The City of Terror

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

 “This little brother is s.h.i.+ Yan Ming, the librarian of the Sutra Depository Pavilion. If you need to look up a book, you can ask him to help you.”

When the monk left, Wei Xiao Bei did not rush to enter the Sutra Depository Pavillion to go and read the secret scriptures. On the contrary, he curiously chatted with s.h.i.+ Yan Ming.

“What is this computer for?”

Wei Xiao Bei pointed at the computer on the table and asked.

s.h.i.+ Yan Ming felt that it was funny and answered, “Could it be that benefactor Wei had never been to a library? This is used to record books and the status of borrowed books.”

Wei Xiao Bei"s face immediately reddened as he did not think before asking.

Although he did not go to the library much, he at least knew that every library had a managing computer.

Perhaps he had been puzzled by how ancient the Shaolin Temple look that he had forgotten about this.

 How embarra.s.sing!

“I just never thought that the Shaolin Temple would keep up with the times and would have already caught up with modern society.”

Wei Xiao Bei could not help but sigh.

“This is nothing big. Even the books that are kept inside the Pavillion have already been scanned and stored inside a hard disk. It"s very convenient to look them up. Naturally, this poor monk still feels that looking at its original copy feels better.”

Perhaps he was showing off or really being honest. In any case, s.h.i.+ Yan Ming"s words caused Wei Xiao Bei to become a bit excited.

In truth, if he could, he was much more willing to have the hard drive copied.

Unfortunately, it was an impossible thing to do once he thought about it!

Perhaps because the number of monks that came to the Pavillion was very few, s.h.i.+ Yan Ming was rather entertaining in conversation. From his words, Wei Xiao Bei came to understand many matters about the Pavillion.

There were three floors to the pavilion. On the lowest floor various external techniques such as punching, kicking, and grappling were practiced. On the second floor, internal techniques and weapon techniques were found, including the Shaolin 72 consummate arts.

The third floor was where the original copies of Buddhist Scriptures and treasured books were found. For the Shaolin Temple, these books were a lot more important than martial arts books.

Thus, if Wei Xiao Bei wanted to enter the third level, he needed to speak with s.h.i.+ Yan Ming and be accompanied up.

This could not be helped. If any of these original copies of Buddhist Scriptures and treasured books were lost or destroyed, the ensuing problems would be huge.

Every single book was an antique.

If s.h.i.+ Yan Ming was a storyteller, he would definitely be a professional as his words had roused Wei Xiao Bei"s interest.

Wei Xiao Bei did not hold up any more of s.h.i.+ Yan Ming"s time as another monk entered. s.h.i.+ Yan Ming apologized and served the other monk.

Afterward, Wei Xiao Bei left the reception and went into the Pavillion.

The Sutra Depository Pavillion was one of the most important places in the Shaolin Temple. The area that it occupied was very large. Looking at it from the inside, there were rows of bookcases that appeared as if rows of soldiers, making anyone who saw it feel awe at the glory.

Wei Xiao Bei thought for a bit and walked to the first bookcase. Although the majority of the books there were string bound, they had been maintained quite well. He wore thin gloves that s.h.i.+ Yan Ming gave him, took out the first book he saw and looked at the cover.

 Chuanquan (Boat fists)?

The name was quite rare. Wei Xiao Bei opened to the first page and saw that it looked simple. Chuanquan was a traditional martial art from the coastal areas. Its creator was a fisherman, and it was a specialized martial art for use while on boats.

Because small boats rock a lot and some were only the size of a table that could fit eight people, Chuanquan was very different from other land-based martial arts.

To train Chuanquan, the most important thing to first do was to have a firm stance! Even if the wind blew and the waves rolled, the stance should be as firm as Mt. Tai!

Other than firmness, it should also be light. When punching out and retracting it should be light and quick just like an arrow.

Although the technique was not famous, it was a thousand-year traditional martial art in the Jiangsu province.

Wei Xiao Bei looked at the book very fast as the pages flew with a woosh. In less than 20 seconds, he had read the entire book. Moreover, he had already saved everything to his memory, including the images.

In truth, if he was not worried that the book might be destroyed, then he could have been even faster and finished the book in less than six seconds.

It could be said that just this book alone made him feel as if he had benefited.

It must be said that Wei Xiao Bei"s martial arts were mainly Bajiquan, while his auxiliary was the Three Emperor Cannon Fist. However, these two were fist techniques, making his main focus full offensive in battles.

However, in the Dust World, the situation could change erratically. Who knew if there was a need for him to go on the defensive or perhaps delay the enemy.

On the other hand, the Chuanquan was mainly defense, supplemented by a bit of offense. It was to the point that training it required the user to not go out of the s.p.a.ce of two-feet while the hands should be like doors.

From this, the defensive nature of Chuanquan could be seen.

Naturally, Wei Xiao Bei was only reflecting for a bit. He immediately picked up a book and flipped its pages.

After s.h.i.+ Yan Ming finished inputting the monk"s records in the computer, he got up and went to take a look at Wei Xiao Bei.

Although he did not know about Wei Xiao Bei"s display the previous day, he had a favorable impression of him, thus he was worried.

In the end, when he saw Wei Xiao Bei, he could not help but be stupefied.

What is this reading speed?

Initially, s.h.i.+ Yan Ming originally thought that Wei Xiao Bei was trying to find a book with how fast he was flipping the page, but after careful inspection, he realized that it definitely wasn"t the case.

Who flips the entire book until the end to find a book?

If he truly wanted to find a book, he should only look at the cover and at most the introduction. Doing so should have been enough to understand the specialty of martial art.

Could he truly have read the entire thing that fast?

s.h.i.+ Yan Ming frowned, but since he knew that Wei Xiao Bei was an outsider that could enter the Sutra Depository Pavillion, then it meant that the other party paid a hefty price.

Entering the Sutra Depository Pavillion was no simple feat. Even the monks of the Shaolin Temple had to apply one day before to be able to enter it.

In simpler terms, the Sutra Depository Pavillion was like a big company"s cla.s.sified database. No idiot boss would simply let other companies take a look at their own secret database.

However, it is impossible for Wei Xiao Bei to simply go crazy like this after paying such a huge price.

 Then there is only one answer to this!

He is truly reading the books!

Although his occupation was a monk, s.h.i.+ Yan Ming had also read manga. This was very normal as reading books could widen one"s world view.

Is he truly reading?

 Can he actually remember it?

s.h.i.+ Yan Ming touched his shaven head. He felt as if his world view had suddenly collapsed. He sat back on the chair and stared at Wei Xiao Bei with empty eyes.

Anyway, as long as Wei Xiao Bei did not destroy the books, even if he read that fast, he was still within reason.

Wei Xiao Bei noticed s.h.i.+ Yan Ming"s gaze from the start.

However, even if he noticed, Wei Xiao Bei didn"t slow down his reading speed just to cover it up.

He simply had no choice as there were just too many books!

After reading more than 100 books, he already noticed one thing. There were not many books that recorded purely martial arts. Many of them were records left by predecessors.

For example, the books close to the Chuanquan were written experiences by Shaolin monks and some comprehensions by other martial artists. There were even some books that wrote improvements to it.

In truth, these records were not inferior to the martial art scripture itself.

In the beginning, martial arts were originally fighting techniques used by Chinese predecessors to fight against beasts. Afterward, they were developed through battle and became capable of killing. Over time, they had formed into various martial arts, from which many other variations originated. New ideas were born as time pa.s.sed.

These records had written down that same process.

It could be said that these records contained senior martial artist"s thoughts.

In truth, if it was in the past, if people wanted to become a Cosmic Jing expert, they would need to learn and master more than 10 different martial arts and consolidate them.

On the other hand, Wei Xiao Bei relied on his status panel and pushed his Bajiquan to reach the Cosmic Jing level.

However, this was Wei Xiao Bei"s weakness in learning martial arts, causing any further growth to stagnate.

For him, the benefits of these martial arts records were imaginable.

From entering the Pavillion at nine in the morning, Wei Xiao Bei had continued reading until he had been called out by s.h.i.+ Yan Ming, triggering him to come to his senses, “Master Yan Ming, is something the matter?”

Seeing Wei Xiao Bei"s stupid expression, s.h.i.+ Yan Ming could not help but laugh and raised his left hand, letting Wei Xiao Bei see his watch, “Is something the matter. It"s already 11 o"clock, could it be that reading has completely removed your hunger?”

“Ah, right. It"s lunchtime.”

Wei Xiao Bei appeared as if he awoke from a dream and nodded his head and s.h.i.+ Yan Ming smiled bitterly.

How could this guy be a Guo Shu Great Scholar, he is simply a crazy bookworm!

Perhaps due to being cared for by the head of the Dharma Palace, Wei Xiao Bei"s food had been directly sent to him from the kitchen to the Sutra Depository Pavillion. They had even brought s.h.i.+ Yan Ming"s portion.

s.h.i.+ Yan Ming had basked in Wei Xiao Bei"s light.

In truth, Wei Xiao Bei was not willing to delay his reading for food. If he was truly hungry he could just eat two pieces of barbecued meat.

This could not be helped as he could not overstep what was normal.

First, it was prohibited for people to eat inside the Pavillion as they could accidentally dirty the books.

Additionally, even if he did not need to eat, s.h.i.+ Yan Ming needed to eat. Moreover, he would need to run to the dining hall to eat, closing the Pavillion doors.

Wei Xiao Bei would then have to wait outside the Pavillion.

This trip back and forth was a lot longer compared to eating outside of the Pavillion.