Ren Qing was accustomed to demons, monsters, and ghosts, but seeing such a bloody and horrifying scene still made his heart tremble.
"What meaning do the two characters 'Cishi' actually carry?"
He continued traveling several li, and the corpses he encountered became increasingly shattered. Gradually, traces similar to sharp teeth gnawing began to appear, and even many corpses had their internal organs hollowed out.
Ren Qing was not surprised at this. In a sinister and dreadful environment like the Bottomless Pit, if it were merely filled with corpses, that would be too abnormal.
He carefully examined the bite marks; the more he looked, the more they resembled those caused by human biting.
Moreover, the force involved was extraordinary. The thigh bone could be bitten through to suck out the marrow, something even a mountain tiger would crack its teeth attempting.
Chen Changsheng had absolutely encountered some aberrant entity in the Bottomless Pit and, after discovering the secrets contained within, concluded that it "must not be entered deeply," which meant the Bottomless Pit was far from simple.
Ren Qing's vigilance rose further. Through the Heavy Child he observed the surroundings and noticed numerous claw-scratch marks across the rock walls.
The aberrant entities likely crawled along the ground with their limbs; only by remaining suspended in the Bottomless Pit would it actually be relatively safe.
Seeing this, Ren Qing did not hesitate and directly summoned the Ghost Ship from the Eternal Space Prison.
Although the Ghost Ship was most suited for travel across deserts, after advancing to Ghost Envoy realm, relying on the Kunpeng prow it could already hover in flight.
Additionally, with the ghost shadow possessing the Ghost Ship, being in darkness was like a fish in water.
The instant the Ghost Ship appeared, Ren Qing covered it with Wu Deceit. Yet the unique aura of the aberrant fetus artifact still leaked slightly, creating movement.
Rustling sounds came from afar. Faint and extremely strange murmuring echoed, as if reciting something.
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes and leapt onto the Ghost Ship's deck with force from his legs.
He could sense that the aura emitted by the aberrant entities was very strange, carrying a vaguely familiar flavor, yet he could not identify it.
Ren Qing did not immediately lift the Ghost Ship from the ground and quietly waited for the aberrant entities to approach.
However, because there was no fresh corpse blood nearby, the shadows seemed ready to leave. The murmuring grew faint and intermittent.
Ren Qing endured the pain of parting with it and threw some flesh within a hundred meters, his widened eyes fixed on the shadows, wanting to see clearly.
Pat pat, footsteps approached from afar. The murmuring immediately became extremely loud, seemingly a kind of scripture mixed with a local accent, though its meaning could not be discerned.
A humanoid monster cautiously approached the flesh, its eyes scanning the surroundings. Biting the flesh, it dragged it toward the depths of darkness.
On its back was a half-meter mass of deformed flesh. Unlike the main body, which was skinless, it resembled a statue sitting cross-legged.
Among the statue's facial features, only the mouth constantly opened and closed. The murmuring actually came from the statue on the monster's back.
It was simply unbelievable.
The monster moved as if carrying the statue, its posture extremely strange.
Ren Qing's pupils dilated; suddenly he realized something and immediately understood why Chen Changsheng had left the Bottomless Pit.
Without hesitation he signaled the ghost shadow to act, directly swallowing the monster into its body.
The remaining monsters, frightened, tried to escape, but the ghost shadow captured them one by one and then returned beneath Ren Qing's feet.
Feather-like patterns grew across the Ghost Ship. Although it had not fully transformed into a jailer, borrowing the Kunpeng's abilities was no problem.
Ren Qing's perspective gradually rose into the air, and the gale blowing toward him felt like sharp knives.
His thoughts were entirely focused on those strange monsters, so he hurried into the cabin and lit candlelight.
With the ghost shadow sealing the doors and windows, the light would not leak outside.
Ren Qing pushed aside the table and chairs and took out the monster carrying the statue from the ghost shadow's body. A foul stench immediately spread.
It struggled desperately, but the ghost shadow had already locked its muscles and bones.
Ren Qing carefully examined it. The monster was clearly formed from a corpse undergoing some kind of transformation. If one ignored the flesh statue growing from its back, it was essentially identical to the corpses in the Bottomless Pit.
The flesh statue resembled a Buddha statue somewhat, though its appearance was too blurred.
The monster's revival likely originated from the flesh statue; within it must lie the secret of Cishi.
Ren Qing released the remaining monsters as well.
There were three in total. Their deaths all involved being stripped of their entire skin, yet the statues on the other two grew in different locations.
One monster had its statue growing from the sole of its foot, causing a dragging motion when it crawled.
Another had it growing from the neck, compressing the head into a twisted shape, the bones inside crushed together as if ready to snap.
Ren Qing felt the statues resembled Buddha statues too much and could not help but feel wary.
Chen Changsheng must have realized the monsters might involve Buddhism, so he immediately left the Bottomless Pit and did not dare to continue deeper.
But what puzzled Ren Qing was why the statues grew in different parts of the body.
He touched the monster and summoned the information flow. This time much more content appeared, but the information was terrifying upon reflection.
The Buddha corpse is condensed from the Maitreya Skin-Sutra; consuming it will cause skin mutation. After receiving precepts for a thousand days, one will eventually become a Buddha.
Ren Qing muttered,
"Which deity or Buddha does this involve... Maitreya? Cishi?"
"Damn... it can't be her, right..."
Xiangxiang had no Buddhist temples, and Jingzhou also had none. But because Jingzhou was close to Cishi, stories of deities and Buddhas circulated there.
Even many Buddhist festivals openly disguised themselves as Daoist festivals, and the people of Jingzhou still celebrated them every year.
Ren Qing understood the strangeness of Buddhist techniques and had deliberately studied them, especially the well-known Buddhas.
"Maitreya" usually referred to Maitreya Buddha, but if the characters "Cishi" were added, then it likely referred only to the "Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva."
Some folk traditions even claimed the two were the same being.
Ren Qing could not verify it. After all, when Song Zongwu had been a monk he was only a novice and had read few scriptures.
Records about the Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva were limited, summarized as follows:
"The previous Buddha has entered nirvana, born within the inner court of Tusita Heaven."
"After four thousand years, he will descend into the human world and achieve enlightenment beneath the Dragon Flower Tree in Hualin Garden. In the past, Maitreya cultivated compassion samadhi before the Buddha, hence called Cishi."
It was said that the Bodhisattvas of Buddhism numbered dozens or even hundreds, but if eight were chosen, the Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva would certainly be among them.
Ren Qing had never expected that Cishi would be connected with the existence of the Bodhisattva Fruit.
Taking Song Zongwu as an example: he had nearly died from the torment of the Immovable Scripture he mastered.
If the nameless monk had not created the Asura Method to barely suppress Buddhist techniques, he would already have become part of the Hundred Buddha Diagram.
Even so, the Hundred Buddha Diagram behind Song Zongwu actually contained only ninety-seven Buddhas, representing cultivators devoured by the Sitting-Deer Arhat across generations.
Given the terror of the Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva, the Hundred Buddha Diagram would need at least seven or eight hundred Buddhas, not far from the Thousand Buddha Diagram's Tathāgata Fruit.
Ren Qing's expression fluctuated; he almost turned around and fled immediately.
But considering that Buddhism was far gentler than Heavenly Demons or the Blood Moon, mainly focusing on conversion, he calmed down again.
"Something's wrong, very wrong."
According to Song Zongwu, the conditions for cultivating the Immovable Scripture were extremely strict; not every monk could become a Buddha Son.
The inheritance of the Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva should be even stricter. Then why were there tens of thousands of corpses in the Bottomless Pit with such strange deaths?
Ren Qing looked at the three Buddha corpses and transformed the ghost shadow into a blade, slowly peeling the flesh statues from their bodies.
The Buddha corpses shook violently. As the statues were cut off, the stench intensified, and soon they stopped moving.
Ren Qing checked again with the information flow, and they reverted to ordinary corpses.
The flesh statues also shrank, their low murmurs turning into shrill howls, as if their souls were being roasted in fire.
After a moment, the statues shrank into pieces of human skin the size of fingernails.
Ren Qing picked them up and examined them. Perhaps when the corpses were flayed earlier, some skin fragments remained and eventually grew into flesh statues.
The Buddha skin is condensed from the Maitreya Skin-Sutra; consuming it will cause skin mutation. After receiving precepts for a thousand days, one will eventually become a Buddha.
"The culprit is a piece of human skin?"
"What exactly happened to the corpses when they were alive?"
"If the corpse had retained complete skin, what kind of monster would form?"
Ren Qing was filled with doubts. The situation in Cishi was absolutely abnormal. Something might have gone wrong with its Buddhist inheritance.
It might even be the work of a Buddha Son of the Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva.
After pondering for a long time, Ren Qing still decided to go to Cishi. Other regions might not be safe either, and at least he understood Buddhism somewhat.
Buddhist techniques were not difficult to cultivate to perfection, but perfection was the end, everything would ultimately return to the Hundred Buddha Diagram.
No matter how powerful the Buddha Son became after achieving fruition and becoming a Buddha.
Within a hundred years, he would become one figure in the Buddha diagram behind him, suffering eternal imprisonment for millions of years without release.
Ren Qing knew that when Chen Changsheng came to the Bottomless Pit hundreds of years ago, it had already been like this.
So the abnormality was not caused by a Buddha Son of the Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva achieving fruition; the cause had persisted for a long time.
In Ren Qing's view, if he cultivated Buddhist techniques himself, even if he could live ten lifetimes, he would eventually go insane.
Ren Qing took a long deep breath and firmly directed the Ghost Ship toward Cishi.
At the same time he began actively observing various Buddha corpses and discovered that the longer a Buddha corpse had existed, the larger its flesh statue grew.
The Buddha corpses' movements also became increasingly agile, though nothing else seemed special.
Aside from flayed Buddha corpses, another type existed in the Bottomless Pit: bone-extracted Buddha corpses, whose flesh statues grew inside the body.
This likely occurred when bone fragments remained after extraction, transforming the corpse into a Buddha corpse.
The information flow displayed something slightly different:
[The Buddha corpse is condensed from the Maitreya White Bone Sutra; consuming it will cause bone mutation. After receiving precepts for a thousand days, one will eventually become a Buddha.]
Ren Qing then confirmed that the Maitreya White Bone Sutra and Maitreya Skin-Sutra were not genuine Buddhist techniques, likely derivatives.
While ensuring the Ghost Ship remained concealed, he deliberately let Buddhist qi erode his skin to increase the Primordial Fetal Membrane's resistance to Buddhist qi.
Because the quality of Buddhist qi was high, the resistance improved slowly.
Ren Qing could only proceed gradually and deliberately slowed his journey through the Bottomless Pit, trying to raise the Primordial Fetal Membrane's resistance to Buddhist qi to a certain level before heading to Cishi.