Dragon Canon

The Xiang Marquis gazed at the statue, seemingly lost in thought, and said, “This drop of true blood does indeed come from an Arhat, but the Ariya-phala he proved is not one already recognized within Buddhism. That is all I can tell you.”

After a moment, the Xiang Marquis seemed to snap out of his reverie and smiled faintly. “If I were to give you a drop of a Buddhist Arhat’s true blood, you’d likely become an Arhat yourself in a few hundred years. The Immortal Lords of your Palace of Absolute Beginning would certainly destroy me for it.”

“Isn’t this drop of true blood also that of an Arhat? How could it be any different?” Wei Yuan asked.

The Xiang Marquis replied meaningfully, “Ever heard of the saying, ‘Those not of the orthodoxy do not deserve to enter the cycle of rebirth?’”

Wei Yuan immediately lost interest in hearing more. When it came to Buddhist matters, the less one knew, the better—this was common sense. The moment a person learned of such things, they automatically became entangled in karma, not to mention the high monks of Buddhism were notoriously unreasonable.

The Xiang Marquis said, “Let us begin. The true blood of the Arhat is here, but not in this realm. The true blood carries its own Ariya-phala and has formed a realm of its own. This is merely the entrance.

“Many years ago, a young man came here, received the inheritance, and took on the karma. This temple was built by him. However, though he spent his whole life trying to resolve this karma, he ultimately died at a young age. What he could not repay was passed down to his descendants, generation after generation, until today. Ru’er, come here!”

The maidservant stepped into the small temple and stood beside the Xiang Marquis.

The Xiang Marquis said, “She is a descendant of that young man. This time, she will enter the secret realm with you. She will bear the brunt of the karma, while you will only be slightly tainted by it. Given your strength, you shouldn’t be affected. As for how much benefit you’ll gain from the true blood, that depends on you.”

The maidservant approached the Buddha statue and carefully wiped away all the dust. Then, the Xiang Marquis took out a white jade lotus basin and placed it on the offering table before the Buddha.

Clear water rippled within the basin, neither spilling over nor drying up. Lotus petals could be seen floating on the surface as well. It was, in fact, a miniature lotus pond. Each lotus flower was no larger than a grain of rice.

“This is the White Jade Virtuous Achievement Lotus Pond, modeled after the Pure Land Virtuous Achievement Pond. Though its efficacy is only one-ten-thousandth of that of the original, it is still a rare treasure. Where is that grain of blood ink I gave you last time? Did you bring it?”

Wei Yuan took out the blood ink and handed it over. When the Xiang Marquis dropped it into the lotus pond, its clear water instantly turned into thick, dark blood, its color so deep it was almost black!

The maidservant drew a short knife and slit her wrist, letting a stream of blood spill into the pond of blood. Then, with a casual wipe of her hand, the wound on her wrist vanished into thin air.

The Xiang Marquis handed Wei Yuan a short knife and said, “Use this knife to cut your wrist and let out a cupful of blood. Then, I’ll send you both inside.”

This method of entering the secret realm seemed incredibly strange, not to mention it was completely at odds with Buddhist traditions. So, Wei Yuan replied, “Please wait a moment. I need to make some preparations first.”

Wei Yuan drew a simple array on the temple floor and picked up a dead branch from somewhere, setting it vertically at the center. Then, he flicked several drops of white-gold liquid onto various points of the array.

The Xiang Marquis looked at the array, feeling like it looked both like a feng shui array and a spirit-trapping array. As he wasn’t very well-versed in arrays, he could not tell exactly what array Wei Yuan had set up. Though the array itself was crude, the spirit objects Wei Yuan used to cast it were no ordinary items—they actually carried a faint aura of immortal spirit, causing the Xiang Marquis to dare not underestimate it in the slightest.

Wei Yuan suddenly remembered something and stepped out of the small temple. He handed his new spear to his Big Senior Sister before returning into the building. This time, the branch fell over.

Satisfied with the result, Wei Yuan took the short knife and said, “We can begin.”

The Xiang Marquis felt curious and asked, “May I ask what the array you cast is for?”

“Oh, it’s a divination array used to determine the possible outcomes of a certain matter. I was divining whether my two seniors are strong enough to kill you. The answer is yes, so I’m put at ease. If there’s nothing else, I’m going in.”

The Xiang Marquis wore a blank expression as he activated the blood pond. A cloud of bloody light spread out, enveloping both Wei Yuan and the maidservant. Moments later, the bloody light dissipated, and they were gone.

Only then did the Xiang Marquis looked down at the array on the floor. He could still sense a faint aura of immortal spirit from it. The corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily, and he cursed inside his head: “He sure spared no expense to insure himself!”

Since the qi of an immortal spirit was used and all relevant parties were present, the result of this divination should be quite accurate.

But the more the Xiang Marquis thought about it, the more uneasy he felt. Could these two young upstarts outside really kill him? Judging by Wei Yuan’s reactions, they couldn’t at first, but the result changed after he gave his spear to his seniors.

Was the spear that special, or was it simply the straw that broke the camel’s back? Neither answer satisfied the Xiang Marquis. Most importantly, could they actually kill him?

When the bloody light filled his vision completely, Wei Yuan lost consciousness. He felt himself drifting through nothing, and he felt as if he could hear someone calling his name.

The voice grew clearer until Wei Yuan could finally make out the words: “Lil Stone, wake up already! It’s time to venerate the Buddha!”

Wei Yuan rolled over groggily not because he wanted to, but because this body’s instincts seemed to be driving him to do so. He rubbed his eyes hard before realizing he was in a crude mud hut. The sky outside the window was still dark, and a middle-aged man dressed in ragged clothes and holding a dim candle was calling out to him.

Wei Yuan remembered he was an orphan in the village, and the man before him had taken him in when he was a child. He was his adoptive father. This village had a long-standing tradition of venerating the Buddha. Every day before dawn, the entire village would go to the temple for morning prayers. It lasted two hours and ended just as the sky began to lighten. Only then would the day truly begin.

Wei Yuan got up, put on his shirt, left the room, and followed his adoptive father out of the village. People from every household in the village had also come out and gathered at the small temple at the edge of the village.

Straw mats had already been laid out in the temple courtyard. The village chief’s seat had an additional wooden plank; to set him apart from everyone else. Wei Yuan remembered where he was supposed to sit, so he went to a straw mat in the corner and sat down.

Just then, a familiar figure appeared beside him. Wei Yuan turned his head and saw a girl he knew well. About sixteen or seventeen years old, she had a well-developed figure that stretched her clothes tight across her curves.

When she saw Wei Yuan, she stuck out her tongue, then quickly sat up straight.

She was the daughter of a neighbor. They’d played together since childhood, but over the past year or two, the dynamic between them seemed to have shifted. Wei Yuan had teased her about her figure becoming misshapen and unattractive, which had angered her so much that she hadn’t spoken to him for days.

She looked much prettier now than she was before... Wei Yuan suddenly found himself thinking this.

How long ago was “before”, exactly? It felt like just a moment ago.

Just then, a monk emerged from the temple, struck the wooden fish[1], and interrupted Wei Yuan’s train of thought. Then, the rhythmic, melodious chanting of sutras began, marking the start of the morning prayer.

The monk was chanting in a language Wei Yuan had never heard before, so he couldn’t understand a word of it. However, there was a power within the sutra that drew him in and led him to recite along with the others.

The sutra wasn’t long, and they finished reciting it quickly. After going through it once, Wei Yuan suddenly felt like his body had become cleaner, as though some impure, filthy substance had vanished. However, there appeared to be a large, opaque mass within him—something he himself hadn’t known existed until now.

The monk began the second round of recitation. After reciting along with him once more, Wei Yuan felt himself cleaner again, and a crack appeared in that large, impenetrable mass within his body. Though the crack was insignificant, the monk had once mentioned that this marked the beginning of the elimination of one’s karmic hindrance—a most auspicious sign. As long as he persisted, all of his karmic hindrances would eventually be eradicated, and everyone would open their Dharma eye, become an Arahant[2], and transform the world into a Pure Land.

The morning prayer consisted of nine recitations in total. By the time it ended, Wei Yuan felt so much cleaner that even his body was somewhat lighter than usual. He was also inexplicably in high spirits, feeling as though he had taken another step closer to attaining Buddhahood.

There was a specific order for leaving the temple: the village chief and the village elders went first, followed by the heads of each household, then the elderly, and finally the younger generation, such as Wei Yuan and his childhood friend.

As they exited the temple gate, Wei Yuan and the girl accidentally bumped into each other. Wei Yuan had always felt that her body was cumbersome, and this collision—which prevented both of them from passing through the gate together—only reinforced his opinion. However, since they were at the temple entrance, Wei Yuan ultimately chose to let her go first. They simply couldn’t walk side by side, not even if she turned sideways to give him more space.

Before heading out, Wei Yuan looked back and saw the monk carrying the ritual elements one by one back into the main hall. He looked exceptionally clean, and his face looked as if it was carved from jade.

I didn’t think that the Dharma master would be so young... Wei Yuan was still thinking to himself when suddenly someone grabbed his hand. He turned and saw that it was the girl. She said, “Brother Stone, aren’t we going to sneak a peek at Uncle San Kui’s hunting today to learn archery? Did you forget?”

It was only then Wei Yuan remembered that there was such a plan. He followed the girl up the mountain path and toward the back mountain, but they didn’t go far before the girl had to stop and catch her breath.

Wei Yuan couldn’t help but think to himself: With a figure like that, it’d be a miracle if she could run fast. But out of a sense of loyalty built over the years, Wei Yuan did not leave her behind to learn archery on her own.

It took the girl a while to catch her breath. Just as she said, “Let’s keep going,” a burly hunter emerged from the end of the mountain path , his leather jacket barely containing his bulging muscles.

The girl gasped in surprise, “Uncle San Kui!”

The hunter laughed heartily and said, “If you want to learn my skills, you’d better move faster. At the speed you’re moving, the prey will be long gone before you reach them.”

The hunter walked past Wei Yuan and the girl, carrying a hunting fork slung over his shoulder with several animals tied to it. One of the prey was a white wolf, which stood out for obvious reasons.

The girl gasped again, “The white wolf! You caught it!”

“The beast eats a lamb a day and has bitten several people already. Had I taken my time, it would’ve devoured every sheep in the village! Have your father send me a jar of his prized wine, and I’ll give this wolf pelt to you two as a wedding gift!”

The girl blushed bright red and stamped her foot, causing her body to shake so violently that Wei Yuan feared she might fall over.

Just then, the sun finally rose. Wei Yuan looked up and saw a massive crimson orb leaping out from behind the mountain, bathing the world in a deep red glow that coated everything in a dull, blood-red hue, as if it were indelible blood.

For a moment, Wei Yuan couldn’t tell if it was morning or dusk. The dim red sunlight was tinged with golden streaks, and it seemed to be drawing closer and closer.

It should have been the height of summer, yet the sunlight felt colder than ever. Wei Yuan instinctively shivered and felt it odd that he of all people would feel the cold.

Bathed in the sunlight, the hunter’s silhouette was also dyed blood red in color, including the white wolf hanging from his fork.

For a split second, Wei Yuan suddenly noticed that the beast hanging from the hunting fork was not a wolf, but a blood-soaked human!

He was shocked, but when he looked again, the human on the fork had turned back into a white wolf.

1. A wooden fish, also known as a muyu, moktak, mogeo, mokugyo, Chinese temple block, or wooden bell is a type of woodblock that originated from China that is used as a percussion instrument by monks and lay people in the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism. ☜

2. Or attaining the phala (fruit) of an Arhat. ☜