[Vol. 1, Fragment III: White Horse Temple ? Dining Hall Records]

  "The Buddha views a bowl of water and sees eighty-four thousand insects. If the Buddha’s body itself is a hive, then what are the masses worshipping? The Enlightened One, or the Devourer? Note: Frequent disappearances of pilgrims recently. Meat consumption within the temple has sharply declined. Investigation required."

  — Directorate of Astronomy ? Miscellaneous Division ? Case File B-4

  [Internal Note / Directorate of Astronomy] "Kitchen Waste": Refers to perishable, malodorous Filth containing large amounts of organic matter. Disposal Suggestion: These things are usually greasy and full of angry fire. Don't reason with them. Just help them "physically calm down."

  The White Horse Temple did not smell of sandalwood.

  By all rights, this thousand-year-old temple, hailed as the "Ancestral Court of Buddhism," should have been wreathed in incense smoke all day long, permeating the air with the calming scent of agarwood. But the moment Xie Bi’an stepped through the mountain gate, what hit him was a thick, cloying stench—like a slaughterhouse sewer that had been clogged for three days and then suddenly backed up.

  It was the smell of meat boiled until it fell apart, mixed with the sour tang of rancid fat. It was so thick it felt like it could coat his nose hairs in grease.

  "This smell..."

  Xie Bi’an stood in the square before the Great Hall of the Buddha, subconsciously covering his nose and mouth with his sleeve. "This isn't a temple. It's a fermenting compost heap."

  In his arms, Xianchan was rolling around in ecstasy. The golden cat rubbed his fur against Xie Bi’an’s chest, making his neck itch, while his mental voice pitched up with excitement.

  "Meat! Huge chunks of meat! Father, this is an Imperial Manchu Han Feast! This smells way better than that water ghost earlier. That was an appetizer; this is the main course!"

  Shut up. It's kitchen waste, Xie Bi’an replied coldly in his mind, his eyes scanning the surroundings with vigilance. And it's the unsorted kind. Careful you don't get food poisoning.

  On his shoulder, the silver cat Anu had completely fluffed up. Her entire body was tense, her silver tail wrapped tightly around Xie Bi’an’s neck as if it were the only life preserver in a stormy sea. To her senses, this place wasn't a sanctuary of purity. It was a massive, writhing stomach pouch.

  "Benefactor... visiting late at night, what business do you have?"

  A muffled, wet voice drifted from the shadows of the Great Hall. It sounded like someone trying to speak with a mouthful of fat.

  The Receptionist Monk of White Horse Temple walked out.

  He wore a wide, bright yellow kasaya robe. His body was obese to the point of abnormality; when he walked, the fat on his body trembled in waves, making wet slap-slap sounds. His face was round and shiny, reflecting a greasy, unnatural sheen under the moonlight. At the corner of his mouth hung a dark brown stain that looked suspiciously like gravy.

  "Directorate of Astronomy. Gleaner."

  Xie Bi’an flashed the darkened waist tag, his tone lazy. "I heard your Buddha here has had a good appetite lately. I came to see if he needed help... with digestion."

  His gaze, however, bypassed the monk and fixed dead on the tightly closed wooden doors of the Great Hall behind him.

  The Receptionist Monk’s smile froze on his face.

  A second later, his massive belly let out a roar, as if something inside was desperate to drill its way out.

  "Benefactor has such heavy greed, anger, and ignorance..." The monk’s voice changed. It became sharp, raspy, like bones grinding together. "Since you are here, leave your skin bag behind to offer to my Buddha. Ascend to Bliss early... isn't that wonderful?"

  With a crisp rip of tearing fabric, the monk’s kasaya exploded.

  His massive belly split open down the middle. No intestines spilled out. Instead, a gigantic mouth filled with jagged teeth emerged from his abdominal cavity. The mouth occupied his entire torso, and a long tongue, like a red python dripping with foul saliva, shot out like lightning toward Xie Bi’an’s neck.

  "So dirty."

  Xie Bi’an frowned. He didn't move his feet, only tilting his head slightly. His eyes flashed with disdain for such a crude attack method.

  "Anu, cut it. Don't let that greasy thing touch me."

  "Meow!"

  Before the words fully left his mouth, a silver light flashed.

  On his shoulder, Anu was disgusted, but duty called. She was responsible for handling "Hazardous Waste." In her eyes, this tongue wasn't meat; it was a materialized chain of "Filthy Qi."

  Since it was a chain, she just had to cut it.

  Her sharp claws swiped three silver lines through the void. Space itself seemed to be sliced open, leaving three sizzling silver scars in the air.

  The moment the lunging tongue touched the silver lines—shhhhk—it was severed at the root.

  The stump didn't spray blood. It sprayed a jet of yellow grease.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  "Ah—!!" The Receptionist Monk screamed, clutching his belly and stumbling back, his eyes filled with disbelief and terror. "The Buddha’s 'Law Chain'... broken?!"

  "Fatty, if you want to eat that thing, hurry up. If you can't finish it, remember to ask for a doggy bag." Xie Bi’an ordered indifferently.

  Xianchan in his arms had been waiting for this.

  "Dinner time!!"

  Golden light flashed. The fat orange tabby, usually too lazy to move, now burst with astonishing speed. He expanded in the wind, not into a tiger, but inflating into a golden beast the size of a calf. He bit down on the monk’s upper body in one go.

  A sickening crunch of bone shattering rang out. The Receptionist Monk, along with the mouth in his belly, was bitten in half by Xianchan, chewed up like gristle—crunch, crunch—and swallowed.

  "A bit greasy," Xianchan commented in Xie Bi’an’s mind while licking oil from the corner of his mouth, his tone critical as a food critic. "This monk had too much oil in his diet. It’s like pork belly that wasn't rendered properly. Skin’s too thick. One star."

  Xie Bi’an ignored the cat’s review. He walked straight to the Great Hall, lifted his foot, and kicked the heavy wooden doors open.

  Boom. The doors slammed open to both sides. A heatwave rushed out, carrying a suffocating aroma of meat and the metallic tang of blood.

  The hall was unlit, yet bright as day. The three-zhang-tall Golden Body of the Tathagata in the center was glowing.

  But a closer look revealed it wasn't Buddha’s light.

  It was a thick layer of golden corpse oil coating the statue’s surface, reflecting the moonlight.

  And this Great Buddha... was not made of mud or wood.

  It was constructed from thousands of pieces of dark red, fresh flesh. The meat chunks were still pulsating, stitched together by veins that looked like twisted tree roots. The Buddha’s "eyes" were two massive human heads, staring dead at Xie Bi’an in the doorway, their eyeballs still rolling in their sockets.

  Beneath the lotus throne of the Buddha lay a pile of bleached white bones—residue that had been fully "digested."

  "Amitabha..."

  The Meat Mountain Buddha slowly opened its mouth. The voice was grand and turbid, carrying a bizarre sense of holiness, like countless people chanting sutras simultaneously.

  "All life is suffering. Flesh and blood are a cage. Benefactor, why not discard this stinking skin bag and cultivate the 'Unobscured Body' with me, to enjoy eternal bliss?"

  As the voice fell, the statues of Arhats around the hall exploded one by one, turning into small meat-chunk monsters that fell to the ground with wet plops and surrounded Xie Bi’an.

  Xie Bi’an sighed and unhooked the wine gourd from his waist. It was filled with the Persian grape wine he’d swiped from Master Wang.

  "Eternal bliss? Looks more like eternal pickling to me." He shook the gourd, his gaze as calm as if he were reading a boring spreadsheet. "Kitchen waste doesn't fear being chopped; it fears stopping. Once it stops, it rots, and becomes nothing but dead matter."

  Xie Bi’an threw his head back and took a heroic swig. The purple-red liquid ran down the corner of his mouth, dripping onto the grease-stained floor tiles.

  His eyes grew glazed, but deep in his pupils, a frenzied golden flame ignited.

  "Since you like eating meat so much, I’ll give you a layer of 'glaze'."

  He suddenly sprayed the mist of wine from his mouth.

  Whoosh. The alcohol turned into a cloud of crystal-clear pink mist, enveloping the entire hall.

  "Anu, seal the exits. Don't let the smell drift out."

  The silver cat let out a long cry, turning into a streak of silver light that erected an invisible barrier around the hall.

  "Xianchan, protect the Dharma. Don't let those little scraps touch me; I just changed these clothes."

  The golden cat roared. Though he didn't want to move on a full stomach, he reluctantly waved a paw, smashing several lunging meat chunks into paste.

  Xie Bi’an walked step by step toward the Meat Mountain Buddha.

  With every step, he could feel the ley lines trembling beneath his feet. It was the thousand years of incense and willpower of the White Horse Temple. Though defiled by Filth, the foundation remained. Like the grime at the bottom of a wok being scraped—stinky, sticky, but perfect for glazing.

  "...Good foundation," he muttered. "Only this once. I'll bet on it."

  He extended his right hand. It had turned completely translucent and golden. The blood vessels inside were clearly visible, flowing with molten gold dust.

  The price this time came faster and fiercer than before.

  It wasn't pain. Pain would mean the nerves were still alive.

  Right now, his entire right hand up to the elbow had completely lost sensation. It felt as if the hand no longer belonged to him, but was a cold prosthetic hanging from his body.

  Yet his face still wore that loose smile of an expert, only the corner of his mouth twitching slightly.

  He slammed his palm into the void. Borrowing the surging incense power from the ley lines beneath his feet, he made a violent gripping motion toward the massive meat mountain.

  "Freezing... Now!"

  A piercing hum shrieked across the hall.

  The wine mist permeating the air solidified as if receiving an imperial edict. Every droplet turned into a golden nail, tearing through the air and driving viciously into the Meat Mountain Buddha’s body.

  "ROAR!!!"

  The Great Buddha let out a miserable scream. The solemn facade of "eternal bliss" collapsed instantly, replaced by the dying wail of a beast.

  The dark red muscle turned into translucent ruby. The yellow corpse oil became flowing gold leaf. The white bone turned into pristine white marble.

  Gold-Inlaid Liuli ? Manifestation Seal.

  It was a gamble leveraging time and location.

  In less than three heartbeats, the fire was drawn from the meat mountain. In its place stood a three-zhang-tall, crystalline Buddha statue of peerless beauty, its internal veins turned to gold threads. It remained frozen in its clawing posture, but under the Liuli seal, the hideousness was transformed into a tension-filled artistic beauty.

  The moment the seal was complete, Fur Elise in Xie Bi’an’s head became excruciatingly loud, the volume cranking up a hundredfold, nearly bringing him to his knees. The gold threads inside the Liuli Buddha even vibrated in time with the melody.

  "Hah... hah..."

  Pale-faced, Xie Bi’an withdrew his hand.

  His right hand remained suspended in mid-air, frozen in a gripping gesture, but he couldn't feel its existence.

  "This quality..."

  He forced himself forward and knocked on the Buddha’s lotus throne with his left hand.

  Clang. A crisp echo rang out.

  "Red Jade Liuli, Gold-Inlay craftsmanship. If I shipped this to the Ghost Market in Jiankang... it’d trade for at least two hundred jars of thirty-year-old Daughter’s Red, plus enough to fix the leaking roof at the Miscellaneous Division."

  At that moment, tap, tap footsteps sounded outside the hall.

  Old Man Yuan appeared silently at the door, holding his pale lantern. He looked at the blindingly magnificent Liuli Buddha in the center of the hall, then at the weak but fanatical-eyed Xie Bi’an. The countless eyes on his face narrowed simultaneously.

  "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Gleaner Xie."

  Old Man Yuan let out a dry laugh. "You aren't collecting Filth; you’re turning kitchen waste into national treasures. However..."

  The old man changed the subject, his withered finger pointing at the Buddha’s chest.

  There, through the translucent Liuli, a black heart was clearly visible. It hadn't been fully assimilated. Instead, it was still beating faintly—thump, thump—emitting a palpitating fluctuation.

  "That thing. How do you plan to handle it?"

  Xie Bi’an followed his finger, his gaze narrowing slightly.

  Outside the hall, the rhythmic chirping of insects vanished instantly. A deathly silence fell over the White Horse Temple.

  "It's not very happy."

  Xie Bi’an smiled, but the smile didn't reach his eyes.

  He lifted his senseless right hand, trying to reach for his wine gourd, but his fingertips paused in mid-air—the tactile sensation was like tapping on cold porcelain, not living flesh.

  "It’s valuable, sure..." he whispered, as if convincing himself, or perhaps comforting the ruined hand.

  "But with a cargo like this, the buyer might come knocking."