Chapter 67: The Heart of the Throne is Compassionate

The temple is at the edge of Chu Xun's reach. The steps of the temple are still protected by the boundary, but the temple itself is no longer covered by it.

Inside the temple hall, the lights are dim and dark.

A woman in red, bound and with her back to the crowd, is looking up at the idol on the table.

Beside her, Xiaoman stands with her eyes downcast, a young child in her hands.

Chu Xun lost his voice and said, " Chu Lan "

The boy was no other than Chu Xun's son, Chu Lan. Mo Ran's heart tightened as the taste of the half-loaf cake still seemed to be on his lips, and when he saw that the boy was being restrained, he tried to go forward but was stopped by Chu Wanning.

"Don't go."

"Why?"

Chu Wanning glanced at him and said softly, "They all died two hundred years ago. Now that this illusion has turned into reality, I fear you may be hurt."

"" Mo Ran then remembered that it was true that no matter what she did, a dead person was a dead person, and nothing could be changed.

The little boy cried out from outside the boundary, shouting indistinctly, "Abba, Abba, save me, Abba, save Chu Lan!"

Chu Xun's lips trembled slightly as he snapped at Xiaoman: "What are you doing? I have not treated you badly, let him go."

Xiaoman was oblivious, his face drooping as if he had heard nothing, but his hesitation was evident in the hands that gripped Chu Lan, a black mole on his left hand, the back of which was trembling with veins.

At that moment, the people who had taken refuge in the temple came after them, and when they saw the scene inside the temple, they were shocked and angry, and they whispered: "I'm sorry.

"That's the Duke's son."

"How did this happen?"

Xiaoman's knife fell, loosening the ropes of the woman in red. The woman slowly turned her head around and was extremely beautiful, as clear as a lotus flower, with a handsome neck, but her face was as pale as paper, but her lips were as red as blood.

The moment her face became visible, even Chu Xun, and some of the older people in the crowd behind her, froze in their tracks as the indistinct candlelight illuminated her face.

The woman's smile was tinged with a trace of sadness as she softly said, "Husband."

Mo Ran :""

Chu Wanning :""

This woman is none other than Chu Xun's late wife

With a twinkle in her eye, Madame Chu tried to take her son from Xiaoman's hand. Xiaoman refused at first, but Madame Chu, as a ghost, was stronger than him when she was free from her confinement and with a little force she took the child. Unfortunately, she had died of an epidemic before the baby was even a month old, so the little boy had never seen his mother's face before, and was still crying and screaming for his father to be saved by Chu Xun.

"Good boy, don't cry, Mummy will take you to find your father."

With her jade arms as slender as autumn reeds, Madame Chu picked up the child and slowly walked out of the temple door, along the rain-soaked stone steps, all the way to the Shangqing boundary, where she stood in front of Chu Xun, her brows seemingly happy and sad, seemingly sad and happy.

"Husband, it's been a long time, how have you you been?"

Chu Xun could not utter a word, his fingertips trembled uncontrollably, and his eyes grew red as he looked at the woman behind the boundary.

Mrs. Chu said softly, "Chu Lan, you are so old and so calm, and you are a little different from what I thought you would be. Let me take a good look at you."

As she spoke, she reached out her hand and pressed it against the boundary, but because of her ghostly form, she could not cross over, only looking silently at the people behind her through a barrier of flamboyant light flowing through her.

Chu Xun closes his eyes, but his eyelashes are moist.

He also raised his hand, and through the boundary, he pressed his palm against Madam Chu's, and opened his eyes again, and the two looked at each other in life and death as if it were yesterday.

Chu Xun choked out, "Madam"

The family has been separated from each other since many years ago, but the days they have spent together can be counted on their fingers.

"Have the begonias I planted that year by the yard come to life?"

Chu Xun smiled, but his eyes were teary: "They are all like pavilions now."

Mrs. Chu seemed pleased and said in a warm voice, "That's really good."

Chu Xun smiled as best he could and said, "Chu Lan loved that begonia tree the most and would always play under it in the spring. Every year at Ching Ming," he said, but he could no longer look happy, his forehead resting against the edge of the boundary, tears rolling down his face. Wan'er, Wan'er, did you see it every year?"

In the end, he choked up and broke down, his words sobbing with blood, and he was crying with pathos, no longer acting like a gentleman.

Mrs. Chu's eyes were also red, but as she was a ghost, she could not shed any tears, but her look was so sad that the spectators were saddened.

There was silence for a while, no one spoke again, all looked at the scene before them in silence, some were whimpering.

At that moment, however, a morose, cold voice came into the air.

"Of course she does know, but soon, she won't."

Mo Ran's face changed abruptly, "It's the Ghost King."

Chu Wanning was also gloomy: "Shameless villain, how dare you not show yourself"

The ghost king hissed and laughed, as if sharp nails were tearing at the bottom of a pot, and it was chilling to the ears.

"Lin Wan'er is already of my ghostly lineage, originally I was not willing to hurt her, but if you want to go against me and destroy one of my eyes, I will cut out your heart and liver and make you suffer more than me"

As the words fell, the ten or so ghosts in the temple spoke morosely, each reciting a spell.

"The mortal mind is dead, the former dust is extinguished"

Lady Chu's eyes suddenly opened wide and she said in a trembling voice, "Husband, Chu Lan, take Chu Lan "

"The mortal heart is dead, the old man is gone."

" Chu Lan, get to your father's."

Madam Chu pushed the child and tried to pass him through the boundary, but the little boy was stopped by the film like a ghost, and could not return.

Xiaoman stands in front of the temple railings, looking down on them from above, his face seemingly sad and pained, his otherwise handsome face almost distorted.

"It's useless. I put the Ghost Clan seal on him as the Ghost King instructed, and he is now the same as the ghosts and monsters, unable to enter the Shangqing boundary by half a step."

Behind them the mantra ebbs and flows like a tidal wave chanting Hong: "The mortal mind is dead, the clear consciousness is extinguished"

"Husband," Lady Chu was already panicked to the core, she wrapped her arms around the child in her arms and banged on the outside of the boundary, "Husband, you remove the boundary, you remove the boundary, let Chu Lan in, you protect him, you protect him I I'm about to I"

"The mortal mind is dead, and compassion is extinguished."

"Husband."

Mrs. Chu threw herself on her knees, her eyes wide open, unable to stop trembling, her face already had blood red spell marks gradually creeping up, "child Chu Lan you promised me to take care of him remove please remove husband"

Chu Xun's heart was already broken, and he raised his hand several times to perform the technique, only to drop it again.

Chu Lan cried outside, tilting his head back with tears on his face, holding out his little hand and crying, "Daddy, don't you want Chu Lan anymore? Daddy, hug Chu Lan, Daddy hug".

Madam Chu couldn't stop herself from wrapping her arms around him and kissing her child's cheek, as mother and son, one kneeling and the other crying, both begged Chu Xun to open the Shangqing boundary and let the child pass.

Someone in the crowd suddenly shouted, "Sir, you can't. If you remove the boundary, the remaining hundreds of Lin'an's citizens will all die.

"Yes, the boundary can't be removed," the desire to live made one after another of the clothiers kneel down and kowtow to Chu Xun, all of them wailing, "My lord, please, the boundary can't be removed, if it is removed everyone will die."

"Madam, please," some even knelt towards Madam Chu, "Madam, you are compassionate, you have a Bodhisattva heart, we will all be grateful for the rest of our lives, please, don't let the Duke remove the boundary, you are merciful, save the suffering, please"

In an instant, apart from the guards of the Imperial Guard and a very few people who did not kneel down and plead, the rest of the people cried out, their voices instantly overshadowing the pleas of Lady Chu and the young Duke outside the boundary.

Chu Xun is like standing on a sharp cone or being stabbed in the lungs with tens of thousands of sharp knives, the blades of which create rebellious thorns in the flesh and blood, smashing all the internal organs.

In front of him were his wife and children, and behind him were the lives of a hundred men.

He was in such torment that it was as if he had died, engulfed in flames, his bones turned to dust.

The chanting of the ghosts and monsters kept on but became more and more shrill.

"The mortal mind is dead, the seven emotions are extinguished."

"The mortal mind is dead, the six desires are extinguished."

The lines on Madame Chu's face grew, climbing from her pale neck all the way up and covering almost her entire face. It soaked into her eyes.

She seemed to have difficulty making a full sound in her throat, and only looked at her husband in despair, murmuring brokenly.

"If you were I would hate you you put Chu Lan I hate me"

The spell drenched her eyes and her soft body shuddered suddenly, as if in severe pain, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

"I hate"

There was an abrupt, mournful scream, but it trailed off into a beastly hiss

Lady Chu's eyes snapped open, her eyes were bloodshot, and four pupils emerged from her originally soft almond eyes, densely packed next to each other, squeezing out all the whites of her eyes.

"Wan Er"

Chu Xun was so grief-stricken that he forgot that the Shangqing boundary had to be cast with the caster standing within it, and wanted to go to his wife.

It was a young man from the Imperial Guard, still in the position of drawing a bow and shooting an arrow.

The young man, with his helmet hunting, said righteously towards Chu Xun: "My lord, wake up! You have taught us that those who have the Way are the first to live and the last to live.

An old woman next to the youth trembled and said, "You, you put down the bow, how can you hurt the Duke, everything, everything is the Duke's choice, the Duke is already benevolent and righteous, and how can you be ungrateful?"

But before the argument was over, a shriek was heard ahead.

Lady Chu had gone completely berserk. She had been holding her child so lovingly, but now she was like a wild animal, howling from the sky, her mouth salivating and her teeth growing abruptly.

Chu Lan, in her arms, was already mute with sobs, yet between broken and choked sobs, he cried out intermittently, " Mother ".

In response, Lady Chu's blood-red claws pierced his throat.

And there was no sound in heaven or earth.

Blood flowers were fluttering one by one.

It was as if that year, when the begonias were in bloom, Lady Chu, holding her newborn child, stood in front of the window casement watching the fragrant and gentle fragrance of the courtyard and the sweet red scattering.

The mother gently rocked her child in her arms, humming softly, "Red begonias, yellow begonias, once the wind blows, it's so lively. The children are in harmony in a faraway land, and we miss our father and mother."

Red Begonia Yellow Begonia

The hands that had caressed Chu Lan so lovingly in those days were now tearing at his head, his limbs, his flesh.

Once the wind blows how languidly.

The rain poured down and blood flowed as the mother ate the belly and intestines of her child.

Children harmonising with each other in the distance.

The eaves of the City God Temple pavilion are lofty, with a stately treasure and all-embracing compassion.

That year, when her child was born, her mother knelt down in front of the city pavilion, her long, warm, slender hands joined together, the bells rang, the birds scattered, the incense and candles scattered, and she bowed down long and hard, wishing her child a long life, a long life, and a peaceful life.

It's hard to miss Dad and Mum.

Flesh and blood were shattered, Chu Lan's heart ripped out and chewed greedily by Madame Chu, fresh blood snaking down the corners of her mouth.

"Chu Xun broke down and fell to his knees, clutching his head and banging his head against the ground as blood poured into him. He knelt in the rain, in the blood, in front of his wife and children, in front of the people of Lin'an, under the idols and in the mud.

He knelt in sin and in holiness.

Kneel in gratitude, kneel in hate.

He was hunched down to the dust, his soul all torn up and all obliterated.

The same sorrow for all the dust of the ages.

It was a long time before someone finally shuddered and vocalised.

"My Lord."

"My condolences, my lord."

"I will never forget your great kindness, my lord."

" Master Chu Da Yi, what a good man, what a good man"

Someone wrapped their arms around their child and covered the child's eyes to prevent him from seeing this hideous scene. Only now did they dare to let go of their hands and say to Chu Xun with a pale face, "My lord, you saved our lives, madam and the little lord, and surely they will be able to ascend to bliss"

Another spat, "Take your children and get out of here. Why don't you and your children ascend to bliss?"

The man then retreated timidly away.

It's just that these arguments are so far apart that Chu Xun feels like he has died. Listening to their voices, it was as if they were coming across an ocean of former dust.

The man in the rainstorm was covered in filth, a transparent film separating him from his wife and children, white bones and snot. As Mo Ran looked at the scene before him, he suddenly remembered that in his last life, when he killed innocent people, he had given birth to more than one Chu Xun, more than one Chu Lan, more than one Madam Chu.

He suddenly looked down at his hands.

For a moment, the trance saw a hand full of blood.

But a blink of an eye reveals that it is still cold, cold rain, dripping in the palm and converging into a stream.

He shivered slightly.

But the next moment, the palm of the hand was pulled back.

He woke up from a nightmare and turned his eyes to see his little brother looking at him with concern. The boy looked so much like the dead Chu Lan.

Mo Ran slowly knelt down, flush with him. It was as if a sinner was asking for forgiveness before his soul, and his eyes, stained with rain and tears, looked up at him.

Chu Wanning didn't say anything, but lifted a small, tender hand and stroked his head.

"It's all in the past." Chu Wanning said softly, "It's all in the past."

"Yeah." It was only after a long while that Mo Ran smiled sadly, lowered her eyes and murmured, "It's all in the past."

But even if it was all in the past. He did not kill Chu Lan, but many others like him died because of him.

The more Mo Ran thinks about it, the more frightened and distressed she becomes.

Why are you so ruthless? Why are you so bent on this?