Chapter Ninety-One: Anger

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Seeing the golden Buddhist hand descend from the tip of the demon-subduing staff, Su Yuanbai instinctively released his grip. Yet he did not dodge. Instead, he flipped his palm and struck upward.

Bang.

The monk let out a muffled grunt. Bright scarlet blood seeped from the corner of his mouth and was quickly washed away by the sea.

Su Yuanbai lowered his gaze to his own palm, where the crescent-colored red reverse scale had suddenly appeared with a clear crack.

“Do you trust me?” Su Yuanbai asked with a helpless sigh, looking toward Ao Ning.

“...I do.” Ao Ning, whose ears had also been split by the shock into bleeding, hesitated for a moment before answering. The reverse scale in Su Yuanbai’s palm had been conjured by her to help block that Buddhist hand’s attack.

“You don’t need to help me.”

Su Yuanbai turned around and looked up at the woman in the crane-red robe behind the monk. Those deep green eyes were also regarding him coldly.

Their gazes met, yet there was no feeling in them at all.

The woman’s deep green pupils abruptly transformed into two bagua diagrams. The eight trigrams then evolved into sixteen, the sixteen into sixty-four, and finally into two hundred and fifty-six.

“You are not within my divination,” she said. Her pupils returned to normal, and a trace of fluctuation appeared in her otherwise detached expression.

Su Yuanbai gave a light laugh. In the next instant, his figure appeared beside the woman in the crane-red robe. At the place where he had just stood, several strands of sword light fell in an instant, shaving the ground down by an inch.

Seeing this, the woman in the crane-red robe immediately retreated several steps. White threads flew from both sleeves, shooting toward Su Yuanbai. The monk also reacted, turning and slamming the demon-subduing staff.

Another Buddhist hand struck out from the staff’s tip.

“Advance!”

At the soft command, a talisman dropped from above Su Yuanbai’s head. It spun and burned, turning into a vermilion bird that carried blazing Southbright Lihuo as it flew toward him.

“I never expected such extraordinary talents and strange arts to be found in the Endless Sea. Why not join us in our work?”

The effeminate man suddenly appeared before Su Yuanbai. His twisted arms had already returned to normal, and his delicate face wore a warm smile as he looked at Su Yuanbai.

“This robe of mine is not a magical treasure.”

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Su Yuanbai pinched a coin between two fingers, catching it just as it furtively slammed into his robe. The round square-holed coin bore a pair of wing-like protrusions, and faint Heavenly Dao inscriptions flickered within it.

But that moment’s delay was enough for the Southbright Lihuo overhead and the Buddhist hand behind him to land on Su Yuanbai.

The Buddhist hand radiated solemn golden light; the Southbright Lihuo blazed crimson.

In the effeminate man’s eyes, Su Yuanbai, trapped beneath those two attacks, had little chance of surviving. Even he could not guarantee he would emerge unscathed from such a strike.

“No.”

Su Yuanbai shook his head and sighed as he walked out from between the golden light of the Buddhist hand and the raging scarlet flames. The moon-white robe had once again manifested over his naked body in an instant.

“Hm?”

Su Yuanbai murmured in confusion.

The winged, round square-holed coin he had pinched vanished without a trace. A clear blood mark appeared between his fingers, and a book glowing with a faint blue light dropped from within his body to the ground.

The Prison Canon of Guqin.

Before Su Yuanbai could bend down to pick up the fallen blue book, the effeminate man’s figure flashed past his vision, and the book was already in his hands.

“Heaven’s punishment for the guilty!”

The moment the effeminate man seized the book, he opened its pages and shouted at Su Yuanbai word by word, his voice heavy and stern.

With each word he spoke, he coughed out a mouthful of essence blood onto the pages. Four words meant four mouthfuls of essence blood, and his aura instantly became feeble and depleted.

At the same time, a phantom of a xiezhi beast rushed out from the pages and charged toward Su Yuanbai. Su Yuanbai watched the beast’s single horn ram toward him and did not avoid it.

Golden light rose once more over his skin. Ancient and intricate runes emerged from within the light, interweaving into chains of gold.

On his back, obscure black patterns surfaced as well, writhing and unfurling into black lotuses. They fused together into two enormous black lotuses beneath Su Yuanbai’s feet.

But this time, one petal bloomed atop the black lotus beneath him, and the ring of golden chains above his head shone like the sun.

Seeing this, Su Yuanbai’s expression finally darkened.

He did not wait for the effeminate man to lift the Prison Canon of Guqin again. Instead, he appeared before him in a flash and drove a fist into his cheek.

The blow sent the effeminate man hurtling straight down into the deep sea like a falling meteor, his life and death unknown.

Holding the Prison Canon of Guqin, Su Yuanbai lowered his eyes and saw the moon-white robe, transformed from the other shore flower, gradually fading from his body. It seemed some things could strengthen the power of restraint.

Sword blossoms fell above Su Yuanbai like pear blossoms, both real and illusory, impossible to distinguish.

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Bang.

Another punch.

Su Yuanbai’s figure left faint afterimages behind him as he looked at the Daoist in blue-white robes wielding a long sword and struck the man in the chest with cold indifference.

Like the effeminate man, this Daoist was sent so flying by the blow that he vanished without a trace.

Su Yuanbai turned his eyes toward the monk beside him.

The monk immediately sensed danger. He hurriedly pressed his palms together. At the center section of the demon-subduing staff in his hands, the three Buddha figures, one smiling, one wrathful, one cursing, all burst forth with golden light at once.

A golden bell manifested around the monk’s body, and behind him appeared a phantom of a Buddha seated on a golden lotus, both hands forming the flower-picking gesture and both legs crossed.

Bang.

Expressionless, Su Yuanbai threw a punch.

A crack instantly appeared on the golden bell. It did not even last a breath before the fissure spread across it like a spiderweb and turned it into glittering shards of golden light.

The Buddha phantom behind the monk also shattered into pieces.

The monk, his face solemn, still held his palms together with his eyes closed and said nothing. Blood poured nonstop from all seven apertures, making for a pitiful sight.

Su Yuanbai had no intention of stopping. He raised his arm high, clenched his fist, and was just about to strike again when strands of white silk suddenly bound the monk’s limbs and dragged him away.

“You are neither a disciple of the Daoist school nor related to Buddhism. We have no ties of interest with you either. You walk your sunlit road, and we cross our single-plank bridge. Why must you wade into this muddy water?”

The woman in the crane-red robe pulled the monk to her side and asked coldly, her deep green eyes fixed on Su Yuanbai.

“Muddy water? And why should muddy water not be waded through?” Su Yuanbai said calmly.

Hearing this, the woman in the crane-red robe did not wait for Su Yuanbai to make another move. She took the demon-subduing staff from the monk’s hands, but instead of striking Su Yuanbai, she drove it straight into the monk’s chest.

Then she stepped back and gently pushed the monk, the staff embedded in his chest, outward.

The demon-subduing staff gradually melted into the monk’s body. The wrathful Buddha seated at the center of his brow, the smiling Buddha at his purple mansion point, and the cursing Buddha at his spirit gate point all settled into place.

The monk opened his eyes, and his countenance had become that of a wrathful vajra.