Death Sutra

Chapter 212: Decoding the Scripture

Translator: Transn Editor: Transn

Killing someone in a real-life combat was very different from fighting against someone during a kung fu contest. For example, in a real fight, an ordinary guy motivated by a strong desire to kill would probably succeed in assassinating an unprepared kung fu master.

On the contrary, without a killing intent, even a seasoned killer would appear mediocre during kung fu technique competition. Gu Shenwei did not intend to kill Lianye and thus easily got caught by the monk.

The monk carried the killer on his shoulder and ran toward Leftslope Vihara. Gu Shenwei looked at the ground with a wry smile on his face. He knew that it was useless to reason with Lianye since this monk was a little bit insane. He was confident that once he met Lianhua, he would be able to find a way to talk himself out of trouble.

After Tiger Monk's death, the monks of Four Truths Temple had worked hard to purify this vihara and appease Tiger Monk's soul.

However, when Gu Shenwei reopened his meridian pointed by Lianye and got into Lianhua's meditation room, he was greatly surprised to see that the tiger, which had eaten half of Tiger Monk's body, returned to this place.

At this moment, it was lying on its stomach like a cat, with its mouth open and its tongue hanging out.

Beside the tiger sat a dried-up corpse.

It seemed to be Lianhua's corpse. Gu Shenwei was pretty sure that this man had died a long time ago.

He placed his hand on his saber shaft and thought, "Lianye forced me to take a dead man as my teacher. He must be crazy. It's useless to talk to such a lunatic. It looks like I can only kill him to get out of here."

Lianye did not notice what the young killer was doing. He directly went over to kneel in front of Lianhua and said respectfully, "Brother Lianhua, I bring the boy to you. He's willing to become a monk and take you as his teacher. We can fulfill Lianxin's wish now."

Gu Shenwei inhaled shallowly and tightly held his saber shaft. When he was about to launch an attack, the dried-up corpse suddenly opened his eyes and exclaimed, "It's so difficult. Why do I get stuck? What goes wrong with this method?"

Gu Shenwei was stunned at the sight. He had seen countless dead bodies but had never seen anyone like this monk before. He found it hard to believe that someone that skinny was still alive.

Upon hearing Lianhua's reply, Lianye, who was a very tall and strong man, began crying like a baby. Lianhua remained unmoved. He picked up a paper beside him and meditatively looked at the red characters on it.

Gu Shenwei pulled Lianye up from the floor and signaled the monk to talk with him outside the vihara.

Lianye followed the young killer outside and told the killer what had happened to Lianhua.

"Not long after you wrote down Death Scripture with blood and gave it to Brother Lianhua, he decoded it with the help of the notes left by Tiger Monk, but the first decoded version didn't make much sense. He continued to work on it for some time and successfully decoded the first 1,000 characters of the scripture. However, the remaining part of it was difficult, especially the last 1,000 characters. Master Lianhua got stuck there and then he read Lianxin's notes again and again and often missed meals and sleep," said Lianye.

"One day, he suddenly told me that it was a sin for a monk to be so obsessed with a non-Buddhist scripture. He asked me to stay away from him and recited Breaking Obsession and some other Buddhist scriptures all night long. At that time, I thought he decided to give up studying Death Scripture, but the next day, I saw that he picked up the scripture again while calling it Nanke Goes Woodchopping. Since that day, he's been studying the scripture at daytime and repenting his sin at night. Gradually, he becomes thinner and thinner from overwork and lack of rest."

"Lianhua is such a doctrinaire person. Why does he have to torture himself like that? If he wants to study Death Scripture, he can focus on studying it. If he thinks it's wrong to do so, he can give up," Gu Shenwei said in his heart.

Right at this moment, Commandant Zhong came to Leftslope Vihara. He heard that the killer had been carried away by a monk and came here to check the situation.

He greeted Lianye politely and then chatted casually with the monk for a moment. After ensuring that the killer did not get into trouble, he said goodbye to them and left the place.

Lianye had never met Commandant Zhong. He thought that this man was just an ordinary pilgrim and hurriedly sent the man away. After that, he continued to force the young killer to become a monk.

"I want to read the decoded scripture first," said Gu Shenwei.

"Come on, boy. You won't understand it. Even brother Lianhua can't decipher the meaning of it," said Lianye.

Despite that, the monk still went back into Lianhua's meditation room and took out several papers, which were filled with small, closely-written characters. Gu Shenwei received the papers and then sat on the ground to read them.

He was very familiar with the openning sentences in the scripture: "The soul rises to the Ninth Heaven, and the spirit falls to the Ninth Abysse. The living suffer in grief, and the dead settle in peace." The following 300 to 400 characters were similar verses about death. After these verses came a part elaborating the sword technique.

Gu Shenwei was very surprised to discover that both his and Maid Lotus' understanding of the swordcraft were correct. According to the scripture, there were altogether 29 different ways to interpret and master the Death Scripture. Unlike Immortal Peng's Secrets of Love, which was different types of kung fu patched together, all the 29 ways mentioned in Death Scripture focused on swordcraft.

The scripture required the practitioners of the sword craft to improve their skills by killing opponents who were at least as strong as themselves. It also warned that if a practitioner failed to kill a person as strong as himself within a year, he would be harmed by his own killing intent, and that if he failed to so do for a longer time, he would lose his mind and commit suicide.

The way to "invincibility" was also the way to "self-destruction". A practitioner of this sword craft might sooner or later reach a state where he had to kill an opponent who was strong as himself to prevent his own killing intent from hurting himself but was unable to find such a rival.

Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus were far from reaching such an invincible state, but they were killers who had lots of opportunities to kill people and improve their sword skills. According to the scripture, such rapid progress would do them more harm than good.

The scripture suggested the practitioners gradually improve their sword technique by killing one person a year. In this way, the practitioners needed 50 or even 60 years to master the technique, but once they succeeded, their killing intent would never be able to do much harm to their bodies anymore.

After reading this part, Gu Shenwei sneered and thought, "No wonder that book was thrown off the cliff. The one who invented this swordcraft and wrote this book probably had some sinister motives. If he put his suggestion and the side effect of this sword craft in the beginning part of the book, no one would be interested in practicing it. Everyone who learns kung fu wants to improve his skills rapidly. Otherwise, how can he protect himself and kill his enemies during real fights? If he can only slowly upgrade his skill year by year, he'll probably get killed within a few years. What a ridiculous suggestion."

In the meantime, Gu Shenwei also felt a little sad. He found out that besides the Peripheral Force inside his body, the swordcraft that he practiced could also lead to early death.

He guessed that he might be doomed to perish together with his enemies. "Alas, that's perhaps the 'Will of the Divine'," he sighed in his heart.

Gu Shenwei continued to read the remaining part of the decoded scripture, but the last part had so many errors that it did not make any sense. Given that, he stopped reading and began to meditate, with each of his hands grabbing a few pages of the scripture.

Towards evening, he suddenly stood up and walked back into Lianhua's meditation room, leaving Lianye standing dumbfounded outside.

Lianhua and the young killer talked for a long time inside the room. Inspired by the notes left by Immortal Peng, Lianhua finally found a way to decipher the last part of the scripture.

Surprisingly, compared to Lianhua and Lianxin, who had studied Death Scripture for years, the dead immortal seemed to have a much deeper understanding of the scripture. Although Immortal Peng had not deciphered the whole scripture, he had written down some notes explaining how to decode it.

Gu Shenwei felt so lucky that he had kept these notes left by Immortal Peng and always carried them with himself.

These notes, which were above the killer's comprehension, enlightened Lianhua.

The young killer was pretty sure that he could not offer any help other than giving Lianhua Immortal Peng's notes, so he left the meditation room to avoid disturbing the monk. He prayed that in the last part of the scripture, he would find another method which could be used to prevent the side effect of practicing the swordcraft.

Seeing Lianhua engrossed in decoding the scripture again, Lianye felt worried. He knew it was impossible to persuade Lianhua to give up the job, so he put all the blame on the killer.

Gu Shenwei gave no response to Lianye. He just paced back and forth, absorbed in thought. "Is this sword craft really that powerful? Is it true that the one who masters it will find no match for himself in the entire world and thus can only kill himself? All the authors of kung fu manuals like to brag. Maybe the description of the swordcraft in Death Scripture is also exaggerated."

After a while, the tiger walked out of the meditation room and yawned. Lianye took out some buns from his pocket in the front of his shirt and threw them to it. It chewed and swallowed down the buns listlessly, evidently getting bored with this a kind of food.

"Wow, there's really a tiger in here."

Wei Lingmiao said while standing at a distance and being followed by seven or eight armed guards who were on full alert.

"Don't make any noise here. Master Lianhua is meditating," Lianye shouted at Wei Lingmiao. He did not know or care if the young man was the Governor's son.

Wei Lingmiao did not want to make a fuss over such a trifle with a monk. He beckoned the killer to come over and said, "You've been absent from work for quite a long time."

"Master Wei, please forgive me. I was…"

"I was kidding. Don't take it seriously. I'll go back to Jade City tomorrow morning. I have to get ready to leave this city. Do you still remember what you've promised me?"

"Yes."

Wei Lingmiao had permitted the Kun Society to turn in its "Protective Talisman" late in exchange for Yang Huan assassinating a person for him, but he never said who he was planning to kill.

"Good. Come to find me when you return to the city. You know, you've another option." With these words, Wei Lingmiao winked at the killer and went down the hill smilingly. Gu Shenwei knew that the other option mentioned by Master Wei was helping him meet Shangguan Ru.

Gu Shenwei felt that he had better leave together with Master Wei to show his loyalty. Besides, he also wished to figure out what Master Wei was thinking. Nevertheless, after a moment's hesitation, he still decided to stay, since his top priority now was to discover the true meaning of Death Scripture.

When it was getting dark, Lianye shooed the tiger back into the room as if shooing a chicken. "Go back into the room. It's dark now. You coward, even a bird scares you so much. Who says that you're the king of animals."

"What bird?" Gu Shenwei asked.

"The big bird from Golden Roc Fort. It appeared again and killed many animals. It also ate two monks. It's such a pity that I never got a chance to fight it," Lianye snorted and said.

Upon hearing that, Gu Shenwei looked up into the night sky searching for the giant red-crowned roc. He really missed his old friend.

To his disappointment, the bird did not show up that night, but the next morning, he received good news from Lianhua. The monk had corrected all the errors in the last part of the scripture last night. When the monk asked Lianye to bring him some porridge while holding the doorframe with shivering hands, Gu Shenwei started to read the last part which had more than 5,000 characters.

After reading that part, Gu Shenwei understood why Kang Wenhui had mistaken Death Scripture for Wayless Book when she heard the last lines of the scripture at Leftslope Vihara. Those lines turned out to be the opening lines of the Wayless Book. He also discovered that besides improving their skills too fast, he and Maid Lotus had made another big mistake in practicing the swordcraft. It turned out that they had started to practice it too early.

The last part of the scripture explained that besides improving the sword skill year by year, there was another way for practitioners of the sword technique to avoid being harmed by their own killing intent. This way was mastering Wayless Qigong, an Internal Strength technique recorded in Wayless Book. Wayless Qigong was the basis of the swordcraft. It would not do a practitioner any harm if he only practiced Wayless Qigong, but it would be really dangerous if he practiced the sword craft before mastering the Internal Strength technique.

Gu Shenwei felt great. Thanks to the Barren Sect, he had already known where Wayless Book was.