Volume 1 Faith Chapter 19: Not Killing
Ke Xun stared at Mu Yiran's running figure, watching him rush towards the tent in the distance, watching the giant figure stretch its arm through the top of the tent, and watching someone crying and being dragged out by it. Eight hands clasped together, and the shrill screams suddenly burst out from between the fingers and stopped.
Finally, he watched Mu Yiran rush into the tent, and blood rain fell from the giant's hands, dripping onto the tent. Then the broken head, entangled with messy long hair, rolled down from the top of the tent, and slid to the ground with a bang. Then the broken arms, legs, and ribs fell one by one. The giant figure disassembled the human torso in his hands patiently, part by part, as if he was disassembling a clock.
Before dawn, the giant shadow dropped the torn body in its hands. A hollowed-out skeleton with a few pieces of floating and cracked skin hanging on it was thrown on the top of the tent. The giant shadow returned to the thick darkness above its head with the bloody internal organs it had obtained.
Ke Xun was the first to rush to the tent. He lifted the bloodshot curtain and saw Sha Liu vomiting violently in the corner of the tent, Geng Ma fainted on the felt blanket, and Mu Yiran stared at the pattern on the ceiling with an expressionless face.
"Did you find anything?" Ke Xun asked him.
Mu Yiran turned to look at him: "We need to gather all the small tents together."
No one had the appetite to eat breakfast. After Qin Ci and Mu Yiran gathered Zhao Dan's remains together and covered them with a felt blanket, everyone worked together to move all the small tents together.
However, the light during the day was very scattered, and looking up in the tent, all the patterns were still blurry.
"We have to wait until night," Mu said happily, "after dark, before the giant shadow comes down, we have to put these tents together according to the pattern on the top."
"Patchwork ?" Qin Ci keenly perceived the meaning behind the words, "You mean, the patterns on the tops of these tents are a complete pattern, which was cut into several parts and then painted on the tops of these tents separately?"
"I think so," Mu Yiran nodded slightly, "I observed our tent and the tent where Mrs. Geng was last night and found that they were both incomplete."
"It seems that the key lies in the patterns on the tops of these tents." Qin Ci pondered, "But I still don't understand why the purple jasmine can resist the giant shadow?"
"Maybe I will have the answer to this question when I come back from the Suta Temple." Mu Yiran prepared to leave.
"So what should we do now?" Geng's father asked hurriedly, "The sacrifices we made earlier are definitely useless, so how are we going to complete the mission that person gave us?"
Mu looked at everyone with joy: "Now what you need to do is to collect the following things: First, wine. As far as I know, the residents of Ganxiong area can make Qingsha wine, grape wine, rice wine, and Ma** wine. All of these are included. Get as many as you can.
"Second, rice, flour and ghee. In Ganxiong, there are millet, rice, barley, wheat and peas. Whatever kind is available, get it.
"Third, spices. You can probably find camphor, sandalwood, rosin, and other kinds of spices in the Ganxiong area. No matter how much, we need them.
“Fourth, over at the sky burial platform, there are vulture feathers.
"Get back as soon as possible before dark."
No one asked any more questions. In fact, at this point in the situation, no one had the extra energy and effort to question anything. For several days in a row, no one had slept at all, and at this moment, the only physiological function left was "obedience".
"I'm going to the sky burial platform." Ke Xun said.
During the day, the most dangerous place is probably the sky burial platform.
Mu looked at him pleasantly and said, "Be careful." Although the expression on his face was still aloof.
Ke Xun smiled at him and turned to go on his way.
It takes nearly a whole day to go to the sky burial platform and back. Ke Xun is a fast walker, but considering the time he spent collecting vulture feathers, it was already late when he returned to the tent area. Everyone else had already arrived, and Wei Dong had even taken a nap.
The open space in front of the small tent was filled with things that everyone had collected according to Mu Yiran's request. Geng Ma and Sha Liu were kneading rice flour and shaping it into cake shapes.
"Dom?" Ke Xun asked.
"Maybe." Sha Liu answered in a low voice.
"Xiao Mu, now that everyone is here, can you tell us your ideas?" Qin Ci looked at Mu Yiran.
Mu Yiran was just checking the things that everyone brought back. He had just finished counting and nodded when he heard what Qin Ci said. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at him.
Mu Yiran glanced at everyone, his face somewhat meaningful: "Our biggest difficulty has always been that we cannot determine which branch of the Satā religion this painting depicts. Since the gods of the Satā religion and its various branches are not exactly the same, we cannot confirm which god the eight-armed monster that appears every night belongs to.
“Different pantheons have different attributes of gods. If we cannot confirm the attributes, we will not be able to respond accordingly.
"We know that since its inception, the Saṃsāra religion has assimilated the doctrines and pantheon of many sects. After thousands of years of development and change, it has spawned several branch sects, each of which has grown and developed, and has its own doctrines and pantheon, which are both independent of the religion and closely related to it.
"Among these, there are quite a few branch sects that have emerged as latecomers and prospered for a time, and their fame and influence have even surpassed that of the original religion.
"So many people have forgotten the original teachings of the Satya religion, one of which is not to kill."
Everyone was shocked when they heard it.
Do not kill. The teaching of Saṃsāra actually means – do not kill!
Then, then——what did we do? !
"However, even in the Satāra religion, 'meat' is an item of sacrifice," Mu said happily, pointing to the piece of thing on the ground.
Some of them were what he left in the Suota Temple yesterday. After being processed by the practitioners in the temple, he just took them all back. "But in the orthodox Suota Bon doctrine, meat can be replaced by plants. For example, Mirabilis jalapa represents dog meat, Angelica sinensis represents horse meat, Asparagus cochinchinensis root represents elephant meat, Tribulus terrestris represents peacock meat, and Polygonatum sibiricum root represents human flesh."
Looking in the direction of Mu Yiran's finger, Sha Liu's face turned pale.
Qin Ci looked at Mu Yiran and asked, "How did Xiaomu know which plant represents which kind of meat?"
"These are the patterns I saw on the top of our tent last night," Mu Yiran replied calmly. "The patterns are divided into two circles, one with plant patterns and the other with animal patterns. At first I didn't realize that the two circles of patterns corresponded to each other, and I just thought it was some kind of modification of the main pattern. But when I continued to look down, I found that several patterns were painted with feces, urine, brain marrow, etc. I realized that these patterns seemed to be the five wisdom dews and five tribute meats that Sha Liu once mentioned."
At this point, Mu Yiran looked at Sha Liu and said, "There's nothing wrong with the bloody sacrifices you read about in the book, but you probably forgot to tell us the name of the book. Do you mind telling us now?"
Sha Liu's lips trembled. She didn't dare to look at the people staring at her. She said in a low voice, "The title of the book... The title of the book is "Instructions on the Rituals of the Qing Sect"."
"Qingjiao?" Dad Geng was stunned.
"The Qing Sect is a branch of what we call the Suo Sect," Mu Yiran said expressionlessly, "After thousands of years of development, it gradually separated from the main sect and became independent. This sect is more inclined to worship evil gods. Most of the temples under it worship angry evil gods. Whether it is the sacrificial rituals or witchcraft rituals within the sect, they are all unorthodox and extremely cruel and bloody."
As soon as she finished speaking, Geng's mother rushed to Sha Liu and slapped her hard on the face: "It's all your fault! You misled us! You made us do those - those inhuman things! It's you who harmed us, it's you who made us become like this -"
Weidong and Geng's father quickly pulled the emotional Geng's mother away. Sha Liu lowered his head, straightened his glasses that were knocked askew by Geng's mother, and whispered: "But don't the sacrifices I mentioned also play a protective role? At least Ma Zhenhua's death can prove that people who don't prepare these sacrifices will die."
"Those who are prepared will die anyway!" Geng's mother screamed, "Zhou Bin has prepared everything, right?! Wasn't he sacrificed?"
"But doesn't this also prove that this Black Corpse Sky is indeed the evil god of the Qing Cult, and the place where we are is the religious territory of the Qing Cult." Sha Liu bit her lip and argued.
"Then how do you explain that we survived last night even though we didn't have any sacrifices with us?" Qin Ci asked her.
Sha Liu couldn't answer.
Mu Yiran didn't look at her again, and continued, "That giant shadow is indeed the angry and vicious god Heishitian mentioned in the Qing Sect. It does use the bloody sacrifices that Shaliu mentioned as offerings to strengthen its own divine power. However, many people don't know, or have long forgotten, that in the original teachings of the Suo Sect, Heishitian is a two-faced god. It originally had eight hands and two faces. One face was born with an angry look, and the other face was born with a kind look."
"Kind face!" Ke Xun, who had been silent, suddenly snapped his fingers. "Before entering the painting, I vaguely saw a pair of kind eyes in the painting. Could it be the kind face of Hei Shitian?"
"In the teachings of the Sota religion, the Black Corpse God is a pagan demon that gained divinity after converting to the Sota religion. His wrathful side still retains his vicious and brutal murderous nature, while his benevolent side was tamed and guided by the highest god of the Sota religion to become a guardian god who protects believers." Mu said happily, "Based on the pattern on the top of the tent, it can be inferred that the offerings that the wrathful god and the benevolent god like to offer are different, even though they have the same name. For the same 'five tribute meats', the wrathful god needs real meat, while the benevolent god uses plants instead. This is the mark that distinguishes the two."
"So..." Qin Ci suddenly realized, "We were able to escape last night's disaster because of the purple jasmine. The purple jasmine is an offering to the Kind God. It neutralizes the fierceness of the Wrathful God to a certain extent."
"So the reason why I was able to stay alive in the tent the night before yesterday might not be because of my faith, but because I was holding the purple jasmine in my arms?" Ke Xun spread his hands, "Okay, I failed to pretend."
Mu Yiran looked at him, pursed his lips and suppressed the words he was about to say, then looked at everyone again: "According to my inference, if the bloody sacrifice can make the angry side of Black Corpse Sky stronger, then the corresponding sacrifice based on plants should be able to strengthen the benevolent side of Black Corpse Sky. In other words, we may be able to summon the benevolent Black Corpse Sky and transform this world in the painting into the original picture of the painting."
"The pair of kind eyes in the original painting!" said Ke Xun.
"Yes," Mu nodded happily, "This may be the only way for us to leave here."
