Chapter - 282 Visitors Drunk On Magical Lotus In the Green Willow Manor (14) (2/2)

Yan Yuan leaped toward the platform and pushed the long-eyebrowed arhat to the side, exposing the wall behind it, but there was nothing unusual there. Yang Xiao also leaped to the platform to take a closer look at that long-eyebrowed arhat. ”Uh,” he suddenly exclaimed, ”There is a character on the back of this arhat.” He turned the arhat around. To their astonishment, the crowd saw a 'mie' [extinguish] character as big as a human's head.

The Luohan arhats were inlaid with gold, but by now a large 'mie' character was engraved on the glittering golden back with a sharp object. The engraving was about a 'cun' [an inch] deep that the clay inside was exposed. The engraving was new, obviously it was done not too long ago.

”What's the meaning of this 'mie' character?” Zhou Dian wondered, ”Ah, right! It must be the Emei Sect attacked the Shaolin Temple; Miejue Shitai left this to demonstrate her power.”

The group of heroes thought his idea was too unthinkable; they all shook their heads. While speaking they turned all the arhats around. Other than the Subduing Dragon Arhat on the extreme right and the Crouching Tiger Arhat on the extreme left, a large character was engraved on the back of every arhat. From right to left there were sixteen characters which read: 'First execute Shaolin then extinguish Wudang, only our Ming Cult is fit to be Wulin world's king!'

Yin Tianzheng, Tie Guan Daoren, Shuo Bude and the others called out together, ”This is a treacherous plan to shift the blame!” They realized these sixteen characters were a threat to incite terror; they recalled how the Shaolin Temple's monks suffered an unexpected calamity, and the blame was put upon the Ming Cult's head. Everybody was anxious and grieved at the same time.

”Let us quickly scrape off these characters to avoid injustice toward us,” Zhou Dian called out.

Yang Xiao said, ”The enemy intention is obviously malicious; scraping off these sixteen characters may not be necessarily useful.”

This time Zhou Dian felt what he said made a good sense, so he did not argue. ”What should we do, then?” he asked.

Shuo Bude said, ”This is actually evidence. If we can find the person who hatched this treacherous plan, we can take him here and confront him with these sixteen characters.”

Yang Xiao nodded his agreement.

Peng Yingyu said, ”Xiao Seng [little/lowly monk] still have a question, I need the Left Emissary Yang's enlightenment. The person who carved these sixteen characters obviously wanted to shift the blame to our Cult; placing the responsibility of Shaolin Sect's destruction on our head, so that the Wulin world's heroes would rally together to attack us. Then why did he turn these arhats to the wall? Why didn't they leave these large sixteen characters facing outward? If it wasn't because of Flag Leader Yan's attentiveness, nobody would know there are characters on the back of these Luohan arhats.”

Yang Xiao was deep in thought. ”Come to think about it,” he said, ”There must be someone else who turned these arhats back. Most likely there is someone helping our Cult in secret. We owe him a big debt of gratitude.”

”Who is this person?” the crowd asked almost simultaneously, ”How did Left Emissary Yang know?”

Yang Xiao sighed and said, ”This is a complicated mystery, I cannot possibly know everything …”

”Ah!” he has not finished his words when suddenly Zhang Wuji loudly exclaimed, ”'First execute Shaolin, then extinguish Wudang,' I am afraid … I am afraid Wudang is facing a terrible disaster.”

”We must leave immediately to render our help,” Wei Yixiao said, ”We might also find out which dog has done it all.”

”We can't wait much longer,” Yin Tianzheng also said, ”We must leave now. These bandits have already left one or two days ago.”