The great river stretched toward the wilds, voices rising in clamor.
Small skiffs rippled through the water, nets scooping flying fish.
Radiant Buddha walked along the riverbank like any ordinary monk — tattered robes, battered staff, treading a common path.
Nothing out of the ordinary. No one cast him a second glance.
This ordinariness was itself extraordinary.
But this peace and tranquility was genuine.
Radiant Buddha's steps continued unchanged. He crossed the lower river, passed through the middle river, then lifted his eyes to see lotus buds about to burst into bloom — the upper river choked with them, green and lush, brimming with life.
And beside the waterway, a temple of respectable size — though its incense attendance appeared sparse.
Radiant Buddha understood. A faint smile crossed his face, and without hesitation he walked into the temple.
Green bricks, tiled roofs, vermilion gates.
Rough wooden dragons with five claws coiled around the temple pillars.
Above the main hall, four characters were brushed in bold, unrestrained calligraphy — Great Hero Hall.
No incense burner stood here either. The handful of believers simply pressed their palms together and whispered their prayers.
Radiant Buddha's gaze swept the space, but he found no monks — only a few common folk wiping dust from the surfaces with ordinary rags.
Lifting his gaze, Radiant Buddha looked at the Buddha statue — its features neither modeled after anyone in particular, just eyes that were eyes, a nose that was a nose. The smaller statues below bore identical faces, as though merely a half-sized copy of the larger one.
The Buddha originally had no fixed form.
Radiant Buddha's gaze drifted to a section of scripture inscribed in full across a red wall to one side.
The content was familiar — it was the text the Buddhist sect had suppressed to this very day: a passage from the Mahayana Buddhist Teachings.
Radiant Buddha chuckled softly and shook his head. Then he raised his hand, and golden Buddhist light circulated across his body. Several dharma hands emerged, gently shielding every common person and believer inside the temple, ushering them all outside.
Then radiance descended from the heavens, enveloping the temple in its glow.
Radiant Buddha stood beneath the Buddha statue and spoke gently:
"I've kept you waiting. I only arrived today."
In the next instant, the Buddha statue emitted a burst of golden light, and compassionate eyes lifted to regard Radiant Buddha where he stood.
The Buddha statue's face twisted into an odd smile, and a hoarse voice spoke:
"No waiting at all, Revered One. However long you ask me to wait, it is never too long."
Radiant Buddha did not mince words. He spoke directly:
"I've come in my true form to see you. Why do you not show me yours?"
The Buddha statue did not answer. Those compassionate eyes lingered on Radiant Buddha for a long while. Then the statue returned to its original position.
Outside the temple gate, a young man's voice rang out:
"Revered One, please withdraw your divine power and let me enter."
Radiant Buddha raised his hand, and the radiance dispersed. His gaze fell upon the newcomer:
"Boruo. It's been a long time."
"No one has called me by that dharma name in ages." Boluo stepped through the gate in yellow monk's robes, his eyes fixed on Radiant Buddha's gaunt frame. "Now they all call me Boluo."
Radiant Buddha's gaze shifted to the Mahayana scripture on the wall:
"What happened back then erupted suddenly — as though in the blink of an eye, the moment of choice had arrived. Was it you pushing everything forward from the start?"
Boluo looked as though he was gazing upon someone he had looked up to for ages. His voice was full of regret:
"It was. Your brilliance terrified me, Revered One. In the end, I couldn't bear to let even a wisp of it escape. Even when ordered to kill you all back then, I couldn't bring myself to do it."
Radiant Buddha asked quietly: "How did you know I would come here?"
"I could never truly know you." Boluo sighed softly, then his voice turned slightly proud. "Chu Xingchen acts in erratic, unpredictable ways — many things about him defy conventional reasoning."
"But I've always believed that, in the end, any person will naturally choose the most fitting, the least error-prone path."
"That's why I left the statues in Western Niu Continent. I left the wish-power. I left Lotus Pool."
"Each one I left — each necessary breadcrumb — I left so many of them, just to draw you here."
"No one is more suited to come here than you."
"Now that you've come today, I feel that Chu Xingchen is no longer so impossible to fathom — no longer so impossible to overcome."
Radiant Buddha raised his wooden staff and pointed it straight at Boluo:
"After emerging into the world, I recovered for a long time. I believe that even if the True Immortal Bai Xuanling stood here today, I would not fear her. Tell me — do you think I'm incapable of striking you down, or do you think you can walk out of here alive?"
Boluo's smile suddenly turned savage, his eyes blazing with desperate hunger:
"I've studied your Mahayana Teachings deeply, Revered One. There are parts I accept, and parts I don't. Today I have one question for you."
"The people of Lotus Pool live peacefully under my protection — removed from worldly strife. I won't call it happiness, but they are free from care."
"Your Mahayana Teachings — would you sacrifice these people to kill me? Or would you let me leave, for their sake?"
"Today I wager my life to ask you what you truly believe."
Radiant Buddha thrust his wooden staff forward, and dazzling radiance surged forth. His motion and his words carried no hesitation:
"Compassion may lead to errors. Killing and burning are not necessarily wrong."
"The matter of karma — even when I gaze upon it, it swirls like mist."
"But I know that I am in the wrong. And I will bear all the sin. On the day I manifest as a Buddha Kingdom, I shall absolve them."
Boluo watched the radiance hurtling toward him and raised his hand, deploying golden light to meet it.
But in the next instant, the radiance pierced clean through Boluo's midsection. His body was blasted backward, smashing through a distant lotus pond.
Radiant Buddha's figure dissolved into a streak of radiance. In the blink of an eye he was before Boluo, staff raised and brought crashing down. Radiance descended from on high, transforming into a long spear that struck downward.
Boluo coughed blood and did not dare underestimate his opponent further. Origin power surged outward, frantically devouring and neutralizing the incoming strike. Crimson blood-energy met it head-on, dyeing the lotus river red. He gritted his teeth and fought back with all his might:
"Everything here — every lotus, every life — I cultivated with my own hands. If you truly want to kill me, change the location. Wouldn't that resolve your compassionate dilemma?"
Radiant Buddha raised his staff once more. Nine lotus platforms of radiance erupted from the ground, enveloping Boluo's body:
"Because of compassion, I know what must be done and what must not."
The crimson origin power churned within the lotus platforms, and the enclosing radiance began cracking apart.
Boluo's voice seeped through the lotus petals:
"Revered One — do you know who understands you best?"
Radiant Buddha said nothing. He simply gripped his staff. In an instant, the wood blazed with multicolored radiance, and he hurled it — straight at Boluo.
BOOM!
The radiant lotus shattered. Origin power erupted skyward.
Boluo's form materialized, a long spear held high, blocking Radiant Buddha's hurled staff.
The two forces twisted together in lethal collision.
The lotus river was wrenched by the shockwave, and the temple nearby had long since been razed to flat ground by their clash.
"You know." Boluo's excitement had not diminished. "It's me. I'm the one who understands you best."
Boluo looked at Radiant Buddha's gaunt frame and hollowed face:
"I knew I could never find where you'd been. But I knew you would reveal yourself to me."
"Because you want to resolve Chu Xingchen's difficulty. And you want to resolve your junior brother's difficulty."
"You finding me — and nirvana being here — is the answer in your heart."