1 Wukong, I'm Not Going To Be A Victorious Fighting Buddha Anymore!

"Sage Monk, you were originally my second disciple named Golden Cicada in your previous incarnation. Because you failed to listen to and slighted my teachings, your spirit was banished to the mortal realm and reborn in the Eastern Lands. Today, I am joyous that you have converted to Buddhism and practiced religious discipline, and also retrieved the scriptures while remaining faithful to the teachings. In this process, you have rendered great service in purifying demons and subduing fiends. For these meritorious deeds, I hereby confer upon you a grand promotion and appoint you as the Victorious Fighting Buddha."

Tang Luo was speechless.

Sun Wukong1 was also speechless.

Something seemed off. Yet, at the same time, it also seemed like nothing was.

'A dream?'

Tang Luo's sluggish mind started to function again. His eyelids felt incredibly heavy, so much so that he couldn't open his eyes.

In the instant where he woke up, there wasn't a single part of his body that didn't hurt terribly.

Tang Luo felt as though he had been thrown into a blender and churned a thousand times.

Like rain clouds gathering, his dispersed consciousness gradually came back to him amid the pain.

Tang Luo—male, typical transmigrant from Earth.

The person he transmigrated into—Xuanzang.

Not the historical Xuanzang2 but the Tang Seng3 from Journey To The West4 and the Tang Xuanzang of the saying, 'This poor monk hails from the Great Tang in the Eastern Lands'.

Tang Luo had been scared out of his wits in the beginning when he had first transmigrated.

Who was Tang Seng? He was the Golden Cicada in his previous incarnation and the disciple of Gautama5.

Surely he, a transmigrant, wouldn't be mistaken by the other party as an extraterrestrial demon or something similar and smacked to death in a single blow?

If it were possible, Tang Luo wanted to return to the secular world.

Unfortunately, things didn't develop around a person's—or at least, not Tang Luo's—will.

In the end, he had still ended up embarking on a journey to retrieve scriptures from the west.

And then… and then, he had succeeded!

In the Great Thunder Temple, Gautama had very kindly expressed that Tang Luo was undoubtedly the reincarnation of Golden Cicada, no problems whatsoever.

Fine, since Gautama had already put it like that, Tang Luo went along with it too and accepted his fate. After all, they weren't in the same league at all.

Speaking from a certain perspective, the other party could even openly take his life if he wanted. Was there even any need to feign civility with him?

Of course, he mustn't give up mid-way the diligent studying and hard training that he had persevered in all this time.

Tang Luo had never been one to leech off others in his entire life!

During the journey to the west, he hadn't even exceeded 80 times of shouting, "Wukong, save me."

And then, there wasn't anything more.

Tang Luo's memory stopped at one of his seclusion sessions.

Without any warning, everything in front of his eyes had turned black. The blow had come out of the blue.

He had only been in time to do one thing before falling into a coma.

At that point, of him regaining consciousness, Tang Luo hadn't the slightest idea as to what exactly was going on right now.

There were only two things he could be sure of.

Firstly, he was heavily injured, terribly so. It was much more serious than any other time he had gotten injured during his journey to the west.

Secondly, he had been buried alive!

There was no way he now could shout, "Wukong, save me!" The only thing he could do was to save himself. Digging it was, then!

Tang Luo had certainly been buried alive. However, the earth around him wasn't very firm. In fact, it was even mildly loose.

Tang Luo was at least a man who had undergone training before, after all. No matter how serious his injuries were, there was still some fight left in him.

It was right before dawn, the darkest moment of the day. In the sky, lightning flashed, and thunder boomed. Fierce winds and thunderstorms raged.

A hand suddenly reached out from beneath the muddy surface of the ground. All five fingers were spread out while facing the sky. A bolt of lightning flashed and lit up the pale hand. It was as if some kind of terrifying demon was about to emerge into the world.

Right on the heels of it, a bald head burrowed out of the ground!

"Feh!"

Tang Luo, who had successfully 'dug himself out', spat with great effort, expelling all the mud and earth in his nose and mouth.

Torrential rain pounded against his body. It did surprisingly mildly feel like he was being washed clean—even if the rain wasn't that clean either.

The robes on him were tattered and torn and were no longer able to shield his body. Drenched by the rain, they stuck to his body. Tang Luo tugged them right off him.

However, there was still a pair of trousers on him.

Tang Luo lifted his head, opened his mouth, and filled it with rainwater. He rinsed his mouth twice and managed to remove the earthy aftertaste in his mouth slightly.

After wiping his face, Tang Luo wholly disregarded the common warning to avoid taking shelter under a tree when it was raining and walked over to a tree nearby.

It was pitch-black all around. Tang Luo could roughly discern that he was in an unknown area of wilderness.

Apart from a pair of tattered and torn trousers, the only other foreign object on him was a tiny piece of jade shaped like a lotus that hung on his neck.

It wasn't shaped like one in full bloom. Rather, it was closed up and in a state between a bud and blossom. It was strung on a red string.

Tang Luo tugged off the jade lotus and placed it in his palm. Before long, the jade lotus began to give off an incredibly weak but warm glow. Except it didn't even sustain for half a second before it dissipated completely. It was considerably short-lasting.

"Has it all been expended?" muttered Tang Luo.

This object was known as the Jade Lotus of Virtuous Merit, a magic weapon that the Goddess of Mercy had given Tang Luo. It was capable of gathering the power of virtuous merits, and there were numerous amazing uses for it.

What exactly the so-called 'power of virtuous merits' was had always been a rather abstract and intangible concept.

It was somewhat similar to the burning of joss sticks and incense6, and the power of humans' wishes and willpower in doing good and whatnot, yet not exactly the same.

To put it in simpler and more straightforward terms, being kind and doing good deeds would lead to the power of virtuous merits gathering. This power could be used to treat injuries, save people, and so on.

During his journey to the west, Tang Luo had accumulated a sizable amount of virtuous merits.

However, there was zero power of virtuous merits in the Jade Lotus of Virtuous Merit right now.

Everything that he had accumulated over several years had been fully exhausted, and now, he was back to square one overnight.

This didn't come as much of a surprise to Tang Luo.

This wasn't the place where he was before he had gone into seclusion. This was a completely different place that was foreign to Tang Luo. Be it a catastrophic disaster or a shift in the space-time dimension—all of these went to prove that he had suffered serious trauma of a certain degree.

If not for him using the Jade Lotus of Virtuous Merit at the last moment and expending the power of virtuous merits he had accumulated over the years to protect himself, he definitely wouldn't just be seriously injured right now.

"Is anyone there?" After inspecting himself, Tang Luo cleared his throat and hollered, "Is anyone out there? I've retrieved the scriptures, my blood has flowed for the sake of the great teachings, and I've rendered meritorious service. I want to see Gautama! I want to see Gautama!"

This was a standard example of speech that slighted the great teachings.

Every time Tang Luo spoke like that in Vulture Peak7, one or two baldies would pop out of the crowd and stare at him sternly.

They were disciplinary monks—disciplinary monks who couldn't do a thing about Tang Luo at all.

Sorry, but the ex-Golden Cicada, second disciple of Gautama, and current Victorious Fighting Buddha was simply someone who could do as he pleased.

This time, what appeared weren't disciplinary monks whose eyes could kill, yet could only kill with their eyes. Instead, it was a few men in uniforms, seemingly personnel who dealt with rescue work and disaster relief.

They scrambled to force Tang Luo down onto a stretcher.

Tang Luo didn't offer any resistance during the whole process because he was in shock! As shocked as when he had first transmigrated back then.

The extent of his shock wasn't any less than shocked passersby and the enemies of Saint Seiya8 going, "What?! That's impossible!".

It seemed like he had transmigrated to a city in the contemporary age?

What was that situation?

A day later, donning a set of cheap dark-colored gym suit and with a few hundred bucks that people had kindly donated to him in his pocket, Tang Luo embarked on his journey back home.

He didn't simply transmigrate to a city in the contemporary age.

After transmigrating to a world filled with Gods and Buddhas, Tang Luo had suddenly transmigrated back to his hometown—Earth.

It was currently two months after the point where he had first transmigrated.

'So it could actually work like this too? This is practically 'Rebirth–City Cultivation'9! Why should I, Tang Luo, need to explain my actions to others? The Victorious Fighting Buddha is not to be mocked! Is this what my life is going to be like from now on?'

Tang Luo's transmigration was rather strange. It couldn't be considered a physical or soul transmigration.

Even though so many years had already gone by, he could still remember it like it was yesterday.

That year, thunder had boomed in fair skies and lightning struck—even though he clearly hadn't made any vows10 whatsoever.

Struck by lightning, Tang Luo's entire self had turned into a condensed mass of light spots, or rather, specks?

And then, he had transmigrated.

As such, even though he had transmigrated into an infant Tang Seng and subsequently grown up, he pretty much still looked the same as how he did pre-transmigration.

Of course, it wasn't without any changes either.

To put the changes into concrete terms.

People who knew him would be surprised upon seeing him. However, it was more the level of 'A man who has changed for the better after a period of absence' than 'The children of my own hometown ask me where this guest hailed from'.

With a legal identity and as a poor unfortunate victim of an avalanche, wishing to get home even a moment sooner was only to be expected.

Tang Luo boarded the high-speed train back home after settling the last-minute transportation procedures at the railway station.

In four hours, he would truly be home.

While watching the scenery outside the train fly by, Tang Luo didn't really feel much excitement.

On the contrary, his expression was quiet and calm. He looked as if something was slightly troubling him.

Although he had transmigrated back home for some unfathomable reason, there were still a lot of problems that came one after another in rapid succession.

Out of which, the most important one was his injuries.

Although it wasn't apparent from his appearance, it wasn't going to be easy to recover from such serious injuries. Moreover, Tang Luo could sense that the vital energy on Earth was extremely thin and sparse. Thus, trying to recover through regular cultivation methods was impossible.

The chances of him getting his hands on various treasured herbs and medicine with special attributes and consuming them in hopes of recovery were also beyond low.

Tang Luo didn't place his hopes on these two methods because he still had the Jade Lotus of Virtuous Merit. The power of virtuous merits was nearly void of any offensive abilities, but it was the best when it came to treating injuries.

In the past, Tang Luo didn't have a choice. Now, he would like to be the Buddha of Sandalwood Merit. From that day onward, he would find pleasure in helping others and be a kind and good person. He would never blow apart the heads of demons and the wicked so casually anymore.

'Wukong, I'm not going to be a Victorious Fighting Buddha anymore!'

Just as Tang Luo made up his mind to be a good person, no, a good Buddha, on the clean and clear train window next to him, a layer of mottle crept up with no apparent reason. It was as if the window had been weather-beaten for years yet never once cleaned.

It wasn't just the exterior. The same went for the interior. The train carriage began to fall into decline rapidly.

Tang Luo reached out and swiped his fingers across the window. Dust covered the pads of his fingers. The dust fell off as Tang Luo rubbed his fingers. The sound of chatter entered his ears. It was terribly noisy as if hellish sounds were piercing his ears and infiltrating his brain.

It was impossible to discern what they were saying. It simply made one feel that it was extremely noisy.

Tang Luo turned around. The passengers, who were originally seated next to him, had already disappeared at some point. The seats on the other side of the aisle were similarly empty. Instead, a sight of several years of dilapidation and abandonment filled the entire train carriage.

After the dust was wiped off, a few words gradually started to appear as if there was invisible handwriting on the window next to him.

At the same time, the sound of chatter in his ears became clear.

Before long, a phrase manifested before Tang Luo's eyes and in his ears simultaneously.

'Search for Jack the Ripper.'

This absurd change and sudden mission—did he suddenly jump from a City Cultivation genre film set into one for the Infinity genre11?

Fortunately, Tang Luo was a man who had seen all sorts of grand events.

Tang Luo kept his calm, cleared his throat, and shouted, "Is anyone there? I want to see Gautama, I want to see the Gautama Buddha!"

'If there's a problem, look for Gautama!'

"Don't bother. Your Gautama Buddha can't save you." A slightly husky voice rang out from behind Tang Luo.