Chapter 225 - The Thirty Thousand Years Under the Bo-tree

“Eh ah!”

On the path to immortality, Fan Kong made a roar which shook the world around him. The voice carrying numerous Taoism killed the demon holding the machete and pushed the demonic machete out of Yu Zhu.

Then, he held her in his arms and suppressed her meridians with his spiritual power to prevent blood from flowing out.

“Yu Zhu! Why didn’t you avoid?” Fan Kong wailed hysterically.

“You were behind me, and my heart asked me not to dodge.” Looking unfocused, Yu Zhu replied feebly.

“Why are you willing to do this for me?” Fan Kong shook his head and frowned.

“I spend all my life to cultivate, but I will eventually be defeated by love.” Yu Zhu laughed at herself.

“Yu Zhu…” Fan Kong cried.

At this moment, he was not a hardworking genius Buddha disciple, but a mortal haunted by love.

“The end of the path is in front of you, and your long cherished longevity is over there. Fan Kong, I let you be immortal this life, but will you abandon the Buddhism for me the next life?”

Yu Zhu asked feebly with a pale face. She tried to open her eyes wide to see how the man would answer.

Hearing that, Fan Kong suddenly realized. He shouted excitedly, “The end, yes! Yu Zhu, I’ll take you to the end, and you’ll recover as long as you become an immortal!”

However, Yu Zhu grabbed the corner of his cloth and said hard, “If you don’t answer me, I won’t go to the end of the path.”

“Yu Zhu, don’t say that. I don’t want you to die. You become an immortal this life, and I’ll find you the next life!” Fan Kong replied in a hurry.

But Yu Zhu only slowly shook her head, saying, “I just want your answer. Me and the Buddhism, which one will you choose?”

“I…” Fan Kong’s eyes drifted away.

“Hehe, you still refuse to abandon the Buddhism for me.” Yu Zhu smiled sadly.

Then, she looked at the path to Immortality, saying, “Path to immortality, path to immortality. Everyone is willing to abandon love for the sake of being immortal. But when a man becomes an immortal, who is behind him when he looks back?”

“To cultivate to be immortals, cultivators need to forget love. But can a life without love be called a life anymore? In my opinion, to forget love is not to abandon love. We get love and try to forget it just for being free and easy.”

In her last life, Yu Zhu saw through the problem that had puzzled the cultivation world for many years. Cultivators all thought that they shouldn’t have true feelings and love another one.

Otherwise, they would be haunted by it, and their attainments of Taoism couldn’t be improved. The cultivators who got married just for Simultaneous Training. There was little true love among them. But what Yu Zhu said today overturned this rule.

To forget love was not to abandon love. Cultivators could have love and loved ones. And what they should forget were those trivial matters, so that they could gain a super mundane and refined heart.

To be detached from the world and look at all things in a state of mind of being detached from the world was the so-called forgetting love. It was not to forget the loved one in their lives and abandon love to become immortal.

Unfortunately, no one in the cultivation world could hear her words. Only the two of them were left alive here. The other cultivators had already died. Once entering the path to immortality, they couldn’t turn back, and could only rush to the end.

Once someone became an immortal, the path to immortality would disappear, and the one would fly up to heaven in the eyes of the world; he could no longer stay in the mortal world. But at this moment, Fan Kong’s heart had been disturbed. He couldn’t think of these words of Yu Zhu.

“Yu Zhu, stop talking. I’ll take you to the end of the path now!” Fan Kong didn’t care too much. He was determined to make her immortal.

“I’m dying. My Taoism foundation was destroyed just now by the demonic power, and my primordial spirit was also severely damaged. Even the true immortals can’t save me.” Yu Zhu shook her head slowly.

As her voice faded away, she began to shine with bright white light. Her body was slowly dissipating. This was she turning into Taoism power. And it appeared only when the real strong cultivators died.

All her attainments of Taoism in this life would turn into a part of the natural Taoism, which was the choice of the Taoism that no one could stop.

“No, no! Yu Zhu, don’t go!”

Fan Kong seemed to go mad. He pulled out all his spiritual power, trying to retain the woman who was about to turn into a part of the Taoism.

“Look at me more the next life. To walk with me is better to practice the three thousand dharmas, and to look at me is better to read the three thousand Buddhist scriptures. I indeed love you more than the Buddhas…”

Yu Zhu made the last effort of her life to say this. Then, she raised her hand that was slowly dissipating to caress Fan Kong’s face with a smile at him for the last time.

After that, her face began to turn into shining raindrops. Fan Kong desperately shouted her name, intending to hug her tightly.

But the moment he held Yu Zhu, she was completely transformed into shining raindrops, dissipating in the world. At last, there was only a glimmer in his arms.

“No!!!”

Fan Kong knelt on his knees and wailed sadly to the sky. At this moment, both the clear Bodhi Heart and the breaking of seven emotions and six desires were abandoned. They didn’t matter to him anymore.

He just wanted Yu Zhu to come back. Even if the immortal world was in front of him, he didn’t want to step into it.

After a long time, he picked up a spiritual jade hairpin from the ground. It was the last thing Yu Zhu left, as well as his last keepsake.

“Howl!”

There were another bunch of ancient demons appearing around him. They all opened their big mouths, about to kill the last human remaining.

“To be a Buddha or a demon depends on a blinding flash! Since you stop me from becoming a Buddha, I’ll become a demon!”

Fan Kong roared angrily. A divine ring appeared at the back of his head. However, its five-color flammule slowly turned black. He degenerated into a demon monk.

After that, he rushed forward with his fists and smashed a demon with a fist. Then, he grabbed a demon, pierced it with his hand, and tore it into two halves.

Abandoning all the dharmas, he killed these demons in the cruelest way. In the blood rain, his eyes were ferocious, and he poured out his anger completely.

At last, he killed all the demons. He was the only one left on the path to immortality. The strangers from all the sects, his friends and enemies were all dead.

There was no way back here. He could only keep forward. He walked slowly to the end of the path to immortality as if he had lost his souls.

“Thump!”

Then, he prostrated on the ground. In front of him was a gate towering into the sky, on which was there a big word “Immortal”.

“Buzz!”

Then, an immortal light came out of the word and baptized the human in front with supreme power. This was the moment of becoming an immortal. Only one person on the path to immortality could experience it.

He must fight all the way to the end of the path to be recognized and finally become immortal.

“Cra-crack!”

The road behind was collapsing rapidly, and the outside world was slowly showing up.

“Ah! The path to immortality is collapsing. Someone succeeds!”

On the outside, many eyes were staring at the sky. They finally saw the moment of the collapse of the path to immortality, which meant someone was about to become immortal.

“That’s… Fan Kong!”

“What?! Is Fairy Yu Zhu dead?”

“Alas! Qiu Zihua died in order to block the demons. Unexpectedly, the Fairy Yu Zhu also failed to avoid death. In the end, it was Fan Kong who becomes immortal.”

No one could believe that, at last, it was Fan Kong who came to the door of the immortal world, not Yu Zhu who possessed a greater talent than him.

“Why does he prostrate on the ground?”

“Look! The divine ring behind his head turned black!”

“How is that possible? Did he fall into the demonic road?”

“What happened on the path to immortality exactly to make a Buddhist disciple into a demon? Is it because of the Fairy Yu Zhu?”

…

The people of all sects below were all boiled. They didn’t expect that such a devout Buddhist would fall into the demonic road before he became an immortal.

Although people didn’t know what had happened, they vaguely thought it had something to do with Yu Zhu. Because this strange woman was the biggest shackle and lifelong karma on Fan Kong’s cultivation road.

“Buzz!”

A powerful wave swept the whole planet, almost forcing all the people below to kneel. Fan Kong before the door of the immortal world stood up, surrounded by immortal light all over his body.

He looked incomparably holy. With all kinds of visions around him, there were countless Taoism power and abundant spiritual power dropping from the sky.

The whole world was illuminated by a strange light. The miraculous shining rain drops were moistening the earth. Everything was nourished. Even the old wounds of the cultivators of all sects were cured.

“Wow, it’s really the moment of ascending to heaven and becoming immortal!”

Some old men—nobody knew how long they had lived—with gray hair shouted in amazement. They didn’t expect to see the scene of ascending to heaven and becoming immortal. Even if they would die after this moment, they would have no regrets in this life.

“Crack…”

The door of the immortal world opened slowly, and infinite immortal light rushed out of it. Under the eyes of everyone, Fan Kong slowly stepped into the door and disappeared in this world.

In the immortal world, he didn’t continue to cultivate but found a bo-tree to bury the hairpin under it and set up a tomb.

Then, he knelt down in front of the tomb to confess his crime day and night, which lasted thirty thousand years.

“Love is the base of the three realms and the six paths. Yu Zhu, I finally know I was wrong. Kneeling for thirty thousand years, I managed to predict the time of your reincarnation. In the next life, I will atone.”

Fan Kong finally got up and sealed this place with his mighty magic. Then, he destroyed his own attainments of Taoism and ended his immortal life, letting his primordial spirit enter the six paths of reincarnation again.

“Young man, drink this bowl of soup and you’ll be reborn.”

On the Yellow Spring Road, in front of Naihe Bridge, a beautiful woman handed Fan Kong a bowl of soup. He took the soup and looked at the higan bana around quietly.

“Drink it quickly. Forget all the bitterness and happiness, and you can start a new life.” Granny Meng said.

“How can I start the new life if I forget her?”

Fan Kong said with a wry smile. He drank the Granny Meng’s soup with tears in his eyes, and then slowly walked to the gate of reincarnation.

“The higan bana blooms on the other shore. When the flowers bloom, the leaves wither, and the two never see each other again. The higan bana blooms on the other shore, and the souls are left in the Forgetting River. The higan bana blooms on the other shore, and there is no fate between the flowers and leaves.”

“The incomprehensible flowers lowered their heads; the Buddhas guide my heart with empty sighs. Drink a bowl of the Granny Meng’s soup into the belly, and it is difficult to forget love on the shore of the Three-way River. Wishes, heart, and love all died, and the flowers and leaves no longer meet.”

“The Yellow Spring shines on the other shore, and the flowers bloom for a thousand years. Love has no cause and effect, and the leaves also wither for a thousand years.”

These last words of Fan Kong seemed to describe the higan bana, also to talk about his own life.