Chapter - 282 Visitors Drunk On Magical Lotus In the Green Willow Manor (14)

The crowd was startled; immediately they jumped toward the collapsed tree. The tree grew on the southeast corner of the courtyard; there was nobody in the courtyard, so nobody knew how such a big tree fell down just by a puff of wind and in the process crashed half of the surrounding wall. They examined the broken part only to see the core of the tree to be already ruptured, clearly it was shaken by someone with profound skill; so the tree had already withered and dried up, and not fell down because of the wind just now.

They looked around their surrounding and one after another exclaimed, "Ah, it's strange!" "There was heavy fighting in here!" "So fierce, so many people were injured!" The courtyard was full of traces of intense fighting: there were blade marks and imprints of fists and palms on the green flagstones below, on the trunk and branches of the surrounding trees, and on the enclosing walls. They could also see bloodstains everywhere; obviously the battle was truly bloody. There were also deep footprints on the ground, a sign that the combatants were martial art experts who stake their whole internal energies.

Zhang Wuji said, "Quickly grab that 'welcoming host' monk, we need to ask him clearly."

Wei Yixiao, Shuo Bude and the others quickly dispersed to look, but the 'receiving guest' monk had disappeared without any trace. The Five Elements Flags also looked everywhere. A little over an hour later all the Flag leaders came back one after another with their report: nobody was found in the temple, but they saw traces of violent battle everywhere. Many of the halls and rooms had bloodstains in them, along with broken blades and other weapons, but not a single body was to be seen.

"Left Emissary Yang, what do you think?" Zhang Wuji asked.

"This battle happened two, three days ago," Yang Xiao replied, "Could it be that the entire Shaolin Sect is annihilated and not a single one survived?"

"Wasn't there a few dozens people went out the temple from the back just now?" Shuo Bude asked.

Yang Xiao replied, "Quite possibly they were the Shaolin Sect's enemy. They were left behind to take care of things in here; but as they saw our large group arrived they slipped away."

Peng Yingyu said, "Judging from the turn of events, I think you are right. That 'welcoming host' monk must be an impostor; it's a pity we could not capture him. But among the enemies of the Shaolin Sect, which one is this powerful? Could it be the Beggar Clan?"

Zhou Dian said, "The Beggar Clan is indeed big, and has a lot of martial art experts, but they don't have the ability to wipe out the entire Shaolin Temple that not a single survivor is left. Only our Ming Cult has this kind of ability; but we clearly did not do it, do we?"

"Zhou Dian, can you not spout nonsense?" Tie Guan Daoren said, "Our Cult obviously did not do it, do you think we don't know?"

"Reporting to Jiaozhu," Yan Yuan, the Flag Leader of the Thick Earth came to report, "It looks like the eighteen arhats in the Luohan Hall have been shifted, but there was no footprint around."

The leaders knew that Yan Yuan and his Thick Earth Flag were experts in building and construction, so his suspicion must not be unfounded. "Let us take a look," they said.

Upon entering the Luohan Hall, they saw quite a bit of blood splattered on the walls and broken blades and meditation sticks strewn on the floor.

"Yan Xiong," Zhou Dian said, "What's unusual about these eighteen arhats?"

"Each Luohan arhat was moved from their original position," Yan Yuan replied, "At first I thought there was another door somewhere, but after carefully examining the wall, I did not see any secret passageway anywhere."

Yang Xiao was deep in thought for half an afternoon before he finally said, "Let us push these arhats and take a look."

Yan Yuan leaped toward the platform and pushed the long-eyebrowed arhat to the side, exposing the wall behind it, but there was nothing unusual there. Yang Xiao also leaped to the platform to take a closer look at that long-eyebrowed arhat. "Uh," he suddenly exclaimed, "There is a character on the back of this arhat." He turned the arhat around. To their astonishment, the crowd saw a 'mie' [extinguish] character as big as a human's head.

The Luohan arhats were inlaid with gold, but by now a large 'mie' character was engraved on the glittering golden back with a sharp object. The engraving was about a 'cun' [an inch] deep that the clay inside was exposed. The engraving was new, obviously it was done not too long ago.

"What's the meaning of this 'mie' character?" Zhou Dian wondered, "Ah, right! It must be the Emei Sect attacked the Shaolin Temple; Miejue Shitai left this to demonstrate her power."

The group of heroes thought his idea was too unthinkable; they all shook their heads. While speaking they turned all the arhats around. Other than the Subduing Dragon Arhat on the extreme right and the Crouching Tiger Arhat on the extreme left, a large character was engraved on the back of every arhat. From right to left there were sixteen characters which read: 'First execute Shaolin then extinguish Wudang, only our Ming Cult is fit to be Wulin world's king!'

Yin Tianzheng, Tie Guan Daoren, Shuo Bude and the others called out together, "This is a treacherous plan to shift the blame!" They realized these sixteen characters were a threat to incite terror; they recalled how the Shaolin Temple's monks suffered an unexpected calamity, and the blame was put upon the Ming Cult's head. Everybody was anxious and grieved at the same time.

"Let us quickly scrape off these characters to avoid injustice toward us," Zhou Dian called out.

Yang Xiao said, "The enemy intention is obviously malicious; scraping off these sixteen characters may not be necessarily useful."

This time Zhou Dian felt what he said made a good sense, so he did not argue. "What should we do, then?" he asked.

Shuo Bude said, "This is actually evidence. If we can find the person who hatched this treacherous plan, we can take him here and confront him with these sixteen characters."

Yang Xiao nodded his agreement.

Peng Yingyu said, "Xiao Seng [little/lowly monk] still have a question, I need the Left Emissary Yang's enlightenment. The person who carved these sixteen characters obviously wanted to shift the blame to our Cult; placing the responsibility of Shaolin Sect's destruction on our head, so that the Wulin world's heroes would rally together to attack us. Then why did he turn these arhats to the wall? Why didn't they leave these large sixteen characters facing outward? If it wasn't because of Flag Leader Yan's attentiveness, nobody would know there are characters on the back of these Luohan arhats."

Yang Xiao was deep in thought. "Come to think about it," he said, "There must be someone else who turned these arhats back. Most likely there is someone helping our Cult in secret. We owe him a big debt of gratitude."

"Who is this person?" the crowd asked almost simultaneously, "How did Left Emissary Yang know?"

Yang Xiao sighed and said, "This is a complicated mystery, I cannot possibly know everything …"

"Ah!" he has not finished his words when suddenly Zhang Wuji loudly exclaimed, "'First execute Shaolin, then extinguish Wudang,' I am afraid … I am afraid Wudang is facing a terrible disaster."

"We must leave immediately to render our help," Wei Yixiao said, "We might also find out which dog has done it all."

"We can't wait much longer," Yin Tianzheng also said, "We must leave now. These bandits have already left one or two days ago."