Chapter 5 Seeing Sweet Sound Again
“You want to see Sweet Sound?”
Golden Cicada looked troubled. Sweet Sound had murdered her fellow disciples, disrupted the holy land of Buddhism, and usurped the position of the Lord Buddha. She had committed a heinous crime. Moreover, the place where she was imprisoned was the most important place of Buddhism, and one could not go in and out at will.
“If someone else said that, I would naturally not approve it. But since it’s your request, that’s another pair of shoes. After all, Almsgiver Ding, you and Sweet Sound were fated back then!”
Golden Cicada was referring to the three Buddhist hymns that Ding Hao had written for Sweet Sound.
When Lei Tingchan heard this, she just smiled slightly and was not surprised.
With Ding Hao’s current strength, if he wanted to meet Sweet Sound, he could make it happen in the blink of an eye. His request was just out of respect for Buddhism.
Sweet Sound was imprisoned in what was known as the greatest Buddhist prison, the Hidden Ground Stupa.
The Great Leiyin Monastery was a huge and magnificent monastery suspended between the heavens and the earth. When people looked at the Great Leiyin Monastery, they would only be able to see a corner of it from the clouds. As for what was underneath the monastery, very few people knew about that.
Under the Great Leiyin Monastery, wrapped in thick pure white clouds, was a huge upside-down tower closely connected to the bottom of the Great Leiyin Monastery. The tower was called Hidden Ground Stupa.
The Hidden Ground Stupa had a total of seven floors. According to the levels of the crimes, the prisoners were classified into seven levels, and they were imprisoned from the first to the seventh floor respectively and were punished accordingly.
The seventh floor was located at the bottom of the stupa. Ever since the stupa was constructed, only a single person had been imprisoned there. That was something that had happened in the Age of Teras.
Sweet Sound was the second prisoner on the seventh floor.
At this moment, there were only Ding Hao, Golden Cicada, and Lei Tingchan in the center of the Great Palace.
“Almsgiver Ding, this is the Buddhist Golden Leaf. take this key to the seventh floor. Sweet Sound is there.”
Ding Hao took the golden leaf, nodded slightly, and walked to the passage opened by Golden Cicada. Although the passage was surrounded by golden light, it was pitch-black inside as if even the Buddha Light could not illuminate it.
Soon, Ding Hao arrived at the first floor.
In the dark land, Ding Hao seemed to be in another world. He came to a wilderness, and the air was filled with the smell of blood and horror.
Ding Hao scanned it with his Divine Senses and knew the situation.
This was a world of monsters and devils, a battlefield for hunting and being hunted.
Those imprisoned on this floor were all bloodthirsty experts of the Demon Clan at the Demon Royal and Demon Emperor levels. They had to constantly undergo the tests of hunting and being hunted.
If they succeeded in hunting, they had to continue with the next hunt. If the hunt failed, their bodies would be torn apart, and then they would be reborn to carry out a new round of hunting.
The demons imprisoned on this floor were bloodthirsty by nature. Here, they could only repeat what they used to love. They would only be freed when they repented enough and their sins were cleared one day.
Ding Hao did not want to stay here and went straight to the seventh floor.
When Ding Hao took out the Buddhist Golden Leaf, the leaf immediately sensed something. It floated in the air and emitted a strong golden light. Below the sixth floor, screams were heard.
Immediately, a stone gate with a Buddhist sign on it appeared in front of Ding Hao and slowly opened. Ding Hao walked into the gate without hesitation.
After he passed through the stone gate, what appeared in front of Ding Hao was a dark void.
It was pitch-black. It was as if everything could be seen there, but there was nothing.
This dark void was so big that even Ding Hao’s Divine Senses could not scan the boundary. There was nothing in that void. Although he felt something real under his feet, he was really floating in the air.
The seventh floor of the Hidden Ground Stupa was built to imprison extremely sinful criminals in this boundless void. There was no life or death here, no past or future. It was a complete void.
Not far away, Ding Hao seemed to have discovered something and walked there.
It was a figure, a woman’s back.
She wore a white dress that revealed her graceful figure. Her black hair was like a waterfall that hung loosely on her shoulders. Such a figure caused others to be unable to help but be curious about exactly what sort of peerless appearance could be worthy of such a figure.
“Sweet Sound!” Ding Hao recognized the woman.
The longhaired woman turned around and her beautiful face seemingly lit up the dark and turbid world.
It was hard to believe that such a stunning woman was actually a seventh-level prisoner of the Hidden Ground Stupa.
“Senior Brother Ding? It’s been a long while.” Sweet Sound turned around and looked at Ding Hao with a smile, completely surprised.
“Indeed,” Ding Hao replied.
“I heard that you’re invincible in the world now. I didn’t expect that you would come to see me today.” Sweet Sound looked calm. Sitting on the black ground in a white dress, she revealed a kind of heartbreaking loneliness.
“You’re the worst traitor of Buddhism and the most ferocious devil in the imagination of countless people in the Great Leiyin Monastery of the Western Desert. Who would have thought that you would be a pitiful beauty who hasn’t changed a bit?” Ding Hao sighed. Sweet Sound was indeed almost the same as she had been more than two hundred years ago, and she now appeared more holy and solemn.
“I haven’t changed, really?” Sweet Sound said, “I’m afraid I’m the one who has changed the most.” She stared at the void.
Ding Hao knew Sweet Sound was referring to her shocking behavior in the Great Leiyin Monastery, and he was speechless for a while.
Sweet Sound broke the silence first.
After a long time of parting, Sweet Sound might have recalled the past and asked Ding Hao softly, “Senior Brother Ding, do you remember the situation of the Grading Meeting of the sect back then?”
“It happened hundreds of years ago. At that time, you were still a little girl who had not yet experienced much of the world. You were not as majestic as you are today, Junior Sister Sweet Sound.” Ding Hao looked into her eyes and said those words. It was as if the situation had reappeared.
“The Buddhist hymns you granted me that day benefited me enormously. I still don’t know how to repay your kindness.” Sweet Sound’s expression changed slightly.
“If someone has to take the tough stuff, I shall do it. Did I do something wrong back then?” Ding Hao sighed lightly.
Sweet Sound trembled slightly and looked at Ding Hao incredulously. Her eyes were full of shock, gratitude, and confusion. She looked like she had been wronged for a long time and finally found someone who could understand her. A teardrop fell on Sweet Sound’s white jade-like cheeks. She understood what Ding Hao meant.
“It seems that I’m right about that.” Ding Hao sighed.
Sweet Sound had Buddhist ambition and will back then. But she turned out to be working for the Ground Hidden King. It was Ding Hao who used the Buddhist hymns to plant the Buddhist seeds in Sweet Sound’s body and changed the fate of the woman in front of him. However, this way of taking the tough stuff turned out to be astray.
Perhaps there were other stories behind this.
“What happened in those days?” Ding Hao asked.
Sweet Sound’s eyes were filled with gratitude, but she did not say anything.
Ding Hao also remained silent, his eyes fixed on Sweet Sound.
After a while, Sweet Sound slowly stretched out her right hand with her palm up. Slowly, a lotus flower appeared in her hand.
It was a black lotus flower.
The lotus flower had nine black petals, which seemed to be carved out of the purest demonic jade or burning black flames. It quietly bloomed in Sweet Sound’s hand and gently swayed.
Ding Hao was slightly shocked.
This kind of shock was not only because he did not see this black lotus in Sweet Sound’s body before, but also because he had seen this black lotus before.
This black lotus was obviously no different from the Extermination Demonic Lotus that targeted Lord Buddha on the Immortal Peak that day. Although its energy was very weak, Ding Hao could clearly feel that the power contained in this black lotus was like that of a Buddha or a devil. It was extremely strange and had Buddhist nature, but it was clearly a kind of dark power.
“It’s the dark power!
“Could it be that the dark power hasn’t been obliterated along with the death of Hades True Immortal?”
A lot of questions flashed through Ding Hao’s mind in an instant.
Sweet Sound had no intention of speaking. Perhaps even she could not give all the answers to these questions.
Ding Hao had vaguely guessed what had happened to Sweet Sound back then.
After Ding Hao ran his power a bit, a crystal petal fell from the black lotus and slowly landed in his palm.
Perhaps he could find some answers from this black lotus petal.
Sweet Sound kept smiling and didn’t say anything more.
“Wait for me to come back.” Ding Hao turned around and left.
He was sure that Sweet Sound had gone the wrong way, but he couldn’t simply think that she was a bad person because it was a dispute of Buddha’s nature, not a battle of power, and he had to do something to resolve it.
“Okay!” Sweet Sound said with a smile.
She knew what Ding Hao was about to do.
Ding Hao did not say anything more. Before coming here, he had wanted to take Sweet Sound out of the Western Desert to resolve the devil nature in her heart. As soon as one gave up evil, one would achieve salvation. Sweet Sound originally had a Buddhist virtue and should be forgiven, but now it seemed that things were not so simple. If Sweet Sound stayed here, she could also cultivate. It would be better for her.
A golden light suddenly appeared, and Sweet Sound was the only one left in this empty world.
“To see that the body has no reality is the Buddha’s body, to realize that the mind is like an illusion is the Buddha’s illusion. When one realizes the emptiness of body and mind, one is no different from the Buddha.” Sweet Sound gently chanted Buddhist hymns, which were given to her by Ding Hao at the Grading Meeting of the sect.
…
The next day, Ding Hao preached in the Great Palace of the Great Leiyin Monastery.
On this day, the Great Palace was full of eminent monks. These people were at least in the God Realm. Not only the Great Palace but also every other place in the Great Thunderclap Monastery was filled with monks. They held their breath, released their Divine Senses, and listened to the wonderful chants of the supreme master of the Land of Infinity.
Ding Hao was not preaching about Buddhism but about the way of martial arts. Although the martial arts were different from the Buddhist Tao, they had the same effect in some essential aspects.
