Fang Zhiyi wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, staring at the Golden-Winged Roc before him with unconcealed resentment.
This creature was exactly as the book had described—no, even more terrifying.
He had originally assumed it was just some well-connected lackey, but it turned out to be a highly skilled one at that.
Fang Zhiyi glanced to the side, where Sun Wukong was carving his way out of the swarm of demons, his Ruyi Jingu Bang slick with blood, yet still firmly clutched in his grasp.
The Golden-Winged Roc’s voice suddenly rang out by his ear.
“Still got the nerve to look around?”
The next moment, Fang Zhiyi felt as though his chest had been slammed by a speeding truck, his entire body hurtling backward.
A sweetness rose in his throat, and he coughed out a mouthful of blood.
“Damn it…” Fang Zhiyi was at his wit's end. Who would have thought that, with only one trial left to complete the pilgrimage, they would run into such a monstrous opponent?
He tried to scramble back to his feet, but his limbs had no strength left. All he could do was watch the Golden-Winged Roc approach with its arms crossed, each step leaving claw marks a palm deep in the ground.
“A pack of frauds daring to impersonate the true pilgrims?” The Golden-Winged Roc shook its head, staring down at Fang Zhiyi lying on the ground. “And here I had a spark of anticipation. How very disappointing.”
Fang Zhiyi frowned at it, mentally calculating how to turn the tables, but every scenario he ran produced the same result: before absolute strength, all clever schemes were useless.
Perhaps growing bored, the Golden-Winged Roc made no move to kill him quickly.
“A fake monk posing as Golden Cicada,” it said, then turned its gaze to Sha Wujing, “a low-cultivation carp spirit,” and finally, toward the wobbling figure of Sun Wukong rising unsteadily to his feet.
“And a Protector of the Horses who’s lost his soul.”
Fang Zhiyi froze.
He knew he was a fake, and he knew Sha Wujing was a fake, but Sun Wukong… how could he be—
“Judging by that look on your face, you didn’t even know. How laughable—not even aware you’ve been traveling with a fake all along.” The Golden-Winged Roc lost its patience and raised its talon to stomp Fang Zhiyi into the ground.
Fang Zhiyi was still lost in shock. No, it couldn’t be! Ghost Tripitaka had said it himself—Sun Wukong was…
Wait, where was Ghost Tripitaka?
Only then did he realize that, at some point, that ghost had vanished.
And now, so was he.
But in the next instant, the sound of chaotic chanting filled his ears, and Fang Zhiyi felt a force yank him away.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk—Personality One has fallen. Personality Two takes the stage…”
Fang Zhiyi whipped his head around and saw Little Hei’s round, stubby body.
“What are you staring at me for? Get a load of the show!” Little Hei’s eyes bulged as he looked outward. Fang Zhiyi realized that he had been forcibly stripped of control over that body.
The Golden-Winged Roc was puzzled. Its talon—which should have crushed that dying monk—was actually being blocked. More absurdly, the man was standing up again.
Unlike the previous bloodthirsty ferocity, the monk now wore an expression of utter calm, even a hint of compassion in his eyes.
That expression infuriated the Golden-Winged Roc.
“You think you still have a chance?” It beat its wings savagely and swung its claw at the monk’s head.
The monk raised a hand casually, catching that devastating blow as lightly as if stopping a five-year-old’s tantrum.
“You…”
“Vajra pierces illusion; lotus blooms to subdue demons.”
The monk said this lightly, then his fingers pressed down gently, and the Golden-Winged Roc let out a sharp cry as it watched its own palm twist into an utterly unnatural shape.
“He who recklessly creates slaughter and brings calamity to the land — if he will not deal with it, I will.”
As the words faded, the monk pressed his palms together, and suddenly, a towering Dharma manifestation appeared behind him.
The manifestation was clearly a Buddha, yet it had no face. As the monk bowed his head, one hand of the manifestation slowly pressed downward.
Terror surged through the Golden-Winged Roc: “The Formless Dharma Body! Just who are you?!”
It strained with all its might against the descending giant palm.
“I thought you were dead,” Fang Zhiyi said.
Little Hei let out a sigh: “Almost. That fake Tripitaka is far too terrifying.”
“What exactly is he? Wasn’t he just some long-winded monk?”
“That was the mortal shell of his current life, not his true body... This fellow is called Lingjizi, and he studied under Jingfan.” Little Hei explained while watching the Golden-Winged Roc struggle against the manifestation. “He’s actually a reincarnated ancient ferocious beast. Somehow, he wound up joining the Buddhist faith.”
Fang Zhiyi was shocked.
“Frightening, right? I was scared too when I peeked at him back then. And this guy knows I’ve been investigating him, but he doesn’t care at all,” Little Hei said. “Even though he’s a Buddhist disciple with an exalted status, his heart is full of confusion.”
“His master was a good monk — compassionate at heart, believing that human nature is inherently good. You know what happened after that, of course.” Little Hei’s body trembled.
Fang Zhiyi nodded. The kinds of people he had seen were varied and strange, and those who could truly be called good were indeed few.
“During one debate on the scriptures, Jingfan said that simply preaching the sutras could not save living beings — that one needed to act personally, to make tangible efforts. That remark made some of the Buddhas sneer. In their eyes, ordinary people who couldn’t understand the scriptures weren’t even worth saving.”
“And so Jingfan made a wager with them, and entered the cycle of reincarnation. In every life, he did everything in his power to help those people.”
“When Buddha learned of this, he did not stop it, which ultimately led to the tragedy that followed. Jingfan met a bad end in almost every life — either he was robbed and killed by beggars he had helped, or he was slandered while doing good deeds. The worst was during the rule of foreign conquerors. You know — under foreign rule, commoners were treated no better than pigs and sheep. Seeing the suffering of the mortal world, Jingfan used his own divine power to save people. He never spoke of scriptures or talked about liberation; he just quietly saved lives. Yet even so, time and again, the very people he saved would report him to the authorities for using evil sorcery. In the end, Jingfan was burned alive by fire.”
Fang Zhiyi nodded: “Aside from all that, he really was a good man.”
“Normally, Jingfan could’ve just gone back to Lingshan and lowered his head, and that would’ve been the end of it. But that stubborn fool said, if he could not save all beings, he would rather suffer endless reincarnation — ten times, a hundred times, until one life he finally succeeded.”
“And so he played himself out. Every life, he spent his cultivation to help mortals, until after one reincarnation, Jingfan faded entirely from the mortal world.”
"He has died. Buddha merely sighed, saying he was too obsessed. But what no one expected was that Jingfan's action was noticed by Lingjizi. Already confused, he became even more bewildered. He couldn't understand why such a thing had happened, so in order to figure out his master's intentions, he too began to re-enter the cycle of reincarnation. Unlike Golden Cicada, who was punished, he did so willingly."
"So..." Fang Zhiyi stared blankly as the protective demonic aura of the Golden-Winged Roc was forced to disperse.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
