Stranger Danger

Chapter 355: Sinner of Ten Lifetimes

Everyone on the board was scared and afraid. The only person who didn’t panic was the ferryman himself. Right before the giant wave would hit them, he raised the bony setting pole and drew a circle in the air like a master painter.

For a time, time froze like heaven and earth was split in half. Then, there was a pure ringing sound that sounded like it came from a jade bell, and the giant waves abruptly froze in mid-air. The ghastly wails of the ghosts were frozen as well.

Cracks appeared from the center of the circle and spread outward. When it had spread across every wave surrounding them, the waves abruptly fell vertically and crashed back into the river.

Boom!

The river was already pretty turbulent to begin with, but the crashing waves caused the boat to be tossed high, high into the air. Still shocked by what just happened, Jing Xin, Lu Hui and Corpse Vulture were completely unprepared when they were abruptly flung out of the starboard.

Ye Qing was the fastest out of everyone to react, and he was able to catch Jing Xin’s hand before he was completely out of reach. Jing Xin grabbed Lu Hui’s hand, and Lu Hui grabbed Corpse Vulture’s hand. It was like they were playing a game or something.

Ye Qing then exerted his strength and tried to pull them back into the boat, but to his surprise, the line of bodies didn’t budge at all. It was like someone was pulling on them from the other end.

“Something is grabbing my feet! Save me!” Corpse Vulture screamed.

Ye Qing looked and saw that Corpse Vulture’s legs had already sunk into the river. A bunch of filthy, rotten hands were clutching to his legs, and even more ghosts were climbing up his body like ants.

“Pull us back now!” Lu Hui and Jing Xin blanched and cried in panic.

“Save me! Save me!” Corpse Vulture’s scream grew even louder as the ghosts rapidly crawled up his body.

“I can use some help here!” Ye Qing shouted at Song Qingyu, Fu Hengcong and Ruyan. Unlike the others, the trio only fell on their butts because they were lucky enough to be sitting on the port side of the boat.

Song Qingyu reacted quickly and launched a palm strike that crushed the palms grabbing onto Corpse Vulture’s legs. However, Fu Hengcong and Ruyan only hugged each other and shivered like leaves. It was like they hadn’t heard Ye Qing’s yell at all.

Ye Qing exhaled and added a little more strength into his limbs. He had to be careful since he was on a boat after all. The boat sank an inch, and this time, he was able to pull the trio back to the boat.

“Phew... thank goodness I’m a very lucky monk. I was this close to joining the Buddha!” Jing Xin patted his chest repeatedly while venting his fear.

Lu Hui was voicing his thanks to Ye Qing and Song Qingyu as well.

But Corpse Vulture...

“Save me... save me...”

The group turned toward the source of the cry and saw Corpse Vulture still struggling on the surface of the River of Forgettance. Countless hands were dragging him slowly but surely into the bottom. There was a problem though.

“If Corpse Vulture is over there... then who is this guy?” Lu Hui stared at the Corpse Vulture on the boat with a shiver.

Ye Qing hadn’t screwed up. He had pulled everyone who was tossed overboard back into the boat. However, it was a fact that there was a second Corpse Vulture struggling to stay afloat in the River of Forgettance. What was going on here?

“Save me... please save me... glug...”

The moment of indecision was all the ghosts needed to pull the second Corpse Vulture into the river. He was gone just like that.

Except for the ferryman, even the most hardened person on the boat couldn’t resist a shiver and clutched the boat with both hands. No one wanted to follow in Corpse Vulture’s footsteps. It wasn’t long before the boat left the area, and the river turned relatively calm once more. If they didn’t know better, if Corpse Vulture’s corpse wasn’t right there with them, they could’ve believed that it was just a fever dream.

“Oh. Oh! Now I remember. The one in the river is Corpse Vulture’s soul. His soul was separated from his corpse!”

Jing Hui abruptly slapped his bald head in realization. “Anyone who falls into the River of Forgettance of Fengdu will have their body and soul separated. Their body would feed the worms, and the soul would remain in the river forever. That is why we saw two Corpse Vultures just now.”

“You could’ve said it sooner, monk!” Song Qingyu regained his cool and chided him in a lazy tone. “Amitabha, I can’t say what I don’t remember.” Jing Xin shrugged. “There was no way we could’ve saved the guy anyway. Only a Sage possesses the power to wrestle a soul from the River of Forgettance, and even if I do possess the power to save him, I wasn’t going to do it.”

“Tsk tsk, that’s not something a Buddhist should say. Didn’t your Buddha say that saving a life is more meritorious than building a seven-floor pagoda?”

“So what? That’s what the Buddha thinks, not me.”

Jing Xin stared at Song Qingyu like he was an idiot. “Also, my master told me that the Buddha said that line specifically to trick idiots like you. You just confirmed that you’re an idiot.”

“Personally, I only believe that virtue begets reward, and evil its retribution. If you catch an irredeemable villain, you should always kill them dead so that they can never commit another evil. Corpse Vulture killed countless innocents just because he could, so he absolutely fell under this category. If you hadn't stopped me earlier, I would’ve killed him myself, so his death only pleases me, hehehe...”

“Heh. Did you realize that your temperament fits that of a demonic sect very well? Would you like to join us?” Song Qingyu asked in a lazy tone. If someone were to expose his face right now, they would realize that his eyes were glowing an eerie light that could draw someone away from the right path.

“If you join my sect, you’ll be able to kill anyone you want, do whatever you want, and live however you like. That would be great, don’t you agree?”

“You really are stupid. No bloody way I’m going to be a heretic! Not only would I get a bad reputation, everyone and their mothers want to kill me! There’s nothing enviable about such a life!”

Jing Hui was completely unaffected by Song Qingyu’s spell, however. He scoffed, “Also, I already can do whatever the hell I want. Do you know what my master told me? If I ever see someone I don’t like, all I need to do is to point a finger at them and cry, ‘Heretic! Evil! Villain!’, and everyone will believe me and beat the shit out of them. It is a monk’s privilege to be able to enlighten anyone I want. Can your sect do that?”

Song Qingyu couldn’t say anything for a time. Why did he feel like Master Yu Hai was a greater demon than him, a warrior of the Dark Ways? What kind of Buddhist teaches their disciple like that?

Song Qingyu sighed. Just now, he tried to use a secret art called ‘Heart Seed’ to plant a dark seed in Jing Xin’s heart. It could probe a chink in a person’s mental defense and tempt them into the Dark Ways without a trae. More importantly, it allowed him to use his victims as incubators.

Unfortunately, Crazy Monk’s mind and way of thinking were... different from others. Try as he might, he did not succeed.

It didn’t matter though. It wasn’t like it cost him anything.

No one said anything after that. In fact, the atmosphere was fairly tense. They were all clutching the sides of the boat with a death grip to avoid a random wave damning them to a torturous eternity in the River of Forgettance.

The same couldn’t be said for Ye Qing and Greenlake. As they were sitting in the middle of the boat, they were the least likely to fall off the boat unless it capsized.

“Tsk tsk, you sure picked a good spot!, brother!” Song Qingyu uttered with jealousy when he noticed Ye Qing’s casual appearance.

“I was just lucky.” Ye Qing smirked. Not my fault you didn’t pay the ferryman his due.

“What do you think, husband? Your money is well spent, right?” Greenlake whispered beside his ear.

“Yes, you were right.” Ye Qing didn’t hesitate to give her a thumbs-up. He finally understood what the ferryman meant when he said, “Always sit at the center of the boat.”

At first, everyone was nervous and prepared for anything. However, they eventually realized that what they encountered at the beginning was just an unfortunate accident, and the boat wasn’t going to be assaulted by gigantic waves of ghosts all the time. They all let out a sigh of relief.

The shore grew smaller and smaller behind them. The boat felt like an ant that had sailed head first into the maws of an impossibly huge monster.

When the boat sailed into the fog, everyone’s vision became extremely limited. They could only see ten or so meters away from the boat.

Suddenly, Ruyan let out a cry of surprise and pointed toward the distance. “Ah! Brother Fu! What is that?”

When they looked, they saw a massive, upside down mountain. Literally, the bottom of the mountain was narrow, and the top looked like it had blotted out the entire sky. Ye Qing was immediately reminded of the snail Stranger he encountered back in the Demon’s Tomb.

This mountain wasn’t the snail Stranger though. In fact, it wasn’t even a real mountain. It was made up of millions and millions of ghosts. Yes, it was a literal mountain of ghosts.

Even scarier was the fact that the mountain was moving ever so slowly. When the boat got closer, they realized that there was a man at the bottom of the mountain. He was carrying the mountain and moving somewhere.

His back was bent almost ninety degrees. Countless ghosts were climbing out of the river and onto the mountain, constantly adding to his burden. As if that wasn’t enough, all sorts of vermin were clinging to his flesh and biting chunks from time to time.

“Is... Is he alive?” Fu Hengcong gulped audibly and asked.

“Are you stupid? This is the River of Forgettance! Use your brain for once, for Buddha’s sake!” Jing Xin rebuked him before answering, “That’s the Sinner of Ten Lifetimes.”

“What’s a Sinner of Ten Lifetimes?” Fu Hengcong asked. He was so stunned by the inhuman sight he forgot he wasn’t on good terms with Jing Xin.

“According to the ‘Lotus Sutra[1]’, there exists vile men and women in this world whom even the Buddha found difficult to enlighten. It is because they carry ten lifetimes worth of sin on their backs. These people may never reincarnate after they die, and they are damned to suffer an eternity of tribulations in the River of Forgettance. That is why they are called the Sinners of Ten Lifetimes.”

Jing Xin explained, “To put it in simpler terms, a Sinner of Ten Lifetimes is the ghost of a vile person who committed unthinkable atrocities for ten lifetimes straight. Due to how sinful they are, they are unable to join the cycle of reincarnation and start a new life. The Great Emperor of Fengdu himself sentenced them to an eternity in the River of Forgettance. He also made them carry millions of ghosts and suffer countless vermin to serve as a warning to all others who might entertain the idea of living a life of sin.”

“That said, it is not impossible for a Sinner of Ten Lifetimes to escape their predicament. Legend says that if the ghosts and vermin could consume all of the sins on the sinner’s person, then they might yet rejoin the cycle of reincarnation and be reborn.”

That’s surprising. I thought he had a brain of muscles considering how crazy he is! Ye Qing thought to himself.

They should've seen this coming. When the boat was passing through the Sinner of Ten Lifetimes, the ghost suddenly looked in their direction. Its crimson eyes looked like a pair of fiery torches, and when they looked into his eyes, the desire to do harm suddenly sprung in everyone’s heart. Their pupils gradually turned crimson, and they began eyeing each other with clear malice in their eyes.

“Namo ratna-trayaya

Namo ariya-valokite-svaraya

Bodhi-sattvaya Maha-sattvaya Maha-karunikaya

Om sarva rabhaye sudhanadasya

Namo skritva imam

arya-valokite-svara ramdhava

Namo narakindi hrih Maha-vadha-sva-me

Sarva-arthato-subham ajeyam

Sarva-sata Namo-vasat Namo-vaka mavitato

Tadyatha...[2]”

It was at this moment a grand, dignified voice entered everyone’s ears. The unnatural crimson in Fu Hengcong, Song Qingyu and more people’s eyes began fading until they returned to normal.

At the same time, they realized that Jing Xin was clasping his hands together in a prayer and chanting a sutra. Golden lotuses were raining around him.

It’s the Great Compassion Dharani Sutra... Huh. Who would’ve thought that Crazy Monk had it in him to act like a proper monk?

The specifics were different, but the thought crossed everyone’s mind.

1. The Lotus Sūtra is one of the most influential and venerated Buddhist Mahāyāna sūtras. You’ll come to realize that the author uses a LOT of real life references, though I suppose it’ll be near impossible to tell without my references. ?

2. An excerpt from the Great Compassion Dharani Sutra. ?

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