On a rainy night, heavy drops pounded the ground with a sharp crackle. Suddenly, screeching brakes echoed, and with a thud, a woman collapsed onto the pavement.
The driver got out of the car and walked over. Dark red blood stained the ground beside the woman, but she was not dead yet. In agony, she tried to crawl up, reaching out with her hand.
The young driver panicked, breathing rapidly, frozen in the rain-soaked night. Then, he turned, started the car, and sped past the woman, cold and merciless as the downpour itself.
The driver was usually a decent man. Neighbors thought he was honest, and at work, he was often praised by his superiors. At home, his wife was virtuous, his daughter gentle and obedient.
But no one knew what happened on that rainy night. The accident occurred on a remote stretch of road, with no cameras and no witnesses. The driver, burdened by a new mortgage, hadn’t meant for it to happen—he’d lost control because the road was slick with rain, and that’s why he veered onto the sidewalk.
No one knew this secret. The driver kept everything hidden, but under the guise of a good Samaritan, he sent a little money each month to the elderly family of the woman who died in the accident. She didn’t have to die; her cause of death was blood loss.
Year after year, day after day, the driver eventually stopped sending money. He seemed to have forgotten the incident completely, but then a strange pain began in his chest. He saw countless doctors, but nothing helped. Every morning, he woke from the ache in his chest.
His health worsened with each passing day. There was no obvious illness, but his body grew weaker. He couldn’t eat or sleep well.
Eventually, the driver remembered everything he’d done years ago. He turned to Buddhism, repenting devoutly, but the pain only intensified. When he was finally at death’s door, with no diagnosis to explain his suffering, he confessed everything from that night.
The unsolved hit-and-run from more than a decade ago was finally closed. Everyone who knew the driver was stunned, but by then, he was already gone.
In a daze, I snapped back to awareness, clutching my chest—this was what I saw after touching a lotus flower just now. It was as if I truly experienced it: the driver's consciousness invaded mine, and I immediately distanced myself from those lotuses.
I more or less understood now—this was a place where the karmic burdens of ordinary people gathered. The lotus is supposed to be a sacred flower, pure and unstained despite growing from the mud, but all the lotuses I saw here were tainted, not a single one was pure. Everything in this place was a cruel irony, painfully glaring and heartbreaking.
I dared not touch the lotuses again. I didn’t even know how I ended up here. In just a few seconds, I still couldn’t use my instincts. If such a massive consciousness invaded my own, I would collapse in an instant.
“Liu Xiao, what exactly are you trying to do?”
I shouted, but there was no response in the boundless darkness. I tilted my head back, refusing to look down at the lotuses any longer.
Gradually, I felt my head growing heavier. I shook it quickly, and suddenly my eyes flew open—I was standing right above the lotuses, and my physical condition was getting worse by the second.
With one hand pressed to my chest, I felt unbearably uncomfortable, suffocating as if I could barely breathe, and it seemed my body was no longer my own.
The situation was dire—my body felt paralyzed, and I was slowly sinking. My legs were already submerged in the multicolored surface of the lake. Suddenly, a wave of searing pain shot through me. In a daze, I saw flames, and then I found myself atop a blazing inferno. I watched as the current swept the tainted lotuses into the fire.
Scenes flickered by. As each lotus was consumed by the flames, a rapid stream of images flashed before my eyes. This truly was a gathering place for human karmic burdens. As for the fire before me, I recognized it instantly—Divine Lord Yan had once wielded this power: Karmic Fire.
Both my legs were now submerged beneath the surface. My breathing grew rapid; I could no longer feel any temperature. All I saw was the Karmic Fire devouring these sins.