Chapter 3346: Parting The Crowd

Despite the jeers of the crowd, Lin Mu maintained his composure.

A shaman clicked his tongue. "Unless you are a legendary sage, forget it."

Lin Mu kept his calm. "If one is skilled enough, is that acceptable?"

The clansman scoffed. "Unless you surpass everyone in that line, absolutely not. If you really think you qualify, impress the crowd."

Lin Mu nodded once.

"Very well."

He closed his eyes.

And then he released his aura.

HONGLONG

Not his sword intent.

Not his qi cultivation.

Not even the physical pressure of his body.

He released the True Buddhist Aura he had spent years learning to contain. This time he opened the floodgates.

The world fell silent.

A radiant golden light expanded from Lin Mu in a soft wave. It was gentle, warm, and pure. The chanting of ancient sutras echoed faintly in the air. The ground hummed. Flowers lifted slightly from their stems. The sky seemed to brighten.

People gasped. Many fell to their knees instinctively. Even shamans, monks, and diviners felt cold sweat run down their backs.

The Binggan clansman who mocked him a moment ago dropped his collection bag.

Daoist Chu stood with a faint smile, watching everyone’s jaws drop.

Cattaleya smirked. "Well. That settles the line problem."

Meng Bai whispered, "The entire crowd is frozen."

Little Shrubby purred and flicked his tail proudly.

Lin Mu opened his eyes. Golden light flickered within them.

"Now," he said calmly. "May I enter."

The golden radiance of Lin Mu’s aura spread across the town like the gentle roll of a warm tide. It brushed against hundreds of thousands of people and filled the air with a solemn tranquility that almost felt sacred.

Even those who did not cultivate instantly recognized the feeling in their hearts. It was unmistakably Buddhist in nature. It brought a soothing calm, a cleansing sensation that silenced stray thoughts and soothed agitated minds.

Yet although the people could sense its nature, not a single soul among them understood what level it belonged to. None of them could recognize the profound depth of the True Buddhist Aura that surrounded Lin Mu.

They only felt something impossibly pure, impossibly serene, impossibly vast sweep over their bodies.

The Binggan clansmen who had been mocking Lin Mu just moments ago stood with shaking legs and blank faces. Their mouths hung half open as their brains struggled to process what their eyes were seeing and what their hearts were feeling.

Lin Mu waited a moment for them to regain enough awareness to speak.

Then he asked again, in a calm voice filled with quiet authority, "May I proceed?"

The clansman who had been scoffing earlier, swallowed loudly. His voice cracked as he tried to respond and failed.

He coughed, pounded his chest with his fist, and finally managed to choke out, "Y... yes. Yes, honored sir. You... you may proceed."

Lin Mu nodded politely.

When he turned to look at the enormous line of cultivators stretching across the town, the people felt that gaze like a gentle push. His eyes did not contain killing intent, aggression, or sharpness. They contained a serene golden clarity that made the crowd instinctively part for him as if they were blades of grass bending before a summer breeze.

One by one, people shifted aside.

The packed masses moved with unnatural coordination until a clean, straight path opened before Lin Mu, extending all the way to the clan gates. It was silent except for the sound of people breathing in short, rapid bursts as the shock slowly settled into their bones.

Lin Mu began to walk.

His companions followed behind him, Little Shrubby pacing with regal calmness, the twins flicking their tails. Cattaleya walked with a predatory grace, Daoist Chu with composed elegance, Elyon with a mercenary’s steady stride, and Meng Bai with wide eyes trying to absorb all the reactions around them.

They had only walked halfway through the parted path when a ripple of agitation spread through the crowd.

Several figures dressed in saffron kasayas moved quickly through the parted masses. Their prayer beads clattered gently in their haste, and their faces carried deep-lines of practiced serenity mixed with unmistakable urgency.

Five monks arrived before Lin Mu, stopped abruptly, and clasped their palms together in deep respect. They bowed their heads and spoke in quiet, reverent tones that only heightened the bewilderment of the onlookers.

"Honored one, may we ask who you are."

Another monk added, "Such purity of Buddhist aura has not been witnessed by us in many years. This is not the aura of a wandering monk. This is a level we have only sensed from senior abbots who have undergone thousands of years of enlightenment."

A third monk studied Lin Mu with awe. "You cultivate the Buddhist path, yet you are not dressed as a monk. Your attire is not that of any monastic order we know. May we know your sacred name."

Lin Mu replied simply, "Lin Mu."

Daoist Chu coughed lightly.

He stepped forward, lifted his sleeve with a calm flourish, and corrected, "This is Lin Mu, the bearer of the White Jade Ruyi of Silent Lotus Temple."

The monks froze.

The surrounding spectators froze.

The entire atmosphere collapsed into stunned silence.

One monk whispered as though he were afraid to disturb the heavens, "White... Jade... Ruyi..."

Another monk’s eyes widened as if he had just witnessed a deity appear before him. "The sacred authority of the Silent Lotus Temple. Only a chosen inheritor recognized by the Buddhist Dao itself can hold such an artifact."

Their faces lost all color.

THUD THUD THUD

Within a heartbeat they dropped to their knees, touching their foreheads to the ground. The prayer beads around their wrists rattled loudly as they bowed again and again.

Lin Mu blinked in confusion for a moment, but Daoist Chu nodded as if saying, Go ahead, show them.

Lin Mu lifted his hand and summoned the White Jade Ruyi from his spatial ring. The moment it appeared, the air resonated with a faint chime like the ringing of a temple bell. A surge of golden light flowed out from it, intertwining with Lin Mu’s aura.

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