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Chapter 157 Dao Riding
With great effort, the cellar door was pulled open, and a cloud of dust rushed in.

This place seems to have been where the people in the temple stored food. It was small, dark, and had a faint, damp, musty smell.

Zhengde thought for a moment, then squeezed out the last bit of magical power and ignited a small flame at his fingertips.

The light dispels the darkness, and we can finally see the whole picture.

however.

...but there wasn't a single person among them.

The cellar was full of dust and mud, with debris scattered on the floor and mushrooms growing in the corners, clearly indicating that it had been abandoned for a long time.

But Zhengde did not show any disappointment; his gaze was completely drawn to something below.

Those were a series of footprints in the soil.

Judging from the marks, it's very new, obviously only recently stepped on; judging by the time, it was done at most a day or two ago.

Therefore, it is self-evident who these footprints belong to.

—Is this the clue that the Evil Suppression Division left me?
Zhengde took a deep breath, laboriously climbed down the cellar, followed the footprints to a pile of garbage, then turned over the debris covering it, and two things appeared before his eyes.

It was a gray mirror, and an even more unadorned bead.

He first picked up the bead and looked at it, but found nothing wrong with it. Then he picked up the mirror and looked at himself in it—but the workmanship of this thing was too rough, and it couldn't even reflect his face.

After examining it for a long time, Zhengde's brows furrowed deeper and deeper.

What exactly was the purpose of the Evil Suppression Bureau leaving these two things behind?
Just as he was getting a little confused, he suddenly caught sight of the wind chimes that had been hung back up.

As if struck by a sudden inspiration, a brilliant idea flashed into his mind.

Could it be... this?
Zhengde picked up the wind chime and gently shook it in front of the mirror.

Nothing happens.

—Did I guess wrong?

Zhengde shook his head and sighed softly, just about to look for other clues. But at that moment, a ripple suddenly appeared on the surface of the mirror.

next moment.

A glib, slick voice suddenly rang out from the cellar.

"Hey, hey, hey? Is this thing activated yet? What, it's already activated? Damn, this thing from the Water Mirror Sect is so damn hard to operate. Let me see... From now on, I just need to talk to this thing, right?"

The voice was extremely incoherent, like that of a street thug who had been around for years, and even the tone of his voice seemed to be just casual conversation.

however.

Against that backdrop of sounds, screams and the sounds of fighting could be heard constantly.

Even without anyone explaining, Zhengde understood something in an instant.

—The person who spoke was in the middle of a battlefield.

Moreover, it will inevitably be an extremely fierce and devastating battlefield.

A moment later, the shouts of battle subsided, and a blurry figure suddenly appeared on the mirror.

"Well, since you can activate this thing, then you must be that bald monk Zhengde, right?"

Bald donkey?

Are you calling me?

Zhengde was taken aback, and was about to agree. But he immediately realized that this was just a magical image, and the other party couldn't hear what he was saying at all.

So he simply maintained the flame in his hand and waited quietly. After a moment, the voice from the mirror sounded again.

"Since it's you, that's fine. Time is of the essence, so I won't introduce myself. You already know who I am anyway—but I have to tell you first that the support we agreed on might have to be canceled. We've been under attack ever since we entered Lizhou, and now it's even worse."

Suddenly, the sound abruptly stopped.

Immediately following, a violent explosion was followed by a series of angry curses.

"Fuck your mother! You bastards, do you want to die together?! Min Han, you take some men and push them out, keep those lunatics out of here!"

Soon, after a burst of noise, the indistinct figure continued speaking.

"As you can see, our situation is very bad, extremely bad. The entire Kagyu sect is blocking the gate, including three external gurus—even when they were raiding mountains and destroying temples, they weren't this ruthless—in short, we definitely can't hold this place anymore, and we must retreat."

—The roars in the background suddenly became louder, clearly indicating that the battle between the two sides was becoming increasingly fierce, so the glib talk became even faster.

"But don't rush. The promise made by the Zhenxie Division will not be changed. Although we can't meet up with you, we will try our best to lure these bastards to another place. You only need to deal with a few corrupted zombies after that. After all, we don't have time to collect the corpses, so we can only let you handle it."

The other person paused for a moment, then continued.

"As for the rest, I'll keep it brief. I have a general idea of ​​your current situation, but unfortunately, I can't help you with the battle. However, I will leave you some backup plans—by the way, you should have obtained the bead next to you by now, right?"

Upon hearing this, Zhengde lowered his gaze and looked at the simple, unadorned beads in his hand.

"—That's one of the best quality mirage beads in our division, one that even the Imperial Guards are reluctant to use lightly—but I'm leaving it to you now. This thing can conceal your form and aura. Use it to escape the Tantric sect's pursuit first, and then..."

Just then, another explosion rang out, and the blurry figure in the mirror swayed, as if it might be cut off at any moment—

Zhengde's heart was also stirred—

Fortunately, after shaking violently for a while, the mirror finally stabilized.

Then, the man continued speaking.

"...The rest is quite simple. According to our intelligence, a temple in the state is hiding an Arhat relic. All you need to do is conceal your identity, sneak into the temple, and find a way to retrieve it. Although this relic cannot cure the backlash from your conversion from Chan to Tantra, it can at least suppress it and prevent it from worsening."

Having said that, the man quickly concluded.

"After that, you can follow the previous plan and find the spies from the Sili near the Three Altars Dharma Assembly. If we're not all dead, we'll also come there to meet you. As for the name and location of that temple, I've written it on the back of the mirror. You can see for yourself when the time comes—"

He paused for a few seconds, then suddenly roared.

"Damn you Tantric bastards, you think you're so tough? Brothers, grab your weapons and let's fight these bastards!"

As he finished speaking, a blinding white light suddenly burst forth from the mirror—

However, in the next second, all the sounds fell silent at the same time, and the surface of the mirror returned to its grayish appearance.

Zhengde sighed softly, a somewhat somber expression appearing on his face.

Although the person in the mirror was never very nice, even calling him a bald monk upon meeting him, he understood the situation perfectly well.

These people have fallen to this state because of their own actions.

Bo Ren was not killed by me, but he died because of me.

After a long silence, Zhengde put his hands together, first solemnly bowed to the mirror, and then turned to look at the back.

There were a few lines of writing in crooked handwriting. The top part explained how to use this mirage bead, and the bottom part was the name and address of a temple.

That was a name that Zhengde was very familiar with.

Ci'en Temple.

(End of this chapter)