Yin Xiu held the window frame with one hand and watched the changes outside the monks, whether it was the fat monk who loved to look in the mirror, or the pair of brothers, one tall and one short, playing chess, and even Wu Chen himself, had undergone strange and terrifying changes. They stood there, swaying as if a gust of wind would cause these soulless bodies to fall down, never to get up again. Beneath their skin, there are waves of vibrations and ups and downs visible to the naked eye. Then black veins popped up, starting from the eyes and extending to the backs of the hands, covering the entire body. These people seem to have become no different from zombies, turning into bloodthirsty murderous monsters. A worm came out of the monk's eyes, opened its mouth and sprayed black mucus, as if it was provoking Yin Xiu. It was not until Yin Xiu raised his hand and shot out a bloody arrow, cutting the insect's head into pieces that the monk fell to the ground. "Is it because I killed Fain?" Yin Xiu asked Sang Jiu. "Who do you think you are?" Sang Jiu smiled bitterly, "The seeds of all this have already been sown long ago, and they are destined to bloom and bear evil fruit. It's just a matter of time."
"Then why are you okay?" Only then did Yin Xiu remember that Sang Jiu repeatedly reminded him not to eat the food from Qianfo Temple. He realized, "There's something wrong with the food." "more or less." Sang Jiu sighed, "I don't know when it started, until one day I found insect eggs in my food. I vomited it out at the time and couldn't eat for several days." "So, those monks ate the eggs just like you did. Didn't you bring those puppet bugs?" “Of course I brought it here. It was passed down to me by my master, and then I brought it from Southern Xinjiang. You want to ask me why I cultivated the bugs myself, but ended up infecting everyone, right? " Sang Jiu spread his hands, "I don't know." "You do not know?" "Yes, I just don't know." Sang Jiu seemed to feel a little tired and sat on the ground. "Do you think that I know these insects very well because I breed them? You are wrong. We know nothing about those insects at all. There are many things we don't know. We just understand them with some superficial cognition and the way we are willing to accept. Just like the sky is round and the earth is square, it was just some unrealistic delusion of the ancients. My delusion is that I can control these insects. I raised them in a cave in the back mountain with several jars. At the beginning, I only had this..." Sang Jiu raised his little finger and said, "It's only this long." He pointed to the dead worm on the ground again, “And after eating flesh and blood, it can grow to this length. And you probably already know its ability, which is to make the dead body crawl again and come alive." "But Abbot Fain didn't get back up, did he?"
"That's because we are human beings, not beasts." Sang Jiu's face looked haggard, and the stubble under his chin had turned white. “When I first ate the eggs, I was very worried, thinking that I would turn into a horrible monster like those apes. So I was worried for a while, but in the end I found out that nothing happened. It was not until a monk fell off a cliff and died, then stood up again, that I discovered that the worms on humans and animals were different. " "That means if you die, you'll become that kind of monster, right?" "I don't know, but I know they will become like that." Sang Jiu shook his head and said, "When the bandits attacked the Thousand Buddha Temple, I hid in the mountains and escaped. Then when I came back, these monks and people seemed to be fine, still sweeping the floor, doing their homework, laughing and playing as usual. The ones I know had their heads chopped in half by bandits, or their intestines fell out and spread all over the floor, but they still acted like nothing happened." Sang Jiu held his forehead and said, "This is really a terrible thing." "Is this the first time you've noticed this? What about before? Didn't you already know that the dead would be resurrected?" "Of course I know." Sang Jiu explained, “But the guy who was resurrected last time was just like these monsters in front of you. How could he communicate with you, talk to you, and act like a human? That guy is just a bloodthirsty monster, that's what scares me." "Why did it become like this?" If what Sang Jiu said was true, all the people in the Thousand Buddha Temple ate insect eggs and were slaughtered by bandits that night, even if they were resurrected, they would only become monsters. It would be impossible for them to do the same things, say the same words, and even their personalities would be the same as before. Most importantly, there were no visible wounds on their bodies. Some were beheaded, some had their intestines ripped out by the knife, some had their hands chopped off, and had scars as big as bowls. They were gone in an instant. "Why did it become like this?" Sang Jiu murmured, and only came up with one possibility, "Evolution." "evolution?" Yin Xiu asked in alarm, "Are you saying that these bugs have evolved?" “Maybe it’s a bug, maybe something is wrong, and before that, everything is acceptable. It was because I saw others eating insect eggs and nothing happened that I didn't remind everyone. I wanted to stay here and survive. Because if I told it at that time, I would definitely be kicked out of the Thousand Buddha Temple, because it is something that harms people, and then I would be left with nowhere to go. In my observation, the eggs enter the human body just like parasites and do not actually cause any impact on people, at least when they are alive. Everyone has worms on their bodies to a greater or lesser extent. People who like to eat sashimi, field crabs, and mud snails may even have worms excreted when they go to the toilet. So what? This is a chaotic world. Everyone will die. Why should we care so much? It is enough that the eggs did not cause sudden death or illness after being eaten! I am not Guanyin Bodhisattva, I cannot save so many people!"
"What the hell is this evolution you're talking about?" Yin Xiu closed the door and blew out the oil lamp, and the room suddenly fell into darkness. This made the commotion outside less intense, as if the insects slowed down a little because the light disappeared and they could not see Yin Xiu and Sang Jiu for a while. At this moment, only moonlight was left shining on the two of them, and their faces contained a cruel and cold expression. Fain's body was shrouded in moonlight, and it looked as if it was covered with a layer of frost. Sangjiu gently covered Fain's body with a quilt. “It’s different from the abbot’s situation. The abbot is a living person. I put the puppet worm into his body, so to some extent, the puppet worm and he are symbiotic. But the abbot was already very weak at that time, not far from death, so the puppet worm just kept him alive, sucking nutrients from his body, and it was impossible to go any further. The body was both the worm's support and its cage, just like other people. For them, the worm eggs in their bodies were time bombs that would never be triggered when they were alive. But things changed. On the night when the bandits entered the mountains, everyone seemed to have lost the power to resist, as if the massacre was not terrible but just a baptism to welcome a new life. You know what Elder Wu Chen is capable of. Even though he is vulnerable in front of a great master like you who is at the level of synesthesia, for ordinary people like us, he is a mountain that we can only look up to. The bandits are just a mob after all. As long as Elder Wu Chen takes action, everything will be fine. However, he did not move, allowing the bandits to chop him into eighteen pieces. The others just ran or stood there and were killed by the bandits. Abbot Fa Yin didn't know whether it was lucky or unfortunate that all the monks in the front room were killed, and when the bandits came here, they were disgusted by the stench and didn't even go in through the door." Sang Jiu still felt his scalp tingling when he thought about what he saw and heard that night. What made him feel lucky was not that he survived, but that his daughter was not in the Thousand Buddha Temple, otherwise he didn't know what kind of tragedy she would have encountered that night. The men were killed in front of him, pierced and hacked to death one by one with spears and steel knives. The naked women were moved around like flour bags, raped and abused by the blood-stained bandits, who finally pulled up their trousers and stabbed them. This is no worse hell on earth! "Where are those white apes?" Yin Xiu suddenly asked. "Did you encounter a white ape?" Sang Jiu frowned. White apes do not normally come into contact with humans, so there has never been an incident of anyone being attacked by a white ape in the mountains. But that’s because there aren’t many people going up the mountain. If there were a lot of people, it would definitely attract the white ape’s attention, not to mention a group of murderous and noisy bandits? He also thought that if the bandits who went up the mountain encountered white apes, they would probably not be able to reach the Thousand Buddha Temple alive. Any one of them could make them pay a heavy price. However, that night, the bandits moved freely on Mount Bodhi, and after killing all the people there, they went down the mountain in an almost leisurely manner. Sang Jiu once stood on the rock at the top of the mountain, watching the bandits swagger away until the flames in their hands were obscured by the mountains. Why isn't the white ape there? Why were Yin Xiu and his group of only a few able to attract the white ape's attention? There may be only one answer, and that is the appearance of the Insect King. "Insect King? What is that?"
While Yin Xiu asked him, he held a piece of talisman in his hand. It was the talisman used to communicate with Ma Xiaoyu. However, he soon took back the talisman paper. The entire Thousand Buddha Temple was probably in danger at the moment, and it was useless to distract her at this time. Yin Xiu changed into the Thunder and Fire Talisman. "You should have heard of the Gu King, right? It is the lifelong dream of every sorcerer. Throw hundreds or thousands of snakes, toads, geckos, scorpions, centipedes, spiders, and all kinds of poisonous creatures into one place and let them fight and kill each other. In the end, only one will be left, and that is the Gu King, the most poisonous and cruelest of all the insects. As soon as the poisonous insect appears, all poisonous insects will be frightened by it and dare not move, and will be controlled and ordered by it. I think that the insect king I am talking about also has such magical power, making all insects obey its orders. Therefore, it can control not only the people in the Thousand Buddha Temple, but also those white apes, whether they are insect eggs or insects. " "That makes sense." Yin Xiu nodded, "The insect swarm is very simple, and only one brain is enough. The other insects are responsible for eating and dying, and the brain is responsible for commanding them to eat and die. This is the most efficient. The question is, why tonight? And not some other time?" "It's hard to explain the concept of chance." Sang Jiu smiled bitterly, "I don't know why everything was fine. We were just waiting for Abbot Fa Yin to survive the Mid-Autumn Festival, but now a group of bandits came and slaughtered the entire Thousand Buddha Temple. Everyone in this temple is a good person, why is there no good reward?" "Didn't they already go to see the Buddha?" Yin Xiu sneered, "All monks will eventually go to see the Buddha. The only difference is going early or late. And who told you that good people will be rewarded?" Ignoring Sang Jiu's disappointment, Yin Xiu grabbed the back of his clothes and asked, "Where is the insect king?" “Maybe it’s in this temple.” Sang Jiu looked solemn, "Because only here can I sense everything and command so many insects at the same time." "Commander, huh?" Yin Xiu heard more and more footsteps coming from outside and knew that Sang Jiu's guess was correct. The Thousand Buddha Temple is now filled with insects, so the brain of the insect nest should naturally be safest here. "Let me ask you, is people more important or place more important?" Yin Xiu suddenly asked. "What?" Sang Jiu didn't react. "I mean, is the monk in the temple more important, or is the temple more important?" "Of course it's the monks. Without the monks, even the most magnificent temple is just an empty shell." "very good."
Yin Xiu smiled, "At least you haven't fallen into delusion. If you are obsessed with appearances, then what's the difference between you and someone with a bug in your brain?" Sang Jiu wondered why Yin Xiu wanted to discuss Buddhism with him at this time. Obviously, neither of them was a monk, and all the monks here were dead. What was there for two outsiders to discuss? It's like two virgins discussing horse riding, what can they say? But when Sang Jiu saw a raging fire burning on Yin Xiu's other hand, he was stunned. "You shouldn't be..." "Yes." Yin Xiu grinned, and his face looked even colder and deeper under the firelight. "I just thought about it. We don't know where the insect king is hiding or what it looks like. Even if it is hiding in the house, we don't know how long it will take to find it if we search for it room by room. And haven’t all the living people here turned into shells driven by bugs? If that's the case, all the monks in the Thousand Buddha Temple are dead, what's the point of keeping this temple? I might as well burn it down." "But!" Sang Jiu's eyes widened. "This Buddhist temple has a history of several hundred years. There are thousands of Buddha statues, all of which are treasures left by our predecessors." "I know that the stones will be fine. At most, they will be blackened by smoke. As for the wood..." Yin Xiu glanced at the wooden sculpture of Bodhisattva in another meditation room. "I was wrong just now. I should have said this: since monks can be recruited again, the temple can naturally be rebuilt. They are all dead things anyway, so we might as well burn them down!" No! ! ! Sang Jiu’s face turned pale and he almost screamed. However, the firelight and heat soon turned his face red again. (End of this chapter)