The barrier was broken, and Ming Yue’s eyes lit up. No longer feeling sleepy, she ran over.
The Forbidden Guardsmen were just as curious having sat through the whole process themselves. They wanted to see what was so extraordinary about the living quarters of this Mortal Buddha.
Under the watchful gaze of the audience, Ning Chen pushed open the wooden door ahead, lit a candle, and found a set of furnishings even simpler than he had imagined.
One bed, one desk, one chair, and not much else besides.
By the doorway, the soldiers quickly lost the majority of their interest, seeing as that shabby little hut was not even as interesting as the little monks’ rooms.
Ning Chen looked around, searching for some kind of hint or clue. He wasn’t like those blockheads behind him, neither was he so naive that he’d believe the old bald donkey’s room was really as as simple as it looked.
Only an idiot would put that much effort into making a barrier for a dilapidated shack with nothing inside.
He’d only gotten that tortoise shell of a barrier open after smashing at it for the majority of the night, so there had to be some reward.
“Sir Marquis, what are you looking for?” one of the blockheads asked.
“A switch, or hidden door,” Ning Chen answered idly as he rapped on the bed frame.
There was no saving these guys’ brains, and no counting on them either, so it was better to rely on himself.
Nothing hidden in the bed, and no hidden compartments to be found either after he flipped it open. Knocking on the walls didn’t find him anything either, the sounds produced were entirely solid, lacking that telltale echo he was looking for.
Nearby, Ming Yue was also helping in her own little way, giving a knock here and a smack there with that little mallet of hers. Unlike those blockheads who only stood there and gawked, she was actually helping out.
“How about the roof?” Ming Yue raised her head and suggested, after a while of searching.
Hearing that, Ning Chen and the soldiers all raised their heads and immediately thought to themselves, now that she mentioned it, that was indeed a possibility.
“I’ll do it, sir!” The blockhead who had spoken up earlier volunteered to investigate and, with step of his foot, leapt onto the rafters and began scouring around.
Beneath him, those bunch of idlers continued watching with their necks craned, and just when they were beginning to tire of looking up like that, the soldier in the rafters leapt down again and shook his head with a wry smile. Nothing.
Ning Chen wasn’t really disappointed by what he heard. Thinking about it, since the rooftop, walls and bed were all ruled, that left only the floorboards.
Ming Yue had clearly thought of that too, seeing as her petite frame was now crouched down knocking on each of the floorboards with that wooden mallet of hers, the picture of concentration as she did so.
“Eh?”
Not long had passed before she suddenly gasped in surprise. Turning back to the floorboards with renewed interest, she started knocking repeatedly at a particular pair of floorboards under the table.
Ning Chen walked up, shifted aside the desk, and carefully knocked on the flooring. He, too, could hear that the sound coming from those two floorboards were noticeably different from the that of the surrounding ones.
Carefully lifting up the stone boards revealed a staircase below, and what looked like a secret room.
Ning Chen took up a lamp and descended the stairs.
It was very dark under the stairs, and he could barely see the path even by the light of the lit lamp. Ming Yue cautiously followed behind him, not daring to lag even a step behind.
Some of the soldiers had also followed them down. Stuck in a cramped, dark passageway like that, even this bunch of burly men began to feel a little nervous as they did their best to stick closely to their marquis.
There was no knowing where the path led, but it was a long one, and the group walked for a full quarter of an hour.
Ahead of them, a soft and creamy-white light gradually came into sight. The light resembled neither moonlight nor firelight and upon closer inspection, they realised that it came from several luminous pearls embedded in the wall, each the size of a walnut and totalling seventeen in number.
Ming Yue walked up and gazed longingly at the pearls, wishing she could touch them. But as she was only a seven-year-old little girl who was far from her growth spurt, they were far out of reach.
“Those behind, I want some of you to stay behind and dig out these pearls.”
Ning Chen said, reasoning that since one should always take advantage of every opportunity that could benefit oneself, they might as well take the pearls with them. Any object, as long as it was of value, should never be left behind for the enemy.
“Yes, sir!”
Three soldiers stayed behind, pulled out their blades, and began noisily chipping away at the wall.
“Give me one… no, I want two!” Ming Yue stretched out her fingers, thought for a moment, then changed her mind and renewed her request.
“Alright,” Ning Chen agreed readily. He had no use for such things aside from giving them away, so it didn’t matter how many Ming Yue wanted.
Under the guidance of that soft white light, the passageway soon reached its end. A pair of metal doors appeared before them, pitch black and looking extraordinarily heavy.
The doors were not locked, but at the same time, they could not be pushed open. It was evident that some kind of hidden switch controlled them.
However, to a Ninth-grade expert, there was more than one way to open a door.
“All of you, step back!”
Ning Chen drew the sword at his waist and ordered, making a gesture with his hand.
He really couldn’t be bothered to look for some hidden mechanism at that point. It was just some dumb door, a few chops would do the trick.
Everyone quickly backed away for about ten steps, and Ming Yue even covered her ears. It seemed that she had had quite enough of loud noises that night.
Seeing that they had all moved further away, Ning Chen brought his Ink Sword down in a glaring arc. The flash of the sword’s edge was immediately followed by a great rumbling noise and the trembling of the ground, as the two metal doors were cut cleanly into four halves.
No hidden weapons flew at them, nor was there any poison gas released. The doors crashed down with a huge cloud of dust, and a glimpse of the final hidden chamber came into view.
Ning Chen kicked aside the other half of the metal door blocking his path, and strode in.
Ming Yue removed her hands from her ears, and jogged to catch up.
Within the secret room, the first sight that came into view was that of four luminous pearls embedded in the four corners, even brighter than the ones from earlier, which lit up the room as bright as day.
In the lower bookcases, scrolls after scrolls of scriptures could be found arranged in an orderly fashion. Each held some kind of long lost text and not only were the majority of them the originals, but they were also very well preserved.
Ning Chen and Ming Yue were entirely clueless about Buddhism, and could not see where the value that laid in those texts, so they naturally ignored them.
Stepping further in brought a stone table into view, upon which laid a wooden shrine carved from lunar wood. Both their eyes lit up, that had to be something good!
Ning Chen walked forward and carefully opened the lid of the wooden shrine. An ancient scroll, golden in colour, laid quietly within. It was not some scripture, but the cultivation method for the Diamond Body.
Next to the scroll was a golden dagger, and by the dagger’s hilt was a bottle made of jade. Clearly carved on the bottles were these words, Heavenly Buddha Pills.
There were only two pills, and their value was beyond all doubt. In this world, any pill that contained the word ‘heaven’ in its name was bound to be something extraordinary, such as the Xiantian Pill from Grand Xia, the Divine Heavens from the Eternal Night Cult, and also the Revolving Heaven Pill that he had once taken.
Those three items he took immediately, and as for the scriptures, he also had them taken par for the course.
While he might not understand a single word within those scrolls, that did not mean they had no value. For Buddhism to survive this long, they had to have something extraordinary about them. Those scriptures were the best evidence of this.
After searching in all the places that ought to be searched in, Ning Chen took Ming Yue with him back to the surface, leaving about twenty to thirty men behind to transport the scriptures.
After a whole night of activity, the sun was about to rise. The soldiers in the front hall all began waking up from their rest and gravely descended the mountain, to bury their deceased brothers-in-arms.
They were the Forbidden Guardsmen of Grand Xia. As such, they had long prepared themselves for such a possibility. To be buried with dignity after their deaths was the best possible end they could wish for.
Ning Chen stood quietly by the side as he observed them. The soldiers of Grand Xia had always been the most admirable of men in their world. If not for generations after generations of warriors who held fast to their beliefs, the thousand-year splendour of Grand Xia would not have been possible.
By now, Ming Yue had already fallen into a deep sleep on his back. The first rays of the morning sun did indeed make one rather tired, but since not all the soldiers had rested, he had to remain there with them.
He was their marquis, and it was already a failure of duty for him to be unable to bring them all back alive. The least he could do was to accompany them on the last journey of their lives on this earth.
The soldiers gathered at the foot of the mountain gradually grew in number, and when the sun rose to shine bright and high in the sky, everyone had gathered.
“Have a safe journey.”
Ning Chen murmured the parting words as he solemnly gazed upon the rows of fallen soldiers which laid out in an orderly fashion before him. He then turned around and shovelled the first splash of earth upon them.
Of his thousand soldiers, seven hundred had fallen, and that was only their first battle. Soon after, even the remaining three hundred behind him might not be able to survive.
That day, they laid their dead to rest. In some distant future, they hoped there would be others who would lay them to rest as well.
As the faces, both young and old, were gradually covered by earth, the hearts of all who were gathered darkened. For Grand Xia’s thousand years of peace, they had gone forth without regrets. Even if they all had to give their lives in the coming battle, they intended to halt the Mortal Buddha’s advance right before Mt. Mijie.
Having buried their fallen comrades, the remaining three hundred all went back up the mountain. The experts of Buddhist Nation could return at any time, thus they had to make the most out of their time.
All the scriptures in the secret chamber had been removed. In total, they looted over seven thousand books which Ning Chen had delivered back to Grand Xia into Zhang Sun’s care.
He was certain that those things would be of use, and should not be left there.
For that, the only Eighth-grade in the army was also sent on the road, to ensure that nothing would go wrong.
In that world, an Eighth-grade was already a rarity amongst those known as experts, after all not every place could be like the Buddhist Nation, where Ninth-grades were a dime a dozen.
Those who remained continued to rest and nurse their wounds. With the exception of the two heavenly pills, Ning Chen distributed all the Buddhist pills they found to speed up their recovery as much as possible.
It was a pity that they had no Peak Ninth-grades amongst them, else with the power of two Pills of Buddhist Heaven they could have forged another Xiantian.
In Grand Xia, no one practised Buddhism. Because of that, the effects of those two Heavenly Buddha Pills were bound to be less than that of the palace’s Xiantian Pills. That was not to say that they were the same as ordinary pills, however.
Ning Chen spent the remaining days carefully studying the method for cultivating the Diamond Body. The old bald donkey was simply too powerful for them right now; he had to find the weak point in this body of theirs as soon as possible.
In this world, there was no undefeatable technique. Even the Heavenly Bible had its limitations, not to mention other techniques.
Since the first time he encountered the Buddhist disciples armed with a Diamond Body, and up til the great battle of last night, he had not been able to find a viable solution. All he could do was to rely on the brute force of his strong foundations, which would never be enough to face up to the head abbot of the Western Doya Temple.
The next day, in Gu Lan City, news of Mijie Mountain’s fall finally arrived. The Mortal Buddha, who was still in the midst of his cultivation, instantly opened his eyes. A fierce glint of murderous intent flashed in those once-merciful Buddha eyes.
“Leave one of you behind to lead the march northwards once the water ebbs. The rest of you will follow me back.” The head abbot said grimly as he eyed the four before him.
“Yes!” The four Dharmapalas bowed and accepted their orders.
