Chapter 64: The Great Buddha Temple

"Tomorrow morning, we will head to the Great Buddha Temple and take a look at this so-called Child-Bringing Guanyin." As soon as Xie Ning finished speaking, both Qingfeng and Mingyue were stunned.

"My lord, the three of us going together—won't that be too conspicuous?" Qingfeng asked with some concern.

"We are just going to offer incense, not to tear down the place. What is conspicuous about that?"

Xie Ning glanced at him.

"You two will disguise yourselves as my attendants and servants tomorrow."

"We shall go and pray as well, just to see if that Guanyin is truly miraculous or not."

Upon hearing this, Qingfeng and Mingyue both wore rather peculiar expressions.

Go pray to Guanyin?
And tag along with their young master?
How on earth did this picture feel so awkward?

"It is settled, then."

Xie Ning waved his hand, making the final decision.

"Go and get some rest first, gather your strength, and tomorrow you will accompany me to see just how grand the Buddha of the Great Buddha Temple truly is."

...

At the first hint of dawn the next day, Xie Ning, accompanied by Qingfeng and Mingyue who had changed into the plain attire of household servants, quietly left the Marquis Dingyuan's Estate.

The three of them hired an ordinary carriage and drove all the way toward the Great Buddha Temple in the suburbs.

The carriage swayed gently, and the closer they got to the temple, the more pedestrians and pilgrims they saw on the road.

Moreover, almost all of them were women.

Among them were not a few who rode in luxurious carriages, obviously noble matrons from prestigious and wealthy families.

Each of their faces bore an expression of piety and anticipation, clearly all heading there for the sake of that Child-Bringing Guanyin.

"My lord, it seems the rumors are true. The incense offerings are extraordinarily thriving."

Qingfeng lifted the carriage curtain, looked at the scene outside, and said in a low voice.

"The more people there are, the more interesting it becomes."

Xie Ning leaned back inside the carriage with his eyes closed, speaking indifferently.

Only when the fish are numerous will the water be muddied.
And only when the water is muddied can one easily catch fish.

He was quite looking forward to seeing what kind of big fish he might reel in today.

The carriage stopped at the foot of the mountain.

The three of them alighted and, following the dense crowd of people, stepped forward toward the Great Buddha Temple on the mountain.

The Great Buddha Temple was constructed with magnificent grandeur, featuring red walls and golden tiles that gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight, truly possessing the air of a royal temple.

At the temple gates, two monks welcomed every pilgrim with smiling faces, reciting Buddhist chants and looking remarkably benevolent and kind.

Yet, with just a single glance, Xie Ning sensed that something was amiss.

None of these monks possessed even a shred of the peaceful and auspicious aura that true people of the Buddhist faith ought to have.

Instead, between their brows lingered an imperceptible trace of black vapor.

Each of their glabella areas appeared darkened, and the whites of their eyes were turbid.

This was a typical sign of depleted vital energy, eroded by dark and malevolent forces.

It seemed that this Great Buddha Temple, from the inside out, had completely rotted away.

Maintaining his composure, Xie Ning led Qingfeng and Mingyue into the temple amidst the crowd.

As soon as they stepped into the Great Hall, a thick and heavy scent of burning incense rushed toward them.

The hall was bustling with heads bobbing up and down, and almost all the pilgrims were surging in one single direction.

That was the side hall where the statue of the Child-Bringing Guanyin was enshrined.

Xie Ning followed them as well.

Before even entering the side hall, he sensed an extremely bizarre aura.

This aura was half pure incense wish-power, carrying a sacred and serene feeling.

Yet the other half was bone-chillingly cold, filled with an oppressive aura of death, resentment, and malevolence.

These two completely opposing forces had somehow fused together in a bizarre manner, lingering and occupying that side hall.

Xie Ning's brows furrowed even deeper.

He stepped into the side hall and immediately laid eyes on the statue of the Child-Bringing Guanyin, which was surrounded and worshipped by countless pilgrims.

It was a Guanyin statue carved from white jade, possessing a solemn appearance and a faint smile at the corners of its mouth, holding a delicate, jade-like child in its arms.

At first glance, it truly appeared infinitely merciful.

However, when Xie Ning channeled his Innate Bagua Diagram to take a closer look, his entire expression sank.

Inside the interior of the Guanyin statue, there was no serene Buddha light whatsoever.

Instead, there was a dense mass of black vapor that was so thick it refused to disperse!

Within this black vapor, countless painfully distorted infant faces seemed to be wailing and struggling.

And right above the crown of the Guanyin statue, the pure incense wish-power was being continuously sucked into its body, only to be converted into an even more refined malevolent and dark force.

What a hypocritical evil deity wrapped in a righteous facade.

This was no Child-Bringing Guanyin at all.

It was clearly an evil god that fed on incense and rooted itself in the resentment of infants!

As for those noble women who came to offer worship, what they were begging for was not offspring at all, but rather strands of fatal, malevolent Qi that wrapped tightly around their bodies.

This dark energy would continually erode their physical bodies and fortune. Even if they truly conceived a child, what would eventually be born would absolute not be anything normal.

At this thought, Xie Ning's eyes held only a chilling murderous intent.

These beasts truly deserved to die!

Suppressing the anger surging in his heart, his gaze began to carefully scan the crowd.

He wanted to see with his own eyes just who was orchestrating this vicious scheme.

Right at that moment, the figure of a woman caught his attention.

The woman was dressed in plain and elegant attire, and she also looked like a female dependent from a wealthy household.

Kneeling on a futon, she faced the Guanyin statue, kowtowing with utmost piety.

Yet Xie Ning saw it with absolute clarity.

Right above the crown of her head, a mass of black vapor was coiling, so thick it seemed ready to drip water.

Within that black vapor, there was even the illusory phantom of an infant with a ferocious expression and covered in blood.

As Xie Ning looked over, that infant phantom was opening its wide mouth, sinking its teeth fiercely into her neck, frantically sucking away her vital essence.

This woman had been possessed by a malignant spirit!

Moreover, judging by the appearance of this malevolent spirit, it was clearly a minor ghost!

Xie Ning's expression turned stern, and his attention became entirely focused on the woman.

After kneeling before the Guanyin statue and praying piously for a long time, the woman finally stood up unsteadily from the futon.

To call it standing up was a stretch; her footsteps were so weightless and feeble that a gust of wind seemed capable of blowing her over.

Xie Ning genuinely feared that her legs wouldn't be able to support her body's weight and that she would collapse directly before the Guanyin statue.

Furthermore, her complexion had an unnatural pallor, and her lips completely lacked a trace of blood.

These were the classic symptoms after having her vital essence massively devoured.

Yet her personal maidservant and the surrounding pilgrims seemed completely unaware of her abnormality.

Everyone's attention remained fixated on that bizarre Guanyin statue.

Once the woman rose to her feet, she did not leave the side hall directly like the other pilgrims.

Hesitating for a moment, she walked toward a small side door located on the side of the hall.

Xie Ning's eyes narrowed slightly.

There was more to this!

He immediately signaled to Qingfeng and Mingyue, and the three of them quietly followed behind her.

Behind that small door lay a quiet covered corridor.

Compared to the bustling and noisy main hall up front, this place felt like an entirely different world.

Lifting the hem of her skirt with somewhat staggering steps, the woman walked along the corridor all the way toward the direction of the back mountain of the temple.

Her expression appeared somewhat dazed, carrying a mixture of struggle and terror.

It was as if two distinct souls were fighting within her body.

One wanted to keep moving forward, while the other desperately wanted to flee.