Chapter 196

When we came down just now, we stopped looking at the plaques and thus didn’t pay any attention to the beams. We didn’t realize that there was such a big thing hanging there, but now that we had looked up and seen it, we were covered in a cold sweat.

This floor was too high, so when we pointed our flashlights up, we could only tell that the thing looked like a big bell with a lot of things stuck on it. They seemed to be spells and paper money. I was amazed at how those paper-like things didn’t rot after so many years, but after careful observation, I felt that they seemed to be made of silks and satins. If they had silver and gold threads woven into them, they could be preserved for a long time.

“What the hell? Who’s going to ring such a high bell?” Fatty touched the back of the head. We saw something fall from inside the bell and hit the surface of the hot spring, sending out ripples. “It’s too hot. Is this bell melting?”

I squinted. The cold firework had gone out completely by now, so the water’s surface was out of sight. I swept my flashlight over the ceiling, thinking that it was quite normal to have a bell in a tower. Black Glasses whispered from the side, “The twenty-fourth volume of Ekottara Āgama (1) says: Prince Ānanda flicked his fingers from side to side and immediately went up to the lecture hall. He was holding a hammer and saying: ‘I’ll hit this faith-instilling drum today, and all of Tathagata’s disciples shall gather’.” (2)

“What do you mean ‘flicked his fingers from side to side’?”

When I asked this, Black Glasses said, “I can’t remember the middle part, but this is a Brahma bell (3). There seems to be something inside of it.”

Looking at the spells above, it didn’t seem particularly auspicious. It actually looked more like a kind of burial system, but I had never heard of a hanging bell burial. Fatty said, “In feng shui, the bell represents termination. Is this the last level? Are we at the end?”

I gave a noncommittal hum and suddenly thought of something. After Poker-Face came out of the bronze door, he told me that he had seen the Ultimate. Did I hear wrong at that time? Did he actually see a bell back then and was anxious after seeing one here now?

I thought about it and felt that it shouldn’t be the case. But he had never said this conclusion, and I was too lazy to ask.

After hesitating on whether to go up and have a look, Poker-Face eventually said, “There are three statues on each floor, but there’s only one on this floor. It’s not normal.”

I nodded, “This tower’s designer revealed a special kind of fastidiousness. I think that the bell hanging above, the underwater thing, and this statue are the three gods of this level. But these three gods may be different from the ones above. Two of the gods were probably zombies at the time.”

<Chapter 195><Table of Contents><Chapter 197>

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TN Notes:

(1) An early Indian Buddhist text, of which currently only a Chinese translation is extant (Taishō Tripiṭaka 125). The title “Ekottara Āgama” literally means “Numbered Discourses”. It’s one of the four Āgamas of the Sūtra Piṭaka located in the Chinese Buddhist Canon. English wiki here (limited info). Chinese wiki here (lots of info).

(2) Prince Ānanda was Buddha’s cousin and his closest disciple. Wiki link here. Tathagata is Buddha’s name for himself. It has many layers of meaning – Sanskrit: thus gone, having been Brahman, gone to the absolute, etc.

(3) Braham bells can also be called Sanskrit bells. It’s said that by hearing the sound of the bell, people can open their minds and break free from their worries. Brahman means purity. Can look something like this: