Chapter 106: Blowing Up the Buddha

The Soul-Suppressing Pagoda was, as I understood it, a stone tower meant to suppress and perform rituals of release for the souls of the dead. Lu Ayao told me that the incantations chiseled into the tower’s surface were actually verses from the Diamond Sutra^[1], which meant the chanting I heard was likely intended for wandering spirits.

“What do you mean? Why can’t any of you hear it when I can?” I protested, thinking to myself, What, does the Bodhisattva think my soul is impure and wants to perform a ritual to cleanse my mind?

But then I reconsidered. That wasn’t right. That guy He Yu spent all day fantasizing, and his tail feathers practically fanned out whenever he saw a pretty woman. His mind was far dirtier than mine. This special treatment ought to go to him instead.

Seeing me lost in thought, He Yu walked over casually and slapped my shoulder. “Hey! Stop overthinking it. Who cares? Maybe the Bodhisattva made a mistake. This isn’t the place to talk. We’d better move along and get out of here first.”

Lu Ayao looked up, and I followed his gaze, suddenly realizing that one of the tower’s stone windows had been completely covered in mycelium at some point. There was several times more of it than what we had seen earlier, leaving the entire window a creepy, pale white mass.

“Pack your things. Let’s go!” Lu Ayao made the call immediately.

He Yu instantly tossed me a Fire-starter and grabbed the stairs leading to the second floor, scrambling up. He moved so fast that Tian Xiaoqi couldn’t keep up, so I had to swap places with her, holding up the Fire-starter to clear the way as second in line.

Climbing these steep stairs was relatively easier going up than down, so we made it up four floors in one breath. But the mycelium trailing behind us was also climbing astonishingly fast, seemingly having adapted to the firelight.

“Gan Ji, don’t just stand there! Hurry up!”

He Yu had already reached the fifth floor. Gripping the stone pillar next to the stairs, he reached out his hand. I quickly took it and stepped across the few remaining, trembling wooden planks of the staircase, successfully pulling myself onto the fifth-floor platform.

After dragging me up, He Yu didn’t pause to rest, preparing to pull up Tian Xiaoqi behind me. But when I looked back, I saw that the mycelium crawling up the stairs had nearly reached the edge of the fourth-floor landing.

Lu Ayao didn’t hesitate. He took two steps down onto the stairs, grabbed a carved opening in the stone pillar with one hand, and kicked hard against the staircase’s support beam. Already severely decayed, half of the wooden stairs collapsed with a loud crash.

He then drew his ring blade and hacked away the remaining parts. With a loud rumble, the lower staircase gave way completely, crashing down along with the mycelium that had crawled up.

Watching him leap back up in midair, my legs went weak for a moment. By then, He Yu had pulled Tian Xiaoqi onto the fifth floor with both hands and shouted down to Lu Ayao on the fourth, “Old Lu, hurry! Let me pull you up!”

Lu Ayao stood on the fourth floor, continuously using his blade to cut back the encroaching mycelium. “The fifth-floor platform is too fragile, and these things will be up here soon. I’ll cover the rear. You guys go first!”

“Got it!”

He Yu replied, withdrew his hand, and prepared to bypass the Buddha statue in the center of the fifth floor to reach the window. Tian Xiaoqi, being the most petite, ducked down and successfully squeezed through the window to climb out.

I followed behind He Yu, reaching out to grab him. “Are we just leaving like this?”

He Yu sighed. “What else? We can’t help him anyway. It’s good enough if we get out of here quickly so we don’t get in his way. Don’t worry, he’s eaten more salt than you’ve drunk water^[2]. Once the three of us cross over, he’ll have room to show what he can do.”

Having spent the past few days around Lu Ayao, He Yu had clearly developed a tacit understanding with him. His words left me opening my mouth to argue, but I eventually gave up. Only after He Yu started squeezing through the window did I run back to the stairwell, grab onto a pillar, and shout down:

“That’s enough! I’ll pull you up! Hurry, come up and let’s go together!”

Lu Ayao heard me. He sliced through the last of the spreading mycelium, ran up the remaining stairs in a few strides, and took my hand for a bit of leverage before landing firmly on the floor with a large leap.

By now, He Yu had completely exited the window. Drenched in sweat from the effort, he was anxiously tapping on the stone outside. “Xiao Yao, Tian Xiaoqi is already pulling the rope! I’m going to help her across first. You two hurry up!”

I ran ahead. The window might have been a perfect fit for a girl, but for us, squeezing through was a struggle. I looked at the window, mentally adjusting my posture, then gripped the top stone with my hands, preparing to shove my lower body through first.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lu Ayao intently studying the massive Buddha statue. As I was struggling to wiggle out, I stopped and asked him, “Is there a problem?”

Just as I asked, he braced his foot against one of the Buddha statue’s arms and quickly climbed up several steps. After taking a look, he jumped back down and hurried over to tell me, “I was wrong. This Buddha statue cannot be left here. Quick, go get three detonators from He Yu for me!”

Hearing that, I was stunned.

Holy crap! He was going to blow up the Buddha!

Although I didn’t know the reason, my movements instinctively accelerated. I scrambled out, nearly hitting my head, and then struggled across the loose stones of the pagoda spire toward He Yu. Luckily, he was a bit slow, having just hooked onto the rope and moved only a couple of steps.

I reached him, panting. “Quick! Give me three detonators!”

He Yu froze, hurriedly reaching into his pockets while hanging in mid-air. “What are you doing? This stuff is dangerous as hell, it’s not a toy!”

“Lu Ayao needs them! Stop the damn nonsense and just give them to me!” I barked at him.

“Where the hell am I supposed to get more detonators?” He Yu fumbled around for a while, finally pulling out three timed mines and tossing them to me. “You two spendthrifts! You really think this stuff is easy to get? You’re wasting every damn one. Take it easy, these three are all I have left!”

I caught them and, without taking time to reply, sprinted back toward the window. Lu Ayao was waiting for me there. I handed him the timed mines, completely out of breath. “Th-this is all that’s left.”

“It’s enough,” Lu Ayao said, turning away to set the mines.

I crouched by the window. “Wait, you…”

“Get moving!” He didn’t even turn his head.

I silently rolled my eyes, stood up, and braced myself against the stones of the pagoda spire as I walked back. He Yu had left a safety rope on the ground for me, along with a carabiner clipped onto the zip line. This “zip line” was actually just a slightly thicker rope fixed to the top of the tower, leading straight to a stone path at the far end.

The area around the stone path was granite, carved with various designs, and free of those black stones.

I hooked myself onto the rope, bent my legs, and kicked off hard against the edge of the stone tower to propel myself forward over a meter, then began pulling myself along the rope with all my might.

Crawling along manually like this was painfully slow and demanded immense physical effort. By the time I was halfway across, my shoulders were burning with fatigue. When I reached the end, He Yu grabbed my collar like he was picking up a chick, helped me strip off the makeshift safety gear, and hauled me up. I was so exhausted I didn’t want to say another word.

After resting for ten minutes, I saw Lu Ayao crawling over along the rope as well. Before He Yu could reach out to help him, a massive boom exploded from the stone tower. I scrambled to sit up and look.

Starting from its upper half, the entire pagoda disintegrated and collapsed. The Buddha’s head inside was no longer recognizable, its solid gold fragments crashing to the ground along with the white mycelium clinging to them.

The rope snapped, and He Yu grabbed Lu Ayao with one hand, pulling him over from the edge of the cliff. He was covered in the stone dust kicked up by the total collapse of the pagoda.

He Yu stared wide-eyed across at the cliff, realizing that it wasn’t just that the pagoda had fallen; both the pagoda and the Buddha statue had been shattered to pieces. Only then did he grasp what the two of us had actually just done, crying out in shock, “What a sin! Whose crazy idea was it to blow up a Buddha?! Good heavens, so that’s what you wanted the explosives for! You two took the explosives I gave you and used them to blow up a Buddha?! Won’t all this retribution fall squarely on my head?!”