The Unruly Immortals

Jingxin's filthy hands, with dirt caked under the fingernails, reached into the lacquer box and pulled out the blood-red eyes, gently kneading them. "Hehe, these indeed are fine treasures," she remarked.

After speaking, she held a chicken egg-sized red eyeball in one hand and abruptly smacked it into her own pitch-black eye sockets.

When she lowered her hands again, the blood-red eyes had a new owner. "Thank you, I can finally see again."

One grotesque scene unfolded as an obese, ugly, toothless old nun with blood-red, eyelid-less eyes on her face sent shivers down the spines of everyone else in the room.

"Brother Li, is she really a good person? She doesn't seem like it..." Bai Lingmiao asked in a hushed tone from behind Li Huowang.

"Shh, stop talking," Li Huowang unexpectedly wasn't surprised at Jingxin's actions.

Having gone through various events without realizing it, his tolerance had increased significantly.

With a grave expression, Li Huowang stared at the horrible old face before him and said, "Now that we have this, when do we start the ritual to expel Master Danyang?"

"What's the rush, young man, you are always so impatient," Jingxin responded. Right after she spoke, Li Huowang heard sounds from behind him. When he turned around, he saw a row of corpulent nuns, belching satisfyingly as they swayed unevenly.

"What are they up to? Don't tell me they plan to 'cross the river and demolish the bridge'!" Li Huowang reflexively placed his hand on the Great Thousand Record.

However, what the other party did next made Li Huowang immediately realize he had misunderstood, as the nuns began to dismantle the wall with their bare hands.

Master Jingxin was too large, and the door was too small; to get out, the wall had to be taken down.

When an entire wall had been completely cleared, a wooden board with many wheels was pushed in by the nuns—it was Master Jingxin's means of transportation.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, Master Jingxin wiggled laboriously like a giant caterpillar, inching toward the wooden cart.

After struggling for a while, Jingxin, somewhat annoyed, said to Li Huowang standing aside, "You're really not helping. Don't you want to get rid of your master? Why aren't you in a hurry? Can't you see how slow I'm moving? Why aren't you pushing!"

With everyone's help, Master Jingxin was finally pushed onto the cart. The creaking of the rotating axles resounded as the other plump nuns pushed her forward.

Releasing his grip on the flesh, Li Huowang scratched vigorously at a spot on the master he couldn't reach himself.

Taking a few steps back, Li Huowang looked at Master Jingxin, now surrounded by the corpulent nuns, and inexplicably felt as if she resembled a revered Buddha statue at that moment.

"A statue is just a statue. Becoming a true Buddha isn't that easy. Keep up," she said.

Hearing this, Li Huowang stepped forward and followed.

Instead of pushing Master Jingxin toward the nunnery's gate, the nuns were pushing her into the depths of An Ci Nunnery, a place Li Huowang had never visited.

"Take your hand off the Great Thousand Record. This time it's fine, but don't bring such things into the nunnery in the future. It's very inauspicious," Jingxin said with a tone full of disgust. At this moment, though, Li Huowang wasn't concerned about that as his mind was preoccupied with what was to come.

"What's the ritual to remove Master Danyang like? Are you sure it will work?" Li Huowang asked with a hint of unease in his voice.

"Isn't it a bit late to ask that now? Relax, we at An Ci Nunnery still honor our word. If you can't even trust us, then there's no point in talking about trusting other places," she replied.

Master Jingxin's words did not calm Li Huowang's heart. Since the moment he knew Master Danyang had always been lingering around him, he had been anticipating this day.

Now, he could finally put down the thousand-pound burden he had been carrying on his shoulders, and for a moment, he thought of many things.

"Don't be too quick to rejoice, the trouble with your master may be gone, but you are still Xinsu, and that's the big issue," she said.

Hearing this, Li Huowang's heart sank, "Master, don't be so absolute. Just because you haven't found a way in the past doesn't mean I won't be able to find one."

Master Jingxin heard this and laughed. "Do you think you're the only one who thinks like this? All the other Xinsus think the same way, but their ends were all more or less the same."

Li Huowang, with his brows tightly frowning, was about to speak, but he stopped himself, took a deep breath, and said, "Whether there's a way or not, shouldn't we at least try? To live a life in a muddled state like Yu'er, do you really think that's good? I don't think so."

Master Jingxin's expression quickly fell. She reached into her own flesh to fish out her son, and held him gently in her arms, looking at his aged face with pity.

"Ah, what can I do about him being like this? As his mother, all I can do is to keep him alive," she said.

Li Huowang reached out his hand and gently stroked his dry, white hair, showing a look of kindness identical to that in Master Jingxin's eyes.

The other Medicinal Guides and the nuns also turned their gaze towards the withered old man.

Li Huowang looked at the old man and began to speak in a calm voice, "I still remember when he was little, wobbling over to me. How amusing that was."

Master Jingxin nodded, and then her face showed a trace of pain. "To end up like this, it's hard to say what is right or wrong. When I was in the illusion and saw my mother kneeling in front of me, I felt really stifled."

The pain on Master Jingxin's face seemed contagious, appearing on the faces of everyone around her at the same time.

"Ah..." Everyone at the scene sighed softly together, and the atmosphere became very oppressive.

Under the influence of this mood, the small wooden cart continued to creak forward. Before long, another huge, swollen old nun was pushed out from the left side ahead.

Li Huowang looked at the old nun and showed a hint of distaste, "Sister Jingyuan, can you hurry up? You know that Master Danyang is constantly revising my cognition."

"What's the rush? We've been waiting for so long, the little time left doesn't make that big a difference. If you had sought faster earlier, would there be a need to save this bit of time?"

Jingyuan picked up a piece of moldy cake from the ground beside her and stuffed it into her mouth as she spoke.

Jingyuan was not the first, soon the second and third bloated, large old nuns were similarly pushed out on wooden boards. Eventually, including Jingxin, six old nuns were brought out.

With these people accompanying him, Li Huowang and his group arrived at a low area, where a towering black writhing Buddha statue stood several meters tall.

As they fully entered, a buzzing sound began to rise. It turned out that the black writhing Buddha statue was entirely composed of clusters of green-headed flies.

"My stomach feels a little uncomfortable; should we wait for a bit?" Li Huowang asked, holding his stomach.

"Stop dawdling; let's hurry up, do you think it's easy for us to come out here?" Jingxin took out a string of shiny Buddha beads from her folds and threw them over.

Li Huowang caught them deftly and began to spin the Buddhist scriptures in his hand, starting to recite the arcane and difficult Buddhist texts in a low voice.