically speaking, with over a dozen starving Monk ghosts hidden in the Buddha statue’s stomach, they should have been exposed long ago, since more than half of it was broken.
But from the internal space that was now visible, it was completely empty. Not a single figure could be seen inside.
Jiang Yang’s movements also slowed; he clearly sensed that something was wrong.
The next moment, Wang Wenbo, beside him, put his strength into one last push and completely shattered a large wooden panel on the lower part of the Great Buddha. Instantly, the entire statue’s stomach was hollowed out. Amidst the swirling dust, the space that had once hidden countless starving ghosts—the space where Lan Chu had been eaten from the waist down in the previous cycle—was exposed to everyone.
Sunlight streamed in from outside, illuminating the Great Buddha’s interior. It revealed a complete mural. The mural depicted what looked like the Buddhist Hell of the starving. Countless skeletal Monks were imprinted on the wall, drool dripping from their mouths as they tore at one another. Some had half a thigh gnawed down to the bone but remained oblivious, focused entirely on sinking their teeth into a companion’s arm.
’No wonder...’
In the first cycle, no matter what method Gao Tian and Jiang Yang tried from outside the Great Buddha, they couldn’t detect anyone in the dark cavity.
The starving Monk ghosts that were supposed to be inside had become a mural, integrated as a part of the Great Buddha.
Having lost the protection of the outer shell, the figures in the mural within the Great Buddha visibly began to writhe, looking as if they were about to step down from it.
Jiang Yang grabbed Lan Chu’s arm and signaled to Wang Wenbo and Gao Tian, who was outside the temple hall. The four of them retreated together toward the central plaza behind them.
They had to get as far away as possible from this main hall, and the main hall above it.
Soon, the first starving Monk ghost slowly took form and fell from the stone wall.
Its legs were as thin as matchsticks, unable to support its body. It could only crawl on the ground, wriggling like a maggot. Yet the teeth in its mouth were still strong and sharp.
A second and third starving Monk ghost, illuminated by the sunlight, revealed their true forms one by one, materializing from the painting and landing inside the Buddha’s stomach.
More and more Monks fell from the mural. Although each one was so starved they were nothing but skin and bones, when their numbers reached forty or fifty, the space inside the Great Buddha’s stomach started to feel cramped. A mountain of bones formed by countless bodies, with a mass of arms reaching out from the Buddha, grasping at the empty air.
"Why... Who woke us up?"
"Master isn’t back yet. How can we see the walkway outside?"
"Who was it? Who destroyed the Great Buddha we were hiding in?"
"Master, Master, where are you?"
...
A cacophony of voices erupted, weaving together into a meaningless din.
Although Jiang Yang sensed trouble, he stuck to the plan. He walked to the bottom of the main hall’s steps and tried to communicate with them:
"Your Master, what does he look like? What is his Dharma name?"
"Which direction did he go when he left? Did he say anything before he went?"
"Also, is there a young monk in your temple named Yu Sheng?"
Due to the sheer numbers, some of the starving ghosts were forced to slide out of the Great Buddha’s stomach. Behind them, even more starving Monk ghosts were being expelled.
The starving ghosts chattered away, completely ignoring Jiang Yang’s words.
To be honest, seeing this overwhelming, dark mass of them, Jiang Yang was beginning to feel some regret.
From the outside, it had looked like the Great Buddha’s stomach could hide twenty monks at most. Back then, only seven or eight faces had peered out from the dark cavity. Who knew there would be this many? The number had already surpassed fifty and was still growing.
By breaking open the Great Buddha’s stomach, they had stirred up a hornet’s nest of ghosts.
He watched as the starving ghosts’ limbs became tangled together.
Jiang Yang began to back away, step by step, trying to get away from the main hall and the swarm of ghosts above.
"So hungry... Why am I so hungry?"
"Haven’t we only been waiting here for a day? Why do I feel like I haven’t eaten in a thousand years?"
"I’m starving mad! I don’t care anymore! Forget breaking my vegetarian vows, I could eat a living person raw!"
"Master, why haven’t you come back yet..."
The starving ghosts squeezed and tumbled over one another. Many had already rolled down from the main hall, crashing onto the stone slabs at the bottom of the steps.
With the front of the Great Buddha destroyed, the restriction their Master had left for them—drawing a line on the ground to create a prison—was completely gone. They could now move freely throughout Longshu Temple.
Seeing the first few starving ghosts stumble toward them, Gao Tian, who had sensed trouble early on, was the first to react.
"Go! Run!"
At some point, the double doors at the entrance to Longshu Temple had swung shut and were now blocked from the outside. No matter how much Wang Wenbo pounded and shoved, they wouldn’t budge.
The entire Longshu Temple had become a massive prison.
Looking toward the main hall, the dark mass of starving ghosts charged at them in bizarre postures. It felt as if the entire area was swarming with these ragged, skeletal "people." They were completely screwed now. There was nowhere to hide in Longshu Temple.
Lan Chu grabbed the temple wall and tried to climb it, but even with her skills, she couldn’t find a foothold.
It seemed that in this cycle, because they had broken open the Great Buddha’s stomach, the four-person team was about to be wiped out again.
Gao Tian took out the mirror, preparing to escape into it. But if he were the only one to survive this cycle, with all his teammates dead, he still wouldn’t be able to escape when the bear’s roar came at nine o’clock.
Just then, in a moment of inspiration, a strange idea flashed through his mind. Gao Tian shouted to everyone:
"The trees!"
"Some of the trees have the Demon Suppression Scripture carved on them!"
Gao Tian remembered clearly from his exploration in the first cycle that of the Blood Leaf Trees lining the plaza, some were densely covered with Buddhist scriptures, while others had bark that was completely bare.
At the time, he had assumed a Martial Monk had carved them out of boredom while practicing.
Thinking about it now, these trees carved with the Diamond Sutra might have some special purpose—for example, to suppress the starving ghosts inside the main hall’s Buddha.
Gao Tian knew the connection might be a bit of a stretch. But right now, they were one step away from a total party wipe. Giving it a try couldn’t possibly make the situation any worse.
In this life-or-death moment, Gao Tian summoned a burst of strength from nowhere, grabbed a large tree, and scrambled up it in a flash.
Immediately, countless starving ghosts surrounded the base of the tree. A dense, dark mass of them, each Monk baring its stark white teeth, drooling at Gao Tian above. For some reason, they seemed to fear the tree trunk, which was covered in the Diamond Sutra, and not a single one dared to touch it.
’It’s working!’
The trees carved with Buddhist scriptures could suppress these starving ghosts.
Gao Tian clung tightly to the highest part of the trunk, knowing he had guessed correctly.
Seeing his actions, Jiang Yang and Lan Chu reacted immediately. They quickly picked a nearby tree carved with scriptures and clambered up it clumsily. They had narrowly managed to save their own lives.
In that critical moment, Lan Chu was even audacious enough to loop a dog leash around one of the starving ghosts and drag it up the tree with her, hanging it there to study for fun.
In the blink of an eye, the entire plaza was filled with red-eyed starving ghosts that had crawled out of the Buddha statue. Gao Tian turned his head and saw Wang Wenbo hugging a large tree, his face pale as he said:
"I can’t climb trees!"
Behind him, several starving ghosts were already closing in. They clearly saw him as a delicious meal and were about to swallow him whole.
Fortunately, Gao Tian was only one tree away from him. He immediately pulled out a small mirror and threw it over.
"Catch!"
The mirror traced an arc through the air. Wang Wenbo turned and caught it just in time.
A bloody hand instantly shot out from the mirror’s surface, trying to pull him inside. At the same time, the teeth of several starving ghosts behind him sank into Wang Wenbo’s arms and back, red blood flowing from under the white fangs.
At its normal speed, the Mirror Ghost would have already pulled Wang Wenbo inside. But this was Longshu Temple, where many Supernatural Artifacts were suppressed. The speed at which the bloody hand pulled him was as slow as a slow-motion replay.
