The Buddha

1,278 words

Chapter 50: The Buddha

Night. In a dense thicket, Li Huowang sat wrapped in a blanket, keeping a silent vigil.

Without a campfire, the night was bitterly cold. It was only March, after all.

But he dared not light a fire now, afraid the flame in the darkness would give away his position to the pursuing monks.

By the faint light of the moon, Li Huowang reached into his robe and pulled out the Daoist bell.

The immensely potent pills Danyangzi had once given him were nearly gone. This bell was the only thing he had left that was worth anything.

But remembering how easily the abbot had held it in his hand, a fierce unwillingness surged through Li Huowang.

They wanted to deal with him, and all he could do was run. It was an unbearable feeling.

“In this chaotic, twisted world, everything is decided by power. If I want to survive here, I have to become strong enough!”

“Even a piece of shit like Danyangzi got this strong. Why can’t I? No matter how grotesque the methods of cultivation in this world are, I have to get them.”

“I need to protect myself. I need to protect the people I want to protect. If I can’t beg for it, I’ll steal it. If I can’t steal it, I’ll take it by force. If I can’t take it by force, I’ll play dirty!” Li Huowang’s expression gradually twisted into a snarl.

Just as he thought this, he froze. A puzzled look crossed his face as he reached back and touched the nape of his neck, as if considering something.

“Na-mo… He-la-da-na… Duo-la-ye-ye…”

An ethereal chanting of sutras shattered the silence of the forest.

Pure reflex. Li Huowang shot to his feet, scanning his surroundings.

But everything was pitch black. He found nothing. The simple traps he had set showed no sign of being triggered.

“Na-mo… A-li-ya… Po-lu-jie-di… Shuo-bo-la-ye.” The ethereal chanting came again from the darkness, closer this time.

“Quick! Everyone up! Move! Split up, don’t wait for the cart! Fool! Do what I taught you!”

At Li Huowang’s warning, Bai Lingmiao instinctively moved to follow him, but the Fool grabbed her, threw her over his shoulder, and bolted eastward in long strides.

Li Huowang crashed through the thicket, jumped back onto the road, and gritted his teeth as he sprinted forward. Whatever happened, those monks were after him. If he really couldn’t escape, there was no need to drag anyone else into dying with him.

He ran and ran through the darkness, but the chanting from somewhere always stayed close behind. And then, the smell of incense smoke from a temple began to fill his nose.

Running on and on, Li Huowang suddenly stopped. His pupils contracted as he stared at the pitch-black road ahead. Within it, countless tiny red dots, like flies, were twitching.

“Pu-tuo-ye… Pu-tuo-ye… Mi-di-li-ye… Na-la-jin-chi” The chanting grew louder.

Finally, the things in the darkness began to emerge. They were Buddhas. Enormous heads, towering bodies, but absurdly thin legs supporting potbellied frames.

The red dots Li Huowang had seen in the darkness were bundles of incense sticks stuck into the Buddhas’ flesh. They trembled with the swaying of the massive bodies.

A tall Buddha surrounded by white smoke should have looked celestial and divine. But when the setting shifted to a dark, wild forest path at night, it was a completely different story.

There wasn’t just one of these Buddhas. There were seven, standing in a line, swaying as they walked toward Li Huowang.

They moved with simple, repetitive steps, rocking left, then right. They looked almost like men, but not quite. Their expressions were caught between a smile and a glare, neither rage nor serenity.

When they stepped fully into the moonlight, Li Huowang saw the face of the lead Buddha. He recognized it. It was Jian Dun’s face.

“Amitabha, Benefactor. Your heart is not at peace.”

Li Huowang craned his neck to look up at the Flesh Buddha before him, at least four meters tall. “So you finally stopped pretending, huh? You garbage who worship monsters!!”

“Benefactor, the monk does not know what you are talking about. Come back to the temple with me. Danyangzi’s karma clings to you. If you leave with it, you will be in great trouble. All the world under heaven will be in great trouble, too.”

As Jian Dun finished speaking, his palms came together in a heavy clasp. The sound of tearing flesh rang out as palm after palm, stripped of skin and flesh, sprouted from behind him.

In an instant, like a peacock spreading its tail, the seven Buddhas had transformed into seven horrifying, terrifying Thousand-Armed Flesh Buddhas.

“Ring, ring, ring!!” Li Huowang shook the Daoist bell in his hand with all his might. The surrounding space began to warp. The lines of the branches twisted violently, forming the Wandering Lord.

But within the sound of the bell, the chaos of the world did not affect the Buddhas. They stood there like stone reefs, unmoved.

Li Huowang scooped a handful of mud into his mouth. “KAN! GEN! KEN!” The Wandering Lord shot across the ground in a blur, heading straight for the Buddhas.

“HAI!” A massive Buddha palm slammed down, kicking up a cloud of dust.

But the bodiless Wandering Lord ignored the attack entirely, passing straight through the back of the hand and lunging for the Buddha’s huge face.

When the Wandering Lord fully burrowed into one Buddha’s head, the towering figure began to sway. Its enormous hands swatted at its own head like it was trying to shoo away a fly.

But it didn’t work. Soon, the massive Buddha crashed to the ground. The features on its face began to melt, and the body that should have been unaffected started to twist and distort along with the surrounding hallucinations.

“BANG! BANG! BANG!” The remaining six Buddhas quickly formed a circle, back to back. Then, like stone blocks, they slammed themselves heavily into the ground. Their palms pressed together, and they began to chant an obscure, difficult sutra. “Ru-lai-a-duo-luo… San-mo… San-pu-ti…”

The moment the chanting began, Li Huowang saw that something was wrong with the Wandering Lord. The lines that made up its body began to writhe uncontrollably.

Seeing this, Li Huowang shook the bell even harder. “JIAN! JIAN! KAO! GU! ZU! QU!!”

When the Wandering Lord heard Li Huowang say he was willing to pay more of his lifespan, it struggled to hold its form together and charged at one of the Buddhas.

With a tremor that shook the ground, another Buddha toppled. But that was the limit of what the Wandering Lord could do.

Under the booming chant of the sutra, the Wandering Lord in midair fell to the ground.

Seeing the Wandering Lord was spent, Li Huowang stopped shaking the bell. But as everything around them returned to normal, the Wandering Lord on the ground did not dissipate.

All the lines on its body began to lose their original color, turning into a fleshy pink. Whatever had always been formless had, by the force of the Buddhas’ chanting, been given a physical body.

With a body now, the Wandering Lord looked like a massive tangled knot of earthworms, slowly squirming on the ground.

A giant palm with a swastika symbol in its center came crashing down.

“SPLAT.” The Wandering Lord’s flesh was instantly reduced to a bloody pulp.

The palm, still sticky with the Wandering Lord’s remains, slowly lifted and pressed together again. The remaining five Thousand-Armed Buddhas swayed as they approached, lining up in front of Li Huowang.

“Amitabha, Benefactor. Please come back with us.”

(End of Chapter)

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Reading Guide Decoding

The Flesh Comes Out to Play - Chapter 50 Breakdown

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

Thousand-Armed Flesh Buddha (千手肉佛): This is a direct, grotesque perversion of the Buddhist Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara), who is often depicted with a thousand arms as a symbol of limitless compassion. Here, that holy iconography is twisted into a horror of raw, parasitical flesh. The 'arms' are skinless and sprout from a corrupted form, a visual metaphor for the temple's worship of “the Flesh Buddha” from earlier chapters.
The Power of Chanting: In Buddhist tradition (and Daoist ritual), chanting sutras is a meritorious act that can purify, protect, and generate spiritual power. This chapter literalizes and weaponizes that concept: the monks’ chanting is a direct counter to the Wandering Lord’s hallucinatory, reality-bending ability. It “locks in” reality and forces the intangible into a physical form, showing how institutionalized, collective faith can dominate a powerful but disorganized entity like the Wandering Lord.
Swastika (卍) on the Palm: This is the ancient manji symbol, a traditional auspicious sign in Buddhism often found on the chest or palms of deities. Corrupting this symbol onto the palm of a flesh monster emphasizes the complete inversion of sacred imagery that defines the Dao-Twisted World.

Chapter Overview

Holy mother of something—the Flesh Buddhas are out of the bag, and they are not here for enlightenment. This chapter is a brutal, visceral turning point where Li Huowang’s desperate bid for power collides head-on with the systemic horror of Zhengde Temple. Gone are the cryptic riddles and veiled threats; the monks drop the pious act and reveal their true form: seven towering, incense-studded, flesh-and-blood abominations that transform into even more nightmarish “Thousand-Armed” entities. This isn’t a debate or a negotiation. It’s a straight-up supernatural showdown in a cold, dark forest, with Li Huowang’s last real weapon—the Wandering Lord—pitted against a sutra-chanting wall of corrupted Buddhist power. The chapter masterfully escalates from psychological dread to full-blown body horror, and the price tag for failure just got a lot higher. Get ready for a chapter that redefines what “monstrous” means in this already twisted world.

Key Plot Points

Cold Open in the Dark: Li Huowang is alone in a thicket, suppressing a fire and taking stock of his meager resources. The last of Danyangzi’s pills are gone; the Daoist bell is his only card.
A Vow of Desperation: In a moment of raw, snarling internal monologue, Li Huowang resolves to become stronger by any means necessary—beg, borrow, steal, or kill. He literally touches his own neck, a nod to his earlier suspicions about Danyangzi’s lingering influence.
The Chanting in the Dark: Ethereal sutra chanting shatters the night. The monks are here, and they are closing in. Li Huowang orders a chaotic retreat, telling the Fool to carry Bai Lingmiao and instructing everyone to scatter.
The Reveal of the Flesh Buddhas: As Li Huowang runs, he is cornered on a dark road by seven massive entities. They appear as giant, potbellied Buddhas with incense sticks stuck directly into their flesh. Their leader has the face of Jian Dun.
The Transformation: The pretense is dropped. With a sickening sound, the Buddhas sprout dozens of skinless, fleshy arms from their backs, becoming the “Thousand-Armed Flesh Buddhas.”
The Battle of the Bell and the Sutra: Li Huowang summons the Wandering Lord, unleashing its reality-warping chaos. The Buddhas prove immovable at first, but the Wandering Lord is able to possess and destroy two of them.
The Corporealization and the Kill: The remaining Buddhas’ chanting is so powerful it forces the Wandering Lord into a physical, fleshy form—a writhing, tangled mass. This newly-solidified entity is immediately crushed into paste by a giant palm.
The Final Stand: With its weapon obliterated, Li Huowang is left facing the remaining five, monstrous Thousand-Armed Buddhas. They offer a final, hollow “invitation” to return to the temple.

Reading Guide

Alright, fellow Daoists, buckle up. This chapter is a massive step up in the horror scale. The monks of Zhengde Temple just revealed their final form, and it’s not a joke. Pay very close attention to the cost of Li Huowang’s actions. His transformation from a confused victim to a determined, ruthless survivor is fully underway. That internal vow he makes? It’s a pact with himself, and this world loves to make people pay for their oaths.

Also, note the symbolism of the incense. Those aren’t just decorations; they look like offerings embedded into the entity. It’s a powerful image of how worship can sustain a monster. And the Wandering Lord’s fate is a critical lesson: even the most useful tool can be overwhelmed. Li Huowang just lost his biggest advantage. What’s a schemer to do when his only ace is turned to mush? The answer is chilling.