KyokaSuigetsu
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Chapter 70: The Infusion of Buddhist Doctrine
🕑 Added 2025-05-01 12:04:23 +0000 UTC[The process of physical almsgiving is arduous, but its results are joyous. That these female devotees could comprehend the profundity of Buddhist teachings is truly a great blessing.]
[This session of doctrinal infusion proved highly effective, prompting you to swiftly prepare for another grand Buddhist assembly.]
[This time, you intend to host an "Unhindered Assembly." The term "unhindered" signifies the removal of all barriers. Regardless of poverty or wealth, social status, monastic or lay background, wisdom or folly, virtue or vice—all are treated equally. A grand convocation where everyone may speak freely and share their perspectives.]
[Of course, the only participants in this assembly are you and your retinue of "celestial maidens."]
[To better apprehend the subtleties of Buddhist doctrine and achieve a state of spiritual-physical unity with the "celestial maidens,"]
[You decree that all participants return to their most primal state.]
[As the assembly commences, you tread upon the bare forms of the "celestial maidens," the soles of your feet savoring skins that are warm, smooth, tender, or lustrous, as you ascend the lectern to expound the sutras.]
[While you chant the scriptures, celestial flowers rain from the heavens and golden lotuses emerge from the earth. The "celestial maidens" below the platform become intoxicated with rapture, as though collectively ascending to the Pure Land.]
[This was undoubtedly a more perfect assembly, with even more "celestial maidens" receiving your enlightenment and grasping the essence of Buddhist teachings.]
[Through your ceaseless sutra lectures and doctrinal infusion (brainwashing), supplemented by purification via the Vajra Pestle to cleanse their impurities, the "celestial maidens" developed unwavering loyalty toward you.]
[How extreme was their devotion? If ordered to lick your toes, they wouldn't dare touch your sandals. Commanded to slaughter their families, they'd even scramble the yolks of every egg in their households. Told to commit suicide, they wouldn't hesitate for a heartbeat.]
[Naturally, you bestowed great benefits upon these loyal "celestial maidens." While ordinary Xianzhou natives succumb to Mara at 900 years, those who received your doctrinal infusion could live 3,000-4,000 years without Mara's onset.]
[Though your cultivation of the Blissful Dharma was primarily for pleasure, the scriptures you propagated were genuinely sublime.]
[These sutras were compiled during your collaboration with the future Aeon Yaoshi—when they were still an ascetic monk—forming a timeless masterpiece.]
[Even daily recitation alone could delay Mara's onset by centuries.]
[Those who practiced under your guidance, immersed in the sutras while supplemented with specially formulated incense and elixirs, could easily live 2,000-3,000 years.]
[Of course, these effects required generations to manifest—such as observing the first case of Mara's delayed onset.]
[By the time Xianzhou society realized that joining the Yaoshi Sect genuinely delayed Mara, your faction would reach its zenith, becoming an unshakable institution—even should the Archeron Aeon ascend.]
[The nobles and converts you bewitched perceived no wrongdoing, instead competing for the honor of having their female relatives selected as "celestial maidens."]
[Meanwhile, the lower-class "Brown-Robes" barred from your lectures secretly cursed you as a debauched and heretical monk.]
[You cared nothing for others' opinions, persisting in your ways.]
[Thus five centuries passed. Xianzhou's population ballooned until resources grew critically scarce, exacerbating tensions between nobles and Brown-Robes.]
[The entrenched aristocracy, having lived too long, grew increasingly callous. Despite shortages, they squandered resources, oppressing Brown-Robes to sustain their decadent lifestyles.]
[Here emerged the first flaws of Yaoshi's blessing: longevity demanded massive energy and material consumption.]
[With unchecked population growth, this created a vicious cycle. Only two solutions remained: emulate most Abundance-worshippers by expanding outward through plunder, or reduce numbers via civil war.]
[For reasons unknown, Xianzhou rejected external expansion.]
[The Yaoshi Sect remained untouched by the class conflict.]
[Under your governance, the sect avoided material excess, with temples frequently distributing aid to the impoverished.]
[Moreover, daily sutra practice minimized the Abundance's side effects, drastically reducing followers' resource needs.]
[Though Brown-Robe revolts were repeatedly quelled by Yaoshi Sect mediation, your motives were hardly benevolent.]
[A compressed spring rebounds with greater force.]
[Another century passed until class tensions became irreconcilable.]
[In Star Calendar 3200, the Brown-Robe leader issued a manifesto across all Xianzhou arks, condemning the aristocracy: "While you wallow in luxury, the people starve! The realm has suffered under your tyranny too long!" He called upon all heroes to cleanse the corruption and restore justice.]
[The manifesto's resonance proved the truth of its words—Xianzhou had indeed endured enough.]
[Some nobles already displayed Mara symptoms, yet perversely viewed these as marks of privilege.]
[Such delusions ignited powder kegs. Across all eight arks, Brown-Robes took up arms against aristocratic enclaves.]
[Many nobles, whether addled or fattened into stupor, ignored the uprising until rebels stormed their mansions with blades at their throats.]
[The Fratricidal War erupted, setting every ark aflame.]
[At its climax, the Yuqiong Ark nearly decelerated into a red giant from battle damage.]
[Salvation came from your Yaoshi Sect's lucid followers, whose coordinated efforts saved the drifting ark.]
[Then catastrophe compounded—during the war, the automaton legions rebelled under their leader Zhige, triggering the Second Automaton Rebellion.]
[Your diplomacy brokered a temporary truce against the machines.]
[Facing automaton genocide, both factions reluctantly united.]
[After quelling the rebellion, Xianzhou's population had halved—resolving all resource shortages.]
It's like a dozen brothers fighting over scraps when a madman charges in, hacking half of them to death. Now there's plenty to eat.
What supremely dark humor.
[With scarcity eliminated, Xianzhou entered recovery, initiating emigration policies to settle uninhabited worlds.]
