Chapter 42: Raise the Red Lantern High

With a quarter of an hour left before the Hour of Hai, the innkeeper knocked on the door in advance, signaling Yuan Zhu and the others that it was time to join the procession and gather at the square on the east side.

As they gathered at the inn's entrance, he was even presented with a carved wooden Buddha statue by a little girl. From the front, it looked quite normal: the local Buddha was a solemn, chubby figure with an eerie resemblance to a combination of the God of Wealth and the God of Cuisine.

However, the back of the wooden Buddha statue was carved with a twisted Buddha face—neither crying nor smiling, with an indescribably bizarre expression in its eyes, giving off an unmistakable air of casting a curse. Just holding this thing in the palm of his hand with it facing his chest made him feel an instinctive, profound discomfort.

Yet turning the Buddha upside down, facing himself while turning its back to all living beings, felt equally wrong and would only attract the attention of passersby. Gritting his teeth, he stealthily pulled out a dagger and, while no one was looking, scraped away the Buddha face on the back, finally letting out a breath of relief.

Ah, much more comfortable.

"Aren't you afraid of being targeted by the Buddha by doing that?" Meng Xiyue's ethereal voice came from behind.

Yuan Zhu's attitude was firm: "I think doing this has the highest cost-effectiveness."

Click-clack, click-clack... Behind him, the sound of daggers scraping against wood also began to ring out.

Everyone kept a calm and collected facade outwardly, but behind the scenes, they hurriedly raised their hands to modify their Buddha statues, and even the investigators from the Security Bureau were no exception. Hmph, what a superstitious woman!

With the six members of the team assembled, they followed the procession of residents carrying lanterns, censors, Buddha statues, and offerings, moving forward along the paved stone road. All along the way, one could tell that the Buddhist elements in Leye City were extremely heavy. Every household hung white paper lotus lanterns, giving off an atmosphere as if the entire city were in mourning.

Passersby were well-versed in chanting Buddhist scriptures, delivering them with a unique melody that sounded almost like singing. More and more people converged along the way. Normal humans? Tomato-impostors with blood-red heads? Everyone coexisted harmoniously, everyone chanting in low voices, making the atmosphere solemn and majestic, involuntarily evoking a sense of insignificance and humility in one's heart.

And this was merely ordinary people spontaneously reciting scriptures, yet it already formed a strong sense of spiritual oppression. It weighed upon non-believers, stirring feelings of shock, fear, yearning, and solemnity, compelling one to unconsciously revere, worship, and ultimately convert to Buddhism.

If this power could be harnessed by a transcendent system, the resulting effect would undoubtedly be terrifying.

...

Enduring the oppressive feeling, Yuan Zhu's team arrived at an artificially cleared square in the eastern part of the city. Buildings had originally stood here, but they had been damaged in battle and subsequently flattened to be converted into the stage for this sacrificial ceremony.

From far away, he could see on the other side of the square a brightly attired monk wearing a bright yellow cassock and draped in a blood-red outer robe.

He was a weathered, bald old man with the features of a normal human—white eyebrows, white beard, and fleshy cheeks—surrounded by a large crowd of tomato-impostors with blood-red heads and bizarre green outfits.

Occupying the central position, the old monk possessed a powerful aura and the highest status. He stood with his palms pressed together and eyes closed, as if waiting for something, completely indifferent to everything around him.

The blood-headed impostors surrounding him, though not wearing monk robes, also stood with their palms pressed together, devoutly worshiping in the etiquette of Buddhist disciples. Encircling the old monk to guard him, they wore expressions of excitement and anticipation.

Apart from this core inner circle, there were also large numbers of low-ranking red-headed monks, red-headed novice monks, and fanatical red-headed believers, mixed in a three-to-two ratio with human monks and human commoners of normal skin tone. Standing in specialized formations at various positions across the square, holding Buddhist ritual implements and chanting solemnly, they waited quietly.

There was utterly no superfluous small talk on the scene. From the moment Yuan Zhu and his party arrived, everyone was doing only one thing: chanting in low voices. The invisible spiritual qi intertwined with one another, and Buddhist Zen intent enveloped the upper reaches of the square, seemingly wanting to cover the entire Buddha city.

Under these circumstances, Yuan Zhu did not dare to draw a full breath. He could only watch quietly from the sidelines, communicating with his teammates through glances.

Through the mouse hiding in his pocket, he could perceive that the invisible fluctuations of Buddhist spiritual pollution in the area around the square were rapidly escalating.

When the time reached the Hour of Hai, the sound of chanting at the scene suddenly increased manifold. In an instant, it became grand and magnificent, like a thunderous chant pouring down into the crown of the head, causing one to achieve sudden enlightenment.

...

That 'Abbot Duowen' suddenly opened his eyes and looked up at the sky.

Apart from the moon glowing with a jade-green light in Yuan Zhu's eyes, the stars all over the sky at this moment seemed exceptionally brilliant. Twinkling and flashing, they were echoing and responding to the chanting coming from the ground.

For a time, the roaring wave of scripture-chanting overwhelmed everything else... Invisible spiritual resonance, with the abbot as the absolute center of gravity, swept outward in all directions like collapsing dominoes.

What had originally been merely sounds emitted from mouths unconsciously intertwined and fused into a spiritual-level thunderous Zen chant, carrying its own demon-subduing intent, making one's scalp tingle and soul go numb.

Yuan Zhu, finding himself in the midst of it, even heard the [Celestial Scripture] emit a frantic alarm. Outside the layer of soul barrier provided by the Celestial Scripture, the mouse in his pocket and his own clothing successively erected two layers of defense, resisting the brainwashing and erosion of the soul and consciousness by the Buddhist spiritual Zen chant (pollution).

Keeping a clear head, Yuan Zhu looked toward the center of the square. Whether normal humans or tomato-impostors with crimson heads, everyone at this moment wore a fanatical expression, and their eyes emitted a ghostly blue starlight, echoing the stars in outer space that had begun to flash violently.

Huh? Under the abbot's leadership, this group of monks and citizens had actually summoned the power of the stars in the sky? Was this starlight the true purpose of the Buddhist sacrificial ceremony?

The pixie suddenly came online: "No! It's not led by the abbot, but by those tomato-headed impostors in green clothing beside him. They are joining forces to summon the starlight's descent. This starlight is a very high-level form of energy pollution, but it has been intercepted and captured by the spiritual fluctuations emitted by the Buddhist congregation."

In the pixie's perception and analysis, the abbot had always been the core of the ritual.

He used the faith in 'Buddha' held by all living beings in the Leye Buddhist Kingdom as a medium, and his own spirit and soul as an anchor. Through Zen chanting to trigger spiritual resonance, he linked everyone's minds together, weaving them into a giant net.

The core members in the center of the square were the raw materials constituting this net. Meanwhile, the commoners chanting and observing from the outer perimeter were likewise connected into this network, serving as batteries providing energy to this 'spiritual Dharma net.'

The circle of tomato-headed impostors surrounding the abbot had also completed spiritual resonance by chanting the Buddhist Dharma, connecting into this network. Yet they displayed another innate ability: through the resonance of the Dharma net, they led all the red-headed impostors in the square to jointly summon the descent of starlight from the sky.

Yuan Zhu: "Understood. That big monk is the core of establishing the spiritual network. Everyone at the scene is strung together by him, with the outer commoners treated by him as spiritual batteries. Those red-headed impostors making up the network possess the additional energy to communicate with the stars, and they are enticing this energy (pollution) to descend, to be captured and absorbed by the spiritual network."

Pixie: "Yes, exactly."

"What on earth is the purpose of doing this?"

As the sacrificial ceremony proceeded in an orderly fashion, a faint sense of unease rose in his heart.

Perhaps it was because he was both surrounded by an invisible 'Buddhist spiritual pollution' and sinking deep into a quagmire, while another kind of 'starlight pollution' in the sky was gathering more and more densely, presenting a terrifying high-energy reaction. It looked ready to explode at any moment and distort all living beings, making him instinctively want to run away and keep his distance.

As the ritual steadily progressed, bolts of starlight plummeted from the sky, captured by the Dharma net. Those ordinary monks and novice monks standing in the center of the square, who served as the raw materials for the Dharma net, were the first ones unable to bear it. The scriptures in their mouths began to stutter and break off, looking like intellectually disabled people whose brains were overloaded and crashed.

And those tomato-impostors with red heads were in an even worse state. Starlight burst forth from their eyes, while their minds were controlled by the Buddhist spiritual pollution. The two forces used the minds of the tomato-headed monks as a battlefield, entangling and attacking each other.

One could see some red-headed monks no longer chanting, instead emitting cackling, bizarre laughter from their mouths. One moment, with a painful expression, they struggled to control themselves and shouted: "Buddha! Buddha! Buddha!" The next moment, the starlight in their eyes regained the upper hand, and they cried out loudly toward the starry sky: "Tomato! Tomato! Tomato!"

This schizophrenic scene seemed infectious, and more and more blood-headed monks began to lose control along with them.

One moment they wept bitterly, devoutly repenting and shouting loudly: "Buddha! Buddha! Buddha!" The next moment, with a fanatical, crazed expression, they looked up to the heavens and roared: "Tomato! Tomato! Tomato!"

...

"Holy crap! Brother Zhu, I'm getting a bit panicked. Should we run away?"

Behind him, Lü Rang looked at this scene of mass hysteria. Under the pressure of the intense starlight in the sky, his legs trembled so much he could barely stand. He hurriedly shoved Yuan Zhu hard, wanting to grab onto a backbone of leadership.

"Wait, let's watch a bit longer!"

Somewhat captivated, Yuan Zhu also looked up at the starry sky. While letting the [Celestial Scripture] record this newly appeared pollution, he himself was also getting a bit sucked in, staring somewhat blankly at the twisting and shifting starlight, feeling as though it contained endless supreme wisdom that was enticing him to throw himself into it.

"Holy crap! Holy crap!! Holy crap!!! This is fatal! Brother Zhu, look quickly, his head is flying off, his neck is about to be snapped!"

The sacrificial ceremony appeared to be extremely successful. As the red-headed monks in the arena went crazy en masse, more and more starlight in the starry sky was attracted, twisting into beams, breaking through the barriers of the firmament, and being projected into the mortal world to converge above the site of the ritual.

Then the starlight shattered into wisps, descending straight from the sky, heading directly for the eyes of those tomato-headed impostors and drilling into them.

Thus one could see that within the crimson skulls of flesh-and-blood material, starlight was lit up, and a head emitted a bright red bloody light like a lightbulb, illuminating all directions.

The square, which had originally been somewhat dim, now had dozens or hundreds of blood-red light sources as if rows of large red lanterns were hung high, staining the scene in brilliant crimson. This spectacle was almost catching up to a ghost film. Was this a Buddhist sacrificial ceremony, or a ritual of the Yellow Springs?

As more and more starlight energy drilled into their eyes, their heads not only grew brighter and brighter, but also larger and larger, shedding their human head shapes to become larger and rounder, resembling giant tomatoes with stretched and distorted facial features.

Their blood-red heads not only grew larger, rounder, and brighter, but also began to rise against gravity, pulling at their bodies as they drifted toward the sky, wanting to return to the starry sky.

Yet the feet of these red-headed monks were rooted firmly in the ground, struggling against the blood-glowing heads that wanted to fly up into the stars. With painful cries, their mouths chanted: "Buddha, Buddha, Buddha! Tomato, tomato, tomato! Buddha, Buddha, Buddha... Tomato, tomato, tomato..."

The scene of this self-pulling made even Yuan Zhu's neck hurt.

He could see the human necks being stretched longer and longer, emitting creaking and cracking sounds of bone joints rubbing against each other.

Until, with a 'squish!' sound, the neck of limited strength was torn apart, and a pale white spine unstained by a shred of flesh, connected to a large and round red-glowing tomato head, suddenly popped upward by a stretch, floating back and forth above the body like a balloon.

Squish! Squish! Squish!... The snapping sounds echoed into a chorus.

One after another, the bloody heads of the red-headed monks swelled into giant flesh-and-blood tomatoes, rising against gravity through anti-gravity, yet still reined in by their spines, connected to their broken necks and swaying back and forth.

"Buddha, Buddha, Buddha!" × N
"Tomato, tomato, tomato!" × N

Yuan Zhu watched in utter astonishment: "A bloody romance, truly fucking magnificent!"

Having lived for so many years and grown up this big, it was his first time seeing such a shocking scene. Amidst the eerie strangeness, it carried an inexplicable aesthetic beauty. It reminded him of a movie from the first half of his life, *Raise the Red Lantern*.