Wandering Gods of Day and Night

"Ah, this birthmark, it’s really quite the piece of art."

Little Brain never forgets his own art, not for a single moment.

Zhao Wuya snapped on the spot, "What nonsense are you spouting? If it were a birthmark, wouldn’t my mom have told me? Just hold the light steady and let me take a look, that’s all you need to do."

Little Brain didn’t get annoyed. He kept taking pictures of Zhao Wuya, shooting from every angle, extremely patient.

When that string of photos was projected in front of Zhao Wuya, he stared at the projection hanging there in the air and fell into thought.

"This eye... this eye... makes me think of some old bird."

"What do you mean, old bird?"

Zhou Xuan asked.

"People you knew in the past are called old acquaintances, right? By that logic, birds you knew in the past would be old birds, no?"

After Zhao Wuya gave this explanation, he continued, "I just remember, when I was a kid, I seemed to see a bright red bird that kept perching on my window. That bird’s eye was exactly the same as this strange mark on my back."

"What are you all talking about over there?"

The voice of Tiancan Monk drifted over as well.

The second God-level being had also completed their summoning.

"Baldy, get over here and take a look, there’s an eye on Master Zhao’s back," the Eternal Life Sect Leader called out.

"Really?"

Tiancan Monk strode over, and with just one glance his face changed drastically. "This eye... this eye... I’ve seen it before."

"You’ve seen my old bird too?" Zhao Wuya blurted out, right off the bat.

"What are you chirping on about?"

Tiancan Monk didn’t take Zhao Wuya’s words seriously. He straightened his face and said, "I saw this eye in the Reincarnation Zen Temple of Snow Plain Prefecture. I think it was on a mural, and there was an eye exactly like this on it.

But what that mural meant, I didn’t ask at the time. I only knew that eye was giving off an extremely heavy smell of blood."

"There you go again, babbling nonsense and slandering the Reincarnation Zen Temple."

The Eternal Life Sect Leader knew Tiancan Monk inside out.

The Tangkou Tiancan Monk was linked to is called ’Broken Robe’, the Alien Ghost Sect with the strongest Buddha energy.

In Snow Plain Prefecture, the influence of Broken Robe was also quite large, but its reputation couldn’t compare to that of the ’Reincarnation Zen Sect’.

The world at large saw the ’Reincarnation Zen Sect’ as an orthodox Buddhist Sect, and saw Broken Robe as a freak within the Buddhist gates.

Over time, ’Broken Robe’ and the ’Reincarnation Zen Sect’ ended up at odds.

As a Sky Dome Strange Alien Ghost of Broken Robe, Tiancan Monk hadn’t been stingy with slander toward the Reincarnation Zen Sect these past years.

Now that he spoke again of "blood and stench," the Eternal Life Sect Leader figured his old problem was acting up again.

Who would’ve thought Tiancan Monk would speak with full conviction: "Sigh, I used to love badmouthing that bunch of monks, but what I just said is the pure truth, every word of it.

On the mural in the Reincarnation Zen Temple, the smell of blood really is thick as hell—you all think they’re the righteous ones, but in my eyes they’re more sinister than Alien Ghosts. If you don’t believe me, just wait—Old Buddha is about to show up."

As he spoke of Old Buddha, Old Buddha really arrived.

"Old Buddha, come take a look at this pair of eyes," Tiancan Monk called out.

The Green Robed Buddha ignored Tiancan Monk. He held the Rotating Wheel in his hand and gave it a hard scrape. The wheel spun rapidly, letting out a low humming "wong wong" sound.

In that low hum, he walked forward to pay audience to Zhou Xuan, bowing with his head pressed very low, taking light steps, muttering mantras from the Buddhist Scripture under his breath.

Zhou Xuan thought this run of mantra chanting sounded quite pleasant.

Once the chanting was over, the Green Robed Buddha finally said devoutly, "Old Buddha pays audience to my teacher."

"Old Buddha, your chanting sounds pretty good, but if you have to buzz it out like this every time you see me, I think I’ll get annoyed.

Next time you see me, don’t chant. I’m not that into all this flashy ritual."

Zhou Xuan reminded him again and again.

"I respectfully obey my teacher’s Buddha decree."

The Green Robed Buddha dragged out this ceremony for quite a while. After he finished the whole sequence, good grief, he’d already forgotten the business at hand. With a dazed look, he asked Tiancan Monk, "Right, Tiancan Monk, what was it you just asked me again?"

"..." Tiancan Monk.

Zhou Xuan pulled Zhao Wuya over, pointed at his back, and said to the Green Robed Buddha, "Old Buddha, take a look at Ya Zi’s back. Doesn’t this patch look like a pair of eyes?"

The Green Robed Buddha examined it carefully, then hurriedly asked Zhao Wuya, "Did you get this eye tattooed on?"

Zhao Wuya snapped, "If I were getting a tattoo, I’d at least ink some good flowers or patterns. Why would I tattoo a busted eye?"

"Then this patch... is it a birthmark you were born with?"

"No... anyway, my mother never told me anything about it," Zhao Wuya said.

Who would’ve thought the Green Robed Buddha would intone a Buddha’s name and then say, "Your mother never told you—that doesn’t mean this eye isn’t your birthmark."

Once he said that, everyone fell silent.

This Great Buddha really had spotted a blind spot.

"Why wouldn’t my mother tell..." Zhao Wuya spoke halfway and realized something was off.

There are some things a mother doesn’t necessarily tell her son.

Zhou Xuan asked, "Old Buddha, what’s the origin of this eye?"

"In ancient times there was a great bird called Peng. The Peng bird was the pet bird of the Ancient Buddha, with the power to swallow the sky and devour the earth."

"This eye on Master Zhao is ninety percent similar to the Eye of the Celestial Peng. Whether it’s a perfect match, we need to go to Snow Mountain Prefecture to find out."

"Eye of the Celestial Peng?"

When Zhou Xuan heard the name ’Peng’, he immediately recalled something—back when he was doing Blood Well Divination, Zhao Wuya had entered his Secret Realm, and Miss Qiang and the Engineer had seen feathers on Zhao Wuya’s body.

"Could it be that Ya Zi has a very deep connection with that Ancient Buddha’s Heavenly Peng?"

The Green Robed Buddha continued, "The Heavenly Peng Bird, after it parted ways with the Ancient Buddha and was scattered into the Twenty-one Zen, disappeared without a trace. Now that the Heavenly Peng Bird’s trail has surfaced again, I’m afraid that Reincarnation Zen Temple is about to stir up a great commotion."

"That Reincarnation Zen Temple? Old Buddha... aren’t you from the Reincarnation Zen Sect?" Zhou Xuan heard a certain note in his words and asked.

"Old Buddha once served as a guest monk of that Reincarnation Zen, but personally, he has no ties to that Zen Sect."

Tiancan Monk gave a short explanation, then asked the Green Robed Buddha, "Old Buddha, is it true that the murals of the Reincarnation Zen Sect smell of blood?"

"It’s true."

The Green Robed Buddha nodded as he spoke.

"Why would a world-famous temple have the smell of blood?"

Zhou Xuan asked.

The Green Robed Buddha sighed and said, "Other Gods have asked me the same question in the past, but for the sake of the Reincarnation Temple’s reputation, I never answered directly.

But my teacher is my benefactor; with such kindness, what do I have to hide—Reincarnation Zen Sect is ’a Zen Temple where monks reside, and Ksitigarbha Evil Ghosts dwell below.’

That Zen Sect doesn’t just chant and meditate all day. In private, they engage in Ghost Nurturing, and from time to time, they also... they also perform some... Blood Sacrifice rituals."

"Those murals were raised with blood."

"..." When Zhou Xuan heard this, he realized this Reincarnation Zen Sect was walking the dark path?

"That makes me even more eager to take a trip to Snow Plain Prefecture."

That’s what Zhou Xuan said.

...

Snow Plain Prefecture, Reincarnation Zen Temple, Buddha Praise Heavenly Palace.

Buddha Praise Heavenly Palace stood atop Reincarnation Snow Mountain. The central axis of the palace overlapped with the summit of the Snow Mountain. Temples precisely due south and due north extended down the slope of the Snow Mountain step by step.

From a distance, it looked as though half of the Great Snow Mountain was covered under Buddha Praise Heavenly Palace.

Within the Heavenly Palace, strips of red cloth fluttered. Ning Yu Chan Master held a pen of ink in his hand, scratching out words on letter paper.

Beside him, a Disciple held hot tea, serving him attentively.

Not long after, Ning Yu Chan Master finished the letter and unfolded it, holding it up to the light to check.

On the letter, a list was written out.

"Five days from now is the Reincarnation Grand Rite. We need twenty young men, eighteen young women, twenty sets of Heavenly Spirit, twenty sets of liver and intestines..."

"Request the Snowfield Traveling God to supervise, and do not delay the festival."

He carefully checked the letter, and once he was sure there were no mistakes, he handed it to the Disciple beside him. "Deliver this letter to the God Traveling Department, and at the same time send three sets of Gaba, to reward the Traveling God for the hardship of supervision."