Maha stood on the barren wasteland, the wind whistling past. He felt that his ears must be mistaken.
No, if there’s a mistake, it’s not me, it must be someone else.
Maha walked up to Jia Louluo, looking down at his brother who was leaning against the mountain wall with a listless and bored expression. After a long moment, he kicked him with the tip of his foot. “What’s wrong with you?”
Jia Louluo leaned back, but it was basically a useless, symbolic dodge. “Nothing.”
“What’s really wrong?”
“It’s boring.”
The Peacock Wisdom King’s patience had always been limited, just like the gods of the Heavenly Dao who believed in “destroy whoever doesn’t convert.” Asking twice without an answer had already pushed him to his limit. Maha’s eyes narrowed dangerously. If the one in front of him wasn’t his real, full-blooded brother, he would have probably already slipped down the Peacock Wisdom King’s esophagus.
“What on earth is wrong?!”
“…” Jia Louluo looked up at Maha. After a long moment, he said calmly, “It’s just boring. No matter how much I cultivate, I can’t achieve enlightenment, and besides, even if I do, it’s just so-so. Our family has never been complete. Mom and Dad might die in the Formless Heaven, and you’re a…”
Jia Louluo stopped.
Maha and his brother looked at each other for a moment, then he raised his foot expressionlessly.
With a loud bang!, Jia Louluo was kicked down in the chest, his expressionless face sinking into the shattered mountain wall.
·
Inside the gate of the divine realm was like a void universe, with no road signs or boundaries. The surroundings were filled with unpredictable lights and fragmented, picture-like color blocks, which after a long time, made one feel dazed, unable to even perceive whether they were moving forward or backward.
Zhou Hui stopped, propped himself up on his knees, and took a breath. He stood up and looked around.
A few seconds later, the tyrannical factor of a demonic beast in his blood flared up. Anger swept through his brain, and he suddenly raised his sword and slashed fiercely at the void!
—BOOM!
Immense power poured out, shattering the illusion into tens of thousands of fragments!
The fragments swirled up like a blizzard falling from the sky, then instantly receded with the strong wind. The surrounding scene finally turned into a vast expanse of white gold. Not far away, there was actually a Buddhist hall, with incense smoke wafting, emitting the scent of sandalwood.
A cold sneer flashed in Zhou Hui’s eyes. At that moment, the change in his deep-set eyes and the slight upward curve of his mouth made his handsome, blood-stained face look even more grim.
He strode towards the Buddhist hall. As he approached, the Buddhist hall grew taller and larger in his field of vision, even having a terrifying sense of imminent collapse. However, there was no fear on Zhou Hui’s face. He raised his hand, gripped his sword, and slashed down fiercely!
The main gate of the Buddhist hall exploded with a roar, and the large white jade wall collapsed in one piece!
“Fake Buddha!” Zhou Hui stepped onto the golden brick floor of the Buddhist hall. The sole of his boot, stained with flesh and blood, left a suddenly cracked footprint on the ground. “Stop hiding! Get your ass out here and die!”
Suddenly, a look of surprise flashed in Zhou Hui’s eyes.
—Not far away, under the lotus seat of the Buddhas, on a cyan meditation cushion, a wet, fluffy, golden-red little bird was rolling in pain. Its long plumes and tail feathers dragged from the cushion to the ground, glowing with a magnificent light.
“Phoe… ” Zhou Hui said, “Phoenix?!”
The little phoenix’s feathers hadn’t even fully grown. After rolling for a moment, it suddenly let out a sharp, painful cry, and its wings, covered in downy feathers, suddenly spread open. Then its form changed. A brilliant light erupted, its bones elongated, and it actually turned into a child of five or six!
The child’s skin had the whiteness of a newborn who had never seen the sun. His sweat-soaked black hair stuck to his cheeks, making his face look even paler, almost transparent. He was naked, sitting dazedly on the meditation cushion. After a long moment, he trembled slightly and held out his hand to Zhou Hui. “Ah… ah…”
Zhou Hui gasped in disbelief. A moment later, just as he was about to step forward, a person suddenly passed by him from behind, walked straight to the little phoenix, wrapped the little phoenix in a white cloth, and then easily picked him up.
Zhou Hui’s pupils constricted violently.
He saw the little phoenix’s large, clear black and white eyes look at the person who had picked him up, seemingly with a little confusion. After a long moment, he tilted his head, and his small, light pink lips blew a bubble. “…Ma?”
“Hello, A-Huang,” the man said with a smile. “My name is Sakyamuni.”
Sakyamuni!
Zhou Hui’s face changed drastically. Without further hesitation, he rushed forward on the spot, one hand grabbing for the little phoenix, the other hand swinging his sword at Sakyamuni’s head!
However, the next second, the blade swung through empty air. He stopped it abruptly an inch before it hit his own arm.
—Neither the little phoenix nor Sakyamuni had a physical body. Zhou Hui finally realized that what he was seeing was a hallucination!
Sakyamuni kissed the little phoenix on his tender forehead, his expression full of love and pity.
If not for being deeply aware of his later millennia of heinous plots and calculations, just looking at this scene now, no one would have thought that behind his benevolent face was a sinister true nature.
“From now on, I will take care of you.” Sakyamuni ruffled the little phoenix’s hair, then held him and walked out of the Buddhist hall, passing by Zhou Hui and walking into the vast, white-gold world outside.
Zhou Hui stood where he was, all his senses on high alert, gripping his sword handle vigilantly as he looked around. Soon, there was movement at the door of the Buddhist hall again. Sakyamuni appeared again, this time leading a slightly older little phoenix, about seven or eight years old, who swayed as he crossed the high threshold of the Buddhist hall’s golden nanmu door.
Zhou Hui watched as the little phoenix followed Sakyamuni step by step. He was wearing a small, snow-white kasaya, his face tender and his thick, dark hair soft. A string of pure cyan glazed Buddhist beads was worn around his neck—the same ones he would later wrap around his wrist as an adult, but now his hands were too small and the beads too long, so they were more than enough to fit around his small neck.
Sakyamuni walked to the meditation cushion and motioned for the little phoenix to kneel on it.
As an ancient divine bird, a true creation of heaven and earth, the phoenix, whose jade embryo had existed for longer than Mount Sumeru, clearly had no instinct to kneel to humans. But his trust in Sakyamuni had been deeply ingrained since he could remember. After struggling for a moment, he still obediently knelt on the meditation cushion.
Sakyamuni then handed him three incense sticks and said, “Offer the incense.”
The little phoenix obediently offered the incense, then turned his head and asked hesitantly, “Sa… Sakyamuni.”
“Hm?”
“The Arhat said I was formed from the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, unrestrained and with a transcendent status, and that I don’t need to kneel to any high god. Is… is that true?”
Sakyamuni was silent for a moment, then said, “It’s not like that.”
The little phoenix showed confusion. Sakyamuni touched his tender face and asked, “Do you believe the Arhat, or do you believe me?”
“…I, I believe you.”
Sakyamuni smiled. “Yes, you just need to believe me.”
The little phoenix finally finished offering the incense, still confused and ignorant, and was then led away by the hand by Sakyamuni, stumbling.
·
Zhou Hui stood where he was, startled and uncertain, witnessing this illusion where a parallel world overlapped with reality, watching the little phoenix come to offer incense and worship the Buddha every day, growing up day by day.
Every time he appeared, he would walk past Zhou Hui, but he was unaware, completely oblivious that his lover from tens of thousands of years later was watching him with extreme complexity from the void. Only once did he suddenly stop, seeming to look at Zhou Hui with some confusion. His gaze fell on the air where fine dust floated, and under his long, delicate eyelashes, it was as if a pool of pure water was contained.
Zhou Hui could no longer hold back. He reached out his large hand, stained with dried blood and dust, and gently caressed his tender, white little face.
However, the next second, Sakyamuni’s voice came from the door of the Buddhist hall, with a smile, “A-Huang!”
The little phoenix suddenly pulled away from Zhou Hui’s hand and ran happily towards Sakyamuni.
At that moment, the delicate touch seemed to still linger on his hand, but the warmth had instantly gone. Zhou Hui looked at the little phoenix’s back, a trace of dazed loss suddenly flashing through his heart.
He propped himself up with the tip of his sword and simply stood there, letting time fly by in the void like a fast-forwarded movie.
In the blink of an eye, the little phoenix grew up. His hair was tied up, his kasaya trailed on the ground, and the glazed Buddhist beads moved from his neck to his wrist. The young man, isolated by everyone, grew more silent day by day, his gaze fixed forward, his perfectly lined side profile having an icy indifference.
He prostrated himself step by step on the glacier, making a great vow to all the gods and Buddhas for Sakyamuni to become a Buddha. He picked up his bow and arrow and walked into the distance, drawing his own bone to make an arrow without hesitation. The moment the Buddha’s light enveloped the western sky, he looked up and showed the first undisguised, battle-scarred yet blissful smile in hundreds of years.
Zhou Hui watched as if flipping through a picture book, almost re-watching the phoenix’s memories. The bitter pill he had long swallowed seemed to be regurgitated, making him feel a bitter numbness from the root of his tongue to his limbs.
Finally, it came to the scene he was most unwilling to recall. After the phoenix had knelt and chanted scriptures under the Bodhi tree for a thousand years, he finally stepped into the gate of the Buddhist hall once again and saw Sakyamuni walking down from the lotus seat.
“Don’t… don’t leave me, I don’t want to be alone…” The little phoenix prostrated himself on the ground, almost breaking down. “Please don’t leave me alone…”
Zhou Hui turned his head away, panting heavily, his nails digging deep into the flesh of his palms.
The next moment, he heard Sakyamuni say, “Then do you want to be with me?”
The little phoenix’s face was full of tears. In the morning light, he had a fragility like a thin piece of crystal that would shatter at a touch. He sobbed and nodded.
A sinister smile suddenly appeared on Sakyamuni’s face. He looked up and stared straight at Zhou Hui in the void, his gaze like a venomous snake.
Zhou Hui’s heart chilled. He heard Sakyamuni point at him and say, “There is a hell demon over there. Go kill him, and then you can be with me.”
Zhou Hui’s pupils constricted, and he abruptly drew his sword!
However, then the little phoenix raised his head, as if seeing this person in the Buddhist hall for the first time in tens of thousands of years, but his expression was numb, like a puppet. He raised his hand towards Zhou Hui.
Zhou Hui had a bad feeling, but this time there was truly no escape. He saw a golden true fire suddenly emerge from the little phoenix’s fingertips, and in an instant, it roared and pounced!
“Phoenix!” Zhou Hui roared madly. “Don’t come over, Phoenix—!”
The stream of fire roared loudly, turning into a giant fire dragon that filled the heavens and the earth, surrounding Zhou Hui!
That was not an incorporeal fire in a hallucination at all, but the true, raging fire of an ancient divine bird containing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. The golden bricks and jade walls, once touched, immediately turned into water and were evaporated completely in the blink of an eye.
Zhou Hui erupted and swung his sword, but his hand felt light—
He saw that his blade had only swung halfway when the body of the sword melted into molten iron and was gone in an instant!
Zhou Hui’s breathing suddenly stopped. He saw a thin, young figure appear in the sky of golden fire, and then the phoenix’s expressionless face appeared before him.
At that moment, Zhou Hui couldn’t even feel the excruciating pain of his body being burned. In his vision, there was only the phoenix’s still-childish, beautiful, and cold face, and the dagger he held in his slender white fingers, raised high.
“Goodbye—” Sakyamuni said coldly from outside the fire field, “demon from outside karma.”
However, then, Sakyamuni’s face changed slightly.
In the center of the fire field, the little phoenix swung his dagger down, right at Zhou Hui’s heart—
The next second, blood erupted with a whoosh.
Zhou Hui was stunned. The expected excruciating pain did not come. His deep black eyes reflected another hand that had grabbed the tip of the blade at the critical moment.
“…” Zhou Hui turned his head. The movement was so difficult that he felt a sluggishness in his neck as if it were moving inch by inch. “Phoenix…?”
Chu He appeared behind him. The adult phoenix’s face was crisscrossed with dried blood. He panted slightly as he looked at Zhou Hui.
At that moment, Zhou Hui felt an indescribable emotion flash through his eyes, seeming to be a mixture of shame, embarrassment, and an unspeakable attachment and pain.
But it was only for a thousandth of a second.
Chu He released the dagger, grabbed the little phoenix’s throat with his blood-soaked hand, and charged forward brazenly. With a loud bang, he slammed the little phoenix against the cracked wall!
It was simply the most bizarre and absurd scene in the history of the nine heavens and ten earths. The soaring golden flames formed the magnificent and brilliant background of this scroll painting. Above the battle-scarred earth, the phoenix and his younger self looked at each other, their eyes reflecting the silent passage of tens of thousands of years.
“Farewell…” Chu He said hoarsely.
His fingers suddenly tightened. With a crisp cracking sound of a broken bone, the little phoenix’s neck drooped limply.
