Chapter 3: Buddha Ancestor’s Sarira
Li Weiyi tightly gripped the Yellow Dragon Sword in his hand, looking outside through the cabin window full of rifts.
The boundary between the horizon and the ice and snow had become blurred.
Only occasional flashes of lightning could tear open rifts in the snowstorm clouds, briefly illuminating this chaos.
Thunder roared, wind howled.
Snowflakes like ice blades frantically struck the ship hull, resembling dense gunfire.
That bear-like creature had disappeared, impossible to search for.
“University student, no need to be so tense! No matter how strong that bear-like creature is, in this harsh weather, it’s as fragile as we are. Facing such violent snowstorm, it must have already hidden back in its lair.”
Xie Jin was the cousin of Second Mate Xie Tianshu. Although he was also half a connected person, he had been selected through formal channels after all, so he naturally believed it was due to his own strength. Therefore, he never considered himself and Li Weiyi to be the same kind of people, and he thought very highly of himself.
Of course, even if he looked down on this green university student, he wouldn’t target him everywhere like this, appearing utterly graceless. The main reason was that Xie Tianshu had long instructed him on this matter, which involved the overt and covert struggles between the First Mate and the Second Mate.
Li Weiyi held the opposite view but didn’t want to argue with Xie Jin, responding with silence.
He continued to vigilantly patrol outside the window.
“Da! Da! Da…”
A clear and cold female voice came from the direction of the stairs: “That bear-like creature is no longer a normal Earth lifeform. Bullets can’t even penetrate its bones—how could a mere snowstorm do anything to it?”
Cai Yutong walked down the stairs and appeared before the Security Team members.
She was a Chemistry Department female Doctor who had unexpectedly gone viral online due to her extremely high looks, studying at the nation’s top institution, Capital University.
The Security Team members all knew this great beauty was on the research vessel, but she was too reclusive. She spent most of her time in the laboratory, so many were seeing her in person for the first time.
Exactly the same as in the online videos, without excessive beautification.
Even, the real person had even more temperament.
“Cai Doctor, let me help you carry these. What are these?”
Xie Jin quickly stepped forward, his behavior very gentlemanly, but his fawning eagerness lowered the impression.
He extended both hands, wanting to take the box that Cai Yutong was holding tightly.
Cai Yutong didn’t let him touch it, saying in a tone that kept people at a distance: “Some concentrated acid sufficient to dissolve corpses and freshly made explosives—you’d better not touch them.”
Xie Jin retracted his extended hands warily and awkwardly, forcing a smile on his stiff face: “That’s great, as expected of a Chemistry Department Doctor. Knowledge is power.”
Cai Yutong held the box and walked to the window side where Li Weiyi was, saying: “I know you, the basketball specialty student from Capital University freshman year. What should I be called?”
“Li Weiyi.”
Li Weiyi hadn’t expected that she actually knew him.
“What I asked is, what should you call me?” Cai Yutong’s demeanor and tone were very aloof. Her figure was also tall, over 7 meters, with features so exquisite that she looked beautiful no matter how one saw her.
Li Weiyi gave an embarrassed smile: “Senior Student.”
“Give me a hand, lightly, steady.” Cai Yutong said.
Li Weiyi quickly leaned the Yellow Dragon Sword against the wall and carefully used both hands, together with Cai Yutong, to steadily place the box on the ground.
Between alumni, even if they had never known each other before, when meeting outside, there was always a special feeling and trust.
Li Weiyi had practiced martial arts since childhood, with physical fitness and reaction speed far surpassing ordinary people. The basketball special admission was just one way to add points. If he wanted, he could train another specialty in a few months.
Xie Jin returned to the group of Security Team members, always maintaining the smile on his face.
Seeing the Security Team members who had once flattered him now exchanging glances with strange looks in their eyes, Xie Jin felt somewhat ashamed and annoyed inside. The smile he had faked on his face could no longer hold. Looking again at the familiar and intimate way Li Weiyi and Cai Yutong interacted, he felt another kind of flavor in his heart.
If previously targeting Li Weiyi was Xie Tianshu’s intention.
At this moment, he truly felt some jealousy toward him!
Over there.
Cai Yutong opened the box and explained the usage methods and precautions for the items inside. Her gaze frequently collided with Li Weiyi’s at close range, her beautiful hair brushing against Li Weiyi’s face in the cold wind, accompanied by wisps of fragrance.
“Senior Student, are you giving me the entire box of stuff?” Li Weiyi asked.
Cai Yutong was not good at social niceties and countered: “I’m a scientific researcher. Do you want me to go fight that bear-like creature?”
“That’s not what I meant… I, I think the Security Team members can all learn the usage methods.” Li Weiyi said.
Cai Yutong looked toward Xie Jin and the others.
Xie Jin smiled: “Cai Doctor, your junior disciple here is a martial arts cultivation master. See that sword? In his heart, that sword is probably more useful than your stuff. He looks down on others.”
A Security Team member very close to Xie Jin chimed in: “I heard that cultivating traditional martial arts can produce internal energy and true qi. Little Li is the First Mate’s junior disciple brother and was specially recruited into the Security Team, so he must be such a person.”
Anyone could hear the provocation in their words.
By specifically pointing out that Li Weiyi was Zhao Meng’s junior disciple brother, they were telling Cai Yutong that the university student before her was unreliable, just a connected person.
Li Weiyi was very calm: “What internal energy or true qi? Cultivating traditional martial arts just strengthens the body and improves health—nothing that mysterious. Everyone should believe in science.”
He had started practicing martial arts at five years old, training through the three nine periods in winter and three fu in summer. Li Weiyi’s martial arts attainment was naturally extremely high.
But he only had greater strength, faster speed, and more proficient moves and techniques than ordinary people—nothing like internal energy or true qi.
When the old sect leader talked about the decline of the martial way, Li Weiyi had also asked.
The old sect leader sighed deeply, saying he was born at the wrong time. His physical body was already close to the critical point. If born in ancient times, he would definitely be able to cultivate some supernatural feats.
Li Weiyi then followed up: Why could one cultivate supernatural feats in ancient times, but not in this era? What was the so-called ancient times, how far back?
The old sect leader was cryptic, saying directly: “Myths have fallen, imprisoned endlessly.”
Though Li Weiyi didn’t understand, at that time he firmly planted the martial way ideal of “pursuing the supernatural.” Deeply cultivating the martial way, breaking through the mortal body, even if it meant going against the current era.
Young people always have that unyielding drive.
The more elders said it was difficult and impossible, the more he wanted to achieve it.
…
Xie Jin said: “Little Li, don’t be modest! We’re all our own people—no need to hide it. Show a couple moves. I don’t believe the upright First Mate would specially recruit a slacker. We’re very curious about internal energy and true qi—let us gain some knowledge?”
Xie Tianshu’s instruction to Xie Jin to target Li Weiyi had the fundamental purpose of undermining Zhao Meng’s prestige.
If Li Weiyi proved incompetent, a fraud, then Zhao Meng, who had specially recruited him into the Security Team, would plummet in the crew’s minds.
This wasn’t the first time Li Weiyi had been provoked. He wasn’t made of clay either, so he naturally had that youthful spirit of “I don’t offend others unless provoked, but if provoked, I won’t hold back.” He said: “Since Brother Jin insists so strongly, we can have a little spar.”
Cheers erupted in the boarding hall.
Even Cai Yutong, who was usually indifferent to everything, showed a bit of interest.
Xie Jin had waited for this opportunity for over a month, and it was in front of the great beauty Cai Yutong, so he was in a great mood and smiled gracefully: “Alright then, but let’s agree beforehand: we’ll stop at contact points, no harming the harmony.”
But in his heart, he had another idea.
Once they started fighting, what stopping at contact points?
In front of a great beauty, neither could admit defeat.
It would only end with one beating the other down, beating until submission.
The two briefly faced off.
Xie Jin closed the distance, then let out a low shout and launched a preemptive attack.
Hands forming claws.
As he sidestepped left, his right leg thrust a knee strike.
A Security Team member exclaimed: “Black Dragon Eighteen Forms.”
This was a fist technique banned by the military for being too vicious.
The move Xie Jin opened with was precisely the Azure Dragon Probing Claw from the Black Dragon Eighteen Forms, executed with perfect timing—clearly the result of years of hard practice. This was no intention of stopping at contact points; he was clearly preparing to at least dislocate one of Li Weiyi’s arms.
A muffled “bang.”
In the flash of movement, before the onlookers could see what happened, Xie Jin had already fallen straight sideways.
Only Li Weiyi’s right hand remained in a diagonal chopping palm strike in mid-air.
Li Weiyi didn’t know any Black Dragon Eighteen Forms. He only knew that if speed was fast enough and strength great enough, the opponent’s any move was just flashy nonsense.
Moreover, no one knew when that bear-like creature would attack the research vessel again, so he had to end it quickly and didn’t want to delay life-and-death matters due to Xie Jin’s nonsense.
The Security Team members all stood up, exchanging looks, their hearts greatly shaken.
Even if Xie Jin lost due to underestimating, his physical fitness was there. Being knocked unable to stand by Li Weiyi’s single diagonal chopping palm—this strike’s speed and power truly shocked them.
Cai Yutong was standing a few meters behind Li Weiyi near the window. When Xie Jin attacked earlier, even she felt a oncoming sense of danger and pressure.
But how did he go down instantly?
“All show, no substance?”
She had only thought this in her mind, but unconsciously, the words slipped out like self-mutter.
Xie Jin’s neck pained like a cramp, head dizzy and ears ringing. When he finally recovered hearing, he heard Cai Yutong’s words and was so angry he nearly died on the spot.
“Dong! Dong! Dong…”
Running footsteps came from the stairs.
That short trainee who liked reciting poetry and telling mythological stories was extremely excited and rushed into the boarding hall, saying: “I got it, I got it—that bear-like creature is the legendary Ghost Bear Emperor. It’s said to be the Polar Bear King that absorbed auroras and large amounts of rotten corpses, mutated, and gained ghostly spiritual intelligence.”
Silence.
Long silence.
The short trainee smiled awkwardly, looking at Xie Jin who had been helped to the corner, and exclaimed: “What are you doing? Have you already been attacked?”
Another silence.
“Leave this to you all. I’m heading back to the laboratory first.”
“Boom!”
Cai Yutong had just reached the stairwell when a familiar heavy landing sound rang from the deck outside the cabin door, shaking the ground of the boarding hall violently.
Everyone’s faces changed in shock as they grabbed their weapons.
It was here!
…
The leadership of the Long Ji Hao took the elevator down to the bottom cabin.
Director Yang walked while explaining: “The Gando Temple Sarira Pagoda underground palace was sealed since the Song Dynasty and only opened in 1960, a thousand years later. The archaeological team packed the excavated rectangular stone coffin entirely and transported it back to the laboratory.”
“Inside the stone coffin was a small silver coffin. Opening the silver coffin revealed an even smaller gold coffin.”
“Only upon opening the gold coffin did the Buddha’s sarira, preserved in a crystal container, appear. Everyone, please come in!”
Why suddenly mention the Buddha’s sarira?
The 705 laboratory gate opened, and the group filed in with deeper puzzlement.
In the laboratory were various precision instruments. At the central position on the table was precisely the crystal container holding the Buddha’s sarira.
Inside the container, the Buddha’s sarira was about the size of a soybean, pale red.
Director Yang stood beside the sarira, smiling as he asked: “Everyone is erudite—what do you think of the microscopic world?”
Seeing the confused looks, Director Yang threw out the first brick: “At the microscopic scale, many classical physical laws no longer apply, replaced by quantum mechanics rules like quantum entanglement, quantum superposition, tunneling effect, etc.”
“There’s a theory that for humanity to leave Earth and the solar system, it’s not about going out through traditional interstellar space, but exploring the microscopic world. Just like how we use phones to transmit sound thousands of miles away—not by shouting louder, but by information transmission at the microscopic level.”
“The space wormholes we’ve always failed to find might not be rare in the microscopic world.”
“In short, the strangeness and mystery of the microscopic world will surely challenge our traditional cognition.”
“Some say humanity knows only five percent of the ocean—how much do we know of the microscopic world? One billionth? I say not even one in ten billion.”
The people present stared at him coldly, like looking at an academic heretic.
Director Yang knew more talk was useless, so he pointed to the high-magnification scanning tunneling microscope aimed at the Buddha’s sarira: “See for yourselves!”
“I’ll see what nonsense you’re babbling about.”
Professor Xu had tolerated him for a long time and was the first to step up, staring at the Buddha’s sarira under the microscope.
Moments later.
This nearly sixty-year-old professor, whose body was still robust, had his legs trembling, body sliding down, collapsing to the ground. His eyes were full of shock and confusion, then he muttered words incomprehensible to the others.
Zhao Meng was extremely curious inside. Professor Xu, who could calmly face even monsters like the bear-like creature and Nine Infants, how was he scared like this?
Just one sarira!
What did he see?
After helping Professor Xu up, Zhao Meng was the second to the microscope.
Inside the crystal container, the Buddha’s sarira was only bean-sized, but under the microscope.
It was like a vast pale red planet, with towering rugged mountain ranges, dried ancient riverbeds, desolate and vast, spectacular and shocking to the heart.
Like standing in space, overlooking the endless azure of Mars.
A tiny sarira actually hid another heaven and earth.
This was too unbelievable!
No…
Something so microscopic—what should be seen under the microscope is the sarira’s crystal structure.
Why like this?
Suddenly.
Zhao Meng felt suffocated, seeing an even more incredulous sight on the Buddha’s sarira.
At the ends of ancient riverbeds were vast deep red dried seas, with vibrant seabeds like those dyed in blood.
An ancient and strangely shaped bronze ship was quietly parked at the shore of the dried sea, from who-knows-where, heading who-knows-where.
It had been silent for too many years; even the ship hull was rust-spotted, only the mast sailcloth still clearly discernible.
Director Yang standing beside adjusted the microscope magnification higher.
Zhao Meng immediately saw more clearly, scalp involuntarily numbing.
In the view, the bronze ship became immensely huge. The deck was piled with corpses and bones: white bones humans in armor, phoenix corpses and python remains, and an endless tomb sea stele forest.
The phoenix corpse and python remains were especially massive.
One feather of the phoenix corpse was dozens of times larger than those white bones humans in armor. It lay near the ship tower on the deck, one wing covering the stele forest, the other draped over the nine-story ship tower.
Unsure if it was a visual error, Zhao Meng clearly saw the phoenix corpse’s feathers emitting faint glow.
The microscope magnification was limited; too many things unclear.
But one could imagine, if there was a chance to board this grand and mysterious giant ship, the scenes seen would be even more shocking, perhaps opening the door to a fantastical and eerie world.
Giant ship…
No.
It was clearly only 460 nanometers long, like a speck of dust on the Buddha’s sarira.
Without a microscope, it was like Earth’s countless dust specks, unnoticed.
…
New book seedling, help Old Fish add a collection, beg for a monthly ticket.
