With that, Ye Qingyun turned to leave.
Quick, slip away!
If they snap out of it, I'm done for.
"Just a pathetic ant, wasting our time."
Unexpectedly, Song Chenglong lunged directly toward Ye Qingyun's back with a palm strike.
Since he was a useless mortal with no connection to the expert on Fuyun Mountain, he might as well be killed outright.
Ye Qingyun was completely unprepared and didn't even notice the fatal palm strike coming from behind.
Just as Song Chenglong's palm was about to hit Ye Qingyun,
suddenly!
An invisible ripple surged around Ye Qingyun's body.
Song Chenglong's palm froze instantly, just three inches away from Ye Qingyun's back.
It could not advance an inch further.
Song Chenglong's face drained of color.
Chapter 32: Drop the Butcher's Knife and Become a Buddha on the Spot
Song Chenglong felt an indescribable, immense force binding his entire arm.
Not only was he unable to harm Ye Qingyun in the slightest,
he couldn't even twitch.
Bang!
Another massive surge of force erupted.
Song Chenglong let out a yelp and went flying backward.
Thud!
Song Chenglong landed in a pathetic heap, face-planting straight into the ground.
He knocked out one of his front teeth, and blood poured from his nose.
"Son!"
Song Xiaotian was shocked and rushed over to help Song Chenglong up.
Hearing the commotion, Ye Qingyun turned around in bewilderment.
"What on earth happened?"
He wore a look of pure confusion.
"Guards! Someone come quick!"
"Stop him!"
"Do not let him get away!"
Song Xiaotian shouted.
Immediately, numerous martial artists from the Song Family swarmed forward, surrounding Ye Qingyun tightly and glaring at him with hostile eyes.
Ye Qingyun was dumbfounded.
I didn't do a thing! Why are they suddenly not letting me leave?
"Well, well, Ye Qingyun! You almost tricked us!"
Song Xiaotian glared, his eyes fierce like a falcon's.
Ye Qingyun forced himself to stay calm.
"I'm really not Ye Qingyun. You've got the wrong person."
Song Xiaotian let out a cold snort.
"Still saying you're not Ye Qingyun? My son has been beaten and injured by you!"
Ye Qingyun looked at Song Chenglong, who was now missing a front tooth, feeling thoroughly puzzled.
When on earth did I hit him?
Besides, I'm just a mortal with no cultivation at all. How could I possibly beat up a martial artist like Song Chenglong?
Isn't this framing an innocent man?
At that moment, the grey-haired rabbit in Ye Qingyun's arms smiled slyly.
Heh heh.
It was yours truly, Lord Rabbit, who made a move.
Daring to lay a hand on my master?
You've truly got a death wish.
"If the Master suffers even the slightest scratch, Lord Dog will probably skin me alive when we get back."
The grey-haired rabbit muttered inwardly.
"Take him down!"
At Song Xiaotian's command,
a group of Song Family martial artists lunged at Ye Qingyun.
"I'm finished!"
Terrified of getting beaten, Ye Qingyun quickly closed his eyes, hugged his head, and squatted down.
Yet the moment he crouched,
a series of miserable cries rang out all around him.
"Ow!"
"Oh mother!"
"Ah!"
...
Accompanied by a flurry of crashing and thumping sounds,
the surroundings soon subsided into nothing but groans of agony.
Ye Qingyun waited for a long time, but no attack ever landed on him.
"What's going on?"
Unable to help himself, he opened his eyes and looked around.
Taking in the scene, Ye Qingyun was dumbfounded once again.
Why were all these Song Family martial artists sprawled across the ground in twisted heaps?
And every single one of them was bruised and battered, looking like they'd received a severe thrashing.
Yet these people had clearly come to beat *him* up, right?
Could this be professional scamming?
Still, this was the first time Ye Qingyun had ever seen such a large group of scammers who were so vicious to themselves.
"Ahem, look here, this has nothing to do with me. You all just fell over yourselves—I didn't lift a finger, so don't pin this on me."
Ye Qingyun raised both hands to show he was innocent.
Yet who would believe that?
"It seems you truly are concealing your true depth. I'll have to subdue you myself!"
With a gloomy expression, Song Xiaotian radiated a powerful and robust aura.
He was indeed going to step in personally.
Song Xiaotian possessed the cultivation of the Core Condensation Realm (late), just a single step away from the Core Condensation Great Perfection.
Such a level of cultivation was enough to rival the elders of the three major sects.
Ye Qingyun wore a miserable expression.
He had originally thought the cultivators in this world were quite benevolent.
Who would have expected there to be vicious ones after all?
It seemed it was the same everywhere—you had good people and bad people alike.
Not daring to hold back in the slightest, Song Xiaotian struck with his full strength.
A massive palm print crashed downward, carrying the force of a landslide.
Ye Qingyun had never witnessed such a spectacle in his life; he was frozen in place with terror, unable to move a muscle.
"I'm going to die."
Just when Ye Qingyun thought he was done for,
suddenly!
The giant palm shattered into nothingness.
Immediately following, a rebound force slammed directly into Song Xiaotian.
"Ah!!!"
Song Xiaotian shrieked, vomiting a mouthful of blood as he went flying backward.
"Father!"
Song Chenglong cried out in alarm.
Even his own father was no match for this Ye Qingyun?
How could this person possibly be so powerful?
Stumbling backward repeatedly, Song Xiaotian crashed hard into a wall.
Boom!
The entire wall collapsed.
Coughing up blood again and again, his face pale as paper, Song Xiaotian's eyes were filled with sheer terror.
"This person's cultivation is unfathomable—truly terrifying beyond belief!"
Shock surged through Song Xiaotian's heart.
He had struck with everything he had.
Yet it had been utterly useless.
He hadn't even been able to see how Ye Qingyun made his move before he was heavily wounded.
Moreover, Song Xiaotian could tell that the other party had held back.
Otherwise, he would likely be a corpse right now.
Song Xiaotian was terrified.
He was completely terrified.
Especially when he thought of the reactions from the Taihao Sect and the Chancellor's Estate, Song Xiaotian understood everything at last.
It had to be this expert!
The Taihao Sect and the Chancellor's Estate must have both been terrified of this expert, which was why they severed ties with the Song Family.
His strength was bound to be at a level where even those two factions had to submit.
How laughable that he and his son had even plotted to kidnap him.
They truly had no idea what death meant.
"I'll fight you to the death!"
Hot-tempered in his youth, Song Chenglong prepared to throw his life away fighting Ye Qingyun.
Song Xiaotian hurriedly grabbed his son.
"Father?"
Song Chenglong looked at his father in bewilderment.
"Show no more disrespect to the expert! Kneel and beg the expert for forgiveness immediately!"
Song Xiaotian shouted sternly.
"What?"
Song Chenglong was dumbfounded.
Kneel and beg this fellow for forgiveness too?
"Dad, have you lost your mind?"
Slap!
Song Xiaotian delivered a direct slap across Song Chenglong's face, making his head spin with stars.
Then, Song Xiaotian knelt before Ye Qingyun first.
"The expert is above! My son and I were blind and failed to recognize Mount Tai, offending the expert. It is truly a grave sin."
"We only beg the expert to spare our father and son!"
With that, Song Xiaotian began kowtowing to Ye Qingyun.
Seeing this, Song Chenglong had no choice but to follow suit and kowtow alongside his father.
Even though his heart burned with resentment,
since Ye Qingyun was this powerful, Song Chenglong had no choice but to swallow his pride.
Ye Qingyun was inwardly muttering to himself.
Why did this father-son duo suddenly kneel and kowtow to him, begging for mercy?
The problem was, Ye Qingyun had no idea what he had even done.
"Wait, it must be my noble character that has reformed them."
Aside from that, Ye Qingyun couldn't think of any other possibility.
Thinking of this, he put his hands behind his back and struck the pose of an expert.
"Do you know your wrongs?"
"We know our wrongs! We really do!"
"Our father and son were entirely in the wrong—wrong to a ridiculous degree!"
Filled with remorse, Song Xiaotian repeatedly confessed his guilt.
Ye Qingyun nodded slightly.
"To know your wrongs is what matters. As the saying goes, repentance brings great virtue."
"It's not terrible to make mistakes; drop the butcher's knife and become a Buddha on the spot."
"Everyone is granted the chance to be forgiven."
Hearing these words, the Song father and son felt as though evening drums and morning bells were ringing in their ears, shocking their souls to the core.
Especially behind Ye Qingyun, where the phantom of a Buddha suddenly materialized, bathing the entire Ye Residence in golden Buddhist light.
"Bu... Buddhist supreme principles!"
Terrified, Song Xiaotian immediately brought his palms together in front of his chest, his expression filled with utmost piety.
Chapter 33: Master, I Have Attained Enlightenment!
Ye Qingyun hadn't noticed the Buddha phantom behind him at all.
Seeing Song Xiaotian suddenly drop to his knees with palms pressed together and a pious expression, he simply assumed the man was a devout Buddhist.
"Since you believe in Buddhism, that makes things easy."
"Watch me reform you father and son."
Ye Qingyun felt much more secure.
"Song Xiaotian, Song Chenglong, the two of you have committed countless evils and accumulated many karmic retributions. In the end, these retributions will visit themselves upon you."
Ye Qingyun tried his best to put on a benevolent, Buddhist expression.
He envisioned the demeanor of eminent Buddhist monks and did his utmost to imitate them.
Perhaps for this reason, the Buddha phantom behind Ye Qingyun grew increasingly solid.
Even the features of the Buddha phantom began to bear a slight resemblance to Ye Qingyun himself.
This left the Song father and son even more dumbstruck.
"He truly is an eminent Buddhist expert!"
The father and son were shaken to their core.
Buddhist monks were exceedingly mysterious beings.
While Buddhism existed within the Tianwu Dynasty, it never amounted to much.
Legend had it that in the Western Territory beyond the Southern Wasteland, Buddhism flourished.
There was even a Buddha Country where everyone revered monks and the Buddha, and the status of Buddhist practitioners was incomparably supreme.
The Song father and son never imagined that this Ye Qingyun was also a follower of Buddhism.
Judging by the signs, he was absolute an unfathomably profound figure within the Buddhist path.
For a moment, deep remorse gripped the father and son.
If they had known the other party was this powerful, they never would have provoked him in the first place.
"Expert, our father and son... we haven't really done all that many bad things."
Song Xiaotian said somewhat vaguely.
Ye Qingyun shook his head.
"The Buddha is everywhere. What you have done and what you haven't done, the Buddha sees it all. Nothing can escape the eyes of the Buddha."
Before his voice even faded, the eyes of the Buddha phantom behind Ye Qingyun suddenly flashed with light, casting a beam directly down upon the Song father and son.
The two of them shuddered violently.
Under the gaze of those Buddha eyes, father and son felt as though their very souls were being cleansed.
Every deed they had ever committed in the past surfaced before their eyes.
Those evil acts, down to the very last one, became painfully clear.
Their faces turned deathly pale.
Only then did they deeply realize how many vile deeds they had committed in the past.
Overwhelmed with shame, the two men bowed their heads deeply.
Meanwhile, Ye Qingyun wore a peculiar expression.
"Where did this golden light come from? So mystical?"
He turned his head to look, but couldn't spot anything unusual at all.
While everyone else could see the Buddha phantom, Ye Qingyun himself couldn't see a thing.
"Expert, our father and son know we were wrong!"
"We were wrong, truly wrong!"
The two men repeatedly kowtowed to Ye Qingyun.
Ye Qingyun nodded with satisfaction.
"Although the two of you have committed numerous evils, the Buddha is merciful, and anyone has the chance to be forgiven."
"Starting today, you must perform more good deeds and harbor kind thoughts; that will surely erase the karmic retribution of your past misdeeds."
Upon hearing this, the Song father and son were instantly thrilled.
As long as those retributions could be erased, they were willing to do anything.
Let alone merely performing good deeds.
Good deeds?
Wasn't that simple enough?
"We will remember this!"
Song Xiaotian said.
"I haven't finished yet."
Ye Qingyun continued, "Most importantly, you must chant the Buddhist sutra every single day."
"A Buddhist sutra?"
The two men wore identical blank stares.
"Master, we don't know any Buddhist sutras at all."
Song Xiaotian said.
"No matter. This poor monk... ah, no, I shall pass down a sutra to you right now. Remember to recite it three times a day—morning, noon, and night."
Overjoyed, the father and son beamed.
"Thank you, Master!"
Ye Qingyun uttered a sound of acknowledgment and then began chanting the sutra.
"This sutra is called the—Heart Sutra."
The father and son immediately produced pen and paper, wearing expressions of intense concentration, looking precisely like students taking notes in a classroom.
"Ahem."
"When the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara was practicing the profound Prajna Paramita, he perceived that all five skandhas are empty, and was saved from all suffering and distress."
"Shariputra, form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form; form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Sensations, perceptions, formations, and consciousness are also like this."
"Shariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness: they neither arise nor cease, neither are defiled nor pure, neither increase nor decrease."
"Therefore, in emptiness there is no form, no sensations, perceptions, formations, or consciousness..."
...
"Gate gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha."
A complete version of the Heart Sutra flowed smoothly and fluently from Ye Qingyun's lips.
When he finished reciting the sutra,
the Buddha phantom behind Ye Qingyun shone brighter than ever before.
A brilliant beam of Buddhist light shot straight up into the firmament.
Boom!
At that moment, anyone within a radius of a thousand miles who happened to lift their head could witness this pillar of golden light.
In an instant, all quarters of the Tianwu Dynasty were stirred into commotion.
"This is Buddhist light!"
"Such a dense and pure Buddhist light... could it be that an eminent monk has achieved sudden enlightenment?"
"It could even be the reincarnation of a Buddha!"
"Quickly, go see what is happening!"
...
Countless people rushed toward the source of the blazing Buddhist light.
At the same time.
In the distant Western Territory far from the Tianwu Dynasty,
this place was the pure land of Buddhism.
In the mouths of outsiders, it was also known as the Western Paradise.
A temple with flourishing incense radiated brilliant light as streams of people came and went.
In the back courtyard of the temple,
an aged monk who had been in meditative seclusion for forty-nine years suddenly opened his eyes.
"Hmm? Buddhist aura soaring into the heavens from the south?"
The old monk flashed outward, his sharp and piercing gaze fixed on the southern horizon.
Vaguely, he seemed to catch sight of the golden Buddha behind Ye Qingyun.
"Grandmaster!"
The old monk's appearance startled many eminent monks within the temple, who hurried over.
"Quick! Send people to the Tianwu Dynasty in the Southern Wasteland. Our Buddhist Saint Son has manifested there!"
"What? The Buddhist Saint Son?"
The monks were shocked.
The Buddhist Saint Son was the very figure their Western Territory Buddhism had spent countless years searching for in vain.
Even within the Bodhi Buddha Country, only three suspected candidates had ever appeared, none of whom were fully confirmed.
Yet now, the Grandmaster was saying the Buddhist Saint Son had been born in the Southern Wasteland outside the Western Territory?
How could that be possible?
However, none of the monks dared doubt the Grandmaster's words.
For this old monk was the highest-ranking member of West Zen Temple and one of the absolute pinnacle existences in all of Western Territory Buddhism.
His words were absolute Buddhist truth, not to be doubted by anyone.
Without delay, West Zen Temple immediately dispatched monks to head straight for the Southern Wasteland.
Not only West Zen Temple, but numerous Buddhist factions across the Western Territory likewise dispatched their own disciples, hurrying toward the Southern Wasteland.
All of them sought to uncover the mystery behind that beam of Buddhist light.
As the instigator of it all, Ye Qingyun remained entirely unaware of the massive sensation his recitation of the sutra had caused in the distant Western Territory.
"Have you two memorized it?"
The Song father and son were completely dumbstruck.
Immersed in the sutra Ye Qingyun had just chanted, even though they didn't yet fully grasp the principles within,
simply hearing it once made them feel as though they had achieved sudden, great enlightenment.
Their outlook on life had undergone a profound transformation.
"Master, I have attained enlightenment!"
The father and son cried out in unison.
Chapter 34: Stepping Up the Effort
Whether the Song father and son had truly attained enlightenment or not, Ye Qingyun wasn't entirely sure.
But he knew one thing: his little life was safe.
"Good, as long as you've attained enlightenment."
Ye Qingyun nodded and said.
Right then, the Song father and son truly resembled disciples who had entered the Buddhist fold, their faces etched with absolute piety.
The way they looked at Ye Qingyun was as if he were a divine being.
"Master, we really did create too much bad karma in the past."
"That's right, Master, please give us more guidance."
"Master, why don't we take you as our master?"
"Master, why aren't you saying anything?"
...
The Song father and son swarmed around Ye Qingyun, calling him Master every second word.
It left Ye Qingyun feeling somewhat out of his depth.
"There's no need to become my disciples. You just need to remember my words, keep chanting the sutra daily, and your karmic obstacles will naturally vanish."
Ye Qingyun said with a placid expression.
"Thank you, Master! Thank you, Master!"
The father and son bowed repeatedly.
"Then this poor monk... ah, no, I'll take my leave first."
"Our father and son will see the Master off!"
"Nonsense! We should be escorting the Master all the way back to Fuyun Mountain!"
Ye Qingyun: "..."
And so,
Ye Qingyun was respectfully escorted all the way back to Fuyun Mountain by the Song father and son.
Along the way, they continually consulted him on Buddhist teachings.
What did Ye Qingyun know about Buddhism?
He could only rely on a glib tongue to spout nonsense, casually tossing out vague and ambiguous remarks.
In Ye Qingyun's view anyway, wasn't Buddhist doctrine just a bunch of obscure and unfathomable mumbo-jumbo?
Upon reaching Fuyun Mountain, Ye Qingyun waved his hand at the Song father and son.
"You can head back now. Remember to chant the sutra often and do good deeds."
"We will keep the Master's teachings engraved in our hearts!"
The father and son bowed in unison.
"Right, farewell."
Ye Qingyun headed up the mountain.
Meanwhile, the Song father and son returned to the Song Residence brimming with joy.
That very night, the father and son set up a Buddhist shrine right inside the estate.
They even specially commissioned a golden Buddha statue to be crafted—and modeled its face entirely after Ye Qingyun.
They had directly elevated Ye Qingyun to the status of a living Buddha to be worshipped.
If Ye Qingyun had known, he likely would have vomited blood on the spot.
The Song father and son chanted the Heart Sutra throughout the entire night in the shrine, the sound of their recitation echoing through the entire Song Residence.
They were utterly pious.