Chapter Fifty-Seven: The Sutra of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva’s Fundamental Vows

The young monk from Mount Pan Temple was temporarily housed in a guest room at the county office. Since the case involved the deaths of over a dozen people from the temple, the authorities took it very seriously, assigning several constables to guard him day and night.

Upon awakening, his first action was to notify the Bureau of Rituals.

Zhou Bai decided to stay at the county office as well; the matter was deeply strange, and he wanted to uncover its hidden truths as soon as possible.

The young monk’s name was Chang Jing. He appeared deeply shaken, lying in bed for an entire day before finally communicating with others.

“Chang Jing, can you tell us what happened in Mount Pan Temple?”

Wen Meng held a compass glowing with spiritual light—a formation meant to steady the mind. Only after a long while did the monk’s terrified gaze gradually regain composure.

Zhou Bai and Daoist Hou were also in the room, along with Head Constable Sun, whose face had grown haggard from recent busy days.

Governor Zhao had intended to be present, but the myriad affairs of Hangdu City kept him from leaving.

Under their attentive gazes, Chang Jing, sitting at the bedside, swallowed nervously, his eyes darting about as he haltingly recounted the strange events at Mount Pan Temple.

He hadn’t seen the old monk accept Wu Lao’er’s silver, but while helping move the corpse, the old monk had casually chatted with him, unwittingly beginning a nightmare.

Chang Jing’s account was somewhat confused, so Zhou Bai summarized, “So, after the old monk accepted the dying man’s silver, that man turned into a corpse monster overnight and slaughtered everyone in Mount Pan Temple?”

“There’s something peculiar at every turn,” Wen Meng said, rubbing his temples. He looked at Head Constable Sun and asked, “Has the identity of the deceased been established?”

Sun managed a bitter smile and nodded. “According to our records, he was a refugee from Xuzhou, arriving in Hangdu four days ago.”

“If Xuzhou is involved, this is trouble,” Daoist Hou muttered, feeling a sudden urge to flee Hangdu. Yet places deeply affected by Xuzhou were not limited to this city; bad luck could strike anywhere.

Wen Meng took a deep breath. “Whatever the case, we must find the old monk first. The silver in his possession is likely problematic—if that thing can foster ghostly creatures, the consequences are unimaginable.”

For some reason, an image of the old beggar at the street corner flashed through Zhou Bai’s mind. He quickly said, “Constable Sun, send men to search the city’s beggars, especially the older ones. He may be hiding among them.”

Constable Sun recognized the urgency and immediately set out. Zhou Bai added, “Remember, notify the Bureau of Rituals the moment you find the target.”

“Understood.” Sun hurried out, authorized by Governor Zhao, and mobilized all available constables to comb through the city’s alleys and streets.

Zhou Bai’s suspicion was quickly confirmed: Chang Jing’s terror stemmed from being secretly watched over the past few days.

After obtaining the silver, the old monk cared for nothing else, intent on killing anyone who knew about it—Chang Jing was the sole survivor.

Fortunately, the young monk was timid and cautious, hiding near the county office when things felt amiss.

As the situation escalated, Zhou Bai’s brows knitted in concern. Even a slight ripple from Xuzhou had thrown Hangdu into chaos. What must Xuzhou itself be like, the eye of the storm? Did those thousand-foot giants of the ghost domain walk its lands?

With the authorities mobilized, half a day passed before the old monk’s whereabouts were discovered. Disturbingly, he had already died, his body discarded in a mass grave, with the silver nowhere to be found.

If a corpse monster were to appear in Hangdu’s crowded streets, the Bureau of Rituals alone would be woefully insufficient.

Wen Meng immediately went to the Spirit Street, reported Hangdu’s situation to the Bureau of Rituals, and requested reinforcements to handle the sudden appearance of ghostly entities.

Learning of the corpse’s location, Zhou Bai rushed to the mass grave, which lay in a remote area, with no one living nearby.

Along the way, the trees lining the road were twisted and misshapen. Crows perched on their branches, their eyes blood-red, gazing at passersby with uncanny intensity.

Upon reaching the hillside of the mass grave, Zhou Bai finally understood what an “evil vein” was—this graveyard was a naturally formed one.

From a distance, he could see piles of discarded corpses within, and at the entrance stood an old weathered stone stele.

Dense evil energy seeped from the soil, rising into the air and then gathering together.

In such a place, the likelihood of encountering ghosts was greatly increased; that nothing had happened so far likely owed to the stone stele at the base of the hill.

The stele was engraved with long passages of Buddhist scripture, moss-covered and seemingly ancient.

Whenever the evil energy converged, the stele would emit a faint Buddhist glow, dispersing the dense miasma, again and again.

It was obvious the stele was the work of a “Three Flames” monk, testament to profound skill.

When Zhou Bai approached, the soft glow from the stele was almost dazzling. Placing his right hand on its surface, his system responded.

“Would you like to learn the Sutra of Ksitigarbha’s Vows?”

Zhou Bai was startled but refrained from accepting. Doing so might shatter the stele, unleashing the suppressed evil vein and causing endless trouble.

Thinking it over, he removed his inner lining, gathered some dew and mud, applied them to the stele’s surface, and took an impression with the cloth.

When the cloth disintegrated to dust, Zhou Bai looked with satisfaction at the newly acquired “Sutra of Ksitigarbha’s Vows” on his system panel.

This reminded him that, since the destruction of Mount Pan Temple, all its Buddhist scriptures had been stored in the county office’s warehouse—he had been too busy to retrieve them.

After some delay, Zhou Bai crossed the stele into the mass grave. The ghost tree in his dantian stirred with excitement, its branches trembling as it absorbed vast amounts of evil energy.

For a natal ghost artifact, there was no better place than an evil vein; after absorbing nearly half the surrounding energy, Zhou Bai felt a sense of fullness from the ghost tree.

Finding an evil vein in Hangdu was an unexpected boon to Zhou Bai, greatly aiding his accumulation of ghostly power, though the urgent task now was to locate the old beggar’s corpse.

Activating his Yin-Yang eyes, he searched the area meticulously, nearly digging up every inch, but found nothing.

A sense of dread crept into Zhou Bai’s heart—he feared the corpse had already transformed into a zombie.

Outside, the sunlight shone bright, but within the forest shadows held sway—a perfect refuge for ghostly creatures.