Chapter 132: Chapter 50: A Suddenly Spinning Top
Turning his head, Yu Sheng saw Gao Tian, Lan Chu, Jiang Yang, and Wang Wenbo, along with a shabby old man in a military greatcoat.
He understood what had happened:
"Time has already been reset?
"In the last timeline, I met you and told you everything that happened at Longshu Temple?"
Gao Tian nodded. His gaze passed over Yu Sheng to the ordinary, unremarkable peasant woman trapped in the Buddhist light behind him:
"By that time, you were already dead. You’d become a ghost.
"Relying on a Secret Technique and your dying obsession, you still insisted on returning to Longshu Temple and demanded that I immediately escape on the bus."
A rare flicker of change appeared in Yu Sheng’s eyes, which were usually as tranquil as an old well:
"Then why haven’t you left yet?
"Do you want my death, and the deaths of so many others, to have all been for nothing because of you?
"If you die here, it’s all over! The goal is for you to get back with the Time Coffin. As long as that’s achieved, any sacrifice is acceptable!"
He completely ignored the strange old man in the military greatcoat.
To him, the old man was probably a new resident of the apartment. He looked dim-witted and wasn’t worth a second thought.
"You won’t die. No one is going to die here today."
Gao Tian said slowly,
"This thousand-year farce... it’s time for it to end."
Yu Sheng closed his eyes, as if resigned to his fate.
He couldn’t be bothered to argue with Gao Tian. It was just too difficult to make a resident of the living person’s apartment understand what a terrifying monster "Mother"—a being from the stars—truly was.
In a thousand years, she had only lost twice: once to Master Jingming, and once to the Republic-era team.
But these two defeats were of no consequence to her. They hadn’t ended the time loop at all.
Behind Yu Sheng, "Mother" slowly opened her mouth. Her jaw unhinged, stretching open in a way that defied human anatomy—wider, and wider, and wider, until her chin touched the ground and her entire face was obscured by her own mouth. It continued to expand, a massive, abyssal maw that seemed to want to devour the entire world.
Inside her mouth, there were no teeth, no oral cavity, no blood-red throat leading to a stomach. There was only a deep and brilliant starry sky. Countless stars were born at the edge of the universe, expanding, exploring, collapsing into black holes. New stars formed again in celestial grandeur.
Illuminated by the starry sky behind him, a gale whipped Yu Sheng’s gray monk robes into a frenzy. He simply held up one hand, his calm face ashen with despair, quietly awaiting his fate to be devoured.
This time, there wouldn’t even be reincarnation.
This all-devouring mouth would swallow even time itself.
Jiang Yang, Wang Wenbo, and the others stared at "Mother’s" mouth, which was still growing, about to touch the vault of heaven. They were mesmerized, forgetting themselves, and stood frozen in place as if petrified.
Vast, boundless quantities of knowledge flooded into the minds of the onlookers. In just a few seconds, it was like experiencing the lives of tens of thousands of people—intense love and hate, sorrow, nihilism, parting, the joy of discovering truth, the reality of the universe’s edge, the delusions after reality shatters... All of it was more than enough to completely overwhelm and crash a fragile human brain.
With the endless starry sky as her backdrop, "Mother" walked toward them. She moved like a shifting mountain.
"ROAR—"
A massive sonic wave rustled the weeds in the nearby wilderness. The terrifying roar that could sweep across half the Inner World—a sound that meant certain death to any who heard it—was about to arrive.
The next moment, Old Man Sun put down his pipe and ambled to the front of the group, positioning himself below the giant, starry maw.
Before the boundless universe, the stooped little old man seemed as insignificant as a green ant.
He raised his head, roughly gauging its height and where its main body was.
Then, he lifted his pipe, bent his waist, gathered his strength, and tightened his grip on the stem.
Like an elegant golfer, he swung the long stem of his pipe with all his might.
That single strike shattered the boundless, profound universe that filled the heavens and the earth, and it smothered the thunderous roar that was about to sweep across the land, killing it in its cradle.
"Bingo!
"Hole in one."
Looking at his masterpiece, Old Man Sun was very satisfied.
He slowly lowered his pipe stem and casually wiped off the blood, slime, and blackened, corroded parts.
He took another puff.
...
...
It took Gao Tian a long time to piece together the events that followed.
He and the others had rushed to the Observatory on the cliff’s edge. Faced with the unnamable existence from the stars that had been cycling for a thousand years, when everyone else’s minds were being stuffed full of the vast cosmos, Old Man Sun was completely unaffected.
To him, it was just an ordinary afternoon, no different from the tens of thousands of "filthy things" he had dealt with before.
There were no flashy special effects. Just a single, simple strike of the pipe. He’d sent that unnamable thing spinning like an unstoppable top, flying thousands of miles away, along with the half-a-universe hidden in its mouth.
On the way back down the mountain, Gao Tian couldn’t suppress his curiosity any longer and finally asked:
"Sir..."
Old Man Sun didn’t even look up, concentrating on adding shredded tobacco to his pipe.
"Hm?"
Gao Tian:
"That thing... where did you end up hitting it to?
"Is it dead?"
Jiang Yang was a little worried:
"Ghosts can’t be killed.
"That thing, which isn’t quite a ghost... could it come back?"
Wang Wenbo speculated further:
"What if... we’re still in an even bigger time loop?
"When we get back to Longshu Temple, we hear a world-shaking roar from the distance. We’re all chatting and laughing, and then just like that, we all die. A new cycle begins."
The thought was rather horrifying.
Old Man Sun finally finished packing his tobacco and looked up.
"It won’t be back. That thing.
"With one swing, I hit it to a place called Pagoda Primary School."
"That place... it’s super shady. Not just people, but even ghosts can’t get out once they go in."
"Doesn’t matter if it’s a ghost, a god, some kind of parasite that lives on stars, or something else.
"As long as it enters Pagoda Primary School, its fate is sealed. You don’t need to worry about it coming back."
’Damn,’ Gao Tian thought. ’The old man is using Pagoda Primary School as a Ghost Prison.’
’Anything he can’t deal with, he just tosses it in there and forgets about it.’
As for whether the time loop at Longshu Temple still existed—
Gao Tian’s and Jiang Yang’s phones vibrated at the same time. They had received a text message: the mission reward from the "living person’s apartment."
Since the apartment acknowledged they had completed the mission, the time loop had naturally stopped.
The fourth day was Longshu Temple’s last day.
Longshu Temple, which had been frozen for a thousand years, would now move on to a new day.
Gao Tian opened his phone and was a little surprised to see he had received two messages this time.
He had received two Supernatural Artifacts as a reward.
This was because the mission at Longshu Temple was originally Level Seven. As a newcomer who had completed three missions, he received an extra reward for finishing it.
The downside was that Gao Tian’s mission level also automatically increased by two. He was now considered equivalent to someone who had completed five missions.
’You win some, you lose some.’
Gao Tian tapped open the text message.
The first item.
[Black Suit]
Activating the Black Suit increases the user’s strength, speed, stamina, mental resistance, and self-healing speed after taking damage by a certain degree.
However, the consumption rate of the "ghost luck" above the user’s head will also accelerate to a certain extent.
Without ghost luck, the Black Suit is just an ordinary suit.
Prerequisite: Only someone who possesses the Black Tie can receive this reward.
...
The second item.
[Black Leather Shoes]
Activating the Black Leather Shoes allows the user to step on black clouds and fly.
The consumption rate of ghost luck will increase significantly, by several times.
Prerequisite: Only someone who possesses the Black Tie can receive this reward.
...
Gao Tian stared at the text message and was silent for a long time.
’So the Black Tie Supernatural Artifact has a matching set.’
The Black Suit and Black Leather Shoes both required the consumption of ghost luck to be used.
The Black Suit was like a variation of the Blood Shroud.
The advantages were that it allowed for quick recovery from injuries, wouldn’t consume the user’s body, and boosted all attributes like strength.
The disadvantages were that it consumed ghost luck and didn’t have the damage reduction effect of the Blood Shroud.
Which of the two items was superior depended on one’s perspective.
If the Black Suit’s consumption of ghost luck was within a normal range, the Black Leather Shoes’ consumption was astonishing once activated.
The ability to fly versus a powerful fortune—which was more important would depend on the specific situation.
...
Lost in these thoughts, the group walked back into Longshu Temple.
Although "Mother" had been dealt with for good, the scars she had left on the temple over a thousand years would likely take a very long time to fade.
The invisible Monks, the terrifying chanted whispers; inside the Great Buddha, the starving ghosts still waiting for their master to return.
In the corners of the temple, there were also many vengeful ghosts—Monks who had died and been transformed—enduring a thousand years of pain.
It was just that Gao Tian and the others hadn’t triggered them at the time.
Yu Sheng expressed his profoundest gratitude to Old Man Sun.
He chose to stay in Longshu Temple and not return to the real world for the time being.
On the mass grave behind the mountain, he erected an empty tomb for his mother.
Even though his mother’s remains had been buried a thousand years ago.
A thousand years later, she had once again found peace.
Yu Sheng would use the remainder of his life to find a way to deliver the souls of his fellow disciples.
Ghosts couldn’t be killed, but at least he could try to find a way to alleviate their pain.
Wang Wenbo was also forced to stay behind for the time being.
After all, his mission was to end the suffering of the Longshu Temple Monks.
He still hadn’t completed it, so he had to remain in the Inner World for a while.
Outside the temple, the rumbling of the next Bus 444 was already approaching.
Old Man Sun, Lan Chu, and the others waited outside the temple, ready to board the bus and go home.
Before leaving, Gao Tian glanced at Yu Sheng, who was sitting in the main hall.
There was one more thing he needed to discuss with Yu Sheng privately.
It was about how to use the "Time Coffin."
After his time at Longshu Temple, he was certain he had found the answer.
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