Chapter 782
Bald Bandit Tang Sanzang: He developed eight-pack abs in two months, even Guanyin exclai
The tiger probably didn't expect that a fair-skinned monk would dare to charge at it. In the time it was stunned, the nine-ringed staff had already smashed into its skull with a whistling sound.
With a muffled thud, the tiger's head was slammed into the ground, its four paws twitched a few times, and then it remained still.
Tang Sanzang stood there, looking down at his slightly trembling hands, then at the dead tiger on the ground, and suddenly smiled.
From then on, he completely let go.
Now, at least eight or ten tigers have died at his hands. Some of those tigers ran into him on their own, while others were deliberately sought out by Tang Sanzang.
Whenever he spotted tiger tracks in the mountains from afar, his eyes would light up, and he would grab his staff and dash into the forest, looking even more ferocious than a tiger himself.
At first, Guanyin Bodhisattva tried various methods to stop him from killing.
She would suddenly appear when Tang Sanzang raised his staff, and say in a dignified yet reproachful tone: "Sanzang, Heaven cherishes life. As a Buddhist disciple, how can you kill living beings at will?"
Or perhaps he would descend from the sky while he was skinning a tiger, frowning and saying, "Sanzang, the heavy karma of killing will affect your Buddhist heart. Although these creatures are dull-witted, they are still sentient beings. Why do you insist on taking their lives?"
Every time Guanyin appeared, Tang Sanzang would stop, put his hands together, and say respectfully, "This humble monk knows his mistake." But as soon as Guanyin left, he would still kill or skin her if he was supposed to.
After a few times, Guanyin Bodhisattva became too lazy to do it anymore.
She finally understood: Tang Sanzang had changed at his core. The soft-hearted monk who would chant the Rebirth Mantra three times even for stepping on an ant was gone, replaced by a muscular monk whose eyes would light up at the sight of a ferocious beast.
She tried to stop him once, twice, three times, but not a hundred times.
Besides, she figured that Tang Sanzang's current state wasn't entirely unacceptable.
He wasn't bothered at all; all he wanted was freedom, and he wouldn't care about Guanyin's feelings. That's what Guanyin was thinking as she watched Tang Sanzang fight a black bear bare-handed from the clouds.
Tang Sanzang was slapped in the chest by the black bear, sending him flying backward and crashing into a pine tree as thick as a bowl. He got up, dusted off the wood chips, grinned, and charged forward again.
Finally, he strangled the black bear to death in his arms. Tang Sanzang carried the bear carcass back to the road, his skinning and tendon-removing techniques already quite skilled.
When Guanyin saw this, her lips twitched slightly, but she ultimately said nothing.
Besides, this wasn't the first time he had killed. Ever since Tang Sanzang first lost control during the Water and Land Assembly, his hands had been stained with blood.
Later, in Eagle's Sorrow Gorge, he beat those tigers and leopards to a pulp in front of Guanyin, lowering Guanyin's bottom line by half.
Her mindset has now shifted from "absolutely not letting Tang Sanzang kill any living beings" to "as long as he doesn't kill or set fires, there won't be much karma." As for killing a few tigers or bears, she can just grit her teeth and move on.
There is another reason why Guanyin chose to turn a blind eye.
Tang Sanzang's true spirit was still tainted by demonic energy. Although the destruction of his inner demons had somewhat offset that demonic energy, its lingering effects remained, like a thin layer of black mist clinging to the depths of his mind.
Guanyin knew that if this demonic energy was suppressed and not released, it would eventually cause serious problems. If Tang Sanzang were to be corrupted by the demonic energy again and attack mortals, the consequences would be truly uncontrollable.
So Guanyin also wanted him to vent his frustrations.
"It's better to fight tigers and kill black bears than to one day be possessed by demonic energy and start punching mortals." That's how Guanyin comforted herself.
She felt that her idea was very reasonable, even somewhat compassionate—allowing Tang Sanzang to vent his demonic energy within a controllable range was such a considerate arrangement.
So starting from the second week, Guanyin basically stopped interfering with Tang Sanzang's killing.
Without restraint, Tang Sanzang became even more unscrupulous.
He not only killed tigers and black bears, but also developed a strict training plan for himself.
This plan was inspired by Lin Zhu's saying, "Run a jog, practice boxing, carry luggage, and swing your Zen staff," and then he systematically expanded it based on his own understanding.
Every day before dawn, Tang Sanzang would wake up from his sleep and do a hundred push-ups. He did his push-ups with perfect form, his body taut like an iron plate, his chest almost touching the ground as he pushed himself up, each rise and fall accompanied by heavy breathing.
After doing a hundred, the muscles in his arms were engorged with blood, and the veins bulged under his skin like earthworms.
Then came sit-ups, also a hundred. He found a flat rock to lie on, hooked his legs around the edge of the rock, and used his abdominal muscles to spring his upper body up and down like a spring, the rhythm so fast it was dazzling.
Next came a hundred squats. He did the squats with the white dragon horse on his shoulders—although the white dragon horse could transform into a dragon, it still weighed several hundred pounds when it was in its horse form.
Tang Sanzang carried it up and down the mountain road. The white dragon horse lay on his shoulder, its expression changing from initial fear to numbness. Its hooves swayed with the rhythm of Tang Sanzang's squatting and rising, and it occasionally snorted in resignation.
Finally, he ran ten kilometers around the mountains and forests. Tang Sanzang ran on the rugged mountain path, his feet crunching on the gravel and dry branches, his speed not much slower than that of riding a horse.
When he ran, he liked to carry his nine-ringed tin staff across his shoulder, looking more like a vanguard officer rushing to attack a city than a monk on a pilgrimage.
Sometimes, Sun Wukong would squat in a tree and watch him run. He couldn't resist hooking his tail onto a branch and hanging upside down, watching Tang Sanzang huff and puff as he ran past below. He muttered to himself, "Who's the real monkey here?"
After two months of travel, Tang Sanzang had changed dramatically, becoming powerful and wild.
Now, Tang Sanzang, with his sleeves rolled up, revealed exaggerated, wildly beautiful muscles. His muscles were bulging, his shoulders broad, like a door panel. He was so tall that he could block most of the mountain road if he stood there.
His abs are eight-packed, with distinct curves, each one looking as if it were carved with a knife. When sweat flows over them, it gathers into fine streams in the grooves.
Even the most muscular wild boars in the mountains don't have such exaggerated muscles.
His shiny bald head made him look like a bald bandit from the mountains. His monk's robe was stretched taut over his body, and the originally loose sleeves were now constricted around his arms, creaking under the strain with each movement.
Twice he used too much force, and his monk's robe tore open from under his armpits, revealing his bronze skin and bulging muscles.
One day, Sun Wukong couldn't hold back any longer and said, "Master, you don't look like a monk; you look more like the chief of some mountain stronghold." Tang Sanzang laughed heartily, his laughter echoing through the mountains and forests, startling a flock of birds into flight.
He himself felt that even if he couldn't continue his journey to the West one day, he could simply carry a big banner up the mountain and become a king, easily summoning 107 heroes and becoming a powerful ruler. With his current skills and imposing presence, bandits and outlaws within hundreds of miles would all kneel down and call him "Grandpa."
But Tang Sanzang knew in his heart that these changes did not come out of thin air.
He experienced the special effects brought about by that Pillar of Strength Pill.
Although he didn't experience any reaction when he first took it, he wondered if it was really as Guanyin said—that the elixir was just a facade.
But as he trained day by day, he discovered something: his body was changing, and the speed of change was far beyond that of ordinary people.
For the average person, it takes several months to see noticeable muscle definition and one to two years to achieve an exaggerated physique. But he only took two months to transform from a fair-skinned, frail monk into a muscular, bald, and ruthless bandit.
This speed is beyond the reach of normal humans, and even some low-level body cultivators cannot match him.
Dongliang Dan didn't give him any direct power, but it opened a door.
With each step he took behind that door, he could feel his body absorbing some kind of power—not spiritual power, not magical power, not Buddhist light, but a purely physical, primal, and savage power.
This power comes from the tearing and rebuilding of every muscle, from the body's spontaneous repair after each bout of exhaustion, and from the subtle sound of sweat dripping into the soil.
He was secretly delighted.
The Immortal Lord had not lied to him after all. This Pillar of Strength might not be as powerful as the Asura Annihilation Pill, but the changes it brought were real and perceptible.
Tang Sanzang now estimated that unless there were mountain spirits or wild monsters, ordinary mortals would have a hard time harming him. He was confident that he could defeat even dozens of strong men at once.
This realization even changed the way he walked. Before, he walked cautiously and timidly on the road, afraid that some monster might jump out and grab him.
Now he walks down the street with his head held high, his shoulders swaying so much they could snap tree branches, his eyes gleaming with a wild, "Come on, come on" kind of light. Sometimes he even hopes to run into a few clueless bandits or outlaws so he can practice his skills.
Guanyin Bodhisattva stood on the cloud, looking down at Tang Sanzang who looked like a muscular wild boar, and felt that the style of the scene had suddenly changed.
She remembered that two months ago, Tang Sanzang was a fair-skinned and handsome monk who spoke softly and walked lightly, as if the wind could blow him over.
The current Tang Sanzang has a tanned bronze skin, a neck thicker than his face, and bulging muscles under his monk's robe. He walks with a powerful stride, and the nine-ringed staff in his hand is as light as a chopstick.
Guanyin could feel the deep malice in Lin Zhu's Pill of Pillar.
This elixir likely ushered in a unique chapter in Tang Sanzang's life. Guanyin rubbed her forehead, her heart filled with mixed emotions. She couldn't even imagine what Tang Sanzang would look like when he stood before the Buddha in front of the Great Hall of the Buddha after arriving at Mount Ling.
The image of a burly, bald, muscular monk saying to Buddha, "Your disciple has endured eighty-one tribulations to obtain the true scriptures," is enough to send chills down Guanyin's spine just by imagining it.
But she let him be.
As Buddha said, it doesn't matter what happens in the process, only what happens in the end. As long as Tang Sanzang can finally reach Mount Ling and retrieve the scriptures, what happened in between is irrelevant.
Whether he becomes a muscular monk or a bald, ruthless bandit, as long as he doesn't fall into evil ways and doesn't give up on his pilgrimage, everything is fine.
As for causing trouble for Lin Zhu, forget it.
Guanyin now gets a toothache just thinking about Lin Zhu. Her attitude towards Lin Zhu has changed from disrespect to avoiding him altogether. She's already grateful if Lin Zhu doesn't actively cause her trouble.
Instead of confronting Lin Zhu and demanding an explanation, she'd rather spend another few hundred years in seclusion on Mount Luojia. Dealing with Lin Zhu is exhausting; she always ends up at a disadvantage, always trembling with anger yet utterly helpless.
Fortunately, Lin Zhu didn't make things too difficult for the young man.
For the past two months, Lin Zhu has been sleeping around here. He found a particularly large old pine tree next to Eagle's Sorrow Stream, used his magic to build a simple nest in the canopy, and spent most of his time sleeping soundly inside.
After waking up, he would slack off, flying up to the clouds to look down and see where Tang Sanzang was, whether he had encountered any trouble, and help monitor the progress of the Journey to the West. After confirming that everything was normal, he would yawn and crawl back into his nest to continue sleeping.
Work for five minutes, sleep for two hours.
Lin Zhu has always maintained a humble, cautious, and responsible work attitude, which has never changed. He strictly carries out his task of supervising Journey to the West, always demanding high standards of himself and working diligently.
Every time he woke up, he would silently review his job responsibilities and then make an objective assessment—Lin Zhu had never seen anyone work harder than himself.
Dedicate at least half an incense stick's time each day to work diligently, and spend the rest of the time conserving energy for any eventuality. This work-life balance is truly a model for the workplace.
Even so, Lin Zhu's harvest was still very meager.
His only hope now is that Tang Sanzang will preach and teach whenever he passes through towns and villages, and then Lin Zhu will receive some merit.
Those merits, as tiny as grains of rice, gradually accumulated on Lin Zhu's system panel, the numbers slowly rising, a slowness that was heartbreaking.
There are only 300,000 points left to reach the true Quasi-Saint realm.
Three hundred thousand—that number has been there for two years, and it still is. Lin Zhu sometimes stares blankly at the merit number on the system panel, feeling as if he is undertaking an impossible task.
He's accumulated dozens of merit points in two months. At this rate, it would probably take him tens of thousands of years to save up 300,000.
Sigh, this cultivation is really too difficult.
Even though Lin Zhu cultivated so arduously every day for several months, the Great Dao remained unforgiving. It was so harsh on someone like Lin Zhu, who had cultivated so hard and almost risked his life, making his cultivation progress so slow. It was truly cruel.
After sighing, he turned over and continued sleeping facing the other side of the pine tree.
Moreover, during the two months that Lin Zhu was "working hard," news from the Nine-Story Heavenly Prison never stopped. The Enforcement Hall was almost completed, a message sent by Marshal Tianpeng.
Tianpeng said that the atmosphere of the entire Nine-Story Heavenly Prison was completely different from before—nine floating peaks surrounded the central Law Enforcement Hall, and each peak was topped with a Law Enforcement Stele. The inscriptions on the steles were engraved in gold and glowed on their own every night, illuminating the sky for a radius of a hundred miles. (End of Chapter)