Chapter 222: True Comprehension of the Great Dao
Over one hundred thousand years ago.
In a muddy river of the lower realm, a swaddled infant drifted along the current.
The baby did not cry nor make a sound—its clear eyes merely watched the clouds flowing across the sky.
By chance, an old wandering monk passed by. When he lifted the infant from the water, he discovered a sheet of golden foil wrapped inside the swaddle, inscribed with two words:
"Ming Xin."
"Since you have no parents," the old monk said, "then follow this old monk in cultivation."
He brought the child back to his mountain temple, unaware that the infant he had rescued was the reincarnated Buddha Child of the Upper Realm's Heavenly Sound Temple—one whose soul had been lost after being inexplicably hidden by the Heavenly Dao.
Thirty years later, when the emissaries of Heavenly Sound Temple finally arrived, riding upon seven-colored auspicious clouds, the young monk—already at the Heaven-Human Realm—was sitting beneath a Bodhi tree, brewing tea.
"You are the Buddha Child of our Heavenly Sound Temple."
The emissaries explained his destiny and the existence of Heavenly Sound Temple.
Ming Xin calmly poured the tea. "Since you have come from afar, why not first have a cup?"
Amid the drifting fragrance of tea, no one noticed the wisp of black energy flickering between his fingers.
When the last emissary finished drinking the tea infused with the "Mortal Tribulation," Ming Xin suddenly erupted!
Bang!
The first emissary's skull shattered beneath the blow of a purple-gold alms bowl. His eyes still held disbelief as he died.
"Standing atop the suffering of all beings—and you call that a Pure Land?" Ming Xin sneered coldly, stepping on the corpse. "Allow me to send you there first!"
That day, all emissaries of Heavenly Sound Temple who descended to the lower realm perished.
Staring at his blood-stained monk robe, Ming Xin suddenly remembered what his master had said before passing:
"A cultivator's greatest fear is owing karmic debt."
He kowtowed three times before the temple gate, then set fire to the monastery where he had grown up.
From that day, the world lost a pure white-robed monk who kept the precepts—and gained a wandering vagrant monk carrying an alms bowl across the lands.
And what followed was the story of Ji Hongli.
…
At this moment, the gentle eyes of "Ming Xin" reflected Ji Hongli's hesitant expression.
"After all these years…" he murmured with a faint smile, his monk robe fluttering without wind, "these people truly haven't improved at all."
Before his words faded, his withered hands formed a strange seal—thumb pressing the ring finger, middle and index fingers pointed to the sky, pinky hooked toward the earth veins.
Boom—
The once-clear sky instantly darkened as clouds swirled and thunder serpents danced. Worse still, the entire world seemed to come alive, as the invisible laws of heaven and earth began violently rejecting this space—like a body repelling a poisonous thorn buried in its flesh.
"Master!" Ji Hongli cried out in alarm.
The old monk's face held a rare mischievous smile. "Since little Hongli finally calls this poor monk 'Master'…"
Before he could finish, his entire right arm twisted with a sickening crack—the Heavenly Dao's law crushing the forbidden existence of his body.
Blood oozed from every pore, staining his gray robes dark red.
"…then let this poor monk lend you a hand."
Before the final word left his lips, his expression froze. His eyes rolled slightly, gazing at his disintegrating fingers, and he gave a bitter smile.
"Your master is useless… from here on, you must hold out on your own."
The frail face rippled like water, and once more the distorted visage of Ming Xin emerged—yet the calm detachment from before was gone, replaced by madness and fury.
"You…"
Ming Xin raised his head toward the descending tribulation clouds, then looked down at his dissolving golden body.
He could feel it—even if he returned to the Upper Realm now, his cultivation would plummet to the early Immortal Venerable Realm, or perhaps fall all the way back to the peak of the Saint Realm!
"All of you… deserve… to die!"
The blood-soaked monk's robe suddenly burst apart as Ming Xin unleashed the final surge of his Buddha light, tearing through heaven and earth as it roared toward Chen Chang'an.
This time, he held nothing back. Burning his life's essence blood, his palm carried the fury of annihilation—sworn to crush into pieces the man who had shattered his Dao foundation.
Chen Chang'an held Ji Hongli's hand tightly. Her soft touch pressed against his palm, her heartbeat rapid yet unwavering beside his ear.
Ming Xin's blood-burning strike was already before him. The Buddha light became a cage, sealing all escape routes. Time seemed to freeze; even the thunder brewing within the tribulation clouds slowed in its descent.
Only a wisp of primordial energy remained in Chen Chang'an's chest. His reserves were spent, every hidden card revealed—yet he was utterly calm.
Because deep within his Dao heart, a voice was echoing.
"What is the Invincible Dao?"
The answer came: "The highest good is like water. Water benefits all things and does not contend."
He understood that truth. Water nourishes all, contending with none; thus, none in the world can contend against it.
"But…"
The voice shifted suddenly.
"What if the other side is a fool—determined to boil the water dry and drag you down with them?"
Chen Chang'an's lips curved slightly.
"Then you hide."
"Avoid their edge; retreat beneath the ninefold earth."
"But what if…"
The voice asked again.
"You can't hide, can't run—and the opponent is already riding a dragon straight for your face?"
Ming Xin's Buddha palm had already reached him, the fierce wind tearing strands of hair from Chen Chang'an's forehead.
In that instant between life and death—
A sigh echoed from deep within his body, long and ancient, as though it came from the dawn of creation itself.
"Then there's no other way…"
"Only—"
"To truly become invincible."
Boom!
Something within Chen Chang'an shattered—a lock deep in his being burst apart, unleashing an indescribable power.
It was not a surge of spiritual energy, nor the manifestation of any law. It was something more primal, more absolute—like the first breath of chaos when the world was born, and the final radiance when all things end.
His hair rose without wind, every strand shimmering with starlit chaos. In his eyes, countless worlds flickered through birth and destruction.
Ming Xin's Buddha palm was now only three inches from his brow—yet it could move no further.
Chen Chang'an's fist had already arrived first.
Bang!
A plain, unadorned punch—yet it silenced heaven and earth.
Ming Xin's face froze in place—shock, fear, confusion, disbelief—all emotions blending into pure despair.
"Im… possible…"
The words trembled from his lips before—
Crack!
From his shattered nose bridge, fine cracks spread across his entire body like spiderwebs. His golden Buddha form, once indestructible, began to fragment like broken porcelain.
"No—!!"
The tribulation clouds above suddenly halted.
The raging storm seemed lost, circling aimlessly in the heavens like a hound bereft of its prey. A few desperate bolts of violet lightning struck down, but only tore through harmless clouds. The laws of heaven scoured the lower realm, yet could no longer find the aura of the defiant Immortal Venerable.
Ming Xin's broken golden body hung silently in the air, disintegrating piece by piece.
The first to fall was the Seven-Treasure Buddha Crown—the symbol of his Saint Realm. When it hit the ground, it shattered into countless fragments of glazed crystal. Each shard reflected a forgotten prayer of faith.
Next came the bloodstained kasaya. The golden-threaded sutras of the Diamond Scripture unraveled, the floating strands rearranging themselves midair into three hundred and sixty ancient Sanskrit glyphs, scattering like freed birds. In the Upper Realm, a young novice copying scriptures suddenly looked up to find unfamiliar, exquisite characters appearing on his paper.
When the final Buddha bone in his heart turned to dust, golden rain began to fall across the Immortal Spirit Valley.
Where it touched scorched earth, new grass sprouted.
Where it seeped into Chen Chang'an's wounds, shattered meridians began to knit together.
The largest droplet landed upon Ji Hongli's brow. Through the shimmering curtain of rain, she thought she saw the white-robed monk of ten thousand years past—the one who used to pat her head—smiling at her with palms pressed together.
The fall of an Immortal Venerable breathed life across a thousand miles.
White Buddha mushrooms bloomed through broken walls; streams trickled once more through parched riverbeds; even the air, burned dry by tribulation, became sweet again.
Chen Chang'an reached out and caught a drifting mote of golden light. Warmth tingled in his palm—it was the final remnant of Ming Xin's obsession, melting away like spring snow between his fingers.
In that moment—
The world was silent, and only the clear wind remained.
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