It sounded like soone was hanging themselves, the rope creaking under the strain.
If it were anyone else, they’d have dropped their wooden bowls and utensils and run by now. But Yang Xiao and Musa exchanged a glance, and the two headed towards the derelict house from which the sound emanated, one in front of the other.
A door full of cracks was tightly shut. Yang Xiao didn’t recklessly push it open. Instead, he quietly approached and peered inside through a gap in the door.
A stench of decay assaulted his nostrils. The room was very dark, so to see more clearly, Yang Xiao squinted his eyes.
In the next second, upon seeing the scene inside the room, Yang Xiao was startled. He saw seven or eight corpses hanging from the beams in various strange postures, with so of the bodies slightly swaying.
Seeing Yang Xiao suddenly step back, Musa beside him realized sothing was wrong, "What is it?"
"Dead people, lots of them." Yang Xiao’s first instinct was to look behind him; he instinctively suspected this was a trap set by the monks in the monastery to kill them.
But there were no monks behind them, nor were there any ambushes around. As he cald down and thought about it, if the monks wanted to kill them, there was no need to resort to such ans, and he couldn’t think of a reason why the monks would want to kill them.
They were the worldly alms bowl of the high monks in the monastery, another extension of the high monks’ lives. The monks needed them to deal with the Fierce Ghost who ca to claim lives from River Immortal Village.
"Creak—"
"Creak—"
The sound of ropes rubbing continued inside the room, and it was imaginable that the corpses seed to move one by one, like a dance of demons.
A gust of wind blew through, pushing open the door and creating a gap a few fingers wide. As the sunlight poured in, Yang Xiao and Musa finally saw the scene inside clearly.
They weren’t corpses but monk slaves who had tied themselves with ropes and hung from the beams in various postures.
Musa, being knowledgeable, imdiately recognized this as an ancient punishnt derived from Theravada Buddhism. The monks who broke the precepts would bind themselves with coarse hemp ropes soaked in brine and hang themselves, a cruel tornt to both body and spirit.
Seeing soone standing outside, the monk slaves untied themselves one by one. Only then did Yang Xiao notice that these monk slaves were all elderly.
Each was bare-chested, with a worn-out sarong covering their lower bodies. Their thin, emaciated chests were riddled with scars, many of which were abrasions from the ropes.
In the eyes of these old monk slaves, there was not even a hint of fear, but an extre indifference.
No one responded to questions, and only then did Yang Xiao realize these people must have had their tongues cut out.
Seeing Yang Xiao put down the wooden bucket in his hand, an old monk slave with a la right leg stepped forward, picked up the bucket, and then walked in another direction.
There was another dilapidated house, with a large area of wet patches in front, likely where they went to clean.
Watching the old monk slave leave, Yang Xiao’s gaze paused when he inadvertently noticed a brand on the left shoulder of the old monk slave’s back.
This brand mark was very similar to the wounds on the monk slave’s back from the night before, but positioned more to the side. Seeing this, Yang Xiao imdiately chased after him, and by the ti he reached the dilapidated house, he clearly saw a triangle near the edge of the brand mark, a remnant of a tattoo.
Yang Xiao instantly realized the brand wasn’t random; it was ant to cover up, or rather, to destroy the original tattoo mark.
Based on the scripture recited in the Buddhist Hall, Yang Xiao confird that these old monk slaves were once "sinners," and the tattoo mark was the so-called "Unclean Mark."
Back with his teammates, Yang Xiao recounted what he had seen. Everyone was curious about what kind of offenses these nurous monk slaves within the monastery could have possibly committed to warrant such treatnt.
Shortly after, Monk A Zan with a precept blade ca with others, saying that Pato Abbot invited them for the morning prayer lesson.
The morning lesson was to be held in the Outer Buddha Hall, but upon arrival, they couldn’t find Pato Abbot. According to Monk A Zan, Pato Abbot was busy performing rites for their deceased friend, Ahd, who had been tragically killed the previous night.
As arranged, Yang Xiao and his group were divided into four groups, each with three people, except Yang Xiao’s group, which only had two: him and Aisha.
They held the scriptures, sitting cross-legged in front of a "Divine Statue," with each group assigned to face a "Divine Statue," following which they were to chant sutras and pray.
Four "Divine Statues," four groups of prayer chant teams — looking at the bizarre "Divine Statue" in front of him, Yang Xiao couldn’t shake the feeling of unease.
To him, these so-called "Divine Statues" looked more like imprisoned demons.
The content of the scripture was also different from before. After reading a passage, Yang Xiao was surprised to find the content of this scripture in his hands was actually related to the "Divine Statue" in front of him.
With this discovery, he looked more carefully and soon beca greatly shocked. The scripture ntioned that the "Divine Statue" before him was indeed once an evil demon nad Lan Jia Mo Cuo, with mighty power capable of summoning wind and rain, and a character extrely violent and cruel, making it a common practice to feast on human flesh and blood and slaughter living beings.
To deceive worshippers, this wicked demon even disguised itself as a legitimate immortal, tricking and deceiving ignorant people into building temples for it and offering incense daily.
In the end, it was Buddha who subdued this wicked demon. Later, the demon, influenced by the supre Buddhist Law, reford and pleaded before Buddha for salvation.
Seeing its innate ability for enlightennt, Buddha guided it and accepted it as a protector beneath his seat.
Of course, this is only a brief description. The scripture used a lot of exaggerated rhetoric to describe the ferocity of the demon nad Lan Jia Mo Cuo and the awe-inspiring scenes of battle when Buddha subdued the demon, such as rivers flowing in reverse, sun and moon reversing, rivers of blood, and so on.
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