Many children, many blessings: Stealing the offspring of powerful figures to cultivate immortality.

Before Fan Chenxin could take her eyes off the bloodstain on her sleeve, heavy footsteps echoed from outside the side hall.

Xuanbei entered, leaning on his staff, followed by six law enforcement monks, whose Buddhist light solidified into tangible chains that hung in their palms.

"Let's go."

Xuanbei's voice was devoid of warmth, and his withered fingers pointed towards the direction of the ordination hall.

Fan Chenxin stood up. The dark patch on his moon-white monk's robe was still wet. He lowered his sleeve to cover it and followed Xuan Bei outside.

Mingzhao followed at the back and whispered a word of advice.

"Disciple, the abbot means that you should recite a confession in front of the entire assembly of monks. If you are willing to admit your guilt, this matter can be mitigated..."

"Recognize what?"

Fan Chen didn't even turn his head, and his steps didn't stop.

Mingzhao opened his mouth, but swallowed the rest of his sentence.

Three thousand Buddhist lamps were lit in the ordination hall, and the prayer cushions for kneeling in the hall had been laid out, facing the Buddha Heart Mirror hanging above the main seat.

The mirror has a dark bronze color, and its surface radiates a Buddha-like light, illuminating the deepest, most unspeakable obsessions in the mind of a practitioner.

Fan Chenxin walked to the prayer mat and stood still, without kneeling.

Xuanbei took his seat in the main position and slammed his staff down with a loud thud.

"Fan Chenxin, do you know why you have been brought here?"

"This disciple understands."

"Then are you willing to kneel down and admit that you have harbored inappropriate thoughts towards that woman?"

Fan Chenxin looked up at the Buddha Heart Mirror, where his pale face and the dark cinnabar between his brows were reflected in the bronze surface.

"This disciple is willing to accept the questioning."

He neither admitted nor denied it.

Xuanbei tightened his grip on his cane.

"it is good."

The Buddha Heart Mirror was activated, and its dark bronze surface began to glow with golden light.

Meanwhile, in the side courtyard.

Jiang Yining opened her eyes from her light sleep. Wu Bao was nestled in her arms, its little hands clutching her clothes. One of the illusory fox tails was draped over the pillow, and the other was wrapped around her wrist.

She first checked Wu Bao's forehead; the temperature was normal, and the dark gold lines between his eyebrows had faded slightly compared to the previous night.

The moonlight outside the window was shattered by something, and tiny specks of light danced on the ground, like a large amount of Buddha's light converging and surging in the distance.

Jiang Yining raised her eyes and looked towards the back mountain. Her semi-saintly divine sense probed out and instantly locked onto the unusual activity in the Discipline Hall.

She wasn't in a hurry.

He took out a white porcelain bowl from his storage ring, poured in the medicine he had prepared in advance, and fed it to Wu Bao spoonful by spoonful. After that, he reset the soul-protecting array and made sure the little girl's breathing was long and steady before getting up and putting on his outer robe.

As I pushed open the door, I saw a tall, slender figure sitting on the steps of the corridor.

Gu Qinghan leaned against a pillar, a broken sword resting on his lap, his frosty eyes shining excessively in the darkness.

"When did you arrive?"

"Before you close your eyes."

Jiang Yining didn't ask him how he got in. It had already been proven that the Great Thunderclap Temple's barrier was useless against sword cultivators at the Dao Inquiry Realm.

"There's some commotion in the ordination hall."

Gu Qinghan stood up, his gaze falling on the side of her neck, where the sword-shaped mark he had left was faintly visible on her collar.

He raised his hand, his slender fingers pulling her collar up, his fingertips brushing against the warm skin on the side of her neck, slowly and deliberately covering the red mark completely.

"You should go see him."

It's not a question, it's a statement.

Jiang Yining let him straighten her collar without flinching.

"The Five Treasures' baptism is only going to happen a few more times. His Buddha light is the most crucial part, and nothing can go wrong."

"So you're after the Five Treasures."

"Otherwise what?"

Gu Qinghan withdrew his hand, his fingertips tracing the edge of her collar, as if to confirm that his territory markers had been properly hidden.

He took a half step closer to her, lowered his head, and his warm breath fell on her ear.

"That bald monk's Buddha-mind mirror is reflecting his sea of ​​consciousness. Guess what it will show."

Jiang Yining glanced at him sideways.

Are you gloating?

"I'm reminding you not to be too soft-hearted later."

Gu Qinghan's thin lips brushed against her earlobe, his voice extremely low.

"You have the aura of four men on you, and he's the fifth to fall for you. The better you treat him, the deeper he'll fall, and you'll be the one who'll have the hardest time getting out of this mess."

Jiang Yining reached out and grabbed his sleeve hanging at his side, pinching his wrist bone with her fingertips.

"understood."

She let go of his hand and took a step forward.

"The matter of the Five Treasures will not be affected. Stay with me and don't make a move."

Gu Qinghan followed in her footsteps, and under the moonlight, the two walked one after the other through the corridor, heading towards the Discipline Hall.

Inside the ordination hall, the golden light of the Buddha's Heart Mirror illuminated the entire copper wall.

Fan Chenxin knelt on the prayer mat, her hands clasped together, her face as serene as a jade statue.

The image that appeared on the mirror caused all the chanting of the monks in the hall to stop.

The scene depicts a small red clay stove under a Bodhi tree, where a woman in a plain white dress sits hunched over on a stool, fanning herself with a palm leaf fan. The firelight illuminates her lowered eyebrows and eyes, making her appear gentle, unlike the ruthless and decisive semi-saint she is portrayed as.

The scene shifts to the Merit Pool, where a woman kneels on the stone steps, holding a sickly child. Her palms are bleeding, but she is smiling as she coaxes the child to drink medicine.

The scene shifts again to the moonlit courtyard entrance, where she reaches out and hands him a meridian-protecting pill, her fingertips touching his palm as she speaks softly.

Go ahead, don't keep that old monk waiting.

The image on the mirror is so clear that every single strand of hair is clearly visible.

The monks in the hall looked at each other, some chanting Buddhist mantras softly, others gripping their prayer beads tightly.

"Did you see that?" Xuanbei stood up from the main seat, pointing his staff at the bronze mirror.

"Fan Chenxin, what you're holding in your mind isn't scriptures, but that woman's every smile and frown."

Fan Chenxin remained kneeling, her gaze fixed on the images reflected in the mirror.

He did not defend the existence of the image, but simply spoke, his voice hoarse yet clear.

"Master, I recorded these things in my mind because she was saving her child. As the monk in charge here, it is my duty to record the situation of those seeking help."

"It's my duty?" Xuan Bei sneered.

"Is it your duty to extinguish the incense for her purification ritual? Is it your duty to violate the three-step rule at the Merit Pool?"

Fan Chenxin's eyelashes drooped.

"An error in the proportions of the incense for purification could harm sick children. I, as a disciple, do not wish for innocent children to suffer because of temple rules; this is out of compassion."

He looked up, the bloodstains on his pale monk's robe gleaming darkly in the lamplight.

"The purpose of my Buddhist practice in this life is to protect those who deserve protection. If I cannot even protect a seriously ill child, what is the use of my Buddhist practice?"

The eyes of all the monks shifted back and forth between him and the bronze mirror.

Just then, a burst of purple-gold light erupted outside the palace gate.

The wisp of probing ripple that had just overflowed from the Buddha Heart Mirror was shattered by the semi-saint level divine sense, and the golden fragments exploded in front of the palace gate like fireworks.

Jiang Yining's voice came in from outside the door, neither too loud nor too soft, but each word carried an undeniable weight.

"In Buddhism, the examination of one's own disciples is the same as the examination of one's own mind. What kind of behavior is it to publicly release images of me and my daughter?"

The monks inside the hall all turned around to look at the direction of the hall entrance.

"If your temple lacks people to discuss this, there's no need to use my mother and daughter as gossip."

Xuanbei's face turned ashen as he rose and walked toward the palace gate.

"Benefactor, this is an internal matter of the Ordination Hall..."

"The Buddha's Heart Mirror reflects Master Fanchenxin's sea of ​​consciousness, but the person in the mirror is me." Jiang Yining's voice was calm and unhurried. "Your temple displayed my image before hundreds of monks without my consent. Which rule of your temple does this violate?"

Xuan Bei's expression changed repeatedly.

He cultivated himself for a hundred years, yet a woman rendered him speechless with just two sentences.

The Buddha's Mirror, which reflects the sea of ​​consciousness, is meant to interrogate the person being interrogated. However, the third party appearing in the mirror has never been consulted, which is indeed an oversight of the Vinaya Institute.

The hall remained silent for a long time.

Fan Chenxin knelt on the prayer mat, listening to the cold voice outside the door say the words he couldn't say himself, his fingers clenching the prayer beads tightly.

He stood up and turned to face Xuan Bei.

"Master, I am willing to accept three blows with the staff of discipline to quell this controversy."

Xuanbei looked at him.

"But I have one condition."

Fan Chenxin's gaze was calm and resolute.

"Remove all the purification incense arrays from the side courtyard to ensure that the child's subsequent baptism will not be hindered in any way."

Xuanbei leaned on his staff and stared at him for a long time.

"You're using your own Buddha relics to exchange for treatment for an outsider?"

"She's not an outsider." Fan Chenxin realized what she had said after she finished speaking, and lowered her eyes to add, "She's a patient taken in by the temple, so saving her is simply her duty."

Xuanbei closed his eyes, sighed deeply, and raised his staff.

The first blow landed on his shoulder and back, the sound of the Buddha's bones cracking echoing in the empty ordination hall.

Fan Chenxin remained silent, blood seeping through the back of his moon-white monk's robe.

The second blow landed on his waist, and his body swayed slightly before he regained his balance.

As the third staff fell, blood trickled from the corner of Fan Chenxin's lips, but he only looked at the white-clad figure outside the palace gate.