My Enemy Became My Cultivation Companion

Chapter 1285: Chapter 708: In the Buddha Light (Double-Length)

This looked like a market town; after looking around several times, it was probably one of the towns around the Capital.

The closer they got to the town entrance, the more crowded it became. The shops along the road had already taken down their shutters early, the shopboys shouting themselves hoarse, and the stream of incense customers was so dense there wasn’t even room to squeeze through.

The thick scent of sandalwood clogged the air. By the stone-arched bridge leading toward the temple, the flow of people was almost at a standstill. Both sides of the bridge were lined with temporary stalls. A girl selling embroidered sachets, her voice sweet and clear, was showing the lotus patterns on them to an old madam who had paused there: "Old madam, look how finely this lotus is embroidered. It’s most suitable to offer before the Buddha as tribute."

Flowers and brocade everywhere; pious men and women from all directions had all rushed to this grand dharma assembly. Before they had even entered the temple, before the assembly had formally begun, you could already see people devoutly kneeling in worship along both banks of the river.

The Demon Sect Saintess Yin Tingxue knew this dharma assembly.

She turned her eyes slightly to the side, sweeping a glance at the banners in the distance swaying in the wind, golden characters embroidered upon them—Grand Dharma Assembly of the Medicine Buddha of Glazed Light to Dissolve Misfortune and Disaster.

This was a grand assembly held once every ten years. In her memory, since she was born, her imperial consort mother had only brought her once: first to pray for blessings and long life for the former emperor who was about to collapse and die, and then to dissolve misfortune and calamity.

The former was the pretext for leaving the palace; the latter, however, was...

Yin Tingxue’s gaze lowered slightly. She shook her head. Enough; no need to tangle herself in this.

Thinking of this, she looked around. People came and went, shoulders brushing, elbows knocking; it was bustling indeed. Everyone’s face carried an unusual excitement and piety, all for the sake of glimpsing the statue at the assembly.

If Sister Weiyang were here, she would surely have a few critical words about this grand event of the Buddhist Sect, sighing that people were bewitched by splendor and failed to recognize the true dharma and so on... Wait—who was Sister Weiyang again?

Yin Tingxue’s expression

Those memories were growing ever more intense...

Yin Tingxue did not wish to think deeper. If she did, it would certainly be memories unbearably humiliating.

Even without examining them closely, just from those fleeting glimpses when such recollections surged up earlier, she knew that in that multitude of memories, quite a few were sordid and wanton scenes of men and women, pleasures of the flesh.

After all, his words of gentleness sounded pleasant enough, and indeed he was gentle, but that gentleness was also directed toward... To put it a thousand ways, ten thousand ways, it was still merely laying the groundwork for matters between man and woman... Yin Tingxue’s brows furrowed as tightly as they could; these thoughts were already surging up beyond her ability to suppress.

She lowered her head slightly, looked at her own hands without calluses, her gaze complicated.

Had the hatred... already dissolved so much?

"He plays the black face one moment and the red face the next, and that’s enough to make you full of gratitude, Yin Tingxue?"

The Demon Sect Saintess muttered to herself, as if mocking herself, yet also like a cold, sarcastic jab at another version of her.

"Little Fox, what are you standing there in a daze for?"

A distant call came; Yin Tingxue looked up. That man was beckoning to her. Her eyes narrowed slightly. No matter what, the one who ought to die would have to die.

Might as well take advantage of this dharma assembly and hurry up and kill him.

In any case, she alone could walk out of the World of Ignorance.

Yin Tingxue quickened her step, catching up to Chen Yi standing on the bridge. The river water rushed below; the figures coming and going could not block out the fish in the water, begging for food. People on the bridge kept tossing crumbs of steamed buns and bits of noodles down to feed them, the fish jostling one another as they scrambled for food.

It was a bright, sunny spring.

Throwing food to feed the fish was nothing rare, only children always liked to watch. When she was little, she, too, would linger by the bridge and refuse to leave. She was not an inexperienced child, would not shriek and startle like other children at the sight of fish swimming over; she only watched quietly and still felt there wasn’t much to see. Yet, unlike the pampered koi raised at home, the fish in the river were all grey or greenish, and they fought all the more fiercely for food.

So she lingered a little longer than usual. When she turned back, she no longer knew where her mother had gone and could only stay where she was. After quite a while, her mother finally came back. She did not scold her, only said,

"...Don’t get lost."

"Mother, I’m still right here, aren’t I?"

When she finished, Yin Tingxue turned her face and bumped straight into that man’s. A slight flicker of surprise passed over her, but he merely smiled gently, then took her hand.

Yin Tingxue stiffened for a moment, then abruptly pulled away, staring at him with full vigilance.

"Little Fox, come along."

Chen Yi was not offended in the least and spoke with a smile.

"...I can follow on my own." Yin Tingxue paused. "I don’t need you holding me."

Hearing these two sentences, Chen Yi lifted his eyes slightly, glanced at the girl, and saw the clue. He did not go along with it, but directly exposed her: "So you’ve recovered your memories, Little Fox?"

Yin Tingxue’s pupils shrank slightly; for a moment she bristled like a cat with its fur standing on end, the hostility in her eyes no longer concealed, even sharper than before.

"Ah, Little Fox, didn’t you say you wouldn’t be the Demon Sect Saintess?"

Chen Yi sighed, his face full of disappointment.

Without needing to listen closely, Yin Tingxue knew he was deliberately putting on a lost, distracted air, because this man truly was lost and distracted—he was surely holding himself back from confiding in his family, or at most letting slip a thread or two, the tip of an iceberg.

"What’s done is done; how can it be changed?" Yin Tingxue let out a few cold laughs, her tone tinged with sarcasm and mockery. "Did you really think that by doing a few false, sentimental things here in the World of Ignorance, the past could simply be left in the past?"

Chen Yi’s lips parted slightly, but before he could respond, Yin Tingxue cut him off:

"Even if those memories are real, they have nothing to do with me. I’ll make it clear now: when this is over, at best you’ll walk your broad sunlit road, and I’ll walk my single-plank bridge. Do you understand?"

Unexpectedly, he still was not angered by this, and of course he was not hurt either. Instead, he said offhandedly,

"In that case, it’s still better if I’m the one to walk the single-plank bridge."