They all became female demons after being reborn.

Chapter 70 Slaying the Buddha!

After saying this, Wu Cheng turned and walked towards the main gate of Tiefo Temple.

Bai Suyi and Qingque flanked Wu Cheng, one on each side. Bai Suyi had already drawn her three-foot-long sword, while Qingque gripped the handle of her oil-paper umbrella.

As soon as they stepped onto the stone steps, the tightly closed gates of the Iron Buddha Temple suddenly opened, and more than twenty martial monks wielding monk's knives rushed out.

The three monks at the head of the group were particularly burly with prominent temples, clearly indicating that they were masters of both internal and external cultivation.

But before the three could speak, Bai Suyi's sword flashed, and she instantly transformed into a white shadow, crashing into the crowd. The sword light in her hand dispersed like clouds, and wherever it passed, blades were destroyed and people died!

Qingque's rapier follows the path of super-fast swordsmanship, simple and direct. With a light touch of her rapier on the wrists and throats of the monks holding knives, a single sword strike takes a life!

Bodhidharma's fist is faster than the monk's dagger!

He unleashed a punch the size of a sandbag, shouting with great force, "Damo Explosive Fist!"

Any monk who was struck by the fist was sent flying backward and embedded in the courtyard wall before they could even utter a sound! They were silent in an instant!

In no time at all, the twenty-odd monks and three experts were all dead!

Wu Cheng, who hadn't made a move from beginning to end, was the first to step into the gate of Tiefo Temple, while the other people only followed to the entrance, their faces still showing fear, as if the low threshold was an insurmountable barrier.

"Follow me!"

Xue Jianren waved his hand, leading several bold commoners and martial artists into the courtyard. They then followed Wu Cheng and his group through the front courtyard and the main hall, killing any monks who tried to stop them along the way, until they had fought their way through the entire front courtyard and the main hall.

Then Xue Jianren led the dozen or so men to break open the locked storeroom and carried the account books, children's rosters, secret letters, and a large amount of gold and silver jewelry, box by box, to the front of the mountain gate.

Facing the sea of ​​people below, Wu Cheng patted Sun Kewang on the shoulder, "Brother Sun, since you are a local, you can read out the list."

Sun Kewang nodded excitedly, then took the list from Xue Jianren and began to read it aloud, "March of the 22nd year of Zhengping! Received 1,024 taels of silver! Send three children to the Yuan residence!"

"In the seventh month of the twenty-third year of Zhengping! Magistrate Liu sent a letter urging the return of the two girls, and Abbot Yuanye replied that it had been arranged!"

As he read, Sun Kewang's voice suddenly choked up, his eyes reddened, and his hands began to tremble, because... he saw his sister's records.

"In the spring of the twenty-first year of Zhengping, Lady Sun, aged nine, was sent...sent to the Yuan family in Luoyang..."

Sun Kewang turned around abruptly, only to see that Wu Cheng had already led the two exceptionally beautiful female warriors and Master Bodhidharma back into the Iron Buddha Temple.

Wu Cheng and his three companions passed through the front courtyard, bypassed the central hall, and finally arrived at the side rooms where the monks lived.

"I haven't seen the abbot or any of the elders of the Yuan generation." Bai Suying looked around. "Junior brother, we should be careful."

"Hmm, but the people are still afraid to come in. We need to find more conclusive evidence." Wu Cheng's nostrils flared as he suddenly looked at a separate woodshed on his left.

"There's a rancid smell coming from that place..."

Wu Cheng smirked. "Do these people really prefer setting up underground chambers in the woodshed?"

As the four walked toward the woodshed, Bai Suying suddenly said, "Junior Brother."

"Um?"

"Don't you find it strange? Why haven't the abbot and other elders of the Iron Buddha Temple shown up so we can expose their secrets? I don't believe that we've made such a big fuss and all those martial monks we sent out are dead without them knowing."

Wu Cheng shrugged. "What's so strange about that? There are only two possible interpretations."

"Oh?" Bai Suyi blinked.

Wu Cheng laughed and said, "Either they've already run away, or... they're waiting for us to expose all the disgusting things that have happened here."

"Oh?" Bai Suying retorted, "Isn't that courting death?"

"They are not afraid of the people, and we need to make an example of them," Wu Cheng said leisurely. "We dare to expose their evil deeds, and when the people are most angry, they will come out and kill us all. They can even force us to kneel down and beg for mercy before killing us."

"In this way, the people will no longer dare to resist them. They will not even need to do things secretly anymore. Instead, they can ask the people to voluntarily offer their children of the right age to the Iron Buddha Temple."

Bai Suying said with great interest, "It seems we're being looked down upon."

"When soldiers come, we'll meet them head-on; when water comes, we'll dam it. Since they've made this plan, let's see who has the tougher methods."

Wu Cheng didn't care and then went to the woodshed.

Sure enough, there was a hidden door in the woodshed. After breaking the lock, there was a narrow staircase leading to the ground, and the more you went down, the stronger the sour smell became.

Even though he had already seen the cellars of Luoyang Prefecture, Wu Cheng, who lit the tinderbox, still frowned.

The underground chamber was divided into more than a dozen narrow cages, each containing a child.

The oldest of these children is no more than ten years old, and the youngest is still an infant.

There was no more crying here; the only sounds in the cage were faint breathing and the rustling of mice crawling in the straw.

The rice water in the wooden bucket in the corner had long since gone bad, with a layer of grayish-green mold floating on the surface.

Wu Cheng broke the iron lock on one of the cages and saw a boy curled up in the corner, his legs turned outward at an extremely unnatural angle, forming a lotus-like cross-legged position.

Wu Cheng looked closely and his expression changed slightly.

The boy's leg bones... had been repeatedly broken and set, eventually forming this twisted posture resembling a withered tree lotus platform.

Wu Cheng took off his outer robe, knelt down in front of the child, and gently draped it over his shoulders. The boy looked up at him for a long while, then suddenly squeezed out a few words in a voice so hoarse it was almost inaudible:

"...Help me..."

Wu Cheng held him in his arms, stood up, and turned around.

Inside the cage that Qingque had smashed open was a young girl. She was chained to a wooden stake, and the wide monk's robe she was wearing was clearly adult size. The wide collar could not hide the dense burn marks and bite marks on her collarbone.

Upon seeing Qingque, she instinctively shrank back, her numb eyes devoid of any light.

Wu Cheng paused for a moment, then said calmly, "Take all the children out."

Qingque nodded and began to untie the iron chains on the girl's wrists. The girl's small body began to tremble, and she kept repeating one sentence:

"My master said I am the Buddha Mother... the Buddha Mother..."

Qingque paused slightly, then gently unlocked the chains and picked her up.

When Wu Cheng carried the boy and was the first to walk out of the mountain gate, the clamor throughout the mountain suddenly fell silent.

The child in his arms had legs twisted horribly, and the children who came out after him were all thinner and quieter than the last, as quiet as wandering ghosts who had just walked out of the gates of hell.

The old woman, who had been wailing incessantly, suddenly stopped crying, her cloudy eyes fixed on the boy in Wu Cheng's arms.

The boy, who had been expressionless, suddenly raised his face, and two clear tears streamed down his dry cheeks.

His lips trembled a few times, and his hoarse, inhuman voice squeezed out two words, "Grandma..."

Suddenly, the old woman stumbled and rushed to Wu Cheng, reaching out her hand, then pulling it back. She reached out again, and just before her fingertips touched the child's cheek, she suddenly covered her mouth, letting out a muffled sob through her dry fingers.

Suddenly, a group of people in front of the temple gate knelt down. Some were crying, some were cursing, and some picked up stones from the ground and threw them at the plaque of the Iron Buddha Temple.

A hunter who was squatting at the front of the crowd suddenly stood up, drew his hunting knife, and rushed into the temple gate. Xue Jianren stopped him, but a dozen or so young men stood up behind him.

The scene was about to spiral out of control when suddenly a Buddhist chant, as loud as the booming of a bronze bell, drowned out everyone's screams.

"Amitabha--!"

The doors of the main hall of Tiefo Temple slowly opened from the inside.

A gaunt old monk dressed in an earth-yellow robe sat cross-legged on a prayer mat in front of a Buddha statue, with four middle-aged monks standing behind him, their heads bowed and eyes lowered.

These four people were breathing evenly and deeply, and there was a faint aura of energy circulating around them. It was likely that the strength and cultivation of any one of them was no less than that of Yuan Hao, the magistrate of Luoyang!

The old monk slowly raised his head, revealing a gaunt, sallow old face.

His eyebrows were completely white, with the ends drooping below his cheekbones. His eye sockets were deep-set beneath the white eyebrows, but two faint phosphorescent lights burned in his turbid eyes.

This is Yuanye, the abbot of Tiefo Temple.

His voice was neither loud nor soft, like a hollow echo emanating from the belly of a Buddha statue, "Benefactor, you killed my disciples, broke into my mountain gate, and kidnapped my Buddhist disciple. Do you intend to become an enemy of Buddhism? Or perhaps an enemy of the imperial court?"

Before he could finish speaking, a sharp "clang" was heard from the sword!

A sword aura flashed! The iron armor covering the Buddha statue behind him was torn open by the sword aura, revealing a faint golden light underneath!

Having already handed the child over to the old woman, Wu Cheng twirled his wooden sword.

He looked at the iron Buddha statue behind Yuanye, which sat on a lotus platform and emitted specks of golden light. The iron Buddha had a compassionate face and a slight upturn at the corners of its mouth. The old monk beneath the statue was in deep meditation, his Buddhist teachings profound. Yet, this scene, together with the excited crowd outside the mountain gate, formed a wonderfully ironic picture.

"Wrong, I am not an enemy of Buddhism, nor am I an enemy of the imperial court."

Wu Cheng pointed his wooden sword diagonally at the gaunt figure sitting on a futon beneath the Buddha statue.

"I only oppose beasts."