Chapter 48

Liu Zhiyi passed the black stone tablet and looked at the two-faced Buddha enshrined behind it.

Liu Zhiyi: "Why is it called the Zhuan Temple?"

"It's juan — donate," Yindi corrected her pronunciation. "In our dialect juan sounds like zhuan. The temple was donated by the villagers, so it's the Donated Temple."

So that was it.

Liu Zhiyi found the two-faced Buddha in this temple a little different from the ones she'd seen in her first two dungeons.

Two-faced Buddha, two-faced Buddha.

True to the name, it had two faces.

But the two-faced Buddhas in the first two dungeons had only one face turned outward.

The statue in this temple, though, had turned its head slightly, showing the face at the back of its head.

Liu Zhiyi leaned in for a close look at the statue.

The first two dungeons had left her little time or energy for careful investigation.

Thinking of the mastermind theory the cat had raised —

a guess formed in Liu Zhiyi's mind.

Was going into dungeons this often meant to leave the players no time to investigate and gather clues?

Liu Zhiyi didn't know much about religion, and wasn't clear on the lore of the two-faced Buddha.

She could only think it through on feeling.

The statue was dark in color, and in the dark it really was hard to make out the features on its face.

The head turned most toward the outside had a ferocious face, mouth open to show four sharp fangs, a snake coiled around its body.

Looking down, Liu Zhiyi noticed the statue's feet trod on four heads.

The features carved on these heads were vivid and lifelike — one laughing, one with downcast eyes and falling tears, one with eyes wide in terror, and one with brows knit and mouth open…

Like joy, sorrow, fear, and anger.

"Paying respects?" Yindi asked.

Liu Zhiyi looked at the statue, growing more ferocious in the candlelight.

"…No. This face of the statue is a bit frightening."

"That's the wrathful aspect." Yindi pressed her palms together and bowed to the two-faced Buddha.

Liu Zhiyi: "Wrathful aspect?"

Yindi: "People have their passions and desires."

With that she pointed at the statue.

"So do they."

"People act differently in different settings. If everyone's calm and speaks reasonably, then of course you treat them gently. But facing wicked people, kind words are no use — you have to act a little fierce, maybe even meet force with force."

Yindi: "That's the wrathful aspect."

Liu Zhiyi listened, thoughtful, and turned her eyes to the back of the statue's head.

This statue had turned its head.

The face at the back was far gentler in expression, eyes downcast, lips closed, wearing a smile; the snake coiled around the wrathful aspect became a string of beads, and the four heads trodden underfoot became a lotus throne.

Liu Zhiyi: "This is the good aspect?"

Yindi: "You could put it that way, but the proper term is the quiescent aspect."

Liu Zhiyi had prayed to Buddhas before, but mostly to the likes of the Buddha Tathagata or the Bodhisattva Guanyin; she'd truly never seen this kind of two-in-one statue.

It looked a bit sinister, even.

Liu Zhiyi: "Do the two aspects have any special meaning?"

Yindi straightened up and stepped aside to make room for the next person to pray.

"One thought toward good, one thought toward evil — good and evil are only a moment apart."

Liu Zhiyi: "Then… why has the good aspect turned to face us? No — why does the wrathful aspect always face outward?"

"The wrathful aspect facing people is maybe to warn the world not to do evil lightly?"

Yindi didn't sound too sure of it either.

"The good aspect turning around… I don't remember the statue being like this before."

The words were barely out of Yindi's mouth when several people who'd been praying suddenly stepped back, opening a distance from the statue.

Yindi carried her back several steps too.

Liu Zhiyi: "…None of you noticed."

In the end the few of them jostled one another, making to run out of the temple.

Afraid of a crush in the pushing and shoving, Liu Zhiyi quickly turned on the flashlight.

The beam swept a circle inside the temple and happened to catch the tablet.

Besides the names of the people who'd donated to build the temple, carved on the tablet, Liu Zhiyi also saw the two words City God.

Was it the City God and Land God enshrined in this temple?

This leisurely dungeon gave her time enough to think, and Liu Zhiyi wanted to ask a few more questions.

"Is it the City God and Land God the Donated Temple worships?"

Yindi carried her out to the main road, a little out of breath.

"Yes. Earlier, when the sent-down youths came to the countryside, a good many died here of illness, so the village built a temple."

Liu Zhiyi: "What's the reason for it?"

Yindi: "The City God keeps the household records of the dead in the cities, the Land God those in the countryside; there has to be a handover between them, or someone who dies away from home can't get back. Why are you asking all this?"

Seeing the subject turn to what she wanted to ask —

Liu Zhiyi: "If it's a temple to the City God and Land God, why is there a two-faced Buddha?"

Liu Zhiyi had wondered this for a long time. They said a dungeon was a projection of a person's subconscious — so why was the safe room inside it a two-faced Buddha?

You could call it a show of collective thinking too; after all, plenty of people in the country still pray to gods and Buddhas, they have that turn of mind.

But there were thousands upon thousands of Buddhas and gods — why this two-faced Buddha in particular?

And besides… hadn't her grandmother prayed to Guanyin?

She remembered that the building her grandmother lived in in the city had a little shrine of its own, and what it enshrined was Guanyin.

By any reckoning, a Guanyin appearing in the dungeon's safe room would make more sense than a two-faced Buddha.

Yindi: "I don't know either. It seems it's been there since the temple was built. You'd have to ask someone — as it happens, Yu Xiao's family have all gone mad, and we're about to bring someone in to take a look."

Yu Xiao?

Liu Zhiyi had actually heard this name — it was a friend of her grandmother's.

The goat Liu Zhiyi had chased as a child belonged to their family.

Liu Zhiyi: "How did they go mad?"

"They must have run into something." Yindi jostled her in her arms, and seeing this, Liu Zhiyi quickly climbed down.

Yindi: "There are a few places outside our village that are very wild…"