Chapter 75: Borrowing Leverage

Qingmei had stopped screaming. With her long sword held across her chest, she stood on guard, staring at the foreign monk slowly descending in the distance.

The monk’s expression was unchanged, but something strange had entered his eyes. His right hand remained upright, while his left palm lay open. Eighteen bodhi seeds circled and whirled above it, each trailing a dazzling streak of light, glittering like scattered stars.

As the monk pressed closer, Qingmei gritted her teeth. Suddenly, she sprang into the air and hurled herself at him.

The monk gave a cold snort. Without making any other movement, he sent a bodhi seed flashing from his hand like lightning. It struck Qingmei, and a dazzling burst of flame erupted at the point of impact. She was blasted backward through the fire, her sword torn from her grasp and sent flying into the distance, where it stuck upright in the ground. Almost at the same moment, she crashed down, bounced once, and scattered fallen leaves in every direction.

Qingmei struggled to push herself up. Before she could rise, her strength failed, and she collapsed again. She bit down hard on her lip until blood welled and ran, then forced herself back up. Swaying, she managed to stand and staggered toward her sword, trembling as she picked it up.

The monk watched in silence. When Qingmei finally retrieved her sword, his brow twitched despite himself.

The bodhi seeds inflicted wounds not only upon the body, but upon the sea of thought and the soul as well. Infused with the monk’s power, that seed had struck at the very root of Qingmei’s soul. Though she was accustomed to the torments of the Ghost Valley, this pain was more than she could entirely endure. The uncontrollable trembling of her hand alone said it all.

Qingmei drew a deep breath and charged the monk again.

Whoosh—

Another bodhi seed shot forth, knocking her down for the second time. Her injuries now compounded, her face began to twitch and her whole body shook. Yet even so, she rose again. Without so much as a glance at the monk, she slowly walked over and picked up her sword once more.

Qingmei’s stubborn resilience exceeded anything the monk had imagined. He could not understand why this little demon refused so absolutely to surrender and become his slave, fighting to the bitter end. But her defiance only stoked his temper. He would use the same attack again and again until she knelt before him.

Qingmei charged a third time—and was thrown back a third time.

This time, the monk sent not one bodhi seed flying from his hand, but three.

They struck her chest, arm, and thigh all at once. It was as if lightning had coursed through her, while deep within her soul a knife hacked and twisted. She could not help crying out. At last, a smile appeared on the monk’s face as he watched the female demon lie motionless on the ground. A flush of triumph rose in his heart.

“Now you’ll finally admit defeat, won’t you?”

Qingmei lay on the ground, her body twitching. She managed to lift herself, but the moment she left the earth, her strength gave out. Her face slammed hard into the ground, half of it smeared with blood. She lay still for a long while, then slowly, inch by inch, pushed herself up again and continued to rise.

It took nearly half a quarter of an hour before Qingmei stood upright once more. Still she did not look at the monk. Swaying and stumbling, she made her way toward her sword, rocking with every step as she fought to keep her balance.

Her vision had become a blur. She knew very well that if she chose to surrender, she could become the monk’s enslaved beast, escape with her life, and put an end to all this pain. But whenever the thought crossed her mind, a voice rang out and echoed through her skull:

“The Tu Shan clan will never be slaves!”

At last, Qingmei reached the sword. She had lost control of most of her body. She tried several times, but could not bend down. Finally, she turned and looked at the monk.

“Amitabha. Have you finally come to your senses?” The monk’s expression remained serene, and he smiled faintly. “Surrender, and I will heal your wounds at once. I will brand you with the seal of Spirit Mountain, and you will serve my Buddha!”

Qingmei bared her teeth. A drop of blood ran from between them and fell into the dirt. But she said nothing. She turned back—and then—

She pitched forward and crashed heavily beside her sword.

Only then did her hand begin to reach out, slowly, inch by inch, groping for the hilt beside her.

“You vile demon! You refuse to repent!” The monk’s expression finally changed. Three bodhi seeds rose into the air and began to circle him, hissing as they spun, ready to strike the moment Qingmei rose again.

“Surrender, or die!” the monk said, each word distinct. The look of compassion and benevolence had vanished from his face, leaving only a savage glare, his eyes blazing like a vengeful spirit.

Qingmei rose, inch by inch.

At the same time that Qingmei was being tormented by the monk, Liu Chou suddenly halted his pursuit as well.

With the iron staff held behind his back, he slowly turned around. Blood and fragments of flesh dripped from the staff onto the ground. Behind him stood two monks holding demon-subduing staves. They looked unremarkable, but their eyes were composed and steady, their bearing unmistakable even from Liu Chou’s vantage.

They were at least of the monster-demon rank!

At a glance, Liu Chou recognized the strength of the two monks. What they could not have guessed was that he did not flee. Instead, he erupted into motion, the iron staff surging forward like a venomous dragon breaking from the sea, striking straight at them.

These were the men Liu Chou had been searching for—the ones important enough to trade for Qingmei.

Liu Chou was fast. The two monks instinctively retreated. The Buddhist realm in the west differed from Great Zhou. Great Zhou’s qi refiners cultivated both their inner energy and their bodies, advancing on two fronts to achieve perfection. The Buddhist realm, by contrast, focused mainly on qi and the mind, paying little attention to physical combat.

Against an ordinary little demon, the two monks’ cultivation would have sufficed. But Liu Chou was no ordinary foe. His martial skill surpassed that of many monster-demons. Coupled with the teachings of Mr. Fulu and the tempering effects of body-refining elixirs, he had far exceeded what the two monks could withstand.

So when they saw Liu Chou attack, their first reaction was to fall back and put distance between them.

One monk raised his left hand and pointed at Liu Chou from afar. A brilliant arc of light shot toward him. Liu Chou’s expression changed. He spun around and narrowly dodged the arc—but at the same moment, a flame as bright as the blazing sun rushed toward him and swept across his body.

Liu Chou curled his body and thrust out his iron staff, meaning to block it. But just then, an indescribable force pierced into his mind. His vision blurred. Realizing something was wrong, he abruptly circulated his demonic power to shield his body, then strained to turn his head aside and took the blow squarely in the chest.

With a sharp hiss, the arc curved around and just missed his chest.

Liu Chou roared and crashed heavily to the ground. His body split open, blood gushing out in torrents. It was as if a blade had carved him apart; bone showed through the wound. The blow had not cut him cleanly in two, but his injuries were severe.

In the end, Liu Chou had dodged only one attack, not the other. Had his body not been so tough, that single strike might have killed him.

The sun-bright flame returned to the monk’s hand, revealing itself as a crescent-shaped blade, its surface ablaze with fire that roared and boiled. In the other monk’s hand was a golden bell, blazing like the sun.

Liu Chou rose again and drew a deep, labored breath. He did not look at the two monks before him, but turned to face the crowd of monks behind them. A third monk had appeared there. Lean and capable, he held a long banner and had been concealed among the crowd. It was his spell that had just interfered with Liu Chou’s senses, preventing him from dodging in time.

The banner was called the Yellow Millet Dream, and the spell it summoned was called Sweet Dream. By waving the banner and invoking the dream, one could cloud the senses, unsettle the mind, and strike without warning. Even Liu Chou had fallen for it. But he had immediately traced the source of the power to its caster. His gaze fixed on the man alone.

When the banner monk saw Liu Chou turn to look at him, he knew he had been discovered. There was no point hiding any longer, so he stepped openly out of the crowd and joined the other two.

Liu Chou had suffered such a grievous wound that the three monks had plainly regained their confidence. The monk with the crescent blade said, “Vile demon, before you die, do you have any last words?”

Liu Chou was neither tense nor frightened, as the monk had expected. Though badly wounded, he had now seen how the three monks attacked. These were clearly their most powerful techniques. Since they had already revealed their trump cards, that was actually good news for him. He drew a breath, and an almost-smile appeared on his face.

The three monks could not understand the meaning of that smile. They exchanged glances. The crescent blade and golden bell flew at Liu Chou again, just as they had before. But this time, he did not try to dodge. Instead, he abruptly turned and raised his hand.

In it was a strange crossbow.

The mechanism clicked softly, and the sound of wind and thunder rose.

“Watch out!”

The three monks’ expressions changed at once, and they scattered in every direction—

A muffled sound, impossible to describe, exploded. Flesh and blood flew everywhere. Everyone watched as the banner monk’s head burst like a ripe fruit, his brains and blood spraying across an area half a zhang wide. Only then did his headless body slowly collapse to the ground.

So you’re the only ones who get to ambush people?

The crescent blade and golden bell struck Liu Chou in the back at the same instant.

This blow was even stronger than the last. Liu Chou was hurled through the air and crashed heavily to the ground, where he lay motionless.

The two monks who had escaped with their lives finally stopped, trembling with fear. They looked from the corpse on the ground to Liu Chou, unable to understand why the little demon had made such a choice—why he had willingly taken a grievous wound just to spring up and kill a man. Even if he were not dead, how could he possibly fight back now?

Was this not simply asking to die?

After several deep breaths, the crescent-blade monk finally regained his composure. He exchanged a few quiet words with the golden-bell monk and nodded. Taking a demon-subduing staff from one of the monks nearby, he approached Liu Chou, intending to deliver the final blow. This little demon was simply too dangerous. Dead or not, to be safe, he would strike him a few more times.

The monk reached Liu Chou’s side. Liu Chou was still lying face down. The monk looked at him and suddenly sensed something strange. But when he looked again, he could not tell what was wrong. He thought it over, then gave a self-mocking smile. Without worrying further, he lifted the demon-subduing staff over his head and brought it down with all his strength.

But almost at the same moment, a strange thought flashed through his mind, gone in an instant—

“Where are the wounds?”

The thought was swift as lightning. Yet as it flashed across his mind, Liu Chou’s body gave a slight tremor, and a black afterimage appeared before the monk’s eyes.

In the next instant, the monk saw the world turn over and over: first the sky, then the ground. Only then did the question that had troubled him finally make sense.

“The wounds are gone!”

The monk’s head rolled across the ground several times before coming to a stop at the feet of the assembled monks.