Chapter 39: Please Become the Buddha, Benefactor

“Where is the Buddha in this place?”

The moment he heard that question, even the old monk was genuinely stunned.

“Benefactor, what are you talking about? Isn’t the Buddha statue right there? Where else could it be?”

Hearing that, Zhou You turned his head back again.

Inside the Buddha hall were corridor pillars, an altar, prayer cushions, and a lotus throne.

Only the Buddha statue above them had vanished without a trace.

No, it would not be accurate to say it had vanished without a trace.

Scattered beneath the altar lay countless fragments of stone statues. Judging from the remains, these should have been the Buddha statue that had originally sat upon the lotus throne. Yet now it looked as though it had been violently demolished. The paint on its surface was still bright and fresh, but all that remained were vast stretches of shattered wreckage.

At this point, Zhou You could no longer be bothered with courtesy. He tossed aside the incense and directly pulled the old monk over.

“Monk, take a look yourself!”

The old monk reached down with his remaining hand to feel around. In the next second, he froze like a statue.

“Wait, no, that shouldn’t be possible. Nothing should ever have happened to this Buddha statue. Under normal circumstances, anyone connected by karma to that Ghost Mother Bodhisattva would never be able to touch these Buddha statues. They could only settle for using ghost blood as a seal instead. How could they have smashed it? Unless...”

The old monk suddenly thought of something. His eyeless, skull-like face began trembling violently. Before long, it twisted into an expression as ferocious as an evil ghost.

“Unless it was done by one of our own.”

In the next instant, a deafening roar erupted.

The old monk no longer cared about Buddhist prohibitions against anger. He immediately began cursing into the darkness outside.

“Those bald bastards! Scum of the Buddhist faith! They already squeezed so much out of pious believers and still weren’t satisfied. For money, they even smashed their own Buddha statues? I’ll curse your ancestors for eighteen generations! Every one of you will fall into Avici Hell after death and never be reborn!”

Watching the old monk grow increasingly agitated, Zhou You frowned and interrupted his shouting.

“Monk, what do we do now?”

The old monk twitched the corner of his mouth but did not answer. Instead, he suddenly seemed to realize something and forcefully pressed both hands against his face, desperately rubbing it.

Only after a long while did that ghostly expression gradually fade away.

“...My apologies, Benefactor. The Hungry Ghost Path nearly went out of control. As for a solution... honestly, there isn’t one anymore.”

The old monk sighed and groped for the incense before placing it into Zhou You’s hands.

“Benefactor, hurry and escape on your own. This poor monk will stay here and draw its attention. That Bodhisattva will only come for these temples. As long as you survive until daylight, you’ll be able to escape. After that, do as we discussed before and hurry to Qingjing Temple to find my senior brothers.”

His words were filled with sorrow.

But Zhou You did not take the incense. Instead, he fell into brief contemplation.

This situation was wrong.

Or rather, the way the story was supposed to unfold was wrong.

First of all, although the old monk radiated an eerie aura from every angle, judging from the clues and subtle details, he did not seem like a traitor to humanity. Following him should indeed have been the true ending path of this scenario.

Secondly, from what Zhou You knew, this ghost game might be rotten beyond belief, but it never handed out tasks that were impossible to complete. Whether it was Building Four, the two side quests in this instance, or the two cursed items used to persuade the old monk, as long as clues existed, there would inevitably be an ending connected to those clues.

Therefore, there had to be something he had missed.

As for the old monk telling him to run, he had never taken that to heart from the beginning. After all, he still had plenty of resurrection tokens. At worst, he could simply start over. So not to mention the Ghost Mother Bodhisattva, even if he had completely misjudged the situation and the old monk suddenly betrayed him on the spot, he could still face it calmly.

After all, what was a life?

A consumable item, nothing more.

Thus, Zhou You firmly pushed the incense back. Ignoring the old monk’s increasingly anxious expression, he began carefully searching the temple.

The surrounding ruins and broken walls... contained nothing.

The prayer cushions and cabinets inside the temple... completely empty.

The scattered rubbish... was simply rubbish.

Just as Zhou You was considering climbing onto the temple roof to take a look, he suddenly noticed something strange.

At that moment, however, the old monk could no longer endure it.

“Benefactor, what exactly are you doing? Surely you’re not planning to stay here and be buried with this poor monk. You must remember that the life you carry isn’t yours alone, but the lives of countless people throughout the city...”

“Enough, enough. It’s too late for moral blackmail now.”

Zhou You interrupted him, then crouched down and very carefully scraped at the shattered Buddha statue.

Accompanied by the grating sound of fingernails scraping clay, flakes of painted coating drifted away from the statue’s surface. Yet what he felt beneath his fingertips was not powder, but something slick and sticky, almost like liquid.

There was definitely something abnormal here.

He had already felt that something was off.

These three temples had fallen into such ruin that they clearly had not been maintained for a very long time. So how could the paint on the Buddha statues still appear so dazzlingly new?

“Monk, come take a look at this.”

The old monk groped his way over. Pressing down on Zhou You’s fingers, he first looked puzzled, then overjoyed.

“This is... incense faith and wishes condensed upon the Buddha statue? Those bald thieves actually didn’t scrape this away? Could it be... never mind. Regardless of the reason, we’re saved now!”

The old monk immediately tried to set the statue upright. But the moment he touched the pile of wreckage, the smile on his face suddenly froze.

In the end, Zhou You let out a sigh and supplied the answer for him.

“Monk, there’s no way the two of us can piece this thing back together. And even if we could, we don’t even have a bottle of glue on hand. There’s no way to stick it back together.”

The old monk remained crouching there.

After a long silence, he suddenly raised his head.

“No. There’s still a chance.”

“Benefactor, let me ask you something. Earlier, when you carved flesh from your own body, your expression didn’t change at all. So tell me, can you endure pain?”

Zhou You did not answer immediately. After thinking for a moment, he finally said, “That depends on how much pain we’re talking about. Ordinary pain, I can handle. I’ve even gotten somewhat used to it. But if we’re talking about torture and things like that, I probably wouldn’t be able to endure it.”

“That won’t be a problem. Benefactor, you only need to endure the first half. This poor monk will bear the rest.”

Then the old monk removed his outer robe and spread it across the ground. Extending his arm, he used his single remaining hand to clear away the dust and dirt covering the lotus throne.

Afterward, he turned around and “looked” toward Zhou You with those hollow eye sockets.

“Although the Buddha statue has been completely destroyed, the power of incense and wishes remains. It can still carry out the duty of suppression.”

“At present, all that is missing is a clay body to serve as the divine image.”

“So, this poor monk humbly asks you, Benefactor.”

“Please sit upon it and become the Buddha, just this once.”