Chapter 15: Several Methods for High-Speed Merit Accumulation

Luo Qi watched as Du Zhengyi took the ivory-white prayer beads from the monk; they were the result of three hours of arduous copying, and the wooden beads now had a certain weight to them.

Perhaps for this reason, Du Zhengyi fiddled with the beads for quite a while after taking them, and Luo Qi grew somewhat bored waiting. After handing over the beads, the monk went off to busy himself with receiving other pilgrims. The motorcade that had come in the morning to release captive animals had already left, and a steady stream of people had arrived to burn incense and pray to Buddha. With people coming and going, the flow never ceased, and the small temple actually had quite an atmosphere.

Du Zhengyi handed the prayer beads to Luo Qi and said in a low voice, "Take a look at the bead at the very bottom of the string."

"That's called a Back Fish." Luo Qi grabbed them carelessly, eager because it was finally his turn to look, and he didn't hesitate to swat away the claws of Guan Xinyue, who wanted to snatch them, acting very protective of his "food."

"What kind of fish it is doesn't matter." Du Zhengyi, leaning over Luo Qi's hands, flipped over the slightly larger bead. Inlaid on the bead was a silver wire, twisted and knotted into a familiar shape.

"An 8?" Guan Xinyue blurted out.

"No." Luo Qi frowned. "This bead is a Back Fish; it has a top, bottom, left, and right, okay? Do you not recognize it just because you turn it sideways, girl?"

"You're saying it's an infinity symbol? A mathematical symbol?" Guan Xinyue said in surprise. "Don't pull my leg."

"Infinite, boundless." Luo Qi pondered the bead, muttering to himself, unconsciously rubbing his nose, making his voice even lower and more chaotic. "A Mobius Strip with no beginning and no end. It is the past, the present, and the future; it is time and space; it is the infinite power of the gods. This symbol is a mathematical symbol, but also a symbol of philosophy and theology."

Guan Xinyue scoffed at Luo Qi's seriousness, but Du Zhengyi froze, as if something had struck him hard from behind. A thought, a bizarre and crazy string of words, surged to his lips: "The day before yesterday, I saw a rat here; yesterday, I saw a hyena here; today, I saw you."

Luo Qi raised his dark, bright eyes and stared at him thoughtfully. "Why did you change the rabbit and the fox to a rat and a hyena? That's quite a bit of black humor."

He stiffly shifted his gaze to stare into Luo Qi's eyes. In those eyes, there was only infinite vitality, carrying a cheerfulness that could make Guan Xinyue jealous—a happiness so bright it was annoying—truly consistent with his age and experience.

"I suddenly remembered where I heard it," he said.

"Right, that's also a bit of a Mobius Strip-style story," Luo Qi said suspiciously. "But where did you hear it? That passage comes from a novel; you shouldn't be reading novels, right?"

"Look at the pattern more closely," Du Zhengyi said, avoiding his question.

Luo Qi had no choice but to lift the prayer beads and look at them carefully. "This... why do I feel... like it's..."

"It's a snake," Guan Xinyue said. "The snake's head is biting its tail, twisted into the shape of an infinity symbol."

"How did you see such a small pattern clearly?" Luo Qi asked, puzzled, but when he turned his head, he saw that Guan Xinyue wasn't looking at the beads in his hand at all. She was facing a small Buddha statue on the altar in the side hall, her face full of disgust.

Luo Qi was stunned. He believed that there was absolutely no Great Black Heaven statue in this world that would be like the one here, with a snake coiled at its feet, the snake's head swallowing its tail, inexplicably sinister and evil.

He suddenly felt very annoyed; the snake was like a dead knot, gradually trapping him. Everything he had encountered in the last two days was a mess, and it also seemed like it had been premeditated. Even going back a few days further, things had already started to become abnormal; he had been inexplicably chosen to be Du Zhengyi's assistant despite his extremely low aptitude. They even promised him benefits—as long as he was willing to get involved, he could earn academic credits, which were practically his life; he couldn't possibly refuse.

As it turned out, things were much more serious than he had anticipated, and what was even worse was that he felt Du Zhengyi seemed to be influenced by something and had started to become reserved toward him. Although he had to admit that ever since they were at school, Du Zhengyi had never trusted him. He wasn't complaining; he was just stating facts, and he could understand it. But now it seemed they were already implicated, and the best way was to cooperate openly and honestly, get rid of all this as soon as possible, and get back on track.

He considered for a moment whether to really ask Du Zhengyi: first, what else Liu Li and Pei Shu had instructed him before they left, as Liu Li had said the specific work content was controlled by Du Zhengyi; and second, whether they could share new information with him as soon as it was collected here, instead of playing this game of information asymmetry. Oh, damn it, he really hated this guessing game; it wasn't like they were dating. Wait, he hadn't had a girlfriend up until now—was it because he was particularly bad at guessing?

Guan Xinyue suddenly kicked him.

"What for?" Luo Qi said impatiently.

"The boss told me to kick you." Guan Xinyue rolled her eyes at him. "What are you spacing out for?"

Du Zhengyi ignored him. "I'm going to go spend money to help others with their wishes first, to test the speed of accumulating merit here."

Luo Qi sighed. "It sounds really weird when you say it like that. The speed of accumulating merit—damn, it just feels really insincere."

Guan Xinyue said indifferently, "Keeping pace with the times, innovating and seeking development—temples need to develop too. Even the Shaolin Temple has gone public!"

Luo Qi had nothing to say, watching Guan Xinyue follow Du Zhengyi out to the main hall. A gust of wind blew in from outside; the early spring wind was biting and cold, but also exceptionally refreshing. A few specks of light snow that had fallen in the morning flew down from the eaves, prompting Luo Qi to walk out and stand in the courtyard for a while. A flock of sparrows was noisily arguing in the canopy of a tree by the temple, then took flight together, continuing their argument in mid-air. He looked up at the mountains behind the temple; at this time of year, the trees were still sleeping, and the mountain forest was dim and withered.

He remembered when he was about ten years old, it seemed to be this season, his parents had a rare vacation, and the whole family went to play in the mountains. The timing was wrong, and there really wasn't any scenery to see, so his Mama complained a bit.

He still remembered it clearly: his father, that Mage who was also considered somewhat famous, silently folded a fan out of paper and began to fan it gently. Vague forms began to appear in the disturbed air, the colors deepened, the outlines took shape, and petals of flying flowers were born from the cold wind just like that. He remembered that at first, they were very, very pale cherry blossoms, drifting past his Mama's fingertips one by one, followed by roses. The faster the fan moved, the more the flower shadows changed—from roses to lilies, and then to large clusters of hydrangeas.

At that moment, flowers danced in the quiet forest, and he was so surprised he couldn't close his mouth.

In the end, his dad fanned a cactus for him, and he remembered that clearly too! Before he was fifteen, his dad was definitely the number one enemy of his life!

After that, there were too many things that didn't go his way, and his dad didn't even rank on the list.

And the biggest frustration was that the flying flowers in that mountain forest became a peak he could never overcome; his ability was a rare dwarf in the Magic World, and a sense of frustration was everywhere, filling his life to the brim. The noisy, chaotic human world almost became his refuge from frustration. And now, his hands were shoved into his trouser pockets, and he took a deep breath; trouble was actually following him like a shadow. He stood in the human world, and he was also standing in the world of Mages. Beside him was a genius young Mage and a chuunibyou human, and the two of them were currently seriously calculating the speed of accumulating merit; he felt his world was in chaos.

He looked into the room; the curtain on the door had already been rolled up. Amidst the swirling smoke and incense, Du Zhengyi's tall, thin back and Guan Xinyue's thin, small back were very close together, and Guan Xinyue was even holding a pen, recording on a piece of paper.

Logically speaking, the return on investment for religion shouldn't be able to be calculated so clearly. Luo Qi thought aimlessly, tallying up the few religious stories he was familiar with; no matter what kind of faith it was, there were always many commonalities. Although the supreme goal of faith was not to ferry oneself from suffering, if there was no prospect of reward promised, there couldn't possibly be any believers. Therefore, the threshold for seeking rewards must be low—for example, releasing snakes all over the mountains to accumulate reward points; this was reasonable. And this reward must not have a quantitative standard—for instance, why did you release a mountain of snakes and still fail to get promoted or get rich? That was because you were heartless in your past life, and your current merit wasn't enough; you might have to save it until the next life to get a reward. It's just that the past is hazy and the next life is vast; who can say for sure? But it doesn't matter, because it is absurd, that is why there is faith.

Luo Qi vaguely worked out another paradox on the basis of the paradox, but a thought flashed through his mind.

He strolled into the main hall of the small temple. Du Zhengyi was still paying for other people's wishes; one monk was responsible for collecting the money, and another monk was carefully recording it on a Lenovo laptop. Luo Qi thought absentmindedly that since they could use a laptop, why were the monks still obsessed with making believers copy scriptures with a brush? That was an attachment; it was not good.

Guan Xinyue turned her head to see him and said, "Look at how convenient a digitized temple is now; there's even wireless internet here. If you want to donate a mobile phone or something—just place an order online—ding-ding—wish delivered to your door. By the way, did you know you can buy Luhan's autographed photo on Taobao? The almighty Taobao god, this temple should add a Taobao shrine."

"What color beads have you upgraded to?" he asked.

"Still a long way off," Guan Xinyue said listlessly. "We're only just about to reach Nanmu, and there seems to be a huge distance to Sandalwood."

Just then, a monk brought out a lacquer tray from the back, covered with yellow cloth, presenting a string of Nanmu beads. Luo Qi laughed. "The quest NPC has brought out the reward."

Guan Xinyue couldn't help but laugh out loud, and after laughing, she seemed a bit self-deprecating.

Du Zhengyi gave him a puzzled look. Luo Qi grinned at Du Zhengyi; sometimes it was quite interesting to see his confused little look when he didn't understand what was being said. "NPC is..." His smile froze on his lips. Du Zhengyi looked at him in confusion, and he stared at the monk with wide, deer-like eyes. "Oh, holy shit."

Although the monk had quite a bit of cultivation, his brow still twitched.

Du Zhengyi didn't say anything, just looked at him inquiringly.

Luo Qi came back to his senses and tugged on Du Zhengyi's arm.

They returned to the old house of the Guan Family next door. As soon as Luo Qi entered the room, he said irritably, "How is your speed of accumulating merit? Tell me quickly."

Guan Xinyue rolled her eyes, sighed, and took out a notebook. "It's like I'm particularly lacking in virtue."

Guan Xinyue handed the notebook to Luo Qi and explained, "This is the money spent. We chose to do these things that can be done by spending money first. Fortunately, the boss doesn't feel bad about money, so the speed of accumulating merit is quite fast. But look, at the beginning, we spent 202 yuan to buy an autographed photo, and we exchanged it for a string of beads once. Then we bought two mobile phones, one of which was a Phone 10; although we spent a lot of money, the return rate was also very high. Relying on the merit of these two phones, we exchanged for beads four times. But then look, we transferred 12,000 yuan to someone for their son's tuition, and it only exchanged for beads once! We had no choice but to transfer 80,000 yuan to someone waiting for money for medical treatment; we accumulated a great deal of merit, and this time we exchanged for beads three times, and the color changed to Nanmu. But up to this point, I think we can't keep spending money like this; this is not a way."

After she finished speaking, she looked at Du Zhengyi, who nodded and added, "And there are many kinds of wishes. Although wishes that need money to be solved are relatively easy to satisfy, these wishes appear randomly and are hard to come by."

Luo Qi took the notebook and read it carefully from beginning to end, his emotions showing on his face, his expression unreadable for a moment, and then he suddenly threw the notebook down.

"This is fucking hilarious!"

"What's the deal?" Guan Xinyue muttered, frowning.

Luo Qi ignored her, snatched the pen from her hand, and made a table in the notebook. While scribbling on the paper, he explained, "Look, at the beginning, we only spent 202 yuan and leveled up once. Then we bought two mobile phones, spending a total of about 14,000, and exchanged for beads four times. That is to say, we used about 700 yuan to exchange for the first string of beads; then spent 2,000 yuan to exchange for the second; over 4,000 yuan to exchange for the third; and 7,000 yuan of merit to exchange for the fourth. Paying tuition of 12,000 exchanged for beads once. Then saving a life actually wasn't a particularly huge merit; 80,000 yuan only exchanged for beads three times, so it cost about 18,000 for the first time, 28,000 for the second, and 34,000 for the third."

"Yeah, the more you spend later, the slower you accumulate merit," Guan Xinyue muttered. "The monk is scamming people; this is the same as a casino tricking people into investing money."

Du Zhengyi, however, grasped the main point and said to Luo Qi, "To get the Sandalwood beads and truly enter the hall, there are five more colors of Buddha beads that need to be obtained."

Luo Qi threw down the pen. "Then we still need at least 460,000 yuan."

Du Zhengyi's expression turned a bit sour. "You mean to say..."

"You've guessed it, right? This is a modified Fibonacci Sequence," Luo Qi said.

"Can you speak human?" Guan Xinyue said.

"Oh, right, you're an art student," Luo Qi chuckled.

"What do you mean by that?" The gunpowder in Guan Xinyue's tone flared up instantly.

Luo Qi watched her cautiously and said quickly, "I mean, this is just a game. Have you ever played games? Even if you haven't played complex ones, you must have played something like 'Happy Farm,' right? You're so smart, you must have realized long ago that no matter the game, the rules are fundamentally the same—accumulate experience, level up, gain higher permissions, right?"

Guan Xinyue was stunned. After a long moment, she said with disgust, "No way... making this kind of joke about the Buddha?"

Luo Qi shook his head. "If you can attain the Dao just by releasing captive animals without reading Buddhist scriptures or studying Buddhist law, wouldn't that be absurd? Now, they've further perfected the method of cultivation, quantifying doing good and accumulating merit with mathematics. It fits the habits of modern humans quite uniquely; it's completely an improved version of the Modern Pure Land Sect."

Guan Xinyue's mouth hung open, and she stared at Luo Qi in astonishment. "My god, you really dare to say anything."

Du Zhengyi had never played games, but he didn't grasp the concept slowly. "Low initial investment, quick results. Although the returns become increasingly difficult later on, because the difficulty increases gradually, the habit has already been cultivated. If it were an ordinary person, they might come to the temple to worship frequently, starting from what they can manage, accumulating merit bit by bit, and exchanging it for prayer beads, so they could make a bigger wish."

"This is called grinding for experience, leveling up, and going to an NPC to exchange for rewards," Luo Qi summarized. "I bet the boss behind this game isn't very old. I'd actually really like to meet them."

Guan Xinyue shivered, her expression turning gloomy.

Luo Qi caught her expression and changed the subject. "Grinding levels honestly definitely won't work. Even if you add up all the wishes on the wall that require money, it doesn't reach 460,000, right? Even if we insisted on relying entirely on spending money, after clearing this batch of wishes, we'd have to wait who knows how many days to accumulate the opportunity to spend money again. We can't afford to toss and turn like that, and we can't afford to wait. The urgent matter now is that we must find a task with a high difficulty level, rich experience rewards, and as little time consumption as possible to rush our levels."

"What? You plan to help that old loser kill his wife?" Guan Xinyue asked in shock.

Luo Qi sighed. "How could killing someone be that easy? Besides, who do you think I am?"

Guan Xinyue muttered under her breath, "Better to get that clear first."

Luo Qi laughed dryly. "It's not that I don't want to fight violence with violence, it's that I really can't. Besides, it's not worth the trouble."

"Do you have an idea?" Du Zhengyi interrupted him with an unfriendly tone.

"I have some thoughts." Luo Qi was intimidated by Du Zhengyi and immediately became much more serious. Turning his head, he discovered that Guan Xinyue, sitting opposite them, was sizing them both up thoughtfully. "What?"

Guan Xinyue didn't want to start a war with him at this moment, so she shook her head to avoid his gaze, lowered her head, and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Luo Qi suddenly noticed a small Ear Bone Stud on the tip of her ear, the tiny jewel on it shimmering slightly under the reflection of the lights. Piercing in that spot—Luo Qi always felt it looked painful just to see.

He pulled back his thoughts and turned to look at Du Zhengyi. "Just how capable are you? Can you move mountains and fill the seas?"

Du Zhengyi ignored him.

Guan Xinyue blurted out, "Impossible, that would destroy the ecological balance."

"You guys are the ones destroying the ecological balance," Luo Qi retorted immediately, feeling very childish the moment he finished speaking.

"Look, you said you aren't a Mage, but your stance is still on that side. I don't even know what you are," Guan Xinyue said sarcastically, then continued, "But you're right, we have been destroying the ecological balance, forcing low-level species to go extinct constantly. So, by that logic, if the gap between your species and ours is that large, you would have long since forced us to go extinct. Therefore, I just don't think you guys could be that badass."

"Hey, her point is actually quite good," Luo Qi said to Du Zhengyi. "How about we just roast her and eat her?"

Guan Xinyue hummed, thinking as she continued, "Generally speaking, nature has its own logic. For example, mice reproduce eight times a year, a litter each time. But at the top of the food chain, tigers and lions have few offspring and can't even raise them well; humans have an even harder time reproducing, it's a struggle to even have two at once. So what about you guys? Luo Qi, you don't have a younger sister, do you? Wait, I just remembered, you said your sister is named Luo Dan, why didn't you say your sister was named Michelangelo?"

Luo Qi laughed out loud. "Cool off, cool off. Didn't you lie to me too? Alright, let's call that round a draw between the two of us."

"Then how exactly do you plan to grind for experience?" Guan Xinyue asked him.

"That's simple," Luo Qi said. "I've discovered that this game gives players a lot of room to maneuver. Players can not only do tasks, but they can also act as NPCs to provide tasks. Since that's the case, if there are no high-level tasks to do, we just need to create the tasks ourselves."