"Yes!"

Everyone below responded in unison, but one person mustered the courage to ask a question:

"If I may ask the Bodhisattva, do the Holy Children and the Buddha's Son who have entered our Land of Goodness this time also need to be investigated?"

The Holy Children were one thing, but the Buddha's Son held a status in the Great Virtue Temple that was essentially equal to a Zen Master. Such a matter had to be clarified beforehand.

However, Hai Shu Bodhisattva offered no response to this question. Instead, Zen Master Qing Cheng was the first to speak.

"Surely you all don't believe the Golden Thread Pavilion would be so kind as to send a Holy Child with such a profound connection to Buddhism into our Great Virtue Temple, do you?"

Not just anyone can serve as an undercover agent for the Golden Thread Pavilion, nor can just anyone pass through the Buddhist Assembly to become one of the Fated and enter the Great Virtue Temple. The requirements for this are exceptionally stringent.

Even the Golden Thread Pavilion would subject such a candidate to multiple layers of screening. It's impossible that they would send someone to the Great Virtue Temple's State Territory without knowing anything about them.

Similarly, one must also undergo trials and screenings before entering the Great Virtue Temple to ensure there are no issues before they can step into the Land of Goodness.

Those with a profound connection to Buddhism naturally manifest miraculous signs. Even outside the Great Virtue Temple, they are by no means ordinary people. The Golden Thread Pavilion would never be so kind as to send a sheep into a tiger's den.

Of course, there was another matter that Zen Master Qing Cheng did not explicitly state, but it was also Hai Shu Bodhisattva's intention.

The Holy Children were one thing, but if it was someone with a Buddha Nature as deep and pure as the Buddha's Son, even if he were an undercover agent sent by the other side, would it matter?

To all the Buddhist Cultivators in the world, only the Great Virtue Temple is the true Buddhist Holy Land, a place that transcends the mortal realm.

Whether he is an agent or not is unimportant!

Even if he is an agent, once he enters this place, he will be converted in the presence of the Buddha.

Once a Buddha's Son of the Great Virtue Temple, he will forever be the venerated Buddha's Son of the Great Virtue Temple.

One must understand that once you enter the Buddhist Sect, there is no turning back. The Great Virtue Temple would not let such a rare and valuable talent slip away.

Zen Master Qing Cheng's words put everyone's minds at ease, and they all nodded in understanding.

"If there is nothing urgent, do not disturb the new Buddha's Son in his quiet cultivation. If the Buddha's Son has any requests, you are to satisfy them to the best of your ability," Hai Shu Bodhisattva instructed.

Everyone nodded in agreement. Hai Shu Bodhisattva was showing great importance to this new Buddha's Son, even more so than any who had appeared before.

"In three days, Qing Cheng will preside over the tonsure ceremony to formally welcome the Fated into our Great Virtue Temple. As for the Buddha's Son's tonsure ceremony, I shall perform it myself," Hai Shu Bodhisattva announced.

"We obey the Bodhisattva's decree!"

Everyone bowed and chanted the Buddha's name aloud.

...

「Treasure Temple Domain, Celestial Saint State, Golden Thread Pavilion.」

The sky was gloomy today, as if it were about to rain. In the dim heavens above, dark clouds gathered, flashing with streaks of lightning.

But high above these clouds, amidst a magnificent, floating giant island, two people were sitting opposite each other in a waterside pavilion, drinking tea.

One person sat on the south side of the stone table, seemingly clad in black robes. His entire body was obscured by a blur in space, making his specific build and appearance completely indiscernible.

The other person sat on the north side. In his chest was a horrifying, bloody hole. It was none other than Elder Zhuan Yu.

Elder Zhuan Yu was cheerfully lifting a teacup filled with a crimson, frothy liquid.

"If you really can't handle that stuff, you should drink less of it. The more you drink, the worse it is for you," the person sitting opposite him said softly. In his own cup was simple, clear tea.

When he picked up his cup, it too became blurry along with his hand, to the point where it couldn't even be perceived by one's senses.

"Thank you for your concern, Pavilion Master. It's not that I don't want to drink less, but if I don't, it feels like ants are crawling all over my body. I can't bear the pain that gnaws at my bones and burns my heart," Zhuan Yu said with a chuckle.

The person sitting opposite him was the Pavilion Master of the Golden Thread Pavilion, Thirteen!

In fact, not even Zhuan Yu, an Internal Affairs Elder, had ever seen the Pavilion Master's true face.

The Pavilion Master was as elusive as a divine dragon showing its head but never its tail, completely inscrutable.

Even though the Pavilion Master was right before him, he understood that this person was merely one of the Pavilion Master's clones.

"It would be best if you could endure it, but I can't control you. The higher your Cultivation Level, the deeper you sink into the sea of suffering, and the harder it will be to escape. You know this."

Thirteen didn't press the matter further. He simply took a light sip of his clear tea, set the cup down, and turned his gaze to the chaos within the clouds visible from their vantage point.

"Tell me about your disciple. Has there been any news from the Great Virtue Temple?"

Hearing the Pavilion Master's words, Zhuan Yu slowly set down his teacup, his expression turning serious.

"According to reliable intelligence, a total of two hundred seventy-three Fated appeared during the Great Virtue Temple's Buddhist Assembly across the Sixty-four States. All of them have now been brought into the Great Virtue Temple. Furthermore, two Holy Children also emerged, and one of them was even named a Buddha's Son by that old bald donkey, Hai Shu."

He paused here before continuing:

"As for my disciple, I've had no news of him since he went to Cyan Lotus State and entered Yan'an Temple through the Buddhist Assembly. I don't know if he became one of the Fated."

"Is there no news about him at all?" Thirteen asked doubtfully.

Zhuan Yu shook his head, a hint of melancholy in his expression.

"All the agents we dispatched this time have returned, except for my disciple. We only managed to get a scrap of information by relying on the informants we had planted previously.

But we haven't found any news of my disciple among those two hundred seventy-three Fated. I only know he's still alive because of a Seal I placed on him. Otherwise, I would have assumed he'd already met with disaster."

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com