One, This Pure Land

....and the entire underground palace was trembling, with him.Ouyang Rong was startled, quickly clutching the rope in his arms tightly.The rain on his head suddenly grew louder, the wind stronger as w...Look, this man's name is Xiao Shuai!

He was tightening a rope to a golden lotus lantern, swinging it overhead and aiming carefully before throwing it forcefully toward the hole above…

If this is really a prank played on him by someone—using a hidden camera to film ordinary people—then soon, the way everyone knows him will probably be with this ridiculous opening line.

"I tell you, I don't care if this is a cheap prank, a nightmare of being pressed by ghosts, or even a real paradise... no one can stop me from going back to take the graduate entrance exam!"

Ouyang Rong squatted on the edge of a lotus stone platform, his dry lips muttering. His eyes were fixed on the golden lotus lantern in his hand, carefully tightening the knot.

This is a closed underground chamber, with faint traces of faded murals on the four walls. In the center of the floor stands a half-meter high statue of a figure in a belted pose lying supine upon a lotus throne.

Apart from that, it was empty.

The only light source was a circular opening in the ceiling about ten meters above, roughly the size of a manhole cover.

This also seemed to be the only exit of the underground palace, a shaft of dim moonlight slanted down from it, landing exactly on the young man who was squatting on the lotus pedestal, ignoring his image.

"I've been training from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. for a year, and this weekend is the day of the battle. Do you think digging a well can hold me back Not even Buddha's well could do that! I tell you, it's impossible!"

Ouyang Rong checked the knots one last time, licked his chapped lips, and with a "whoosh," bounced up onto the lotus platform.

He gripped the rope with one hand and held aloft the heavy, golden lotus lantern in the other. He stared up at the well opening, a sight he had been longing to see for ages.

There is no well that cannot be climbed out of, only those who are determined to climb!

But after beating up the chicken blood, Ou Yangrong did not act immediately.

>

He suddenly turned back and called out to the darkness behind him, "Hey, come help me too. I'll pull you up after I get up."

This secluded underground palace wasn't the only one who was in it.

In the pitch-blackness where moonlight did not reach, three shadowy figures were indistinctly scattered.

A wizened monk, towering and large like a small hill, sat motionless there.

His gray robes were tattered and his face was gaunt, making it impossible to tell his age.

An old Taoist leaning against the wall, sat on the ground with his legs spread apart like a ladle.

The whole person shrank in a large black crane fur cloak, arms crossed and hugging tightly, as if afraid of the cold.

Only a pointed head peeked out, with youthful face and silver hair. A Daoist Mixed Yuan sash was pressed against his full head of white strands.

There was also a girl sitting with her knees hugged to her chest and her face buried in them. She was already slender, but wearing a Han-style dress made her appear even more frail.

This is also the quietest one in the underground palace.

Right after she woke up, Ou Yang Rong tried to strike up a conversation with her. The girl didn't say a word, only flashing a pair of eyes like autumn water flowing through streams between the space between her knees and slender arms.

At this moment, Ou Yangrong stood under the moonlight, struggling. The delicate girl's slender eyes peeked out from between her arms, silently watching him.

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Ouyang Rong scanned the three people with their peculiar attire again, no matter how he looked at them, he felt that they didn't look like those taking the postgraduate entrance examination. But he still couldn't help but mutter: "Aren't you going out"

But it was met with three looks that seemed to say I was an idiot.

"You can't go out!"

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Hearing the word “go out,” the emaciated monk seemed to have been fished out from the frigid North Sea, his whole body trembling uncontrollably.

"Why"

A withered monk pointed to the ground with one finger and to the sky with the other, saying, “This place is a lotus pure land, and above it lies an endless hell!”

"If I don't pass the exam, then it will truly be hell." Ou Yang Rong nodded, then turned and left.

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The monk still couldn't bear it, so Buddha chanted a reminder: "Namo Amitabha Buddha, Donor, if you go up there, you will be eaten by evil creatures immediately."

"Don't go out there looking for death." Huo Chang also sneered, pausing for a moment, "If you want to die, don't bring us with you."

“...Ou Yang Rong.”

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Are you having scallion pancakes

He swallowed his words, shook his head.

It's true, these days people who believe in religion are a little superstitious, they're not as cool as the girls in the Hanfu community.

>

He glanced at the slender girl who remained silent, Ouyang Rong decisively turned his head and began to throw golden lotus flower lanterns towards the circular hole above.

Not long ago, he tried to shout for help, but whether it was because the underground palace was too deep or it was late at night and no one was around, there was no movement outside.

“I can't put it off any longer, I haven't finished memorizing all the words yet.”

Ou Yangrong remembered seeing a survival video on the internet before, where someone who had fallen into a deep pit used a long rope to tie a heavy object to one end and threw it outside the pit until it got entangled on a tree trunk, successfully rescuing himself.

“I remember before I fell, there were two incense burners for burning counterfeit coins beside me.” The postgraduate entrance exam student analyzed calmly.

Right now, the lotus lantern he picked up is in his hand. He doesn't know if it's real gold or just gilded. He weighed it and it seems quite valuable.

But... who cares Even if it's a cultural relic, it's useless. The lives of the people and the college entrance exam are more important. "The People" have requisitioned it!

Only.

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The first time, it missed and hit the ground.

Twice, it hit the target and was thrown out!

But as soon as he pulled, he slid back out of the hole.

Third time's the charm, but I missed again...

At this moment, the withered monk clasped his hands together and showed a look of fear:

"Master, why insist on going your own way You've finally ascended to this pure land. Please don't fall back into that hell of suffering."

Above, all manner of evil things abound, with a myriad of wicked deeds growing rampant. There are surging waves drowning mountains and fields, raging fires engulfing all ten directions, poisonous gas filling heaven and earth, and evil winds destroying everything...

“Stop beating around the bush.” He stroked his beard, shifting into a cross-legged position and moving a distance away from Ou Yang Rong. “Kind words are useless for damned souls. Great compassion doesn't reach those who reject it.”

As the postgraduate hopeful was about to throw another dice, his body suddenly stiffened. He lowered his eyes and silently looked down at himself, noticing the unfamiliar Confucian robe he had always tried to ignore.

This is not the clothes he was wearing before he fell.

Boom——

Suddenly, there were faint rumbles of thunder from outside the Earth Palace. Before anyone could react, it began to rain that night.

Ou Yangrong looked up, raindrops splattering on his blue-tinged eyelids.

He looked at it and couldn't shake the feeling that this perfectly round opening was like a well cover — the very well that he had fallen into.

This matter is a bit roundabout.

Ou Yang Rong was originally a postgraduate entrance exam candidate for World War II. As the exam neared, while lurking in a small group called "Gentlemen's Postgraduate Entrance Examination Group (Females Not Allowed)", he heard from group members that there was an East Lin Temple in the suburbs. It was very skilled in both passing the postgraduate entrance examination and praying for love. Every year, many people from all over the country came to fulfill their vows...

I went to inquire further and learned that there was a century-old wishing tower in this temple. Inside, there was also a bell of blessings. If one accumulated enough merit, they could ring it once to receive blessings and have their wishes come true.

OuYangrong actually holds a materialistic skeptical attitude towards this, but who knows, maybe the anxiety of young people today is really so great that even the Buddha knows about it The Buddha really took on this business...

And he actually does need both of these items, they really hit the spot.

Let's just assume that sincerity makes it come true.

So that morning, Ou Yangrong, with his sharp and critical gaze, took a taxi to Donglin Temple. When he arrived, he saw, "Goodness gracious! Not only was Mo Daojun early, but there were even people earlier than him. The queue of worshippers stretched all the way down the mountain. Ahead of him were mostly people his age, huddled in the cold wind, scrolling through their phones."

Seeing this early, he must be an old exam-taker. Even queuing up, he doesn't forget to brush up on his practice papers... Ouyang Rong sighed. Just as he was about to take out his phone, a young monk clamped a QR code between two fingers and tapped it against his nose, telling him to scan it.

Ou Yangrong took a look and found that it was scanning the code to download an APP called "De Merit Pagoda".

This Donglin Temple is quite human-oriented. It allows devotees who don't have time to queue up to ring the bell directly online without leaving their homes. It's truly commendable that they care so much about the devotees and are leading all temples across the country in this regard.

At that time, Ou Yangrong didn't waste any words. After downloading it, he immediately turned and left. Time is precious for postgraduate entrance exam candidates.

On his way back, he took a little time to study it and quickly figured out how this small application worked.

Step into this pagoda of merit, inside you'll find a digital chanting fish and a bell for blessings.

An electronic wooden fish can be manually clicked to strike, and each click adds 1 merit. There's also a warm and fuzzy counter on top.

As for the most important and powerful wishing bell, which grants blessings when wished upon, it takes a hundred thousand merit points to ring it once.

What's even more devilish is that this app actually has background music of the Great Compassion Mantra, and you can't turn it off...

“Hitting the electronic wooden fish, accumulating cyber merit, receiving mechanical blessings, ascending to the Pure Land of Bliss, and seeing the Mech Buddha, right I’m familiar with this.” Ouyang Rong seemed confident.

By the way, there's also a "Limited Time Donation for Merit" option in the bottom right corner, but Ou Yangrong just ignored it. Maybe next time... Nah, maybe not next time either.

Non-paying players can only grind frantically. Don't look at Ou Yangrong, whose postgraduate entrance examination vocabulary is still stuck on "abandon," but his ability to tinker and get things done has been top-notch since he was little.

When he was a child, as long as you gave him a slightly straight stick, there wouldn't be a flower or grass taller than his waist within ten miles of home; stray dogs would get two whacks. If you tied a string to it, not even a tadpole in the pond would stand a chance.

So that night, Ou Yangrong used an electric motor, gears, chopsticks, and rubber to create a physical clicker. He put it and his phone on the bedside table and frantically clicked away at accumulating merit points, while he leisurely recited his vocabulary words and went to sleep listening to the Great Compassion Mantra.

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As a result, he was given his title the next day.

"Can't you play nice"

Ouyang never expected that this small outsourcing app would actually have an anti-cheating mechanism.

The next morning, still seething with anger, he went back to Donglin Temple, wanting to confront them... well, actually, he just wanted to play the innocent and see if he could get unsealed.

But when he arrived, it was the same familiar queue, like a long dragon. He simply bypassed it and walked uphill, hoping to find another way in.

On the way, a buddy from the group chat for those who used to love diving and now study for exams, sent a picture of someone really righteous.

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In broad daylight, you’re being so reckless Ouyang Rong unconsciously double-tapped to enlarge the screen, but it was just that glance that caused him to miss a step when turning a corner. One foot landed in thin air and he went black as night...

Ouyang Rong stood on the lotus throne, wiping the rainwater from his face with force.

From the last few frames of his memory, it could be guessed that he had fallen into an uncovered well somewhere in the temple.

However, what was strange was that when Ou Yangrong slowly awoke, he found himself lying on his back on this cold and hard lotus pedestal beneath him.

His cell phone and down jacket were gone, nowhere to be found in the underground palace. In their place was a strange white tunic.

And a white silk cloth wrapped around her forehead in a circle, like a headband, covered a rather sizable wound. It still throbbed with pain at times.

> Luckily, I only hit my forehead and not my face.

And he was very familiar with his own face. Although the underground palace was pitch black and there was no mirror to be found, he roughly touched it after a while and found that it was eight out of ten correct, unless he had been reborn as Hu Ge or Han Geng.

If it weren't for this irrefutable evidence, I almost would have believed the tall tales of that withered monk and the Taoist in his crane-feather cloak.

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No longer dwelling on the clothes on his body, after a brief hesitation in the rain, Ouyang Rong continued to throw.

Along the way, he changed direction two more times.

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Finally!

On the tenth throw, the lotus-shaped golden lamp at the mouth of the hole was no longer pulled back by him. The steady resistance travelled from the straight rope to Ouyang Rong's calloused tiger's mouth.

His face lit up, he wiped his face fiercely, 'spat' out two mouthfuls of muddy water, and started scrambling up the rope, ignoring his image.

>

The withered monk behind him, the crane-feather cloak Taoist, and the slender girl were all staring intently at him.

About ten meters away, someone was like a little earthworm climbing a wall, inching their way up with little wriggles.

His posture was slightly unseemly. Being in the public eye made him flush, especially in front of that girl in Hanfu.

But the dog's life is important, whether it's handsome or not, let's wait for him to get ashore first.

Soon, Ou Yang Rong climbed up halfway with rainwater on his head. At this time, he could reach out and touch the rock at the well mouth, and suddenly a familiar sandalwood scent wafted into his nose.

As expected, he was still at the temple! Ouyang Rong felt relieved.

Just then, he suddenly noticed that the moon, half-hidden by clouds above, began to tremble.

Could the moon also shiver This was the initial reaction, the first three seconds that flashed through OuYang Rong's mind.

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But soon, it was discovered that wasn't the case.

...and the entire underground palace was trembling, with him.

Ouyang Rong was startled, quickly clutching the rope in his arms tightly.

The rain on his head suddenly grew louder, the wind stronger as well. The rain that was falling straight down began to slant from left to right.

Then came the sound of water from outside. Unlike the ebb and flow of the tides, to 歐陽戎's ears, this sound was like a train roaring towards him from afar. It seemed to be coming from the end of the horizon, sweeping away everything in its path—flowers, birds, animals, mountains, and forests—all laid waste before it. The whole world trembled with the force of it.

Finally, Ouyang Rong understood the true meaning of the two phrases "earth-shaking" and "heaven and earth change colors".

It's a pity it came from a painful fall on the butt.

The lotus-gold lamp that had been thrown out, 'unbound', slipped back down, along with the momentarily deafened Ou Yang Rong, crashing back into reality...

> Nor did I know how long had passed, until everything suddenly burst into commotion and then returned to stillness.

The rain falling from left to right turned back into rain falling downwards.

Ouyang Rong sat on the cold, hard floor of the dungeon, his whole body soaked.

At his side lay a broken lotus lamp, one half shattered on the ground and the other half flung into the corner, with multicolored jewels spilling out from within.

Ou Yangrong's upper body still maintained the posture of clutching the rope, and he looked up blankly at a round hole that was very similar in size to a manhole cover.

Right at the edge of the cave, he not only heard the roar of the flood and the howl of the wind, but also faintly...the wails of many people.

Outside, it was a deluge, at least a roaring flood of hundreds of miles. It could even be like the biblical flood of Yahweh's destruction.

A weak individual is nothing compared to such power... That goes for the postgraduate entrance exam too.

... There was a long silence.

"Um, what did you just say"

Ouyang Rong, who had been looking up, suddenly spoke without turning around.

Behind him, a gaunt monk with an eternally calm expression made the gesture of pointing to the earth and then to the heavens.

"Master, this place is a lotus pure land, and above it lies an endless hell!"

Ouyang Rong hesitated, wanting to speak but stopping himself.

Actually, the question was about “with waves and no mountains submerged...with fierce winds that ruin everything,” but, forget it...

A certain materialistic graduate student earnestly turned his head and politely inquired, "May I ask for your esteemed name, venerable master"

A withered old monk.

"…Crane-Cloud Cloak Daoist."

“A slender young girl.”not.This is a closed underground chamber, with faint traces of faded murals on the four walls. In the center of the floor stands a half-meter high statue of a figure in a belted pose lying supine upon...