Chapter 663: Qingqiu

Yang Xiaohai, hanging upside down from the rock strata, looked up. He didn't know what the strange surging water above his head was. At that moment, he only felt his body melting and his consciousness fading.

"Faster! Keep going!" Li Huowang pulled Yang Xiaohai, and they continued to run wildly. Their bodies were also gradually shrinking. Below them, the ground had completely transformed into a vast, living ocean, roaring and howling.

The splashing seawater, like tongues, constantly licked everything that dripped from their bodies, determined to swallow both of them.

At this moment, Yang Xiaohai felt his head begin to blur and his limbs grow weak.

Just as he felt he couldn't hold on any longer, he saw an upside-down temple appear ahead.

Gilded sutra pillars, precious vase roof decorations, and imposing halls adorned the temple. Large stalactites, like colossal spines, pulled this incredibly magnificent structure, hanging it upside down from the rock ceiling.

The entire temple was as massive as a mountain. Even with parts of its roof submerged in the strange seawater, it remained utterly unshakeable.

"Brother Li, there's a temple!" Yang Xiaohai, his spirits lifted, shouted excitedly.

"I see it! That's the Bardo Temple, it's the exit! Hurry!" As they ran closer, the hanging temple appeared even more colossal and imposing.

Just as Yang Xiaohai stepped into the vicinity of the Bardo Temple, a resounding bell chime spread from it, interrupting their struggle. Li Huowang stopped in front of the Bardo Temple.

"Oh, Yang Xiaohai, how peculiar." Hearing this, Yang Xiaohai turned around and saw Li Huowang, his lips slightly upturned, gazing at him. His repeated action was exactly like Lu Juren's just moments ago.

"Yang Xiaohai, how did you get here?" Li Huowang gently waved his hand towards Yang Xiaohai, signaling him to come out. However, after a moment of hesitation, Yang Xiaohai gently shook his head and did not obey.

"Why are you standing there? Come here. Let me ask you something."

Li Huowang said, walking towards the Bardo Temple again. However, just as he lifted his foot, the bell chimed again, making him stay in place. "Yang Xiaohai, how peculiar that you are here."

"Brother Li... are you dead too?" Yang Xiaohai asked him fearfully. "Perhaps dead, but my situation should be considered forgotten. Come here, I'll take you out of here."

Yang Xiaohai no longer heeded Li Huowang's shouts. With a face full of fear, he turned and ran towards the upside-down Bardo Temple.

Brother Li was really dead. He was dead, just like Lu Juren before him. Now, Brother Li wasn't even a ghost; he was just a lingering, repeating afterimage in the human world. The moment his front foot stepped inside the temple, everything behind him instantly vanished. Both Li Huowang's shouts and the ocean's roar disappeared.

The emptiness surrounding him made Yang Xiaohai uneasy. It didn't look like a temple; there wasn't a single monk inside.

"What's going on? Didn't Brother Li say this was the exit? Did he trick me again?"

Just then, Yang Xiaohai suddenly heard a movement above his head. He looked up and realized that both the Buddha statues and the monks were there, but they were all above him.

Rows of lamas in red robes, spinning golden prayer wheels in their hands, began chanting Buddhist scriptures in resonant, varying tones.

Yang Xiaohai had not realized until then that he was actually hanging upside down from the ceiling. No wonder he couldn't find anyone earlier.

Before Yang Xiaohai could react, the obscure Buddhist scriptures reached his ears. The moment he heard them, Yang Xiaohai instantly felt his body go numb, and immediately afterward, his will disintegrated.

"Om... Ni... Mou... Ma... Ha, Om... A... Mi... A... Hum."

Yang Xiaohai, completely unconscious, fell helplessly. He completely merged with the Buddhist scriptures, ultimately spinning endlessly, again and again, within the prayer wheels held by skeletal hands.

"My love! My love! You can't die!" Drowsily, Yang Xiaohai seemed to hear a sound, a very familiar one.

"My love, if you die, how will I live?! Sob..."

As the sound grew louder, Yang Xiaohai wanted to open his eyes and see. It was very difficult because his eyes were completely covered by blood scabs.

With a sharp pain, Yang Xiaohai finally managed to open his eyes into a slit. Immediately, he saw Zhao Xiumei's tear-streaked face.

"My love! You're awake! You're finally awake!" Zhao Xiumei excitedly picked up the gourd in her hand, poured out some pills, and fed them to him.

"Cough... you can't take too many Blood-Nourishing Pills, or all your blood will coagulate..." Yang Xiaohai swallowed three and spat out the rest.

As the water gourd was brought to his lips, Yang Xiaohai drank a few mouthfuls, and his muddled head finally cleared considerably.

He struggled to look around, realizing he was now in a narrow fissure, a "crack in the sky." The Bardo Temple, the ocean — everything from before was gone. There was only rock on both sides.

"My love, are you alright? Do you still remember who I am?"

Hearing this, Yang Xiaohai looked down at his body. Only then did he realize his left arm was completely dislocated, and his fingers were bent at odd angles, looking terrifying.

His head also hurt a lot; it seemed he had hit his head when he fell. His fall had truly been quite terrible.

"My love, what's wrong with you? Don't scare me. Did you hit your head badly?" Zhao Xiumei was so frightened by Yang Xiaohai's dazed expression that she was almost in tears.

The three monkey-children nearby were also anxiously jumping up and down, scratching their ears and cheeks.

Yang Xiaohai reached up and touched his head, feeling a blood clot matted with his hair. Then, he felt in his embrace and found that the decayed Ruyi scepter he had brought from Niuxin Village was back.

"I... I think I just had a dream," he murmured, "a very strange dream. I dreamed of Lu Juren, and I dreamed of Brother Li. They... they were both dead."

Yang Xiaohai's tone was full of uncertainty. He didn't know if what he had just seen was real or not.

"My love, don't talk anymore. Let's get out of here quickly."

Zhao Xiumei said, carefully cradling him onto her back. She then took a rope from one of the monkey-children, tied him securely, grabbed a rope hanging nearby, and prepared to climb up.

"Xiumei, you... you can't climb up like this," he said. "Wait for me to rest and regain some strength."

"I'm not some sheltered young lady who never leaves the house," Zhao Xiumei retorted. "When I was ten, I was already following my father to the fields to plow. I'm very strong." After saying this, she began climbing step by step, bracing herself against both sides of the fissure.

The three monkey-children beside them didn't need ropes. Instead, they skillfully scrambled up and down the rock walls on both sides, chirping and cheering her on.

Finally, after Zhao Xiumei's clothes were soaked through twice, she finally crawled out of the cracked fissure.

Yang Xiaohai laboriously raised his head and looked around. He found that the entire landscape of the Green Hills had changed. Some distant hills had vanished, while new ones had risen from the ground.