Chapter 787
I'll crush you with one punch, and you still dare to ask if hell is afraid?
Your actions this time to rid the people of this scourge are only temporary; they haven't addressed the root cause of the problem.
Tang Sanzang paused for a moment, then lowered his head to think it over, realizing that Lin Zhu's words did indeed make sense. He scratched his chin, somewhat puzzled, and asked, "So, what does the Immortal Lord mean... that this humble monk should release them?"
"It wasn't released."
Lin Zhu shook his head, "It's for you to perform a ritual to help them pass on to the afterlife."
"Isn't that exactly what I did?"
Tang Sanzang pointed to the wailing monks behind him, his face full of confusion, "This humble monk will send them on their way with one punch each. Isn't that a form of deliverance?"
Lin Zhu took a deep breath, feeling he needed to explain to Tang Sanzang in a different way. He pondered for a moment, organized his thoughts, and then said, "The Buddhist practice of deliverance is not as simple as just beating someone to death."
You must first make them realize their sins and inspire repentance from the depths of their hearts before sending them on their journey. In this way, their souls will be clean when they are liberated and can be reborn in a better realm.
The method of "salvation" you used, although it destroyed the physical bodies, left their souls impure. That's not salvation; that's simply murder.
Tang Sanzang listened attentively, his brows furrowing and relaxing repeatedly. He thought for a moment, then hesitated, "But Immortal Lord... these bandits didn't consider anything about salvation when they were killing and burning. Why should this humble monk think so much before killing them?"
"Because you are different from them."
Lin Zhu pointed to Tang Sanzang's chest with her finger, "You are a pilgrim on the journey to the West, a disciple of Buddhism, and you will become a Buddha in the future. Every life you take is related to your Buddhist heart and your karmic retribution."
If you simply kill, what kind of person will you become in the end? Too much karmic debt from killing will affect your attainment of Buddhahood.
These words struck a nerve with Tang Sanzang. Although he had become a bald, ruthless bandit, deep down he always remembered that his goal was to go to the Western Paradise to obtain the Buddhist scriptures, to fulfill the mission entrusted to him by the Buddha.
If the heavy karma of killing affects one's future attainment of enlightenment, then it is indeed a loss that outweighs the gain.
"Then what should this humble monk do?"
Tang Sanzang straightened his posture and asked Lin Zhu sincerely.
Seeing that he had taken it to heart, Lin Zhu nodded in satisfaction.
He pointed to the dozen or so monks trembling in the corner of the courtyard, and then to Guangzhi, who was still panting after being thrown to the ground by Tang Sanzang: "Make each of them confess their sins one by one in front of you, and make them repent from the bottom of their hearts."
Then you perform the ritual to help them pass on to the afterlife. In this way, part of their sins are mitigated through repentance, and only then is your ritual truly complete.
Tang Sanzang remained silent for a moment, the black mist in his eyes gradually dissipating, replaced by a clear light. He suddenly clasped his hands together and bowed deeply to Lin Zhu: "Thank you for your guidance, Immortal Lord. This humble monk understands."
Lin Zhu smiled and nodded, but in his heart he was certain that the top-grade Nine-Turn Taiyi Golden Pill was in the bag. He took two steps back, his figure flying up and landing back on the cloud, intending to watch Tang Sanzang's next move from above.
Tang Sanzang turned around and walked back to the center of the courtyard. He bent down, grabbed Guangzhi from the ground, and lifted him in front of him. Guangzhi's neck had almost been crushed, and it was still burning with pain. He instinctively began to tremble again after being lifted up.
"Don't be afraid."
Tang Sanzang's voice suddenly became extremely gentle, completely different from his previous cold tone, "This humble monk will not kill you."
Guangzhi's eyes widened, his face filled with disbelief.
"Tell me honestly all the bad things you've done in your life."
Tang Sanzang put Guangzhi down on the ground and made him stand up straight. He even reached out to straighten the crooked collar of his monk's robe. "Murder, arson, robbery, bullying men and women—you are not allowed to miss a single one of them. This humble monk is listening."
Guangzhi stared blankly at Tang Sanzang, completely baffled as to what this bald, burly man was up to.
Just moments ago, she seemed ready to twist his head off his neck, but now she's suddenly become all smiles and even helping him straighten his clothes. The stark contrast left him momentarily speechless.
Seeing that he didn't speak, Tang Sanzang raised his hand and gently patted him on the head. Although it was just a light pat, with Tang Sanzang's current strength, Guangzhi felt as if he had been hit on the top of his head with an iron hammer, and his whole head was buzzing.
"Say it."
Tang Sanzang maintained his gentle smile.
Guangzhi snapped out of his daze, knelt down with a thud, tears and snot streaming down his face, and began to confess his crimes while crying and begging for forgiveness.
He started by recounting how he first robbed passing merchants with Elder Jinchi three years ago, and how he grew bolder and began killing people to cover his tracks. He then went on to recount how this spring he robbed a caravan of twelve people, hacked them all to death, and threw them into a mountain stream behind the mountain.
He recounted each and every matter in great detail, explaining every nuance clearly, until Tang Sanzang's smile grew increasingly faint.
By the end, Guangzhi was crying so hard he could barely speak, his face covered in snot and tears, and his forehead was bleeding from hitting the ground.
He was genuinely afraid that Tang Sanzang would punch him to death after hearing his story, so every word he spoke was the truth. He not only confessed his own crimes but also revealed the crimes of the other monks in the monastery.
After listening, Tang Sanzang remained silent for a moment, then took a deep breath. He turned around and walked to the burly monk embedded in the screen wall, pulling him out of the human-shaped recess in the wall.
The monk was barely breathing; his chest was sunken, and the broken ribs were clearly visible piercing the skin, the exposed bone fragments stark white.
Tang Sanzang squatted down in front of him, gently patted his face to wake him up, and then repeated what Guangzhi had just said about the strong monk's crimes. Finally, he asked in a gentle tone, "Do you admit it? Do you repent?"
The burly monk looked at Tang Sanzang with unfocused eyes, his lips moved a few times, and he squeezed out a few words: "I...repent..."
"very good."
Tang Sanzang extended his finger and gently touched the center of his forehead.
The burly monk's body convulsed violently, then went limp and died. But his expression did change at the last moment, shifting from fear to a sense of relief, and the tense muscles between his brows relaxed.
Tang Sanzang stood up and walked towards the next monk.
Over the next half hour, an extremely bizarre scene unfolded in the courtyard.
Tang Sanzang interrogated the injured and fallen monks one by one, making each of them confess their crimes. After confirming that they were truly repentant, he would gently touch their foreheads with his finger, and they would stop breathing.
His movements were indeed much gentler, no longer the violent killing that sent people flying with a single punch, leaving them covered in blood. Instead, it was a quiet, almost ritualistic act of deliverance.
Lin Zhu stood on the cloud, watching the scene below, his lips twitching. He had originally intended to teach Tang Sanzang the traditional method of deliverance, first chanting scriptures and preaching to cleanse the soul of the deceased, and then performing the actual deliverance.
As a result, Tang Sanzang simplified this process to the extreme—confess, repent, tap the forehead, and leave. Although the process was simplified, the efficiency and effect were quite good. Every monk who was saved truly felt repentance before death, and their souls were purified to some extent in their final moments.
On the system panel, the merit points were slowly and steadily increasing. Each time a monk was helped to attain liberation, the merit points would increase by dozens of points, much faster than the merit points gained from preaching or lecturing.
Lin Zhu watched Tang Sanzang earnestly performing the ritual to deliver the bandits from suffering below, then glanced at the top-grade Nine-Turn Taiyi Golden Pill marked "Pending Collection" on the system panel, and couldn't help but sigh, "What kind of ritual is this?"
However, he also had to admit that Tang Sanzang had indeed found a balance between punishing evil and promoting good, and accumulating merit. While killing those who deserved to die, he gave them a final chance to repent, allowing their souls to be purified to some extent before death.
The system did not provide any adverse feedback regarding this method.
Lin Zhu thought that was enough. The remaining dozen or so monks were quickly given the final rites by Tang Sanzang. The stench of blood was still strong in the courtyard, but an unusual tranquility filled the air.
The expressions of the dead monks were all calm, because their repentance before death had indeed relieved them of the burden on their hearts.
Guangzhi was the last to be saved. He knelt before Tang Sanzang and confessed all the bad things he had done in his life. Then he looked up at Tang Sanzang, his eyes no longer filled with fear, but with a numb calm.
"Master, am I about to die?"
Guangzhi asked in a hoarse voice.
Tang Sanzang nodded.
"Then I want to ask one question before I die."
Guangzhi licked his chapped lips. "Does hell really exist in this world?"
"Have."
Tang Sanzang answered very affirmatively.
"If someone like me goes down to the underworld, will the King of Hell skin me alive and hang me up?"
"meeting."
Guangzhi actually smiled when he heard this. He wiped the snot and tears from his face with his sleeve, straightened his crooked monk's hat, and then put his hands together and said to Tang Sanzang, "Then Master, please do it."
Tang Sanzang extended his finger and touched his forehead.
Guangzhi's body trembled slightly, then he collapsed softly, a faint smile on his face.
Tang Sanzang stood up, glanced at the corpses filling the courtyard, and clasped his hands together, reciting a mantra for rebirth. The sound of the mantra drifted in the night wind, carrying an indescribable solemnity.
Lin Zhu descended from the clouds, stood beside Tang Sanzang, and patted him on the shoulder: "Well done."
Tang Sanzang turned around, the murderous aura on his face completely gone, replaced by his usual gentle calm. He bowed to Lin Zhu with his hands clasped together, saying, "I am entirely at the mercy of the Immortal Lord's guidance."
The dull thud of Tang Sanzang's punch shattering the strong monk's sternum still echoed between the courtyard walls, and the human-shaped indentation embedded in the screen wall was still dropping brick fragments. The remaining thirty-odd monks in the courtyard seemed to have their throats grabbed at the same time, and all the shouts of killing, the clash of swords and spears, and the curses disappeared in an instant.
It was so quiet that you could hear birds chirping in the distant mountains and forests.
A monk holding a knife is in a posture with the knife raised above his head, the blade hanging in mid-air, his arm stiff as a wooden stake.
The gunman next to him thrust out his spear, stopping three feet from Tang Sanzang's back. The spear tip was trembling slightly, making the iron rings on the shaft clang.
The crossbowman on the wall still had his finger on the trigger, the arrowhead aimed at the back of Tang Sanzang's head, but he couldn't pull the string because he couldn't get any strength in his hand.
All eyes were on the figure embedded in the screen wall.
The burly monk's head drooped, his chin resting on his chest, and blood gushing from his mouth flowed down his robes, pooling into a small puddle of dark red liquid on the bluestone ground in front of the screen wall.
His chest had caved in in the shape of a fist, the skin in the depression was an abnormal bluish-purple, and broken ribs protruded from under the skin, with bits of flesh hanging on the white bone fragments.
One punch.
Just one punch.
That strong monk was one of the guardian deities of the monastery, with a cultivation level of the second stage of Qi Refining. His arms were strong enough to carry thousands of pounds. When he practiced his skills by carrying a stone mill, he could lift a stone mill weighing 300 pounds and walk around it three times by himself.
Such a person couldn't even withstand a single punch from Tang Sanzang, and before he could even scream, he was embedded in the wall like a fly that had been swatted away.
The remaining monks exchanged glances, and the same word was written in each of their eyes—monster.
That's a fucking monster.
Guangzhi's legs were shaking the most. He stood at the very front of the crowd, only three or four steps away from Tang Sanzang. The gust of wind that Tang Sanzang had created when he passed by was still brushing against his face.
His crotch was soaked, urine dripping down his trouser leg and leaving a small puddle on the bluestone floor. But he didn't care about the embarrassment; he only had one thing on his mind—how to survive this bald monster.
Behind him, a fat monk muttered in a strange dialect in a low voice, "Brother Guangzhi, this isn't a monk, it's a mountain monster that has taken human form."
Guangzhi didn't turn around, but he heard a series of swallowing sounds behind him, and someone quietly pressed the tip of their knife down, afraid that the reflection of the blade would provoke the evil star in front of them.
Tang Sanzang stood in the center of the courtyard, withdrew his fist, and flicked his wrist. The bloodstains on his fist were flicked to the ground, splattering into a few tiny blood flowers.
He glanced down at his fist, then looked up at the burly monk embedded in the screen wall, his expression shifting from cold to a kind of compassionate regret.
"This humble monk did not intend for this to happen."
He sighed, clasped his hands together, and spoke in a gentle tone that sent chills down one's spine, "But you insist on forcing this humble monk to take action."
Upon hearing this, the monks in the courtyard all took a step back. Looking at Tang Sanzang's compassionate face, they found it even more terrifying than his previous murderous expression.
When he was radiating murderous intent just now, at least you could tell what he was going to do. But now that he's smiling so mercifully, nobody knows if he'll suddenly strike and embed everyone into the wall next.
Tang Sanzang glanced around, his gaze sweeping across the faces of every monk. Those he looked at involuntarily lowered their heads, none daring to meet his eyes. (End of Chapter)