"Stop pretending, let us enjoy the pleasure to our hearts' content."
Tomie frivolously lifted Amamiya Rin's chin, leaning down to press her bewitching red lips against his.
Tomie's kissing technique was skilled and teasing, prying open Amamiya Rin's teeth in an attempt to ignite his lust.
Another Tomie guided Amamiya Rin's palm to cover the voluptuous curves of her own body; she panted slightly, her eyes so enchanting they seemed ready to drip water.
Amamiya Rin neither responded to this passionate kiss nor pushed away the restless hand.
He simply sat quietly, like a rock in the mountains, allowing them to do as they pleased, as if none of this had anything to do with him.
This submissive posture made the eyes of the Tomies twinkle with triumphant light. The smiles on their lips deepened, carrying an arrogance that suggested victory was inevitable.
For a moment, the tea room was filled with boundless spring scenery. Jade-like bodies were displayed horizontally, snow-white arms and graceful waists intertwined. Bold and dissolute panting and moaning rose and fell, weaving a web of desire sufficient to cause any ordinary man's reason to collapse and his blood to surge.
However, Amamiya Rin just sat there quietly, letting them act.
The clarity in his eyes did not diminish by even half a degree; it was a calmness that pierced through appearances and reached straight to the essence.
In his heart at this moment, these skins that could overturn all living beings were no different in essence from the wooden table in the tea room, the futon, or even the wind blowing outside the window. All were phenomena arising from the combination of causes and conditions, existing temporarily; their essence was Emptiness.
As time passed, the Tomies gradually sensed that something was wrong.
Amamiya Rin's body would show physiological reactions due to their caresses, but his breathing remained long and regular throughout. His chest rose and fell steadily, and his heartbeat, transmitted through the skin pressed against him, was shockingly stable.
His clear eyes, like the most polished mirror surface, clearly reflected their enchanting, writhing, and infatuated postures. Yet the mirror surface itself remained unrippled, showing no sign of emotional disturbance or confusion.
"You... you stinky man! Are you fooling us?!"
Tomie's voice turned shrill. The smile on her face vanished, replaced by suspicion and anger.
"Look out the window."
Amamiya Rin's gaze passed over the writhing snow-white torso before him, casting toward the open window of the tea room.
In the courtyard, the gnarled branches of the old trees swayed slightly in the wind, and a few leaves that had withered early swirled as they fell.
"Look at what?"
The Tomie straddling his legs frowned impatiently, but she subconsciously turned her head to follow his line of sight.
The other Tomies also looked out the window one after another, seeing only the wind blowing the trees and the clouds rolling and unfurling—a typical scene in a mountain temple.
Amamiya Rin's voice sounded peacefully, calm as an ancient well: "Tell me, is the wind moving, or is the tree moving?"
"Of course it's the tree moving. You can't see the wind."
Tomie sneered, the corners of her eyes tilting upward slightly.
"Wrong, it's the wind moving! Just because wind is invisible doesn't mean it doesn't exist. How could a tree move on its own?"
Another Tomie raised her head and retorted against the first Tomie.
"It's clearly the wind!"
"It's the tree!"
"It's the wind!"
...
A simple question immediately sparked a small dispute among the Tomies. Dozens of identical mouths each held their own opinion, their crisp and charming voices mixing together. The ambiguous and erotic atmosphere was diluted significantly by this meaningless quarrel.
"It is not the wind moving, nor is it the tree moving; it is the mind moving."
Amamiya Rin slowly retracted his gaze, letting it fall once again on this face that outshone all flowers yet was written all over with restlessness. He shook his head gently.
"Whether the wind moves or the banner moves, these are merely the shifting changes of the external environment. It is the delusions of the inner heart that endow them with meaning, triggering greed, anger, ignorance, pride, and doubt. Your temptation, your voices, your bodies—in essence, they are no different from this wind or this tree. If the mind does not move, thoughts do not arise. If thoughts do not arise, the environment causes no disturbance."
The surrounding atmosphere stagnated instantly, like a powder keg about to detonate. Amamiya Rin's clear eyes lucidly reflected the faces of the Tomies, which were gradually turning ugly.
"Mind moving?"
The Tomie straddling his legs repeated the term, her beautiful cheeks twisting slightly with rage.
"Stop acting mysterious here! Your body has already reacted, so what kind of high-and-mighty act are you putting on?"
The Tomies ceased their internal strife. Dozens of pairs of eyes stared fixedly at Amamiya Rin in unison, burning with the anger and anxiety of being slighted.
"Exactly! You talk a pretty game, but your body is quite honest!"
"I'd like to see how long you can keep pretending!"
...
The Tomies trembled with rage. Amamiya Rin's current state was more unacceptable to them than any attack or resistance. Living in this world, the one thing they absolutely could not endure was being disregarded by a man.
For them, this was the ultimate humiliation.
"You use these skins to tempt me, just as Mara used the celestial maidens to tempt the Buddha."
His fingertips moved slightly, and at some point, he had picked up a half-opened gardenia. The petals were pure white as snow, still holding undried dewdrops, emitting a cool, clear fragrance.
"You witches, though your forms are correct, your hearts are not. You are merely leather bags filled with blood; what is there to crave?"
He lowered his eyes and sniffed gently, stating a simple truth.
"Shut up! Playing tricks!"
Tomie grabbed a teacup from the low table and smashed it viciously toward Amamiya Rin's face!
However, when the teacup was still an inch away from Amamiya Rin's forehead, it became transparent and illusory, like a reflection cast into water. It turned into specks of glimmering light and annihilated into nothingness.
At the same time, the surrounding environment quietly changed.
The entire scene of the tea room peeled away like a fading oil painting. The mottled walls, the primitive tea set, the futon beneath him... as everything vanished, it was replaced by a scene of tranquil and ancient nature.
The tatami beneath his feet was covered by gnarled tree roots. Overhead, there were no longer wooden beams and tiles, but lush, verdant branches and leaves that covered the sky and sun like a canopy, sieving down dappled and multicolored spots of light.
An immensely huge Bodhi tree rose from the ground, emanating an aura of tranquility and peace.
"All conditioned phenomena are illusive and false. If one sees all forms as non-forms, then one sees the Tathagata."
Amamiya Rin sat beneath the tree in the Vajra Cross-legged position, his hands forming the Dhyana Mudra. His voice carried a strange penetrating power, like the evening drum and morning bell, striking against the pride of the Tomies.
And the Tomies surrounding him, in this moment of dreamlike transition, revealed the ugly souls beneath their beauty.
Those peerlessly beautiful faces twisted and deformed like melting wax figures. Exquisite features became displaced; pitch-black pupils were swallowed by ghastly whites, leaving only distortion and madness.
One Tomie's smooth cheek bulged unnaturally; the skin ruptured, and writhing flesh surged out from within, moving like living creatures, growing rapidly to outline the facial contours of blurred features.
A strange sound emitted from another Tomie's shoulder blade as a long, slender arm pierced out, its five fingers scratching the air spasmodically like bizarre insect limbs.
On the waist of yet another Tomie, flesh and blood tore open vaguely, as if something were about to drill out from within. Beneath that overturned skin and flesh, a head that had already grown pitch-black hair could be faintly seen.
...
Within Amamiya Rin's clear state of mind, all false skins were revealing their true faces.
Before his eyes, there were no longer beautiful witches, but only mutating monsters.
Glamour and ugliness, completeness and fragmentation, existed upon them simultaneously, composing a hellish picture that blasphemed life.
Beneath the Bodhi tree, the breeze blew past, bringing not warm fragrance, but a faint scent of blood and decay.
Amamiya Rin placed himself in the center of this group of twisted deformities, his expression remaining peaceful. It was as if this horrifying scene before him, just like the extreme temptation from before, was nothing more than passing clouds and smoke.
____
New Story: Junji Ito: I Shall Smash Hellstar Remina
✅ Unlock a 40-chapter backlog for ALL my series.
✅ Receive exclusive content and regular updates!
Help us reach these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 universal bonus chapter
🚀 140 MEMBERS = +5 extra chapters for ALL STORIES!
👻 P - Walnutchan