Chapter 281: The Living Immortal

The stench of corpses, the reek of excrement, and the odor of the refugees all mingled together. Baked under the midday sun, the smell was enough to make anyone retch. Yet the middle-aged man walking among the crowd wore an expression of constant warmth and sympathy.

The man was tall and broad, with long brows and narrow eyes. His features were exceedingly square and upright, almost resembling a temple statue. His half-foot beard was meticulously groomed. He wore a short robe of coarse cloth and hemp sandals on his feet. Every gesture he made carried a natural rhythm that was pleasing to watch.

Flanking and following the middle-aged man were twenty sturdy fellows. A few guarded him closely to the left and right, while the rest protected three oxcarts. The carts were loaded with large baskets that gave off the fragrance of grain. At that scent, the refugees' agitation grew even more intense.

But agitated as they were, few dared to rush forward and cause chaos. These sturdy fellows all had fighting skill — anyone who charged up would be beaten down. And there was something else strange about it. A few days earlier, during relief distribution, some people had caused real disorder, charging up recklessly to grab food regardless of the consequences. They were from the same village and clan, several dozen of them, and they threw the scene into complete chaos. The Perfected One had been angered by that, saying these people did not understand Maitreya's compassion and would surely face retribution. Starving as they were, who cared about such words? But that very night, those several dozen people all dropped dead. After this happened several more times in succession, everyone was thoroughly cowed.

Refugees do not fear death, but if they truly did not fear death, they would not have gathered beneath the city walls begging for food. After these repeated incidents, whenever this relief party appeared, no one dared act rashly.

Those who had been there from the start knew the lesson. As more people died later on, everyone came to hold this Perfected One in heartfelt awe. Word of mouth spread, and everyone said this Perfected One was a divine immortal incarnate, sent down by Heaven to save them all. Whoever offended him would be struck down by heavenly thunder, and after death would fall into the Eighteen Hells, never to be reincarnated for generations. Having lived such wretched lives, everyone pinned their hopes on a better next life, so no one dared violate such a taboo.

All they knew to do was strain their already hoarse voices shouting, "Compassionate Buddha!" Everyone said that as long as your heart was sincere, as long as you shouted loudly enough, you might receive some blessing.

"Those poor souls over there!" the middle-aged man addressed as "Perfected One" said. Immediately, the men standing on the oxcarts began flinging flatbreads in that direction. These were cakes made of coarse grain, bran, and wild greens, with a little salt added — they smelled delicious.

As the flatbreads were thrown, the crowd erupted at once. People scrambled for them desperately, as if their lives depended on it. The middle-aged man's face took on an expression of profound compassion. He raised his voice and declared, "All living beings suffer. Your misery is seen clearly by the Buddha. In your next life, you shall surely go to the Western Paradise..."

The man's voice was very resonant, and everyone around heard him clearly. Those who failed to grab a flatbread were overcome with grief and began wailing aloud.

Suddenly, there was another commotion in the crowd. A young man burst out, supporting someone else. The person he supported had one leg that could not touch the ground, and his grimy face was twisted in agony. The two of them rushed before the middle-aged man and dropped straight to their knees, kowtowing repeatedly. The young man pleaded, "Perfected One, please save my elder brother! His leg is ruined — suddenly he can't move it at all!"

The men guarding the middle-aged man moved to intervene at once, but he stopped them. He stepped forward, crouched down, and examined the leg carefully. Refugees were ragged and filthy — there was no way they could be clean — yet the middle-aged man's face showed no trace of disgust. He looked, he felt. The brother with the ruined leg trembled all over from the pain, howling miserably without pause. The middle-aged man nodded and said, "He has been afflicted by a malevolent force. For now, it is only his leg that is ruined. In three days, I fear his entire body will be ruined as well."

The onlookers fell silent involuntarily. Hearing this pronouncement, they all drew sharp breaths. The young man grew even more frantic and kowtowed desperately, imploring, "Perfected One, please, please work your magic..."

He kowtowed until his forehead bled, his voice already thick with tears. The middle-aged man shook his head and said, "I am no Perfected One. I am merely sincere in my faith. If you are sincere, the Buddha will protect you, the malevolent force will disperse, and your elder brother will be saved. Are you sincere?"

"This humble one is sincere! This humble one is sincere!"

"Then I shall teach you a few phrases. Recite them with a sincere heart, and this malevolent force can be expelled!" After saying this, the middle-aged man leaned close to the young man's ear and whispered a few words. The young man froze, clearly showing disbelief. Hesitantly, he asked, "Perfected One, will this really work?"

"That depends on whether your devotion is true and earnest," the middle-aged man said solemnly.

The young man paused briefly, then kowtowed to the ground and began reciting continuously with his palms pressed together. The onlookers gradually quieted, all watching this scene with rapt attention. The brother with the ruined leg clutched his leg and groaned feebly. How could he possibly get better? Such things were common outside the city — someone would accidentally get a small cut, and within days the wound would become a great festering sore, and the person would not live long. This man's leg was ruined; it was surely something similar.

Suddenly, someone shouted, "I smell a fragrance!"

The stench outside the city was so foul it made one retch, ten times worse than a latrine pit. How could there be any fragrance? Yet once one person shouted, others joined in. More and more people cried out the same thing. Those in front were one thing, but those in the back who could not squeeze through, hearing those ahead shouting like this, felt in their dazed state as though they too could smell the fragrance, and they began shouting as well.

As they shouted, everyone more or less recalled something. Back in their villages, and now beneath the city walls, there had been people preaching about burning incense and believing in the Buddha. They had also said the incense was brought by a nine-tailed fox to deliver people from suffering, and that with devout faith one could smell its fragrance and be free of all illness. At the time, who believed such things? But now, it felt like the true dharma. If they were devout enough, perhaps they really could escape their suffering.

(The matter of the demon fox delivering incense is recorded in the scriptures of the Smelling Incense Sect and is one of the doctrinal origins of that teaching.)

When people are in normal condition, their minds are clear and they approach matters with relative reason — they are not easily deceived. But in such desperate straits, it is like a drowning man on the verge of death: he will grasp at any floating straw, with no thought for whether it is real or false. Besides, the scene before their eyes seemed utterly real.

Amidst this near-frenzied shouting, the expression on the groaning, leg-clutching elder brother's face shifted from agony to incredulous shock. His curled-up leg slowly straightened. The younger brother, who had been murmuring his recitation, was overwhelmed with excitement but dared not stop chanting. The elder brother suddenly shouted, "My leg doesn't hurt anymore! My leg doesn't hurt anymore!"

The two brothers wept and laughed, beside themselves with emotion. The disaster victims watching this scene let out a collective gasp of astonishment. Those near the front suddenly caught a whiff of fragrance. So there really was a fragrance — and it was emanating from these two brothers.

"Many thanks for the Perfected One's great kindness! Many thanks for the Perfected One's magic!" The two brothers, supporting each other, came before the middle-aged man and hastily dropped to their knees, kowtowing urgently, too choked with emotion to speak.

"This is a living immortal!" "That was a divine manifestation just now!" "Quick, kneel!" Voices rose in discussion, and soon vast swaths of people were kneeling, kowtowing toward the middle-aged man.

"All who live suffer. The Buddha watches everyone sinking into this sea of misery and grieves as well. Brothers and sisters, there is no need for haste or sorrow. The Buddha is compassionate and will show everyone a path to survival!" The middle-aged man stood out like a crane among chickens, his voice booming with tremendous power. The clamorous refugee crowd actually fell silent.

"The city gates are about to close, and I must return within. Brothers and sisters, sincerity makes the spirit manifest. Recite 'Compassionate Buddha' and blessings shall surely follow!" At his shout, the men on the oxcarts flung flatbreads far to both sides. The refugees surged and scrambled madly. The middle-aged man swept his gaze across the scene, then looked toward the city before turning back.

"What was that younger brother murmuring just now?" "It must have been a secret formula the Perfected One taught him!" "Didn't you see them whispering and murmuring?" "If we knew it, we'd surely never get sick — maybe we'd even receive good fortune!" "Maybe we could even become immortals!" People began discussing this again. That miraculous healing just now — many had seen it with their own eyes. Even more had smelled the "fragrance." And now people were describing it in vivid detail. How could anyone not believe?

The famine victims and refugees gathered outside the city were physically weak from hunger, and their minds were not entirely clear either. Baked under the scorching sun, they stood dazed and stupefied among the crowd. When someone said who the "Perfected One" was, they could not help but believe it as truth. When someone said they smelled the "fragrance," they seemed to smell it too.

A sharp observer on the scene might perhaps have noticed some clues. But in this hellish environment, people had long since lost even the most basic clarity and judgment. Besides, humans have a herd mentality — when so many people said something was so, they went along with it.

Even under such circumstances, there were a few perceptive individuals among the famine victims and refugees. They could notice that outside the city there were many unfamiliar, fresh faces — people who did not look nearly as hungry, yet disguised themselves as the most wretched of disaster victims. Whenever that "Perfected One" from inside the city appeared, these fresh faces would rouse those around them to shout loudly, would agitate and incite.

Some who voiced such observations dropped dead that very night. Others, sensing something was wrong, left early on their own. Under these conditions, the disaster victims outside Yuncheng grew ever more frenzied and obsessed. They were even unwilling to migrate elsewhere, staying only here to beg the Perfected One to deliver them from their sea of suffering.

While the disaster victims outside the city saw this "Perfected One" as a living immortal, the soldiers and civilians inside Yuncheng also held him in the deepest reverence. Everyone knew this Perfected One's surname was Xu, that he came from a well-to-do family that had relocated from Juye County. He was a devout Buddhist, always charitable and generous, aiding the distressed and helping the needy. His prestige was already immense. When people inside and outside the city encountered problems, the first person they thought of was not the authorities, but this Squire Xu. They all heeded his mediation.

In fact, even the magistrate of Yuncheng and the Commandant stationed there were on extremely close terms with Squire Xu. The magistrate treated Squire Xu as an equal, while the Commandant always observed the formalities due to a superior when meeting him.

Squire Xu's residence was in the northern part of Yuncheng, the district where the city's wealthy gentry clustered. The Xu family compound sat among them. It could not be called large, but it shared walls with several neighboring households, all interconnected.

"... The Magistrate has entrusted this student to convey his thanks to Squire Xu. His Excellency says that were it not for Squire Xu going out daily to provide relief, Yuncheng would long since have suffered great calamity. His Excellency also says that Squire Xu should compile a list of the daily relief funds and grain expended, so that the county's gentlemen may share the cost equally. There is absolutely no reason for Squire Xu to bear this burden alone..." A middle-aged man with the manner of a private secretary spoke with the utmost deference before Squire Xu.

Squire Xu's face already showed signs of fatigue, but he still exchanged a few polite words with the secretary before returning to his own compound.

The magistrate's secretary waited until the Xu household had closed its main gate before turning to leave. A young servant-like boy accompanied him. The two walked in silence out of that street. The secretary halted, looked back, and sighed.

"Why does Mister Lou sigh?"

"The master still has four more years in this Yuncheng posting. I wonder if he can finish them in peace."

"Hah, four years? Everyone in our household, from top to bottom, is saying we might not even last the month. What if those famine victims outside break in..."

"The great calamity lies within, not without. This Xu Hongru..." The secretary started to speak, then stopped. In the end, he simply walked on.

When Squire Xu Hongru returned to his compound, the warmth on his face turned to solemnity. The servants in the courtyard stood with hands lowered and heads bowed, respectful to the extreme. Had anyone from a great aristocratic household been present, they would have been astonished to discover that the discipline in the Xu household was no less strict than that of princely or high ministerial mansions.

"My lord, the fragrant bath has been prepared. The temperature is just right at this moment. Please enter the bath, my lord, and wash away the ill fortune of the outside world," an old servant in his fifties said, bowing.

Xu Hongru nodded. The old servant made a hand signal ahead, and several young maidservants standing before the main hall door quickly turned and went inside to make ready.

A delicate fragrance filled the main hall. Several screens surrounded a large bathtub, and dried flower petals floated on the water's surface. No one who had not seen it with their own eyes would believe that in Yuncheng — a mere county seat in Yanzhou Prefecture — such luxury could exist. And this while outside the city walls, a living hell reigned, where no fewer than a hundred people died each day from diarrhea after drinking filthy water. Yet here, such extravagance.

As he bathed, four comely young maids attended him with meticulous care. Outside the screens, two expressionless, powerfully built women watched their every move. Both stout women carried bronze cudgels at their waists, ready to strike and kill at any moment.

Before long, Xu Hongru stepped out of the tub. The serving maids hurried forward to attend him. His hair hung loose down his back. He changed into a fine white silk long robe and put on straw sandals, then walked toward one side of the room.

Though the Xu compound was not small, this bathing chamber was not large. Walking to one side led to a wall. But the two stout women quickly stepped forward and respectfully opened the doors of a wardrobe. The wardrobe doors were actually a room door — inside lay an entirely different space. It turned out that the Xu family compound was completely connected to the neighboring residences. From the outside, they appeared to be separate households; inside, they were one. Such an area was something only the wealthiest and most established families could possess.

Beyond the wardrobe doors was a long corridor. Along the corridor stood sturdy young men in white robes at silent attention. At the sight of Xu Hongru, they all dropped to one knee in unison and intoned, "Greetings to the Sect Master."

The old servant from outside had already arrived here and followed behind Xu Hongru, bowing. After taking a few steps into the corridor, Xu Hongru said coolly, "The Ma brothers are to leave tonight. They are not to appear before anyone outside the city again."

The old servant behind him hastily acknowledged the order. Xu Hongru continued, "And I had praised them for their cleverness. If Ma Liu was pretending to be gravely ill today, why was there no foul odor about him at all? The dirt on his face was smeared on far too evenly. And when I touched his leg, he actually flinched. Did he truly think everyone out there had lost their minds?"

After a few more steps, the old servant lowered his voice and reported, "The Second Master, the Dharma Protectors, and the Assembly Masters are all waiting in the reception hall. My lord, will you..."

"First, I will chant the scriptures and perform the rites. Then I will see them."

The corridor turned ahead, revealing another hidden chamber. These several compounds looked ordinary from the outside, but within, they were like a labyrinth. The hidden chamber was not large but was immaculately clean. On the walls hung several scrolls bearing images of Maitreya Buddha and the Eternal Venerable Mother. On the incense altar stood only a single censer with three sticks of incense. A prayer mat was laid on the floor.

Xu Hongru sat cross-legged upon the prayer mat and closed his eyes. The old servant outside closed the chamber door.

At that moment, the reception hall held over a dozen people. Most were in their thirties or forties, with two in their fifties. Their attire varied greatly. Some had the look of powerful magnates, their every gesture carrying an air of fierceness. Others appeared thoroughly prosperous, clearly members of the upper class who had long lived in comfort. Besides these, there were a few wearing patched clothes, their bodies stooped, their faces deeply lined. They stood with an air of unease, looking every bit like country farmers who had never seen the world. Each sat in their own seat, exchanging no words — at most, glances.

When Xu Hongru walked in, he had already changed into a black Daoist robe, his hair still loose, his expression solemn. The dozen or so people in the hall all rose to their feet and prostrated themselves in a grand bow, saying, "Greetings to the Lord. Maitreya descends to the world, spreading the incense across all under Heaven."

"There is no need for such ceremony here. Everyone, please sit and speak." Unlike the transcendent sage-like air he had outside the city, and unlike the lofty aloofness from just moments before, Xu Hongru's face now was all warm, genial smiles.

The group took their seats one after another. Serving maids brought tea and light refreshments, then withdrew. The old servant presented a thin ledger to Xu Hongru with both hands, then stood behind him.

Xu Hongru opened the ledger and leafed through it carefully. The others sat with eyes downcast and minds stilled, all waiting in silence.

"Why is Linqing's tribute this month short by a third?" Xu Hongru suddenly asked. The various branches of the Smelling Incense Sect were required to remit silver to the headquarters on a regular basis, which was termed "tribute."

At this question, a fat man seated on the right hurriedly stood up. His face turned somewhat pale as he explained in fearful trepidation, "My Lord, Sect Leader Wang bought an opera troupe in Yangzhou. These eight thousand taels of silver were split and covered by Linqing, Jinan, and the Hejian Prefecture over in Northern Zhili..."

"What 'Sect Leader Wang'? The Sect Leader now is the Lord, right here before your eyes. Speaking like that — do you wish to be consumed by heavenly fire?" A large man on the left roared as he stood. The fat man was so frightened he sat right back down.

"No reckless talk. I am merely acting as Sect Leader for the time being; Venerable Wang is the true successor. However, rules are rules. From now on, tribute silver is to come to me first, and I will then disburse funds for the Venerable's expenses. Branch Leader Pan, let there be no next time. Do you understand?" After Xu Hongru finished speaking, the fat man who had stood up nodded repeatedly. In that brief span, his forehead was already covered in cold sweat.

The Smelling Incense Sect was originally founded by Wang Sen of Jizhou in Northern Zhili. Ten years ago, Wang Sen was imprisoned for the second time. At that point, Wang Sen's third son, Wang Haoxian, became the Sect Leader. However, for reasons unknown, Wang Haoxian soon had Xu Hongru assume the acting Sect Leader position, while he himself became the "Venerable" and retreated behind the scenes. The headquarters also moved from Shifo Village in Luanzhou, Northern Zhili, to Yuncheng County in Yanzhou Prefecture, Shandong.