Chapter 49: Rongliang! Don’t Say It!

Chapter 49: Rongliang! Don’t Say It!

Hearing Dharma Master Zisheng say this, Grandma and Uncle both laughed in exasperation.

“Do you have any idea how precious that device you smashed is?” Uncle said. “You could sell this entire temple of yours and it still wouldn’t cover the cost. And if you’d triggered the nuclear component inside, it might have set off a nuclear explosion. Half of Pingdu City could have been leveled.”

His words broke me out in a cold sweat too. “Well,” I said quietly, “I smashed one myself. He was only following my example.”

Uncle looked at me, and that made him angrier still. “And you trained as an engineer? Did you feed every scrap of your physics to the dogs? Without a nuclear component, where would enough energy come from to alter spacetime? And you still dared to mess around like that!”

Dharma Master Zisheng looked utterly bewildered. He couldn’t fathom why a respected Great Dharma Master like me was being scolded so mercilessly by this middle-aged man.

I helped Grandma leap down from the beam. Uncle and Ou Xiaoli jumped down as well. Last came Dharma Master Zisheng, climbing slowly down the ladder.

Only once everyone stood on the floor did we realize we were all covered head to foot in dust and grime, and we couldn’t help laughing.

I cupped my hands to Dharma Master Zisheng. “I still owe you my thanks for saving my life. You threw yourself into it because you were trying to save me. This beam above the hanging bell—I imagine that was the first time Senior Brother Zisheng had ever been up there?”

Dharma Master Zisheng had already grasped Uncle’s meaning. “I’m ashamed, deeply ashamed,” he said.

Then I made the introductions.

“This is my Grandma. She was harmed by villains and nearly lost her life. This is my uncle. Just now, he and I used that device to carry out the rescue. And this young friend is a young hero. Don’t let her age fool you—her cultivation and powers surpass my own.”

As I spoke, I gestured to each of them in turn.

Dharma Master Zisheng returned the courtesy to each of them. “Science knows no bounds. Only today have I truly seen what it means that there is always someone greater than the great, a heaven beyond heaven. Dharma Master Xuanhong was already a summit I could only gaze up at. I never imagined so many other remarkable people existed.”

Grandma smiled and thanked him. “Thank you, Dharma Master Zisheng, for looking after Beichen all this time. Our rescue today was owed to your help as well. For that, I’m deeply grateful.”

Zisheng could only return the courtesy once more. “Then please, everyone, rest a while in the rear hall. The two elders seem to be injured. There are guest rooms there where you can recover.”

“We’ve imposed on you far too much already,” Grandma said. “Beichen, you stay and catch up with Dharma Master Zisheng. The rest of us need to go. Contact your uncle when you have time.”

I’d wanted to leave with Grandma, but perhaps she’d arranged it this way so that Zisheng wouldn’t be left with too many questions and doubts. So many of us had appeared out of thin air at once—for an ordinary person, that flew in the face of all common sense. Better to explain it to him plainly than to leave him guessing.

So I stayed behind.

After Grandma and the others left, I went with Dharma Master Zisheng back to his rear hall. Tea was poured, and we sat facing each other while I told him about the spacetime boundary.

Since he’d already seen it, he deserved a clear explanation.

I told him that after seven hundred years of tolling bells, wind, and rain, the Great Bell Tower had developed a natural physical effect field, one that high-powered figures had come to prize. Erecting a spacetime boundary here let that field work more efficiently. Through such a boundary, high-powered figures could form a miniature wormhole and pass through spacetime.

Had Dharma Master Zisheng not seen us materialize from empty air with his own eyes, he never would have believed me.

But what…