The Great Wei Music Bureau

Chapter 155: Ming Wang vs. Shura

Last time, we talked about Li Yi and his two friends setting out for Linjiang again. Because Yu Jiu insisted on learning guitar, Li Yi had something to do this time. He either taught guitar or told stories. So what will they encounter next? Let's take a look together.

After another day of traveling, Li Yi and his three companions arrived at the Guazhou Ferry on the north bank of the Yangtze River. This is the area with the most gentle current and the widest river surface in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. It is named after the melon-shaped sandbar in the river. It is one of the busiest ferry crossings on the Yangtze River. When they arrived at Guazhou Ferry, it was already late and the ferry had already stopped, so they could only find a place to rest and wait until tomorrow to cross the river.

Li Yi stood on the north bank of the Yangtze River, looking at the mighty waves of the river and listening to the sound of the rushing water. He could not help but sigh: "I used to think that the natural barrier of the Yangtze River was just an excuse for their defeat, but now that I see the Yangtze River with my own eyes, I know what a natural barrier it is. We won't look for someone to stay overnight. Let's find a place with beautiful scenery nearby, stay by the river, listen to the water, play the zither and sing songs of sorrow."

Yu Jiu shook his head and sighed, "Alas, I can't sleep peacefully again. Are you going to let me live?"

Li Yi hit Yu Jiu on the head with his head butt and said unhappily: "You are living a good life! You can sleep on the ferry tomorrow, and just stay like this tonight!"

Yi Ling consoled Yu Jiu and said with a smile, "Okay, your young master is in a good mood now. Let him watch and think carefully by the Yangtze River and see if he can come up with a good idea to lead the cavalry across the river without the navy."

Li Yi shook his head and said, "You are wronging me. I am not thinking about how to lead the army across the river. I am just simply feeling that the river divides the north and the south, and the clear water protects the east of the river."

After dinner, the three of them walked along the river and parked the carriage on a stone platform. Yi Ling and Yu Jiu lay in the carriage. Li Yi condensed his energy into a zither and placed it in front of him. He sat by the fire, looking at the river, and casually plucked the strings of the zither and sang the song "Linjiangxian".

Yu Jiu listened to the singing and shook his head and sighed, "Sister Yiling, do you think the young master has a problem with his brain? Why does he insist on singing songs so late at night? He can't sleep and he won't let us sleep!"

Yiling shook his head and smiled: "I don't know what's wrong with him. Forget it, let him be. I think it sounds pretty good." Yu Jiu covered his head helplessly.

Li Yi was just reveling in himself when the two horses tied beside him suddenly became restless. Then the flame of the fire beside him suddenly turned blue. He immediately became alert.

Yi Ling also felt something was wrong at this time. She picked up Yu Jiu and jumped out of the carriage. She looked at the surging river and calculated with her fingers and said, "I forgot to check the date. This is a ghost tide!" After that, she drew out her peach wood sword and cut the horse rope. The two frightened horses fled.

Yu Jiu asked, "Sister Yiling, what is the ghost tide?" Yiling formed seals with her hands and chanted a spell, then stepped on the ground with one foot, and a magic circle appeared around the three of them.

At this time, there seemed to be blue light and shadows in the river, like fish and people. The blue light became more and more, appearing in groups in the water, rolling like waves and swimming eastward.

Yiling pointed at the river and said, "Look in the water!" Then she began to explain to the two the origin of the ghost tide.

All the dead souls have to walk 800 miles along the Yellow Spring Road to enter the underworld. There is no light or darkness, no sun or moon, only yellow sand all over the sky. There are nine springs on this long road, which are the nine springs in the phrase "Hanxiao Jiuquan", and the Nine Springs has become another name for the Yellow Spring Road.

The nine springs are respectively the First Feng Spring, the Second Ya Spring, the Third Huang Spring, the Fourth Han Spring, the Fifth Yin Spring, the Sixth You Spring, the Seventh Xia Spring, the Eighth Bitter Spring and the Nine Ming Spring.

Jiuquan does not simply refer to nine springs, but the nine entrances to the Yellow Spring Road. Except for Fengquan and Mingquan at the first and last, the other seven springs correspond to the seven major water systems of the Kyushu continent: Yaquan corresponds to the Yangtze River, Huangquan corresponds to the Yellow River, Hanquan corresponds to the Wuhuan River, Yinquan corresponds to the Liaoshui River, Youquan corresponds to the Jiuhe River, Xiaquan corresponds to the Huaishui River, and Kuquan corresponds to the Yushui River.

These seven major water systems and their tributaries are spread throughout Kyushu. Everyone on Kyushu continent grew up drinking the water from these seven water systems. No matter how they died or where they were buried, their souls would eventually travel by water and enter the Yellow Springs Road from the seven springs.

The first and last springs are special. The first one is Fengquan, which is the beginning of the water veins of the world, that is, Tianshui, and the last one is Mingquan, which is the end of the water veins of the world, that is, the four seas. According to legend, the ghosts of the underworld also take the Yellow Spring Road when they go out of the underworld to take people away. They will go from these seven springs to the wells in the corresponding water system basins. After coming out, they will first report to the City God Temple and then go to take people away.

The gate to the netherworld opens twice a year, once during the Qingming Festival and once during the Zhongyuan Festival. The Qingming Festival is for collecting souls, while the Zhongyuan Festival is for releasing souls. It does not mean that ghosts cannot enter the netherworld on normal days. Ghosts can always pass through the Nine Springs and step onto the Yellow Springs Road, and eventually reach the netherworld to be judged and re-enter reincarnation. The souls collected during the Qingming Festival are the wandering ghosts.

As mentioned before, there are many wandering ghosts lingering in the Yang world between heaven and earth. As long as they don't harm people, the Earth Sect cultivators will not care, because this is also part of the cycle of heaven and earth. Every year during the Qingming Festival, the gates are opened to collect souls, which include these wandering ghosts, as well as some water ghosts, evil ghosts, resentful ghosts, and wronged ghosts. They are ghosts that need to settle their grudges before they can enter the cycle of reincarnation again.

During the Ghost Festival, the underworld opens its doors, and ghosts who have been released from hell after serving their sentences can return to the world of the living. Those who have homes can go back home to visit their loved ones, while those who don’t can wander around looking for some food. This food is of course not real food, but incense to replenish spiritual power. This sounds like a break from prison, but in fact it is a test!

This is the rule set by Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva after he came to hell. If these ghosts do not cause trouble and return to hell on their own as agreed, they will be truly released after serving their sentence and re-enter the cycle of reincarnation. Otherwise, they will continue to stay in hell and be punished.

What Li Yi and the other two were seeing now was the scene when the door to the underworld opened to collect souls during the Qingming Festival. The blue light and shadows in the water were not ghosts, but those residual souls and scattered spirits. When they sense that the door to the underworld has opened, they will throw themselves into the water and follow the tide of ghosts into the underworld.

Yi Ling said seriously: "You two should watch carefully, this kind of scene is not common!"

Yu Jiu wondered, "Doesn't Qingming Festival happen every year? Why is it so uncommon?"

Yi Ling replied, "Because the entrance to the Yellow Spring Road may appear anywhere on any waterway, only the monks near the entrance can use this spiritual display array to see the ghost tide. We just happened to catch up, and no one knows where the entrance will be next year."

Yu Jiu nodded, and Yi Ling suddenly pointed at the river in the distance and shouted, "Look over there! The ghost tide is coming!"

Li Yi and Yu Jiu looked in the direction of Yiling's finger, and saw a blue light at the bottom of the river. It was completely different from the previous scene where the residual souls and scattered spirits were rolling like waves, because the blue light was an extremely huge fish!

It looks similar to a flounder, but the difference is that it has long whiskers like a lantern fish in front of its mouth, and there is also a "lantern" with blue light at the end of the whiskers.

Yi Ling pointed at the big fish and said, "This fish is called the Soul-Guiding Flounder. As long as it sticks its whiskers out of the water, it can attract all wandering ghosts within a hundred miles! It is responsible for guiding the souls of the dead."

When the soul-guiding flounder swam close to Li Yi and the other two, Yu Jiu couldn't help but let out a long sigh. After it swam past the three of them, even Li Yi was shocked by the scene in the river. He originally thought that he had traveled before and had seen the real crowds in the scenic area, but he didn't expect that there could be a more terrifying scene than that!

The reason is simple. No matter how crowded the scenic area is, at least you can count the heads. But in the river, you can't see any heads at all. Every wandering ghost has turned into a blue-green tadpole with only a head left, and hundreds of thousands of tadpoles are like the children of the soul-guiding flounder, densely packed and stacked, following it all the way eastward along the Yangtze River!

A curtain of water suddenly appeared in the river ahead. The soul-guiding flounder crashed into it directly and then disappeared. The wandering ghosts followed closely behind it, but the width of the water curtain was obviously much narrower than the river channel, which gave it a feeling of thousands of troops crossing a single-plank bridge.

Li Yi laughed and said, "Why can't the entrance to the Yellow Springs Road be opened wider to save these ghosts from crowding here?"

Suddenly, a five-colored, five-bladed halberd flew out of the river and headed straight for Li Yi. Fortunately, Yi Ling noticed the abnormality in advance and swung her peach wood sword to block the halberd back, but she was not only injured, but even the peach wood sword was broken.

Li Yi supported Yi Ling and asked, "How is it?"

Yi Ling wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and said, "It's okay, this injury won't kill you!"

At this time, Li Yi had already summoned the Dharma image of Acala to protect Yi Ling and Yu Jiu. He shouted to Da Jiang, "Hiding in the water is nothing! If you really have the ability, come out and fight! Don't hide in the water like you did last time in Fuling Lake!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a whirlpool appeared in the ghost tide, and thousands of wandering ghosts were sucked in in an instant. Then Jing'an, wearing a black monk robe, and Qiu Xiong, holding a long spear, jumped out of the water. The two of them hovered above the river and looked at Li Yi and others.

Li Yi looked at Jing'an and said coldly, "How dare you, a scum, show up? I will make sure you never come back tonight!"

Jing'an bowed and said, "Amitabha, Venerable Miaoyin, the Asura King ordered the two of us to take you back to the Asura Palace. If you are sensible, you should follow us quickly to avoid physical pain!"

Li Yi laughed and said, "If King Shura asks me to go, I have to go? Wouldn't that be embarrassing for me? Let him invite me himself!"

Jing'an said, "Donor Qiu, without the Golden Pagoda, he is no match for you, so be careful about what you do."

Qiu Xiong smiled and said, "Okay, I will only break his hands and feet and will not hurt his life." After that, he jumped up and stabbed Li Yi with his spear.

Just as the latter was ready to fight, Yi Ling pinched his hands and shouted: "Liu Yan Fa·Xuan Ming Formation!"

A column of water gushed out from the river and quickly condensed into ice, sealing Qiu Xiong inside. Yi Ling said, "I'll deal with this guy. You go deal with Jing'an first!"

Li Yi hesitated and said, "You are no match for him!"

Yi Ling replied: "You don't need to tell me that! But I can hold him back for a while. You should deal with Jing'an as soon as possible and then join forces with me to deal with this one!"

Li Yi still didn't move, Yi Ling shouted: "Have you forgotten that you promised Master Jingchan that you would help him resolve the cause and effect! What are you still hesitating about? I can't hold on for too long!"

Seeing Yi Ling's determined eyes, Li Yi nodded and jumped towards Jing An in mid-air. Jing An laughed and said, "Humph, you underestimate me, kid!"

Just when Li Yi's fist was about to hit Jing'an in the face, Jing'an chanted the Buddha's name and summoned a three-headed, six-armed Shura Dharmakaya. Before Li Yi could react, he was knocked into the water by Jing'an.

Jing'an laughed and said, "The Asura King gave me the Asura Dharmakaya, which is comparable to the Dharmakaya of the Buddha Vairocana! Your Acalanatha Dharmakaya is not good enough!"

Jing'an saw the golden light under the water, snorted coldly, pointed his palm at the golden light with one hand and shouted: "Shura Dao: Fierce Ghost Becomes Demon!"

Red flames burst out from Jing'an's palm, burning the river water. Instantly, the river surface turned red and rolled like boiling water. The wandering ghosts in the water were immediately transformed into evil spirits after being stained by the red water. They rushed towards Li Yi at the bottom of the river with their fangs and claws. With a series of explosions at the bottom of the river, the six-petal lotus formation supported Li Yi, who was protected by the Dharma image of Acala, and stood on the rolling Yangtze River.

Li Yi looked at Jing'an hovering above his head, who smiled and said, "Don't look surprised! Buddha and devil are born from one thought. One thought makes you a Buddha, and one thought makes you a devil! You, like the common people, have been deceived by the Buddha! The Buddha is not a compassionate savior! He did not inherit the throne, but chose to become a monk and become the Buddha, and his younger brother is the Demon Ancestor Rāhu!

Although he used conspiracy and trickery to seal the Demon Ancestor, he could not kill him! Now that the Buddha is about to enter Nirvana, the Demon Ancestor will see the light of day again. At that time, only those who obey the Demon Ancestor will be qualified to live. As long as you go back with me to pay homage to King Shura, King Shura is the descendant of the Demon Ancestor, and he will naturally protect you! "