QT- I’m Almost Died
Chapter 281. Unveiling The Truth (V)
TN:- 3 Chapters!!!
!!! WARNING !!! This chapter contains cruelty toward kids and cannibalism. Readers discretion is advisable.
Blood-red tears bled from Duan Xiaoyun’s eyes. Complemented by her savage expression, she looked like nothing less than an Asura in the flesh
In an incredibly calm tone, she slowly recounted her story, “Bodhi and I were both enlightened by the Holy Maiden, and gradually acquired spiritual powers. We could communicate silently with each other, sharing joys and sorrows, and dispelling loneliness and grief. When there was a drought, the Bodhi would ask me for water. When there was a flood, the Bodhi would issue a warning, allowing me to take my husband and son to the mountains in advance. We guarded the Holy Maiden’s temple and spent year after year together. We weren’t family, but we were closer than family.”
“One year, famine struck, and everyone in the village packed their bags and fled. But I couldn’t bear to leave Bodhi and stubbornly stayed behind. When I was starving, I hugged the trunk and murmured, ‘if only you could bear fruit for us to eat.’”
“It understood just from that one sentence, and then it swayed its branches and leaves, making a rustling sound, as if responding to me.”
At this point, a faint smile of happiness appeared on Duan Xiaoyun’s face, which was covered in blood and tears, “I fainted from hunger while holding my son. When my husband shook me awake, what I saw was three apples growing on the tree. Can you imagine? A Bodhi tree actually borne apples. Such a scene was simply a miracle in the era of famine.”
“Our family of three was overjoyed, but instead of picking the apples right away, we knelt down in front of the statue of the Holy Maiden and kowtowed three times to her.”
“I kowtowed until my forehead bled, and I was truly grateful to you.” Duan Xiaoyun suddenly leaned close to Lin Nianci’s face and said in an almost frantic tone, “How could I have known that this absurd wish would not open the gates of heaven, but rather pave the way to hell? Because human desires are endless! Once we eat an apple, we want to eat meat. So I stood under the tree and said to Bodhi——Son, Mother wants to eat meat.”
“Bodhi understood, and the next morning, many fleshy fruits appeared. Do you know what fleshy fruits are? They look like a fruit on the outside, but when you crack open the hard shell, it’s all flesh inside! The three of us threw the fruits into the fire and had a delicious roasted meat meal.”
Upon hearing this, while others remained silent, Abbot Changjing lowered his head and murmured a Buddhist prayer with a mixture of helplessness and sorrow. How could a tree possibly produce a fleshy fruit? Every cause has its effect, the origin of that fleshy fruit is likely far from simple!
Sure enough, Duan Xiaoyun chuckled for a while, then her expression turned cold, and she said sadly, “But later I discovered that those fleshy fruits were actually transformed from birds that landed on the Bodhi tree. In order to feed me, the Bodhi tree actually committed murder. It was originally a sacred tree, with the potential to ascend and become a Buddha, but because of my desire, it stepped into the abyss. But at the time, I didn’t realize that the abyss was so close to us.”
“I thought, what’s wrong with a few birds? If they die, they die, it doesn’t matter. So I continued to ask Bodhi for meat, and Bodhi asked me for water. It gave me fruit, and I watered it, which was only right. But the problem was, there had been a severe drought for a year, and everyone in the village had left because of famine. The wells had dried up, so where was I supposed to find water?”
At this point, Duan Xiaoyun touched the blood on her cheek with her fingertip and laughed like a malevolent ghost, “Holy Maiden, guess what? We came up with an even better way. The three of us started taking turns watering that Bodhi tree with our blood. We pushed it, which was originally sacred, step by step, into the depth of the abyss. It started to get used to the taste of blood and refused to drink water. We could only keep cutting our wrists and bleeding it out.”
“The constant bleeding was unbearable. Fortunately, there was a famine at the time, and refugees often passed through the village. The three of us decided to target them. After all, they were all refugees who had fled from elsewhere. Even if they died, who would know?”
Upon hearing this, everyone had an expression of sudden realization.
So this is how the Bodhi tree, which could have become a god or a sage, degenerated into a demon requiring offerings of human blood, flesh, and souls. To be truly lost is to struggle endlessly in the sea of desire, drifting further and further from the shore, for the ocean of desire is inherently boundless……
“But desire is endless!” Duan Xiaoyun sighed, her tears of blood dried and turned into mottled stains.
“With fruit and meat, our family of three survived the three-year drought peacefully. Suddenly one day, my husband said to me, ‘wife, do you think that sacred tree can bear fruit that prolongs life?‘ He hadn’t mentioned it before, and I had never thought about it, but once he brought it up, the idea took root in my mind. So one day, I said to it, ‘son, can you bear fruit that will prolong my life?‘ It rustled its leaves as if it had agreed.”
“My husband and I were overjoyed. That very night, we cut our wrists and let it bleed three bowls of blood. The famine was over, and the refugees had disappeared. We could no longer kill people as recklessly as before. It was so utterly starved that as it drank the blood, it actually thrust its roots out from beneath the earth, sweeping the blood-drenched soil toward itself like a broom. It could actually move on its own now!”
“This discovery did not alarm me at all, on the contrary, it made me overjoyed. I thought it was because of its improved cultivation, so the next day, my husband and I happily went to its tree to wait for the longevity fruit, and we did find two dark blue fruits that emitted a strange fragrance.”
As she recalled this part, Duan Xiaoyun covered her mouth and made a nauseating sound, “We picked the fruit and ate it eagerly, only to realize after we finished that there were only two fruits today, not three. How could Bodhi forget its XiongDi? In the past, whenever it had something good, it would prepare at least three portions. It would never forget my son.”
“After eating the fruit, my husband and I indeed became younger and stronger. Only then did we begin to look for our son, searching around the house, up and down the mountain, for a whole day and night. However, after searching everywhere, our son was nowhere to be found.”
Duan Xiaoyun suddenly stared straight at Lin Nianci, chuckled like a lunatic, flashing two rows of bone-white teeth, “And then guess what? Three days later, when we were feeding Bodhi, its roots burrowed out of the soil to feast on blood, and brought out my son’s longevity lock with them.”
“I was struck dumb, frozen on the spot, and then I started frantically digging at its roots, pulling out my son’s body. He was covered in roots, every drop of blood in his body had been drained, and his mouth was still open, as if he was calling for his mother. I cried until I was almost blind, but my son would never come back. I was so angry, I picked up an axe to chop down the tree, but my husband wouldn’t let me. He said it was a money tree and couldn’t be cut down. He said that even if my son died, I could have another one, so why was I crying?”
“He could have many sons, but for me, my Xiaobao was my lifeline! I want my Xiaobao, I don’t want any money tree!” Duan Xiaoyun’s eyes began to shed tears of blood again, and her sobs were as annoying as needles.
Abbot Changjing had long anticipated this outcome, and couldn’t help but silently recite a passage from the Sutra of Salvation for the Dead. The so-called longevity fruit, in the end, was nothing more than exchanging life for life. There is no tree without roots in this world, so how can there be a fruit without a cause?
Xuan Chengzi closed his crimson eyes, unable to bear the sight.
Lin Nianci was stunned, her still-developing features contorted in shock and helplessness. She truly never imagined that her casual action back then would lead to such a tragedy.
But Duan Xiaoyun’s story was far from over. She gave a bitter laugh and continued, “I cried, I made a scene, I went crazy, but in the end I couldn’t resist my husband’s greed and didn’t cut down the Bodhi tree. Later, I consulted several eminent monks and learned that there is no such thing as a longevity fruit in the world. There is only life for life, blood for blood. If my husband and I want to live forever, we must exchange the lives of our blood kins. This is the constant way of heaven and cannot be changed.”
Fan Jialuo closed his eyes, knowing that the deepest abyss, the darkest darkness, was reaching out to Duan Xiaoyun at this very moment.
Duan Xiaoyun’s tone was indeed filled with deep regret as she choked up, saying, “If only we could have stopped back then! But some things, once done once, become especially easy the second and third time. Less than half a month after Xiaobao died, my husband said to me that if we could keep taking the longevity fruit, wouldn’t we, as husband and wife, live as long as heaven? I strongly resisted this idea, but he pushed me into the room without saying a word, wanting to have a second child with me immediately. I knew he couldn’t wait any longer.”
“So we had our second child, and right after the umbilical cord was cut, we gave him to Bodhi in exchange for two fruits, then came the third child. You know, once the floodgates of desire are opened, it’s like a dam bursting. My husband started to complain that my childbirth was taking too long, and he paid someone outside to help him have a child. That was his blood kin, and the fruit could only be consumed by him, it was useless to me. He became younger and younger, and when we stood together, we looked like two different generations.”
“My heart slowly grew cold, then slowly hardened. Later, he complained that other women were still too slow at giving birth, so he asked me to ask Bodhi if it was possible to grow a fruit that would allow one to give birth immediately after eating it. Bodhi told me through telepathy that it was possible, but only if it had to absorb the flesh and blood of another infant. A fertility fruit would inevitably require the life of a child to be exchanged.”
Upon hearing this, Fan Jialuo nodded slightly, understanding the secret behind Su Fengxi’s having given birth to over a hundred children in just a few months. It turned out to be the Fertility Fruit.
“I initially refused, but my husband readily agreed. He found an infant somewhere, smashed it to death beneath the Bodhi tree. The next day, a fertility fruit grew. He offered it to me, but the moment I picked it up, I vomited violently. When I saw my husband’s furious face, he suddenly seemed like a complete stranger. In my dazed state, I had this question, are we, husband and wife, now human or monsters?”
“My husband ran away with the fruit, and the next day he brought back an infant, smashed it and offered it to Bodhi, in exchange for a longevity fruit. A few days later, he bought an infant from outside, smashed it and exchanged it for a fertility fruit, and the next day he brought back another infant, in exchange for a longevity fruit. In this way, he kept exchanging and killing, and the soil under the tree began to smell foul, which was the fermentation of the bones of countless babies.”
“I watched coldly as he grew madder and more cold-blooded each day, so when he was away from home, I asked Bodhi, ‘if I offer you my husband, what kind of fruit can I exchange for?’ It told me telepathically that I could exchange him for a Youth Fruit, which would keep me young for three years. So I said, ‘let’s exchange.’”
At this point, Duan Xiaoyun smiled, her eyes narrowing, “So, when my husband returned cradling yet another infant, preparing to smash it to death beneath the tree, the roots pierced straight through his body. He was transformed into a Youth Fruit. I gave the child to a kind person to adopt, crushed the fruit, and prepared to burn myself and Bodhi together. But then the war broke out. In an era where fields were strewn with the bodies of the slaughtered, humans ate humans, animals ate humans, and trees ate humans. Just to stay alive, I gradually learned to eat humans too. By the time I realized that the old era had ended and the new era had arrived, Bodhi was already very powerful and could find its own food. I became its broker, helping it sell those magical fruits and finding puppets for it to walk among humans.”
“Youth Fruit, Longevity Fruit, Fertility Fruit, Potential Fruit——the effects of these fruits are insane, and I obtained everything from the powerful and wealthy who bought them. I have nothing to worry about, yet I miss Xiaobao more and more each day. One day, the Bodhi tree discovered Teacher Fan’s existence and offered me a deal I could never refuse. It asked me to take Teacher Fan to its forest to be devoured, and in return, it would revive Xiaobao for me.”
At this point, Duan Xiaoyun let out a long sigh.
The rest of the story is well-known. Xiaobao failed to revive, and the tree was destroyed by Fan Jialuo instead. When Duan Xiaoyun saw the branches collapse from above, creating a large hole that let in a ray of sunlight, she didn’t feel disappointed, instead, two lines of tears filled with joy streamed down her face.
She knew that she had finally been freed from this endless hell.
If it weren’t for curiosity, wanting to visit Teacher Fan’s home, she would never have known that she, her husband, and their son should have died long ago from that plague. If they had died then, they would still be a happy family of three, and would never have been condemned to hell.
Lin Nianci saved them in her quest to become a god, but in doing so, she also planted the seeds of evil in their hearts. Looking back now, how could a tree possess such evil? If it hadn’t been influenced by humans, Bodhi would never have become what it was later.
It was originally a sacred object illuminated by the Buddha’s light, a pure land cleansed of all worldly impurities, a bright platform untouched by dust, a radiant light, and a tree of enlightenment where all phenomena are void.
Duan Xiaoyun covered her face, sincerely repenting, “I destroyed Bodhi, I’m so sorry.” Then, her body transformed into sharp, cone-shaped vines, piercing towards the stunned Lin Nianci, roaring, “And you destroyed me! You are a demon, a monster, the most filthy thing in the world!”
Lin Nianci covered her head and face, instinctively crying out, “Shifu, save me!”
Without a second thought, Xuan Chengzi swung his sword, cleaving Duan Xiaoyun in two and averting the crisis.
Lin Nianci called out ‘Shifu’ mournfully, and her uneasy heart finally calmed down. Because she now knew for certain that no matter how big a mistake she made, her master would always protect her, without exception, from childhood to adulthood.
Xuan Chengzi stared at his sword in astonishment, completely bewildered. In that instant, he suddenly realized that his body seemed not to belong to him, but rather to Lin Nianci.
Fan Jialuo gathered his five fingers together and took the jade pendant inside Duan Xiaoyun’s body into his palm. He shook his head and sneered, “Shifu is still the same as ever. He only knows how to protect his own and cannot distinguish right from wrong. Duan Xiaoyun’s story is over, but Lin Nianci’s story is not over yet. Her sins are far more than just that one world-destroying tree.”
“What?! A single world-destroying tree wasn’t enough for her to wreak havoc with?!” Finally, a Taoist cultivator, unable to bear watching or listening any longer, blurted out.
“What is one world-destroying tree? To longevity, to become a god, she even dared to slay dragon veins.” Fan Jialuo said, enunciating each word clearly.
Lin Nianci, whose teeth and tongue had finally grown in, let out a sharp scream, “Shidi, stop talking!”
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