Chapter 344 - Where Are You, Senior Apprentice-Brother Chen?

Within a flash of a thunder, Shen Lian had passed the south sea of misery and headed towards Xi Huang.

Although he successfully broke Daoist Liuqing's Four Symbols Formation, he was not too delighted about it. He felt that his Dao was too shallow and needed to use tricks to overcome the formation. Such means were not the way of the proper Dao and one should never be obsessed with that feeling or else he would regret it in the future.

Shen Lian was fully aware of this principle and could only remind himself to stay on track. Nobody knows what would happen in the future and he could not guarantee his loyalty towards Dao.

Everyone knew the Xuan philosophy of Dao but even celestials and Buddha would not say that they could fully apply the knowledge into practice.

There was no point in overthinking it and Shen Lian chose not to be over-fixated to the idea. By evening, he finally arrived at the Temple of Killings.

He looked up at the Temple of Killings and felt uneasy as if the three Chinese characters of the temple's name was covered in blood.

He stared at the temple's name and it felt as if the characters came to life like butterflies with their wings spread out. Hints of a murderous aura charged towards him like the breeze.

Suddenly, an image of a bloodbath gently appeared in his mind.

A rash of flame was ignited in his eyes and leaped out from his pupils to set the bloodbath ablaze and turned the illusion into ashes.

Back to reality, the three characters of the 'Temple of Killing' looked brand new but as a breeze blew past, it turned into dust, swept together with the wind, while a small fraction of dust landed on Shen Lian's fingertips. He walked into the temple slowly with a solemn expression and saw the disciples were all frozen in motion. Some were sitting, some were lying, and while were holding on to the incantation but there were no fluctuations of mana.

Their eyes were wide open but there was no spirit within them. The only thing that was left behind was an empty shell.

In fact, it seems as though they did not realize that they were already dead.

The spider that was building its web at the courtyard was dead; the colony of ants that was moving the body of a dead fly, too, was motionless.

A cicada that was drinking the delicious tree sap was as stiff as a post and showed no signs of vitality.

Shen Lian could not find any living beings in the Temple of Killing. It seemed like these souls were killed by a dash of murderous aura at the same time.

What a terrifying killing vibes that could massacre the Temple of Killing in a split second.

Buddha said that a bowl of pure water contained forty-eight thousand worms. Similarly, although the Temple of Killing was only an inch of land, it housed numerous living beings under its roof. The killing vibes were so micro fine that it actually killed every single being without them noticing. It was very petrifying and spine-chilling.

Shen Lian stood outside of Chen Jianmei's cultivation room. He opened the door and the room was empty with no signs of struggle or fight.

He scanned the room with his divine thoughts but failed to find any traces that could be used to determine Chen Jianmei's whereabouts.

An ancient coin appeared on Shen Lian's fingertips that was hiding under his Dao robe. The head of the coin had the word 'Emperor', while the tail of the coin wrote, 'sky full of stars'.

Shen Lian flipped the coin at his fingertips to seek for a divine reading. The reading was so chaotic, it was beyond measure.

It felt like at a certain point of time, Chen Jianmei has disappeared from the world. The feeling was like a dream that disappeared after waking up.

The coin was still spinning and Shen Lian did not give up. But after a while, a crisp sound could be heard as the coin split into half to reveal traces of rust. The coin has lost its power and turned into an ordinary object.

The coin was stained with traces of time and was an efficacious tool for divine reading.

But it failed to read any traces of the incident earlier and was destroyed by a shapeless force.

More importantly, Shen Lian did not sense anything before leaving the temple earlier the day.

He had no idea at all if Chen Jianmei was alive or dead, or his whereabouts.

The disciples who were alive and kicking earlier the day were now ice cold corpse. This was the fragility of life.

Shen Lian turned his body and noticed Fang Yanying.

There was confusion, panic, and sadness in her eyes. She looked at Shen Lian and started coughing.

She coughed up blood, staining the mustard greens in her basket red.

The blood was sprinkled on the fresh and crispy mustard greens. But at the same time, the mustard greens started to wilt at a speed that can be observed with the n.a.k.e.d eye.

Shen Lian stepped in front of Fang Yanying and dripped a crystal clear water droplet on her lips. The droplet rippled in her body to rejuvenate the weak vitality in her.

The killing vibes in the temple had yet fully dispersed. Shen Lian was not affected by it was a different story for Fang Yanying.

Obviously, she just got back from plucking the mustard greens to see such a frightening scene.

At the same time, the killing vibes attacked her body.

If Shen Lian did not break off the meaning of Dharma in the characters of the 'Temple of Killing', Fang Yanying could have been dead by the time she arrived at the gates of the temple.

Fang Yanying passed out in Shen Lian's arms. He sighed as he covered the girl with a thin layer of five colored films of light. He carried her into the cultivation room and placed her gently on the stone couch. He expected some killing vibes to linger in the cultivation room but there was nothing odd with the cultivation room.

It was as if an invisible force has prevented the killing vibes from entering the room.

Shen Lian was genuinely surprised. The spell cast on the Temple of Killing was very similar to the way of Dao of hid the living among the dead, and Chen Jianmei's cultivation room was where the vitality was at.

There were more crystal clear droplets on his hands. It was the Sanguang Holy Water.

Shen Lian drips it to the void and gave it a blow, it generated a light breeze. The holy water started to rise, the sound of water gushing could be heard.

The breeze did not stop and the water rose continuously.

It was like a fountain spring that was never depleted.

It grew gradually with the breeze.

By the next day, the courtyard was as clear as a pond of water.

The water started picking up the color of blood but strangely it had no bloody smell. It started with light red, followed by deep red and finally thick blood red. The bloody water then condensed in the centre to form a blood coloured water droplet as big as the size of a green bean.

The blood colored water droplet landed on the Shen Lian's palm. Shen Lian started reciting a spell that sounded like the sound of thunder. Green colored words of spell floated onto the blood droplet and covered it with a green colored halo to form a blood green bead of the size of a soy bean.

Shen Lian kept the bead in his sleeves and walked out of the cultivation room. The Temple of Killing had been cleansed and the deceased disciples were buried beneath the earth with their names carved on a stone tablet respectively. There was a kind of ghostly yet enchanting atmosphere surrounding the temple. Shen Lian put on the lunar corona as his thoughts roamed to somewhere far far away.

He looked up to the moon and thought to himself, "Senior Apprentice-Brother Chen, where on earth are you?".