The words “form the covenant” had barely left Lang Jiuchuan’s mouth when the wooden fish played a trick of its own. “Form the covenant? What covenant? You’re a little girl who hasn’t even finished growing yet. Managing to add a new layer of curse inscriptions over the patterns my master engraved, without destroying this pagoda — that’s a passable level of skill, I’ll grant you. But you don’t know how to become the master of this pagoda. I’ll teach you — all you need to do is imprint your soul seal within the pagoda, so that it carries your soul’s consciousness.”
“Saying it like that — you really do take me for a little girl who hasn’t finished growing, don’t you? You know best what happened to the last person who possessed this pagoda. It was because even though he took possession of the Diamond Pagoda, he never became your master. So when he was using the Diamond Pagoda to cultivate those malevolent ghosts, you — the vessel spirit — seized the opportunity to turn against him, and in the end, he died consumed by the very malevolent ghosts he had nurtured.”
Lang Jiuchuan let out an “Ah” sound. “Wait — he didn’t even manage to become the master of the Diamond Pagoda, did he? He merely obtained the treasure and used it to cultivate malevolent ghosts — turning a treasure into waste.”
The wooden fish: “!”
Had it been dormant and asleep for so many years that young ghost-children had become this clever?
“Regardless of what happened to anyone who previously held this pagoda — in my hands, I will absolutely never follow the paths of my predecessors, never repeat their mistakes, lest I end up being bitten by you at any moment.” Lang Jiuchuan gave a cold huff. “So hurry up and form the covenant. Stop wasting my time.”
“I am a vessel spirit of some standing. Just because you say to form a covenant, I should? You think a yellow-haired little girl like you is worthy of being my master?”
“Little wooden fish — have you perhaps forgotten how weak you are right now? If I continue using this Little Nine Pagoda without ever activating you, your hope of recovery is a pipe dream. For a vessel spirit, if it remains weakened indefinitely — you will eventually disappear entirely, won’t I? I can afford to wait. Can you?”
A vessel spirit is also the soul of a vessel — the two are mutually dependent. If a vessel goes unused for a long time and sinks into the river of history, the vessel spirit will eventually cease to exist.
Look at how weak the wooden fish was right now. If it had colluded with the malevolent ghost cultivator back then, it might have grown strong — but simultaneously, it would have become a fully malevolent spirit.
Yet it had not. Instead, it had used its own spiritual consciousness to preserve a thread of the Venerable Luole’s life’s effort, causing itself to grow ever weaker in the process.
The law of the jungle held true: for people, and equally inescapable for vessel spirits. Once that malevolent ferocity completely transformed the Diamond Pagoda into an evil vessel, the wooden fish would either be assimilated — or devoured and made to utterly disappear.
The wooden fish felt as though fingers had closed around its throat. How infuriating!
“Fine, this little girl does have a bit of cleverness. Alright, forming a covenant is fine — but you’d better show me proper reverence in the future.” The wooden fish feigned its lofty pride.
Lang Jiuchuan replied, “That depends on my mood. If you do well, reverence is negotiable — after all, it’s my pagoda, and those who follow me won’t suffer for it.”
The wooden fish let out a light huff.
Seeing it relent, Lang Jiuchuan wasted no more words. She drew talismans and engraved new formation patterns in rapid succession. Her soul was in truth already at its limit — she was merely forcing herself onward.
Lang Jiuchuan summoned the talisman brush and imprinted her soul consciousness into the Little Nine Pagoda. Once the soul seal formed within the pagoda, achieving resonance with the vessel spirit to form the covenant would be considerably smoother — after all, the wooden fish had agreed.
Suddenly, a crack of thunder split the sky, startling many out of their sleep.
Once the covenant formed, Lang Jiuchuan felt it immediately and with absolute certainty — she was the master of the Little Nine Pagoda.
Whoosh.
Lang Jiuchuan’s primordial soul returned to her physical body.
Jiang Che’s suspended heart released all at once, letting out a roar — furious, yet mingled with something almost like grievance — before retreating to the spiritual platform and curling up into a ball.
Lang Jiuchuan managed a smile — one so drained it barely held together. Had anyone been present, they would surely have been frightened out of their wits. Who in their right mind would have a face completely drained of color, pale and white as a ghost?
She looked at the Little Nine Pagoda, still a deep, lustrous black. One final step remained: drawing down lightning to temper and wash it.
Only by undergoing the tempering of heavenly lightning could it be considered truly cleansed of all impurity and restored to the brilliance that had always been its own.
Lang Jiuchuan quietly regulated her breath. Once her soul had stabilized within her body, she swallowed several medicinal pills, then staggered upright.
The moment she stood, her vision went black and her soul nearly left her body.
Jiang Che said weakly, “At least take it easy. Don’t push yourself any further.”
Lang Jiuchuan replied, “There are only two steps left. Once they’re done, I can enter the pagoda to nourish my soul. Why wouldn’t I?”
Two steps — not one?
Lang Jiuchuan picked up the Little Nine Pagoda and tucked it into her wide sleeve. “You were originally forged by a monk who had cultivated in both Buddhist and Daoist traditions. Now that you are in a Buddhist temple, you are also connected to the Buddha by fate. I’ll bring you to absorb a bit of Buddhist nature — it will help wash away the ill fortune of your past. Otherwise, when the lightning strikes, I fear you may not be able to endure it.”
Jiang Che: She isn’t done siphoning here, and now she wants to go siphon from the Buddha — there is such a thing as going too far!
The wooden fish, however, was trembling with excitement.
Late in the night, all was quiet.
Lang Jiuchuan draped her large cloak around herself and slipped silently out of the room. Moving as though no one else existed, she passed through an entire stretch of meditation courtyards and arrived at the Main Hall.
A novice monk was seated on a meditation cushion in one corner of the hall, deep in meditative contemplation. He seemed to have not expected anyone to come at this late hour. Seeing that it was a young girl, he pressed his palms together and gave a slight bow.
Lang Jiuchuan returned the greeting, came before the hall, and raised her head to look at the towering golden Buddha images. Their eyes were gently lowered, their expressions compassionate, their gaze looking down upon all sentient beings with pity — not a single one moved to drive her away, this wandering soul in a borrowed body.
Truly merciful and compassionate.
No doubt they would take pity on all living beings — even on a vessel spirit.
She took some incense, offered a stick with reverence, and then settled calmly onto the padded meditation cushion before the Buddha.
The novice monk glanced over and thought nothing of it — he assumed the female donor was simply pious and compassionate, too devoted to sleep and so came to meditate in the middle of the night. Thus he had no idea that a certain shameless female donor, from within her sleeve, produced a small pagoda and set it on the cushion, concealing it behind her body and her cloak.
Because it was the first day of the New Year, and because it was Huguo Temple, the incense burning before the main hall’s deities would not go out — and what burned here was top-quality sandalwood incense, each stick as thick as an arm.
The moment the little pagoda appeared, the incense before the Buddha began burning at a startling speed, and a steady, endless stream of incense smoke poured into the pagoda.
The wooden fish was overjoyed, and yet also moved to the depths of its being. How many years had it been — how many years since it had tasted incense this fine? The Venerable Luole himself could never have imagined that centuries after his passing, the world would produce a descendant so shameless and so audacious — daring to steal incense from right before the Buddha.
A quarter of an hour later, Lang Jiuchuan began to feel her soul growing faint, as though it were trembling and in pain — as though being driven out of her physical body.
Was this — a warning?
She opened her eyes and looked up. The Buddha remained compassionate as before, but the golden radiance shone considerably brighter than it had. The boundless power of the Law seemed to reach for a dharma hammer, prepared to strike down upon this wandering soul.
She looked at the arm-thick incense burning before the Buddha. Lang Jiuchuan touched her nose with a sheepish scratch, scooped up the Little Nine Pagoda — now thoroughly free of any malevolent nature — and tucked it back into her sleeve. “Alright, let’s go. That’s enough for today. We’ll come back to pay our respects to the Buddha another time.”
The wooden fish: “……”
What could it even say. Those words genuinely made its blood boil — though it knew what was good for it.
The assembled Buddhas withdrew their compassion: Come back again? Even Buddhas can lose their tempers!
Lang Jiuchuan departed from the Main Hall with perfect composure.
The novice monk rose and performed a Buddhist bow toward her retreating figure, sending her off with his eyes, before turning back to add some oil to the lamps.
But he had taken only two steps when he stopped in place, staring at those several arm-thick sticks of incense with wide, disbelieving eyes, blinking once, twice.
Amitabha Buddha. These sticks of incense — how long had it been since they were changed? How were they already nearly burned through?