Chapter 142: Buddha with Brass Knuckles, Accumulating Merit While Beating You Up

Whoosh!

A slender blue dragon shadow, wrapped in a churning vortex, flashed beneath the narrow Bungo Channel between Kyushu Island and Shikoku Island.

The powers [Gather Beasts and Summon Birds, Enlighten All Living Things] and [Command Wind and Rain, Rebuke Lightning and Hear Thunder] resonated. Wind, rain, thunder, lightning, fish, turtles, shrimp, crabs, grasses, and trees all became soldiers at his side!

Even the whirlpools and waves transformed into loyal troops, escorting Wang Cheng across this strait barely twenty-four li wide.

The crucial point was that it was narrow—and the sun was blazing high in the sky. Otherwise, Wang Cheng would never have dared cross the sea alone, even at gunpoint.

He had set out from Shikoku at noon, when the sun was at its zenith. By the time he came ashore in the Eastern Sea Kingdom, it wasn’t even dinnertime.

He slapped two [Armored Horse Talismans] onto his legs and raced another two hundred li, entering the border of Hizen, a land long since conquered and annexed by the Five Peaks Banner.

When he spotted a special mark carved into a roadside tree, he knew the people sent ahead were in position. Only then did he slow down.

He continued on at an unhurried pace. It was his first time in a major city, so he ate when it was time to eat and found an inn when it was time to rest. Dressed as a man of Great Zhao, he was unquestionably treated as a person of high standing.

Even the samurai who casually cut down commoners had to step aside for him first.

It was worth noting that the most popular hard currency across the four islands of Yingzhou was actually Great Zhao’s Yongle Tongbao. Great Zhao citizens could spend money abroad without the slightest difficulty.

Before long, the bald eagle Aji circling overhead spotted animals behind them, following with strange fluctuations of magical light. Wang Cheng paid them no mind.

He had revealed his whereabouts on purpose, so that certain interested parties would learn of him in advance and have plenty of time to call in more people.

“I’m not afraid of numbers. In this territory, no matter how many men they bring, I have more.

“Let’s hope their leader is a cautious sort, the kind who takes every precaution and can summon all the forces the Pure Stream gentry have in Yingzhou. Then I won’t have to waste time tracking them down one by one.”

Wang Cheng had never believed that Deputy Envoy Jiang would give him a simple delivery assignment.

So the problem had to lie either at the destination, Pinghu Harbor, or at the meeting place.

After dawdling along the road for another day, he finally arrived at the rendezvous point and stopped at the foot of a small hill, set away from the main road and crowded with stone Buddha statues.

He had crossed half of Kyushu Island, and had often seen such stone Buddhas along the way, most of them thick with moss.

Some were finely carved, others crude. All bore the marks of time, and some were blackened by incense smoke from offerings.

They were called “wild Buddhas,” to distinguish them from the statues in temples. Scattered across the wilderness, they protected travelers from the eight million evil spirits and demons of Yingzhou.

Wang Cheng swept his gaze around. His eyes paused for a moment on one of the statues, then he sat down before the hundred or so wild Buddhas as if nothing were amiss, and waited in silence for the contact.

He did not know how much time passed. He dozed off, then jolted awake to find the sun had shifted and the sky was awash with sunset clouds. The contact still had not arrived.

But among the stone Buddhas before him, one had somehow split open. From inside crawled a sinister little figure carved from black wood.

It had a full set of features, and looked exactly like “Wang Fugui.”

A blood-red talisman and incantation had been carved across its chest: “Wooden man, wooden man, bear another’s burden. What you sow, you reap; nine deaths, one wound!”

With a glance, Rare Goods Appraised saw through its nature.

[Rare Item: Curse Doll—Wooden Man
Material: Made from a century-old willow threshold, trampled by a thousand people and trodden underfoot by ten thousand.
Used with the Lu Ban school’s cursecraft, “Nightmare Suppression,” it can silently steal a target’s form and control their mind. At most, it can secretly harm someone of the same rank.
Value: Extremely high in the hands of Lu Ban practitioners; useless to anyone else.
Taboo: Thunder and fire.]

At the same time, a low, hoarse voice sounded in Wang Cheng’s ear:

“Stand up.”

Wang Cheng’s mind immediately grew hazy. The three fires of Fortune, Prosperity, and Longevity were forcibly suppressed, and he felt as though countless invisible threads had bound his entire body and were pulling him upright.

He did not resist. He let the force lift him to his feet.

Looking up, he saw two figures in conical hats stride out of the woods opposite him.

More than twenty temple soldiers—ghostly troops dressed in black night clothes and wearing masks—followed behind them.

The leader gave a low, mocking laugh.

“Heh. I thought the Second-Day Genius of the Twenty-Four Guards, ‘Ghost God’s Shock,’ was something special. The navy talks him up as though he were a legend, but he’s nothing at all. I barely had to lift a finger to take him.

“I’ve said from the start that letting the Heir of the Sea-Calming Prince escape back then had nothing to do with my skills. The only explanation was that the mole gave us the wrong birth date and hour.

“Look how easily I’ve captured a sixth-rank man. Who dares say Carpenter Chen is no good at his craft?

“Brother Zhou, you went to all that trouble and called in half our forces in the Eastern Sea Kingdom to surround him, but it wasn’t even necessary! Hahaha!”

The tall, gaunt figure beside him had several pitch-black urns hanging from his waist, apparently a [Jar Boy] skilled in controlling ghosts and evil spirits.

His face was pale, and he wore no expression. He merely said coldly, “Better safe than sorry.”

Wang Cheng looked at the two men before him, especially the one in front. His pupils suddenly contracted.

This carpenter, a practitioner of Lu Ban magic, was none other than the accomplice who had used [Mount Tai’s Thousand-Jin Anchor] on him before, nearly dragging him and his father into the eye of the Eastern Sea, where they would have been lost forever.

Even now, Wang Cheng could still clearly recall the man’s mocking laughter as he struggled in despair aboard the royal ship, with the carpenter taunting him from behind his altar.

He never expected to run into this accomplice, the one who did the Pure Stream gentry’s dirty work, in such a remote corner of Yingzhou.

His expression darkened at once.

Still pretending to be ignorant, he shouted, “You’re not the [Night Watchers] Deputy Envoy Jiang mentioned. Who are you? What do you want?”

Carpenter Chen stepped forward and took out a [Purple-Lacquered Gold Casket Inlaid with Mother-of-Pearl, Decorated with Fish and Algae], a box made specifically to hold three thousand Abyssal Treasures. He handed it to Wang Cheng.

At the same time, the sinister Wooden Man crawled up onto Wang Cheng’s shoulder. Its wooden mouth split open, and the carpenter’s voice came from within.

“Who we are is none of the business of a fish on the chopping block.

“Take this and deliver it to the Sea-Calming Prince’s palace. Stay there quietly for seven days, and someone will make sure you understand why you’re about to die.

“Wang Fugui, don’t blame anyone. That’s how it is for little people. They get swept into the struggles of the mighty and die without even knowing how. You’ll get used to it. Can you possibly be more wronged than the Sea-Calming Prince, whose whole family was wiped out? Hehehe.”

Clutching the box, Wang Cheng moved his limbs like a puppet on strings and turned to walk away. His steps gradually grew smoother, until soon he moved just like an ordinary person.

Just as he was about to leave Carpenter Chen and Jar Boy Zhou’s sight, the usually taciturn [Jar Boy] suddenly spoke.

“Wait! Brother Chen, the boy’s going to die sooner or later anyway. It would be a waste to let the life force and vital blood of a sixth-rank [Whitewater Sailor] go to waste. Why not let me use him to nourish a ghost?

“In seven days, you’ll curse the heir to death with your cursecraft, and I’ll have drained this Second-Day Genius dry, body and soul, to raise a powerful bound spirit. A perfect arrangement for both of us, isn’t it?

“And I can add another shackle to him, in case anything goes wrong and he breaks free of the Wooden Man’s control, like the heir did.”

Without waiting for Carpenter Chen to answer, he opened one of the urns at his waist.

Gray mist poured out, and a hunched old woman in a black burial robe crawled from within.

Her hair was white, and iron-hooked claws curled from all ten fingers. Most horrifying of all, she had a sinister, pitch-black cat’s face. One glance was enough to make the blood run cold.

She rose onto the balls of her feet and crept toward Wang Cheng, reaching for the small of his back as though preparing to burrow into his body.

Though his back was turned to her, Wang Cheng could still smell the cold stench of blood, mingled with the odor of singed cat fur. It grew stronger and stronger. His cheeks began to itch, as if fur were sprouting there.

He could not help stopping. Still facing away from the two men and the ghost, he sighed softly.

“If you were raising a beautiful spirit, like a Ghost Bride or a Painted-Skin Ghost, I might have put up with it for a while.

“But you had to bring me this old hag. I really can’t stomach that.

“Why are you so determined to get yourselves killed? If you’re tired of living, I’ll grant your wish.”

Jar Boy Zhou stared at him, stunned.

“What nonsense are you spouting? We have two middle-third-rank cultivators and more than twenty temple soldiers. You’re just a Whitewater Sailor pinned down by cursecraft. What could you possibly do to fight back?

“Go on, then. Kill me.”

“Gladly.”

Wang Cheng slowly turned around, raised one hand with his fingers shaped like a pistol, and aimed at their heads. He made the sound of a gunshot.

“Bang!”

Seeing that Wang Cheng could move freely under the Wooden Man’s control, Carpenter Chen was suddenly seized by a bone-deep sense of danger.

“Look out!”

His more than twenty elite men pulled weapons and shields from their backs, ready to close ranks.

But the young monk and two hundred elite royal guards, concealed for ages with the help of [National Treasure: Build a Plank Road in the Open, Cross the River in Secret], had already cast off their disguises and aimed their guns at them.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Countless blazing streams of fire crisscrossed, swallowing them all in an instant.

Twenty against two hundred—there was no way to claim the advantage.

Horror froze on most of their faces. Some were left with faces riddled with bloody holes.

Only the two middle-third-rank men, the carpenter and the Jar Boy, managed to leap clear in time.

Carpenter Chen pulled out a Lu Ban ruler inscribed with the eight characters Wealth, Sickness, Separation, Righteousness, Office, Calamity, Harm, and Origin, along with intricate markings. He swept it across the air before him.

The trajectories of the lead bullets flying toward them twisted and bent, veering around their bodies and off to either side.

The two men barely had time to catch their breath before a bald figure, gleaming gold from head to toe like a man cast in bronze, swung a fist the size of a bowl and smashed it into Jar Boy Zhou.

Boom!

The countless black ghostly energies around him were like mist before the sun. They were devastated in an instant, and Zhou himself was sent flying.

Behind the “bronze man” appeared the hazy phantom of a [Vajra Yaksha Wisdom King].

Three heads and six arms, he bore a vajra scepter, an arrow, a precious sword, a vajra bell, a dharma wheel, a bow, a spear, and more. He had five eyes: two in each side of his face, and one in his forehead.

Just looking at him made the eyes ache. No one dared gaze directly at him.

Buddhas and divine beings, like the celestial, terrestrial, and aquatic officials, were all forms of Dao energy in essence. Those who mastered the proper methods could borrow their power through visualization and meditation.

The bald monk had taken up a sixth-rank celestial post as an [Esoteric Buddhist Monk], a calling specifically suited to countering evil spirits and yin entities.

He wore gleaming bronze knuckle guards on both hands. Their raised studs were not merely striking surfaces, but consecrated Buddha heads. Each punch brought the light of the Buddha to all under heaven.

Thus it was: knuckle guards and Buddha, every blow a good deed. The Esoteric Buddhist Monk’s divine ability, [Deliverance], was being brought to its fullest potential.

Boom! Boom!

The earth shook and the mountains trembled.

Merit +1!

Merit +1!

Merit +1!