By the rushing river.
Li Yingling quickly grasped her master's intention and spoke:
"As the saying goes, 'Seas change into mulberry fields.' I once read in a miscellany that rivers and seas could recede, turning into mountains."
"So why couldn’t it be that rivers and seas now flood in, submerging those mountains?"
Yuan Kong nodded in realization. "Then... the mountain is underwater right now?"
Chu Xingchen expanded a spiritual barrier, enveloping the other two.
"Just a hypothesis. Let’s go in and see for ourselves. For all we know, that Buddhist scripture might’ve been nonsense written to fool gullible people like you."
"Others read it as a story, but only you, Yuan Kong, took it as a treasure map."
Yuan Kong had no real rebuttal.
Li Yingling had already reached the Foundation Establishment stage, so the river posed no threat to her—but Yuan Kong couldn’t handle it.
Since the barrier was already up, bringing one more person along made no difference. If anything, it was an extra layer of security.
Chu Xingchen led the two into the turbulent currents.
The rushing waters carried thick sediment, turning the underwater world murky and dark.
The faint glow from their spiritual energy only allowed Yuan Kong to make out the swirling sand and stones around them.
Not that he could see anything clearly anyway.
Chu Xingchen scanned the area with his divine sense once more, comparing it to the hand-drawn map Yuan Kong had provided. Still, nothing matched.
Could it really just be a tall tale, written to deceive people?
Li Yingling observed her master’s expression. "Master, is something wrong?"
Chu Xingchen shook his head slightly, then turned to Yuan Kong. "Were there any other key hints in that scripture?"
"Hints?" Yuan Kong blinked, then frowned in thought. "It only mentioned that the Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva, to save all beings, transformed himself into an inner realm, severing love and hatred, cutting off emotions and grudges..."
Regardless of the story’s authenticity, one phrase stood out—severance...?
Chu Xingchen pondered for a moment before nodding in understanding. With no other options left, it was worth a try.
A surge of immense spiritual energy erupted from him as two small, translucent hands materialized behind his back.
The right hand swept outward, parting the muddy waters with sheer force.
The other hand spread its fingers, releasing a vast mirror-like expanse of energy that covered the entire riverbed, reflecting everything below.
Chu Xingchen raised his gaze to the luminous screen above.
Mountains and rivers were inverted within it.
Li Yingling and Yuan Kong quickly grasped the idea and followed his lead, staring at the projection.
"Severance divides inside from outside. The scenery within and without is reversed." Chu Xingchen’s eyes locked onto a small hill in the reflection. "There it is."
Withdrawing his energy, the phantom hands dissipated.
Chu Xingchen guided the two toward the submerged hill.
Having recently studied cultivation basics, Li Yingling recognized this technique—something only a Nascent Soul cultivator could achieve.
She couldn’t help but blurt out, "Master, that was a Nascent Soul-level technique, wasn’t it?!"
"What’s the matter? Realizing you underestimated your master?" Chu Xingchen replied coolly. "There’s still much about me you don’t know."
"Of course not! My master is a peerless expert capable of sweeping through the Xuanwu Kingdom!"
"Your expression when we first met said otherwise."
Li Yingling grinned. "That was before I started cultivating. I didn’t know any better!"
As they bantered, Chu Xingchen reached the hill at the riverbed. After confirming with his divine sense, he raised a hand and shattered it with a single strike.
Beneath the rubble lay a massive, weathered head of Guanyin.
The statue’s features were worn, but its eyes were covered by a yellow cloth strip inscribed with black runes that flickered faintly.
Chu Xingchen pulled the statue into the barrier and glanced at Yuan Kong.
"Your turn, Dharma Child."
Finally, Yuan Kong’s moment to shine. Confidence brimming, he strode forward without hesitation and reached for the yellow cloth.
A surge of dark energy blasted him backward, slamming him into the edge of the barrier.
Neither Chu Xingchen nor Li Yingling spoke. Their calm gazes simply rested on the once-confident monk.
No disappointment, no pity—as if they’d expected this all along.
The dark energy had left Yuan Kong’s body numb and tingling. As he clutched his chest, struggling to recover, their silent judgment bore into him.
Those eyes seemed to say—We always knew you were useless. This is no surprise.
"That was just a mistake! I wasn’t prepared!" Yuan Kong scrambled to his feet. "Let me read the runes properly this time!"
Chu Xingchen’s tone was flat. "Go ahead."
Yuan Kong hurried back to the statue and studied the runes intently.
He murmured them aloud:
"Oṃ Ami..."
After a few lines, he paused. This... didn’t sound like Buddhist scripture.
It was more like the incantations his senior brother had once taught him.
Clasping his hands into a mudra, he channeled his spiritual will and shouted:
"Oṃ Śavava...!"
His will surged into the yellow cloth—
BOOM.
A far more violent wave of dark energy erupted. Chu Xingchen swiftly shielded Yuan Kong, but the backlash still sent the monk tumbling head over heels.
Li Yingling sighed. "Master, you should handle this."
"Wait—" Yuan Kong scrambled up, watching as Chu Xingchen prepared to act.
"You want another try?"
"No... Just wait until I’m farther away."
Clutching his chest, Yuan Kong scurried to the edge of the barrier before giving the signal.
Chu Xingchen stared, speechless at the monk’s shamelessness.
Despite his abysmal performance, Chu Xingchen couldn’t help but feel this man had a bright future ahead...
Truly, a product of the Zen Forest Temple’s teachings.
Now, it was his turn. A living Deity Transformation expert might warrant caution, but a dead one? What threat did it pose?
Chu Xingchen’s gaze sharpened as the two phantom hands reappeared behind him, lunging for the yellow cloth.
The moment they grasped it, the runes flared violently, unleashing a torrent of dark energy against the spectral limbs.
Hmph, not bad.
Frowning, Chu Xingchen intensified his efforts. The phantom expanded further, revealing a miniature version of himself seated atop a white lotus, expression serene yet detached. The tiny hands gripped the cloth and pulled—
The black runes leaped from the fabric, attacking the illusion.
But the seated figure simply rose, planting a foot on the assaulting script—
CRACK.
With a sharp tug, the yellow cloth was ripped away.
The statue’s true visage was revealed:
Guanyin’s wrathful glare, eyes burning with boundless fury, as if ready to devour all existence.
"Only through killing can war cease!"
The moment the statue’s eyes were exposed, a thunderous roar erupted from it.
The surroundings twisted violently.
Chu Xingchen sensed the shift but remained unfazed.
This must be what Yuan Kong referred to as the Inner Realm—the very place where all the treasures he mentioned would reside.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
