Chapter 156 — Borrowing Thirty Years of Your Lifespan, Transforming It into Merit to Seek the Next Life

“Immortal Master!”

“Immortal Master, we have returned!”

Birds startled from the forest, fluttering with sharp cries, as six men rushed out from the woods, arms filled with brush, ink, paper, and inkstone. Dragging a great black dog along, they called out excitedly while hurrying toward the ruined temple.

At the temple gate, Lu Liangsheng stepped forth clad in a rain cloak, bathed in the morning light. His gaze swept across the six, and with his hands clasped behind his back, he turned toward the temple walls. With a casual wave of his hand, several heavy stones upon the ground rolled to his side and stacked themselves into a platform.

“The black dog is unnecessary. Grind these ink-sticks into ink for me instead.”

“Yes, yes, Immortal Master, please wait a moment!”

The bearded man stared at the stone platform that had just been piled up, his eyelids twitching violently. Hastily, he bade his companions to spread out the paper and inkstone upon the ground and ground the ink with all their strength. Rubbing the stick into thick black liquid, the man lifted his head, glancing at the figure strolling slowly along the temple walls.

“Immortal Master, about the black lines on my arm… have they been dispelled?”

Lu Liangsheng brushed a hand over the wall, turned his head slightly, and smiled. “Just wipe it off yourself.”

“Ah?”

The man lowered his head, hastily spat onto his hand and rubbed the spot. Sure enough, the black lines were gone at once — they had been nothing but soot.

Yet he dared not show anger, and instead forced a fawning smile.

“Immortal Master truly is Immortal Master — with but a flick of the wrist you can toy with the likes of us, heh heh~~”

Lu Liangsheng only smiled lightly, without reply. Dusting the ash from his fingertips, he turned his head and said to them:

“Once the ink is ready, clear the three walls of this Lanruo Temple.”

Having spoken, he returned into the temple. The six wanted to slip away, but none dared. They lingered a moment in hesitation, then stripped off their garments to use as rags, wiping away the grime from the courtyard walls, cutting down withered vines with their knives.

Lu Liangsheng cast them a glance, then went back within to light a fire and cook rice.

The Toad Daoist lifted his quilt and came yawning out from the compartment. Ambling lazily to the doorway, he looked out for a moment before returning to sit by his disciple.

“You are suppressing the baleful Yin here?”

The scholar nodded, feeding a broken twig into the fire. “This place lies on the route of many merchants and common folk traveling north and south. If the Yin miasma were left unchecked and allowed to grow, I fear that little town below the mountain would soon see no living souls remain.”

The sealing arts against Yin miasma were something Lu Liangsheng in truth did not know. Yet if he used painting techniques, infused with his own spiritual power, he could still restrain the spread of the Yin fiends. As for how long such a restraint could last—that was not something his current cultivation realm was sufficient to decide.

After the morning meal, the six outside had already cleared the temple walls.

Lu Liangsheng inspected their work, then beckoned them over. He lifted an inkstone and handed it forth.

“Each of you, drip a few drops of blood into this inkstone.”

The six men looked at one another in confusion, whispering among themselves.

“Could it be the Immortal Master is bestowing us with a chance of fortune?” “…Perhaps. Otherwise, why would he want our blood?”

“It’s only a little blood. We’ve gone through blades and swords, wounds are nothing new.”

The bearded man drew his blade and cut across his palm without hesitation. Clenching his fist, his blood streamed like a crimson thread into the inkstone. The others, seeing their leader act, each followed, drawing their own cuts.

Scarlet blood mingled with the deep black of the ink.

“Immortal Master, it is done,” the bearded man said, binding his wound, before asking, “…But what is it for?”

Watching as the blood gathered within the inkstone, Lu Liangsheng smiled faintly. He took up a wolf-hair brush, stirring the mixture, and moved past the six toward the courtyard wall. The bluish ink, now blended with crimson, fell upon the wall as a dark red hue.

“What is it for? Naturally, to bind the Yin miasma within this temple. At the same time, it will accrue hidden merit on your behalf.”

Outside the temple doors, the six men were left puzzled. Accrue merit? Was it not supposed to be an opportunity, a chance to follow him in cultivation?

In their midst, a short, stout figure could not help but ask aloud:

“Immortal Master, why must we accumulate merit?”

But just as Lu Liangsheng’s brush touched the wall, shaping the first outline, in that very instant the short, stout man felt something drawn out of his body. His stance faltered, nearly collapsing onto the ground.

“I… I… what’s happening to me?”

Even as he spoke, the others—bearded man included—swayed in unison, their weapons clattering to the ground. Sweat poured from their bodies as they huddled together, collapsing to their knees in weakness.

In their fading awareness, they could only hear the voice of that master, brush in hand, tracing patterns upon the temple wall.

“You lot have plundered and slain, piled up no small number of evil deeds. Beneath your blades, how many lives have already been taken?”

The brush-tip glided across the wall, tracing the sweep of long sleeves in flight, rising upward into the outline of bare arms uplifted—a faint image of a celestial maiden descending into the mortal world.

“…Do not be hasty to deny it. The words you whispered while lurking outside the temple last night—I heard them all. Such acts you have carried out time and again, well-versed and without hesitation. Your hidden virtue is depleted, your personal virtue defiled. Rather than dying one day beneath the chaos of many blades, better to do something that may yet benefit the folk below this mountain.”

The bearded man seized a blade in desperation, struggling to rise and rush forward. But weakness overcame him; after two staggering steps he fell back to his knees, glaring at the figure with a furious roar.

“What have you done to us?!!”

“I borrow from you thirty years of lifespan, to bind the Yin miasma within this Lanruo Temple. Such is a deed of boundless merit.”

Lu Liangsheng paused his brushwork, called a waterskin to his hand, and took a mouthful, spraying it across the wall. The celestial maiden painted there shimmered with divine light. In that instant, white hair bloomed at the temples of the bearded man, his flesh and skin sagged with age, spots surfaced upon the backs of his hands and the corners of his eyes. In the blink of an eye, he had become an old man of more than sixty years.

“Th-this… Immortal Master, spare us…!”

The remaining six were terrified, knocking their heads against the ground without cease. Black-haired heads turned to silver in a moment, their bodies grew gaunt, and garments once taut upon their frames now hung loose and slack.

The words of their pleading grew hoarse; as mouths opened and closed, teeth dropped from their gums. Unable to endure such sudden change, some fell into unconsciousness.

Lu Liangsheng did not heed the cries for mercy. He walked on toward the next wall.

“Your lifespan shall safeguard this place for one hundred and eighty years. You will remain here, do not think of destroying it. Lifespan once lent, cannot be returned. The three walls will take several days to complete. During this time, you may reflect well upon yourselves, and perhaps in your next lives you may yet reincarnate as men again.”

Having spoken, Lu Liangsheng stilled his heart, devoting himself wholly to his painting. Three walls became a scroll of Buddhas and celestial dancers, wrapping the monastery in sacred imagery. In time, he would descend the brush once more upon the Spirit Tablet by the dry well, to lay down the final stroke.

It should be enough to confine the Yin miasma—though only to confine it. The baleful qi was bound to the earth’s veins; unless one possessed the cultivation of a True Immortal, it could not be eradicated.

…This was all he could do.

To do one’s utmost—that was enough.

Bathed in morning light, Lu Liangsheng watched each stroke of his brush fall, lost in thought.

Huaiyi Prefecture.

The sun blazed fiercely, the official road barren of shade. Merchants and travelers paused along the way to drink water and rest. A carriage halted, and from it a Daoist leapt down, waving his hand in thanks to the driver.

From the yellow cloth pouch at his waist, he drew out a few hardened cakes and made his way toward the county city ahead. The streets, paved with blue stone slabs, bustled with crowds of people. In these past few days, many more had come from the outer regions than usual. The tea houses within the city were near to full every day; the servers, carrying long-spouted kettles, bustled back and forth to refill cups.

The tale of the women and children found in Yingshi Mountain, together with the divine manifestation that had appeared that night, had already spread far and wide. Folk from villages ten miles, twenty miles around could not resist the chance to gather during market day, coming into the city to join in the lively clamor and hear more of the marvels that had taken place.

Storytellers, all the more, wove that night’s happenings into tales.

“…That night, the immortal’s words echoed throughout the whole city—who did not hear them? Afterwards, our county magistrate hastened to send constables and laborers toward Yingshi Mountain. And what do you think they found? Ha! Just as the immortal had said—the mountain’s stone gate towered high, with artificial mountains, flowing waters, pavilions, winding corridors, lofty halls and tall chambers, like a celestial realm upon earth. And within, the women… each one more beautiful than the last…”

Sun Yingsian crouched beneath the tea house eaves outside, listening for a while. After finishing the cake in his hand, he sneered softly and turned back onto the street—only to collide suddenly with someone.

“My apologies, my apologies!”

The man wore a constable’s garb. Seeing he had bumped into a Daoist, he smiled, clasped his hands in courtesy, and then went on his way, entering a nearby pawnshop.

A few steps further on, Sun Yingsian abruptly halted. He spun around, fixing his gaze upon the figure’s back as it disappeared into the shop.

“How is it that he carries Old Lu’s aura?”