Legend of the Great Sage (Chapter 401-Chapter 500)

However, Ru Xin merely drank her tea with composure, completely ignoring Li Qingshan’s actions. The corner of her lips even seemed to curl up into a complacent smile. Whenever they clashed verbally, they would emerge victoriously if they could make the other lose their temper. Now, it was basically a victory for her, so she was delighted inside.

Li Qingshan ground his teeth, truly unable to do anything to her. Even vicious tigers could not extend their claws and teeth at friends.

And, while he said he was angry, he actually experienced a rare sense of peace inside. As he drank the tea and listened to the story that she rambled on about, the shadow from the underground world seemed to recede from his body bit by bit.

Before he knew it, he was no longer the moon demon, and he recovered some humane sensations. His tense heart loosened up. As a result, he played along with her. If any old person wanted to scam him out of his spiritual stones, they had better check whether they had enough lives to.

In order to hear the entire story, Li Qingshan could only pay up obediently.

“Thank you for your patronage! I won’t be refunding any extra payments, but you do have to make up for it if you’re short!”

Fortunately, after succeeding with her “scheme”, Ru Xin had no intentions of purposefully extending the story any further. She gave him a simple explanation about what had happened, but even with that being the case, she had earned almost ten thousand spiritual stones.

“This bastard Chu Tian sure is clueless,” Li Qingshan said casually. He did not take this too seriously. A trouble-making clown like Chu Tian was no longer worth his attention.

More importantly, the Annihilum Light Chan Master actually wanted to take Xiao An to the Chan Monastery of Deva-Nāga.

Although Li Qingshan did plan on visiting there with Xiao An, it was rather inappropriate right now.

A visit to the Chan Monastery of Deva-Nāga would definitely not take three or five days. It would be rather fast if it took three or five years. The issue was he had just set up some groundwork in the Clear River prefecture for himself. He had yet to reap the fruits of his labour. If he left now, it would be far too great of a pity.

Now that he had forcefully unified the night roamers, the spiritual herbs he collected would not be offered up like before. Instead, he could directly take it from them. His harvest would definitely be much, much greater than in the previous years.

And, he would be able to make full use of the underground resources. He could attempt to carry out long-term trades with the Academy of the Hundred Schools. The profits from that would definitely be impressive.

Even though regular pills were already useless to him, as long as he accumulated enough spiritual stones, he was more than able to visit the Ruyi commandery or even better places. He refused to believe he could not find and buy pills he could use.

He was like a farmer, toiling in the land laboriously and shedding who knew how many droplets of sweat. Finally, he reached autumn, the season of harvest he had been longing for all this time after so much difficulty. However, then he had to let go of the land and go start up a new field. No one would be willing to accept that.

And, he had yet to deal with the latent issue of the Spider Queen, which made it even more impossible for him to leave like this.

Of course, there was a way to deal with this, which was to have Xiao An cultivate in the Chan Monastery of Deva-Nāga alone while Li Qingshan remained in the Clear River prefecture, doing whatever he wanted.

However, Li Qingshan did not even consider this idea. Like the promise he had given in the past, only death could separate the two of them.

Li Qingshan sank into his thoughts. His expression changed several times before he suddenly stood up. “I’ll go to the academy and take a look.” If that old monk decided to act on his own and forcefully take Xiao An back to the Chan Monastery of Deva-Nāga, that would be horrible.

“You don’t have to fret. A master from the Chan Monastery of Deva-Nāga won’t resort to something so rude and unreasonable, as long as you don’t insist on marrying their genius disciple.” Ru Xin seemed to read his mind. As she spoke, she sounded like she was testing him.

“Why would I marry her for no good reason?”

“As long as you have no interest.” Ru Xin eased up before pressing Li Qingshan back into his seat. Suddenly, she brought up something completely random. “Did you know, this world originally had gods.”



“What?” Li Qingshan was taken aback. He had no idea why she had abruptly mentioned this.

“This is another story.” Ru Xin smiled.

“You want to scam more spiritual stones from me?” Li Qingshan raised an eyebrow.

“Forget it. Considering how cooperative you were earlier, I’ll tell you this story for free.”

“Even if you want me to pay, I have to be willing first. Go on!”

“Your mind is elsewhere, so forget about it today. I’ll tell you once your mind settles down. C’mon, let’s go to the academy.” Ru Xin stood up complacently and made her way out through the door. Her lips curled into a somewhat mysterious smile.

I’m not taking over ten thousand spiritual stones from you for nothing.

……

In the great buddha’s hall of the Anāsravā? temple, the monks were all silent as they stood around.

The rings of spiral incense fell bit by bit as curling smoke dispersed. The figure of buddha smiled with his head lowered.

An old man and a young girl sat in front of the buddha, discussing the dharma. One was as withered as wood, while the other was tender like a flower.

As they listened to them speak, the monks were all left at a loss. Even Mind Enlightenment was not too certain he understood everything.

Xiao An seemed to be absorbed in her thoughts, lowering her head and thinking hard from time to time. Often, it would only take her a short while before she raised her head and continued.

The joy on the Annihilum Light Chan Master’s face that had been described as withered deepened. When he saw her several years ago, they had only agreed on their master-disciple relationship. They had not conversed too much. Today, he originally planned on giving her some guidance, but none of his difficult questions managed to stump her.

She developed her own style with buddhism, comprehending certain things by herself. Although her understanding for most things was still rather shallow, she did mention words of elegant wisdom from time to time, which instead made him feel like he was interacting with a senior.

And, it was only “shallow” in comparison to him, the head monk of the Bodhi courtyard who had spent several centuries on the buddhist dharma. There was probably no one among the internal disciples of the Chan Monastery of Deva-Nāga that could match her. He was only filled with praises for her inside.

The Path of White Bone and Great Beauty was not a simple cultivation method. It contained the life’s work of an eminent monk of buddhism, which was equivalent to having a bodhisattva as a teacher, pointing out a path for her among the buddhist scriptures that were as vast as the sea. She used this as a foundation to read buddhist scriptures far and wide before coming back and practising the Path of White Bone and Great Beauty. The two processes supplemented each other, allowing her to advance step by step.

She felt like she had benefited quite a lot from the discussion with the Annihilum Light Chan Master. However, the bodhisattva was still the White Bone Bodhisattva after all, so Xiao An was unable to actually tell him what she had comprehended. Otherwise, he would not be approving and praising her. Instead, he would fly into a rage. With lightning speed, he would directly annihilate this heretic who blasphemed the buddha.