The Phoenix only rests on the Wutong tree, eats only bamboo seeds, and drinks only from sweet springs. Zhou Hui realized after arriving in Glazed Heaven that this wasn’t absolutely true. These habits only applied when the Phoenix was in its true form. If it transformed into its human form, it only needed to remain clean and avoid anything foul-smelling. However, cleanliness and avoiding foul smells were impossible in the Hell Blood Sea, so the Phoenix didn’t drink a drop when they were on Buzhou Mountain. Fortunately, its dietary needs were almost non-existent, so there had never been any problems.
Outside the Glazed Heaven Palace was a vast, desolate void. The wind swept across the plains, carrying an aura of barrenness towards the horizon. From atop a mound, one could see the horizon, where the meeting of heaven and earth glowed with an endless, glassy blue light. During sunset and moonrise, the aurora encircled it, creating a spectacular and magnificent sight.
There were many magnificent landscapes in the Thirty-Three Heavens, but they were all hidden in desolate, uninhabited places outside each heavenly palace.
Zhou Hui had also seen the scenes of Sumeru Mountain through a water mirror. What impressed him most were the mountain-like colossal buildings, stretching endlessly, adorned with gold, jade, and ivory. Even the fountains spewed out broken jade, showing the utmost solemnity and grandeur.
He had once wondered if the Phoenix would be more accustomed to such luxurious temple environments, but the Phoenix seemed perfectly content in the small hut he built in the wilderness.
The house Zhou Hui built was similar to the small wooden courtyard on Buzhou Mountain, surrounded by stone walls. The Phoenix planted a circle of fiery red Asura flowers beneath the stone walls; these were seeds he had brought from Hell.
On Buzhou Mountain, Zhou Hui hadn’t felt that the Phoenix liked those flowers at all, until the hut was built. Seeing the Phoenix silently pull out a handful of seeds from its pocket, he suddenly realized that it wasn’t completely indifferent to its surroundings.
Glazed Heaven was located on the lowest layer of the Thirty-Three Heavens, bordering Hell. Zhou Hui went hunting in Hell every day, while the Phoenix stayed at home. At first, Zhou Hui was afraid something would happen if it left his sight, but after so long, no thunder punishment had struck. Besides, within a hundred miles, it was barren and uninhabited; let alone fierce beasts, there wasn’t even an insect. It truly was a void of silence, so he eventually relaxed.
—However, facts proved that Zhou Hui had relaxed too soon.
One day, not long after, when Zhou Hui left home, the Phoenix had just woken up. Its sealed six senses were not fully connected; only the seventh manas-vijnana remained, and it sat muddle-headed in the solitary courtyard under the gloomy sky. Shakti, the Snow Mountain Goddess, observed this scene through a cloud mirror. With a shift in her divine thought, she secretly descended from Sumeru Mountain and came to this secluded courtyard.
Her original intention might not have been to assassinate the Phoenix, but rather to maliciously tease him. Even if her status as a battle-proven king was not as honored as the Five Great Dharmapala of Esoteric Buddhism, the Phoenix was also an ancient divine bird, born from a jade embryo even before Sumeru Mountain existed. Killing the Phoenix would definitely incur divine wrath.
But when she found the Phoenix’s six senses sealed, it was truly like a marionette, doing whatever it was told, without any resistance. A malicious thought suddenly sprouted in her heart.
—They say the Phoenix is immortal. What if it really just undergoes nirvana?
What if after nirvana, it truly forgets all its past?
If that were the case, Zhou Hui’s exasperated face would certainly be interesting.
Thinking this, Shakti pulled out a poisoned dagger and, as if by a ghostly impulse, handed it to the Phoenix.
The Phoenix’s only seventh sense was completely incapable of distinguishing good from evil, and it obediently took the dagger, quietly looking at Shakti.
At that moment, Shakti recoiled slightly, but soon jealousy and malice overcame her fear. She leaned close to the Phoenix’s ear and whispered, “Go, use the knife in your hand to stab your own heart… Let me see, will you undergo nirvana, or will you truly die?”
The Phoenix lowered its eyes, looking at the blade, its expression blank and vacant. After a long pause, it slowly brought the tip of the blade towards itself.
Shakti stepped back half a pace, a hint of admiration and anticipation in her gaze. The next moment, the tip of the blade pierced the skin of its chest, and golden-red blood instantly soaked its clothes.
The thing Zhou Hui was most grateful for later was that on that day, a sudden tremor ran through his heart while he was in Hell. He immediately rushed home, burst through the door in the nick of time, and snatched the knife from the Phoenix’s hand.
Shakti flickered, intending to escape, but Zhou Hui, in his rage, lost all reason and stabbed her in the neck with a backhand strike.
At that moment, the sky spun, the earth collapsed, and Shakti screamed and retreated. Countless massive bolts of thunder crashed down from the high sky above their heads!
The thunder punishment was actually directed at two people: Shakti, who attempted to harm an ancient divine bird, and Zhou Hui, who injured the Snow Mountain Goddess. However, the Phoenix’s sealed six senses burst open in the lightning waterfall. In a flash of lightning, it tackled Zhou Hui, and the thunder that touched his back immediately stopped and vanished into thin air.
Shakti wasn’t so lucky. The thunder punishment destroyed her divinity, directly sending the Snow Mountain Goddess into the cycle of reincarnation.
Although Zhou Hui was a hell demon who had cultivated a human form and was utterly rebellious, it was his first time witnessing a heavenly tribulation. Although it couldn’t compare to the later heavenly tribulation of the Peacock Maha, where countless ice mountains turned to dust and vast plains collapsed, at the time, it was shocking enough.
Amidst thousands of rolling thunderbolts, the Phoenix held him down tightly, its golden-red Phoenix blood staining his clothes. The blood then absorbed into Zhou Hui’s body, as if completely absorbed by a sponge, leaving no trace.
Immediately after, Zhou Hui felt an extremely hot energy sweep through his limbs, making him let out a painful roar amidst the world of blinding lightning.
After the thunder tribulation, Zhou Hui lost consciousness. When he woke up, he was lying on the cracked ground. The Phoenix sat in the burnt wooden ruins not far away, reaching out to touch the small red flowers growing from the cracks.
Perhaps catching a glimpse of Zhou Hui stirring from the corner of its eye, it withdrew its hand and asked, “Are you awake?”
Zhou Hui sat up, astonished to find that he had no injuries at all. His qi-sea seemed to contain an unprecedented, lurking yet powerful force, like a beast waiting to strike.
“I am…”
“Shakti has gone to reincarnation,” the Phoenix said, avoiding his question and looking away.
Zhou Hui climbed up, staggering a bit from dizziness. He stumbled over to the Phoenix, kneeling before it on the charred, smoking earth, and looked at its slightly evasive gaze: “What are you thinking?”
“…Nothing.”
Zhou Hui took its hand, only to see that the wound on its chest had healed, but faint bloodstains still remained on its clothes.
“What are you really thinking?” Zhou Hui repeated, his voice full of gentle earnestness.
The Phoenix lowered its eyes. From Zhou Hui’s perspective, he could see its long, thick eyelashes and clear, emotionless eyes.
“…The courtyard is gone…” it finally said softly after a long time.
That voice wasn’t simply sad; it seemed a little bewildered, but it was like an invisible hand suddenly clutched Zhou Hui’s heart, making his breath catch.
“Let’s leave Lumenous Heaven,” the Phoenix said. “I want to go to the Chaos Realm, to a place where there are no people…”
The Chaos Realm was a void outside the Six Realms, without living beings or human habitation. If one had to describe it, it was somewhat similar to the Formless Heaven where the Buddha resided, but the void was also filled with tidal waves formed by the collapse of space-time and countless spatial fragments carried within them.
Zhou Hui took the Phoenix and lived in the Chaos Realm for several centuries.
That was truly the most peaceful and comfortable time in the Phoenix’s life. It was just him and Zhou Hui, and the daily routine made him almost forget the fear of loss. Even the various threats and shadows represented by the name “Sakyamuni” seemed to gradually dissipate with the passage of time, leaving only inconspicuous black dust in a corner.
Sometimes they would go to the Blood Sea together, and sometimes they would visit the human realm. They walked through the dust and smoke of the mortal world and witnessed the various illusions and joys of human life. Wherever they went, they stayed close together, giving them the illusion that their bond would last forever, and time would be eternal.
No more news came from Sumeru Mountain, and Zhou Hui did not provoke the Heavenly Dao, seemingly maintaining a relationship of non-interference.
In his opinion, the Heavenly Dao probably intended to leave the matter of Phoenix and Maha alone, waiting for the life of him as a hell demon to end, and then the Phoenix would naturally return to Sumeru Mountain. Then, these thousands of years would become a slightly unexpected interlude in the long lives of heavenly beings, gradually fading with time, and eventually becoming an insignificant anecdote in the history of the Heavenly Dao.
To Zhou Hui, although it was a bit sad, it seemed indeed to be the case.
—Until one day, the Phoenix finally became pregnant and gave birth to the Peacock Maha, who was immediately sealed as a Maha upon birth.
Maha’s birth was the first time Zhou Hui entered a Buddhist hall through the main entrance, and it was also the first time this unruly hell demon knelt and chanted scriptures before Buddha, kneeling for a full seven days and seven nights.
However, it was of no use. As soon as the Peacock was born, its eyes reflected the Phoenix’s death.
Zhou Hui didn’t tell the Phoenix about this—because the Phoenix showed an unprecedented immense joy at the birth of its eldest son. He had never seen the Phoenix react to anything with such intensity, such sincere and surging emotion, that Zhou Hui was completely unable to utter a single word of the truth in front of the Phoenix’s weak and happy face.
Perhaps what the Buddha predicted wouldn’t happen, he futilely comforted himself.
—Perhaps this child could grow up smoothly, live peacefully and happily, and not disappoint the Phoenix’s joyful expectations for him today.
However, cruel reality soon dealt Zhou Hui a crushing blow.
Maha was inherently evil and envious. Because of his jealousy of the Buddha’s bone, he ascended to the Thirty-Three Heavens and swallowed the Buddha’s body, thereby incurring the most severe heavenly tribulation in the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths at the golden peak of Snow Mountain.
The Phoenix’s spirit completely collapsed, desperately trying to ascend to rescue its child from the thunder-filled Asura battleground, but Zhou Hui knew that was almost impossible. He used eighty-one demonic seals to tightly bind the Phoenix, yet in the last of the countless lightning tribulations, the Phoenix still forcibly broke free and, at the cost of incinerating its true form, saved Maha’s last breath.
The Phoenix was critically injured and dying. Zhou Hui brought it to Buzhou Mountain in Hell and built a small wooden hut exactly like the one from thousands of years ago in front of their original cliff. The courtyard was filled with fiery red Asura flowers, and he settled the Phoenix inside to recover.
Unlike back then, this time he placed countless curses within a thousand-mile radius centered on the small courtyard, utterly and completely confining the unconscious Phoenix within.
The Phoenix hated him now, he knew.
He had seen how much the Phoenix once loved its two children—when Maha and Garuda were still chicks, the Phoenix would often transform into its true form, wrap the two small birds in its long tail feathers, gently preen their feathers, and play with them, sometimes even for several days.
When the chicks were asleep, he would maintain that posture, gazing at them with tender, loving eyes, unwilling to even shift his gaze for a moment.
—If the Phoenix’s companionship and loyalty to Zhou Hui still held a hint of cautious probing and careful reservation, then when facing two young chicks, still uncertain if they would grow up successfully, its eagerness to pour out all its emotions, as if its entire life was entrusted to them, was a sight that sometimes made Zhou Hui secretly tremble with apprehension.
He had secretly worried what would happen if the children were gone one day, would the Phoenix have a mental breakdown and be unable to live? However, this conjecture was too terrifying to delve into.
Only now, with the eldest son nearly dead and the second son abducted to the Snow Mountain in Tibet with no news, did he realize that this terrible reality would eventually come.
The Phoenix hated him for standing idly by while its children suffered. Even if it seemingly recovered its calm with the passage of time, that hatred would leave a shadow in the deepest part of its heart, never to disappear.
Sometimes, when Zhou Hui saw the Phoenix sitting quietly by itself, not moving or speaking for an entire day, appearing obedient yet indifferent to external stimuli, an indescribable sorrow would rise from the bottom of his heart.
Had the Phoenix ever been happy?
Truly carefree, content, and felt safe and happy?
It took several years for the Phoenix to recover enough to barely get out of bed. Zhou Hui took it to scenic places in the human realm to live in seclusion and also removed the countless curses, staying by its side day and night, never leaving its side, just like before the two children were born.
However, this could only temporarily alleviate the situation; it couldn’t truly solve the problem.
When the Phoenix was critically ill, it seemed to grow increasingly averse to being “alone,” even to the point of being a little afraid. So, Zhou Hui tried not to leave it, ensuring they could always see each other, no matter where they were. Several times, when he turned around in a crowd, he would see the Phoenix’s gaze following him, and only when he turned back would it let out a barely perceptible sigh of relief.
Sometimes Zhou Hui would walk through the crowd to take its hand and ask with a smile, “Did you miss me?”
The Phoenix never answered.
Only once, when they returned to Buzhou Mountain in Hell from the human realm, the Phoenix stood on the cliff, looking at the boundless, churning sea of blood below, and suddenly turned back to ask seriously, “Zhou Hui.”
“Hmm?”
“Will you leave here one day?”
Zhou Hui was stunned, unsure why it suddenly asked this. After realizing, he immediately replied, “No, I will never abandon you—what’s wrong?”
The Phoenix shook its head, turned its face away, and said nothing.
However, Zhou Hui soon learned why it had suddenly asked that question.
—Because late one night, the Phoenix suddenly disappeared.
To this day, Zhou Hui doesn’t know how the still weak and unrecovered Phoenix managed to evade his perception, struggled to leave Hell and return to the Heavenly Dao, passed through the blizzards that swept across the plains, and step by step ascended Sumeru Mountain, once again entering the supreme Buddhist hall it hadn’t set foot in for thousands of years.
The Phoenix stood in the center of the vast, empty Buddhist hall, took off the Buddha bone strung on a red thread around its neck, held it out with one hand, its eyes filled with despair and a desperate resolve: “I return the Buddha bone to you. Can you return Maha’s life to me?”
—The Formless Heaven instantly fell silent, and all sounds ceased.
Phoenix Maha had not returned for a thousand years, and no one expected that its return would be a complete break with the Buddha.
__
Author’s Note:
Strictly speaking, the status of Maha is Subduer of All Evils > Peacock > Phoenix. However, the Phoenix’s jade embryo was formed even earlier than the formation of the Twin Sal Trees, so its seniority is ancient. Its residence in a forbidden area inaccessible to ordinary people is not only due to Sakyamni’s deliberate arrangement but also due to its transcendent status as an ancient divine bird.
I originally thought this chapter would conclude the flashback and revelation, but it seems it will only conclude in the next chapter… After that, it will be about fighting monsters and leveling up, the end of the war, and then domestic healing, harmonious relationships, and the conclusion. I haven’t decided whether to have a third child (a little girl). If I do, it might be in an extra chapter. Ah, should I really have a third child? I hadn’t originally thought of a third child.
