Chapter 32: Prophetic Words

They sat down in a meditation room; the young novice served tea and then withdrew, leaving them alone to speak with the Master. Du Zhengyi scrutinized the person before him; the big monk's gaze was frank and his smile amiable, making him seem more human than the novices outside.

Du Zhengyi steadied himself slightly, habitually probing the surrounding Energy Field. There was only the average-to-above-average radiation from Zhao Zhiyan here, while the monk before him was a reassuring blank slate. He even tentatively touched the big monk's thoughts; with his limited Telepathy, he sensed that the other party had no boundaries or Shields. Unfortunately, Zhao Zhiyan was not the eloquent Luo Qi; he was not skilled at chatting naturally with humans, and after greeting the monk, he did not know what to say. Thus, Du Zhengyi did not have much time to concentrate and continue a deeper inspection, though he knew that even if he had the chance, the harvest would likely not be great.

He raised his head and met the big monk's gaze. The Master's eyes were kind, looking straight into the depths of his Yajian, yet without the slightest hint of prying. He had never thought before that humans without Telepathy could reach the human heart simply by relying on intuition.

"The lay practitioner has a kind face; it seems your store of good fortune is very deep."

Du Zhengyi opened his mouth but could not think of how to respond. Deep down, he regretted once again not having brought Luo Qi along. He sighed inwardly, missing Luo Qi's ability to ramble on with nonsense once more.

Seeing that he could not pick up the conversation for a moment, the big monk continued gently, "But good fortune is ultimately limited. Taking life is a great sin that consumes too much good fortune; it must not be done much in the future. All living beings are equal; even a dog is within the Six Paths of Reincarnation. How much difference can there really be between it and a human?"

Du Zhengyi could only nod repeatedly, then thought and asked, "Is good fortune accumulated from past lives?"

The big monk smiled and began to explain karma to him. Fearing he would not understand, he told several extremely crude stories of karmic retribution in a row. Du Zhengyi observed the big monk carefully. He was probably over fifty years old, with a simple, honest, broad face; his wrinkles were few but very deep. His skin was rough and very dark, and the depths of the wrinkles were as black as if they had accumulated dirt.

The monk wore a monk's robe of alternating dark yellow and brown, with a stain on the collar.

"Master, why isn't your clothing washed clean? Is the disciple not diligent enough?" Du Zhengyi said suddenly, interrupting the monk's talk of karma. The monk looked at him blankly, and Zhao Zhiyan spat out a mouthful of tea.

The monk mumbled for a moment, blinked, and looked at Du Zhengyi.

"I said the Master's clothes are not clean." Du Zhengyi pointed with his finger, "Otherwise, I will donate some laundry cards; it can count as performing a good deed to cultivate good fortune."

Zhao Zhiyan glanced at him, his expression somewhat wary.

"A monk..." The monk paused, seemingly organizing his words, "A monk does not care about these external things. This body is merely a skin bag; why bother caring about the bundle that wraps the skin bag?"

"The Master is saying that the self is a skin bag," Du Zhengyi said again, becoming increasingly aggressive, "Do you also view everyone else as a skin bag?"

"Life is truly bitter. The monk only wishes that all people could shed their skin bags, see through the confusing five colors of the world, ascend to the Western Paradise early, and never again enter the Six Paths to suffer the pain of reincarnation." The monk rambled on, his expression unchanged, still sounding as if he were discussing crops in the field.

"Since that is the case, why does the Master still fulfill people's wishes?" Du Zhengyi said, "I have never been able to understand: since everything in the world is just a matter of fate and not worth clinging to, how can the Master still help people realize their wishes and help them cling to things?"

"If one obtains everything one seeks, will one feel happy?" the monk asked warmly.

Du Zhengyi actually lowered his head and thought for a moment, then finally shook his head.

"When one understands that the sea of suffering is boundless, one will naturally turn back to the shore," the monk smiled.

"In that case, my wish must still be fulfilled by the Master," Du Zhengyi said, "Perhaps when my wish is fulfilled, I will be able to see through it."

Zhao Zhiyan swallowed nervously. He had not taken to heart what the two were saying—it was certainly not some brilliant Zen riddle—he just instinctively sensed Du Zhengyi's hostility.

"The lay practitioner accumulates merit just to make a big wish, right?" the monk smiled honestly, "Please, lay practitioner, speak. No matter what the wish is, if the opportunity arrives, there will eventually be a fated person to settle the account for you."

"Settle the account?" Du Zhengyi could not help but smile, "Is this fated person the Master speaks of the common masses outside, or the Great Black Heaven in the temple?"

"This is karma. This old monk lacks the wisdom eye and cannot see through it for now," the monk said.

"That is true. It is not so easy to see the face of the true Buddha," Du Zhengyi said, "Let me talk about my own matter. Master, if I say I have an enemy who is always ready to take my life, can the Master save me?"

Zhao Zhiyan's eyes widened, looking back and forth between Du Zhengyi and the old monk in astonishment.

"This..." The monk's demeanor remained steady, "This lay practitioner should call the police."

Zhao Zhiyan had intended to laugh, but for some reason, he did not dare to.

Du Zhengyi stared straight at the old monk, "Then what if I hate someone else and hope they shed their skin bag quickly?"

"Amitabha, that is a great sin. Even thinking about it is creating evil karma, lay practitioner," the old monk said.

"Does the Master believe in the affairs of the underworld? Perhaps Ghosts and Monsters are right beside the Master."

The old monk opened his mouth but could not answer. Du Zhengyi stood up, and the previously quiet meditation room suddenly became noisy. Zhao Zhiyan hurriedly looked left and right; the tables, chairs, chests, and cabinets in the room were trembling and rattling. The teacup in front of the old monk cracked with a crisp sound, tea spilled out, and the cup shattered into a pile of debris with a sharp sound, splashing tea everywhere.

Zhao Zhiyan swallowed again, wary of Du Zhengyi's terrifying ability. But then, he felt something was wrong; although the old monk's expression was strange, he was still sitting there motionlessly. If it were an ordinary person, they would have been scared to death by now. Even if the monk had high cultivation, he shouldn't be unfazed by all this, right?

Du Zhengyi walked slowly to the front of the monk and stopped, looking at him thoughtfully. After a long while, he raised his hand and pointed slowly at the monk; a dagger appeared in his hand, and the monk's face was flushed red, yet he did not move.

Du Zhengyi tilted his head and looked at the monk, murmuring after a long while, "Strange, could it be that you have no instinct for fear?"

Just then, a scream suddenly came from the temple courtyard, "Du Zhengyi!"

Du Zhengyi jerked his head up, having already distinguished that it was Guan Xinyue's voice. He looked back at the monk, who was flushed red and staring at him fixedly, feeling somewhat caught in a dilemma. He had no choice but to instruct Zhao Zhiyan, "Watch him."

Zhao Zhiyan came back to his senses, closed his mouth which had been hanging open without him realizing it, and nodded.

"Du Zhengyi." Guan Xinyue was looking around nervously in the courtyard. As soon as he appeared, her gaze quickly locked onto him. "Quick, Qi Yue's house." She screamed, turned, and ran out of the courtyard.

Du Zhengyi did not speak. He followed behind Guan Xinyue, running out of the temple courtyard, cursing Luo Qi under his breath the whole way for jumping over the threshold first once again.

The village was not large; the Qi Family lived at the entrance of the village. They ran in a straight line from the north of the village along a main road to the entrance. The gate was locked. Guan Xinyue jumped over the low country wall skillfully, and Du Zhengyi jumped over as well. Then he saw Luo Qi standing blankly beside a newly dug pit. That pit was one he had dug himself; the shovel was still in his hand, but at this moment, he was completely stunned.

"We came here, and Luo Qi said we should come here to take a look," Guan Xinyue said, trembling, "This spot in the yard had no snow, and the dirt looked like it had been freshly turned. We thought something had been buried here, and then... and then... Luo Qi said to try digging..."

Du Zhengyi looked calmly into the dirt pit. There was nothing horrifying in the pit, not yet. Only a corner of a woven bag was exposed in the pit, and the bag had been torn open. He chanted silently, driving an invisible force to tear the bag wider, and a withered human hand was revealed.

A dead person is not truly terrifying. But in that moment, he remembered the hair-raising story Luo Qi had told Guan Xinyue in the teahouse. His non-existent sister, playing with a ghost girl, her corpse lying in a woven bag under the ground at the entrance of the village, a steel needle driven through her eye into her brain.

He looked instinctively at Luo Qi. Luo Qi raised his head, his face full of desperate terror.