Chapter 106: Blowing up the Buddha

The Soul-Suppressing Pagoda. I understood it as a stone tower meant for suppressing and performing the Transcendence Ritual for the souls of the dead. Lu A’yao told me that the incantations chiseled into the pagoda were actually the text of the Diamond Sutra. Logically, the chanting I heard was likely meant for lonely spirits.

“What do you mean? Why can’t any of you hear it, but I can?” I protested. I wondered if the Bodhisattva thought my soul was impure and wanted to give me a Transcendence Ritual to cleanse my heart.

But then I reconsidered. That wasn’t right. He Yu spent all day thinking about nonsense, and his tail feathers practically fanned out whenever he saw a beautiful woman. His heart was much filthier than mine. This special treatment should have been given to him instead.

Seeing me lost in thought, He Yu walked over and slapped me on the shoulder. “Hey! Stop thinking about it. Who cares? Maybe the Bodhisattva made a mistake. This isn’t the place for a chat. We should move and get out of here first.”

Lu A’yao looked up, and I followed his gaze. I suddenly realized that one of the pagoda’s stone windows had been completely covered by mycelium at some point. There was significantly more of it than what we had seen earlier. Currently, the entire window was a mass of creepy white fuzz.

“Pack your things. Let’s go!” Lu A’yao made the decision immediately.

He Yu instantly tossed me a fire starter and grabbed the stairs leading to the second floor. He climbed so fast that Tian Xiaoqi couldn’t keep up, so I had to swap places with her, leading the way for her with the fire starter.

These steep stairs were relatively easier to climb up than down. We managed to clear four floors in one breath, but the mycelium following us had also become exceptionally fast. These things seemed to have mostly adapted to the firelight.

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

He Yu had already reached the fifth floor. He grabbed a stone pillar near the stairs and reached out his hand. I quickly took it, stepping onto the few remaining, trembling wooden boards of the stairs to successfully reach the fifth-floor platform.

After pulling me up, He Yu didn’t plan on resting. He prepared to pull up Tian Xiaoqi, who was following behind. However, when I looked back, I saw that the mycelium crawling up the stairs had nearly reached the edge of the fourth floor.

Lu A’yao didn’t hesitate. He stepped down two stairs, gripped a hollowed-out section of the stone pillar with one hand, and kicked hard against the support of that section of the staircase. The already severely decayed wooden stairs collapsed halfway with a loud crash.

He then drew his Ring Blade and hacked away the remaining parts. The stairs leading down immediately let out a massive boom, collapsing entirely along with the mycelium that had crawled up.

Watching him leap back up, my legs momentarily felt weak. By then, He Yu had pulled Tian Xiaoqi onto the fifth floor with both hands. He Yu shouted to Lu A’yao, who was still on the fourth floor, “Old Lu, come on! I’ll pull you up!”

Lu A’yao 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. It’s good enough if we get out of here quickly and don’t cause him trouble. Don’t worry, he’s seen more of the world than you’ve seen of your backyard. Once the three of us are across, he’ll have room to work.”

After spending the last few days with Lu A’yao, He Yu had clearly developed a level of understanding with him. His words left me opening my mouth to argue several times, but I eventually gave up. I waited until He Yu started crawling through the window before running back to the stairs, gripping the pillar and shouting down:

“That’s enough! I’ll pull you up! Come on, let’s go together!”

Lu A’yao 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. “Little 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 A’yao 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 ran over to reply. “I was wrong. This Buddha statue cannot remain. Go find He Yu and get three detonators for me!”

I was stunned to hear that.

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 pocket while hanging in mid-air. “What for? These things are dangerous, they aren’t toys for you to play with!”

“Lu A’yao needs them! Stop the nonsense and just give them to me!” I snapped at him.

“I don’t have any detonators left,” He Yu fumbled for a while before pulling out three timed mines and tossing them to me. “You two spendthrifts, do you think these are easy to get? You’re wasting every damn one of them. Be careful, these are the last three treasures I have!”

I caught them and didn’t even have time to reply before sprinting back to the window. Lu A’yao was waiting for me. I handed him the timed mines, completely out of breath. “This… this is all that’s left.”

“It’s enough,” Lu A’yao said, turning to set the explosives.

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

“Go!” he said without looking back.

I silently rolled my eyes, stood up, and used the stones of the pagoda spire for support as I walked back. He Yu had left a safety rope and a carabiner on the zip line for me. This zip line was actually just a slightly thicker rope fixed to the top of the pagoda, leading straight to a stone path at the far end.

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

I hooked myself onto the rope, pushed off hard from the edge of the pagoda with my legs to propel myself forward about a meter, and then began pulling myself along the rope with all my might.

Moving manually like this was incredibly slow and required a massive amount of effort. By the time I was halfway across, my shoulders were aching intensely. When I reached the end, He Yu grabbed my collar like he was picking up a chick, helped me remove 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 A’yao also making his way across the rope. Before He Yu could reach out to help him, a massive boom echoed from the pagoda. I quickly sat up to look.

Starting from the upper half, the entire pagoda was disintegrating and collapsing. The Buddha’s head inside was no longer recognizable. Its solid gold fragments fell away, crashing to the ground along with the white mycelium that had been clinging to it.

The rope snapped, and He Yu grabbed Lu A’yao with one hand, dragging him back from the edge of the cliff. Lu A’yao was covered in the stone dust kicked up by the pagoda’s collapse.

He Yu stared wide-eyed at the other side, realizing that not only had the pagoda fallen, but both the tower and the Buddha statue were shattered. Only then did he understand what we had just done. He cried out in shock, “What a sin! Who came up with the crazy idea to blow up the Buddha? Heavens above, so that’s why you wanted the explosives? You two used my explosives to blow up a Buddha? The retribution for this is going to fall entirely on my head!”