Chapter 45: King of Deception Beasts! Clearing the Diseased Domain
The Abbot of Longevity Calamity closed his eyes, savoring the aftertaste of victory, quietly waiting for the corpses beneath the temple to be refined.
One hour...
Two hours...
Five hours...
A full twelve hours passed, yet under the burning flames, the temple remained perfectly intact.
This bizarre scene finally broke him. He roared hysterically:
“What’s going on!?”
The surrounding Samanera were so frightened they dropped to their knees, continuing to chant the sutras.
“Fool, because this temple is your calamity!”
Jiang Yan’s voice rang out.
“What!?”
The Abbot of Longevity Calamity turned pale in shock, frantically searching for Jiang Yan’s presence, but all he saw was the burning temple, the surrounding Samanera, and Xiao Bai lying on the ground.
“Stop looking. I’m right here!”
Above the flaming Monkey King Temple, an Ash Lamp emerged from the void. Flames surged, transforming into human form, then shifted from illusion to reality, taking on Jiang Yan’s appearance.
He sat cross-legged in mid-air, his hands forming a Zen mudra. The flames within the temple danced like crimson lotuses, lifting him up.
Like an ancient Buddha sitting upon a lotus of fire.
The Abbot of Longevity Calamity’s eyes darkened. “It’s you causing this!”
“When falsehood mimics truth, and truth appears false, what you see and hear is not real. The latter part of this is something you yourself once said—yet you still fail to see through it.”
Jiang Yan’s eyes brimmed with pity as he sighed, “Foolish child, it is your heart that’s in chaos, unable to let go!”
“Nonsense. As long as I kill you, everything will return to how it was!”
The Abbot of Longevity Calamity snorted coldly, just about to strike—when the sky suddenly turned dark.
A colossal blood coffin appeared, blotting out the sky.
Upon the coffin lid, a solitary eye emerged, gazing indifferently down at the land below. Its presence was vast and oppressive, sweeping across the ground.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
The coffin lid opened. Countless blood threads fell like rain, tearing through the Abbot of Longevity Calamity and the many Samanera with overwhelming force.
The scene was instantly cleared.
Jiang Yan watched without sorrow or joy, only letting out a sigh:
“Never thought I too would fall into the Obstacle of Perception. Indeed...”
“It is easier to slay the tiger on the mountain than to tame the monkey within the heart.”
“Though the path lies beneath my feet, I have remained where I stood. Only by letting go... can I Perceive One’s True Nature.”
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Before he finished speaking, countless blood threads surged from the blood coffin, pulling him in, burying him together with it.
...
...
Yet, Jiang Yan did not feel death approaching—only a gentle breeze brushing past.
He slowly opened his eyes. What entered his view was a massive skeletal white ape, six-armed and four-eared, its viscera hollowed out.
The skull was overgrown with blood-colored trees, like crimson hair, bearing dense and heavy fruits. The decayed flesh had long since turned to soil, covered in waist-high weeds and shattered stones.
The golden body sculpted on its surface had long been eroded by wind and age, rusted and pitted.
Its hollow eyes stared down at the land, without joy or sorrow.
It was the mountain, and the mountain was it!
Jiang Yan raised his head and looked up at it, a chill crawling down his spine, sensing a vast gap in the level of life between them.
Like an ant encountering a collapsing mountain, he instinctively wanted to flee.
It was unimaginable—how terrifying must it have been when it was alive?
Jiang Yan murmured softly, “Grab them!”
Beneath his feet, the Dual-headed Shadow-Eating Serpent surged forth. Numerous shadow-winged serpents rose into the air, diving into the dense weeds.
“Let me go!”
“Help!”
With terrified screams, they quickly returned.
The shadow-winged serpents brought back several gray rabbits with human faces, struggling incessantly. Among them was the humanoid form of Xiao Bai.
As for the Shadow-Eating Serpent, it held in its mouth a grayish-blue fat rabbit bearing the face of the Abbot of Longevity Calamity.
It struggled nonstop, roaring, “Let me go!”
“We meet again, Abbot of Longevity Calamity—or should I say…”
Jiang Yan said meaningfully, “King of Deception Beasts!”
The Classic of Divine Marvels recorded: “In the southwestern wilderness dwells the Deception Beast. It resembles a rabbit, with a human face, and can speak. It often deceives people, saying east when going west, calling evil good. Its meat is delicious; eating it grants the power to speak untruths convincingly.”
To translate: this is a spiritual creature resembling a rabbit, skilled in eloquence and deceit. Eating its meat allows one to master the power of lies and gain others’ trust.
Jiang Yan said, “No wonder you had the other Deception Beasts disguise themselves as History Walkers and blend into the crowd. Your goal was to shape your strength through lies, fabricating power.
But a lie is still a lie.
Once exposed, it will revert to its true form. And due to the peculiar nature of your abilities, your true body is far more fragile than monsters of the same realm.”
As he said this, he looked up and down at the fat rabbit. Jiang Yan recalled Zhao Yinman’s notes saying they were quite delicious.
But with a human face…
Utterly nauseating!
Jiang Yan said flatly, “I only understood at the very end—the figures of man and rabbit in the murals were not two species at all, but the process of you stealing the Heart Monkey’s power, forging a golden body, and transforming from rabbit to human.”
Knowing all was lost, the Abbot of Longevity Calamity said coldly, “Wasn’t there only that dead monkey in the mural? Where’s the rabbit?
Though I’ve guessed it by now. That monkey must be hiding in the shadows helping you, right? A move once made cannot be taken back. I admit defeat.”
“You really lack wisdom. Even now, you still don’t understand.”
Jiang Yan interrupted softly, “The Monkey King has long since died. It’s because you feared his power—feared he might return—that your own heart reincarnated him, transforming into the Heart Monkey, which is the temple that suppresses the Monkey King.”
The Abbot of Longevity Calamity trembled upon hearing this, hairs standing on end, and roared, “You’re lying! How could the Heart Monkey be a temple!?”
Jiang Yan shook his head and sighed, “Who says the Heart Monkey must be humanoid? Everything in the world is but appearance. It is your heart that gives them meaning.
Just like you—clearly dwelling in the Hall of Zen Resolution, yet only borrowing slanderous thoughts, turning it into the Hall of Borrowed Slander. Your six senses impure, your desires rampant.”
“To break it is simpler for you than for anyone else. You don’t need a sacrificial ritual—just walk out, and the Heart Monkey will collapse on its own.”
“Sadly, you thought you had suppressed the Monkey King with the temple, unaware that it was the temple that trapped you instead.”
At this, Jiang Yan couldn’t help but sigh.
Who would have thought that the key to clearing the Diseased Domain instance had been hidden at the very beginning?
The task details given by the Historical Long River had already offered hints—it was the abbot explaining the rules, not the rules of the Diseased Domain itself.
Main Mission One even reminded you not to lose yourself after staying one night, not to be infected by mutation.
Because sleep blurs one’s sense of time, making one believe this place is real and fall into the Obstacle of Perception.
It was only with the advance warning from the Ash Lamp, and the realization that the Three Insects could manifest from thin air and be slain, that Jiang Yan came to suspect this realm might be false.
Even the blood-colored figures beneath the peach trees were not the Monkey King’s resentment—but rather…
The obsessions of the Deception Beasts.
They wanted to approach the temple, to awaken themselves.
But could never reach it—only to become Blood Peaches, devoured by their own kind.
An eternal cycle.
From the very beginning,
Jiang Yan had entered a false Diseased Domain turned real, under the dual influence of the Heart Monkey’s remains and the King of Deception Beasts’ self-deception.
Thus, killing the Abbot of Longevity Calamity a hundred times inside the Monkey King Temple was pointless.
Likewise, as long as Jiang Yan firmly believed he wasn’t dead, he would not die.
Even the Dual-headed Shadow-Eating Serpent had only healed because of his belief.
The only true victim was the Coffin Spirit.
Not only did it not get a single bite, it had dug away half the day for nothing.
As compensation, Jiang Yan ultimately let the Coffin Spirit one-shot the enemy.
But the inner layer of the Diseased Domain was mere illusion, utterly meaningless.
And the method of breaking it was very simple.
That was—do not enter the temple, then take your own life.
Only by letting go can one perceive the true self,
And glimpse the real Diseased Domain.
“Easy to say—but unity of knowledge and action is the hardest part.”
If not for the Ash Lamp, and the White Candle’s ability to perceive emotions through burning, Jiang Yan would not have found himself amidst the illusion.
In fact, he nearly lost himself due to insufficient resolve.
This trip to the Diseased Domain had indeed yielded much.
In his gaze, Historical Dust converged, rapidly forming a mission panel.
[Turbid Stream Grade A — Monkey King Temple]
[Main Mission One: Completed]
[Main Mission Two: Exploration Progress 95%]
[Evaluation: Grade A Plus]