Chapter 788
This humble monk will perform the ritual to deliver your entire family from suffering. W
Whoever his gaze swept over, their blade would drop an inch. When it swept over the top of the wall, the crossbowmen lowered their crossbows, the arrows pointing directly at the ground.
Tang Sanzang nodded in satisfaction, then took a deep breath. As he inhaled, his pectoral muscles bulged, stretching his monk's robe even tighter, the fabric creaking under the strain.
He exhaled slowly, his breath coming out of his nostrils with a low sigh, like the lingering echo of a temple bell.
“This humble monk’s Dharma name is Sanzang. I come from the Great Tang Dynasty in the East. I am here by order of the Tang Emperor to go to Mount Ling in the Western Paradise to worship Buddha and seek scriptures.”
His voice was exceptionally clear in the quiet courtyard, each word pronounced distinctly: "Today I passed by your esteemed temple and wished to stay the night to discuss Buddhism with you fellow practitioners and jointly attain enlightenment."
Unexpectedly, my fellow disciples wanted to kill me the moment they met, which truly saddened me.
When he said the word "sad," his right hand unconsciously clenched into a fist, and the veins on his fist bulged out like earthworms wriggling under his skin.
The knuckles made a cracking sound when they were clenched, not loud, but it sounded particularly jarring in the deathly quiet courtyard.
The monks stirred again, with one whispering, "What's he sad about? It wasn't him who died."
Tang Sanzang ignored the murmur and continued, "I have been a monk for many years and have always been compassionate, and I am reluctant to take lives easily. But what you fellow disciples did today is not what a Buddhist disciple should do."
"It's one thing for me to be attacked with knives, spears, and clubs; my skin is thick and I don't care. But my fellow disciples, over the years you've robbed, murdered, and cheated on this path, taking countless innocent lives and committing countless heinous crimes."
His voice gradually lowered, as if he were talking to himself, or perhaps mourning for the departed souls. But his clenched fists did not loosen; instead, they tightened even more, his knuckles turning white, his nails digging into the flesh of his palms.
Above the clouds, Lin Zhu stood with his arms crossed, watching the scene below, his brows furrowed in a frown.
A system panel floated before him, displaying static golden text: [Task: Guide Tang Sanzang to use the correct method to deliver these murderous bandits from suffering. Task Status: Incomplete. Task Reward: One top-grade Nine-Turn Taiyi Golden Pill.]
The words "incomplete" flashed before Lin Zhu's eyes, as if mocking him.
"Why is it not finished?"
Lin Zhu muttered to himself and tapped the system panel. "Didn't I just teach him? I told him to persuade people to repent before taking action, and he did just that."
The system did not respond; only those three words remained firmly displayed: "Incomplete."
Lin Zhu's brows furrowed even more. He looked down at Tang Sanzang in the courtyard, who was speaking to the remaining monks in a compassionate tone that sent chills down one's spine.
His fighting spirit was clearly rising. Although his tone was gentle and his expression compassionate, Lin Zhu could see the black mist churning deep in his eyes—the residual demonic energy of the Pill of the Pill was influencing his mind.
He wanted to take action; he was looking for an excuse to do so. Beneath his compassionate expression lay a murderous intent to physically exterminate all these bandits.
Lin Zhu rubbed his temples.
He understood; he had only taught half of it. He had instructed Tang Sanzang to first make the person repent before taking action, but he hadn't taught Tang Sanzang the specific Buddhist teachings. The matter of deliverance isn't something that can be accomplished simply by having someone say "I was wrong."
True Buddhist rituals for the deceased require chanting scriptures, performing rituals, and allowing the soul of the departed to be purified and liberated through the power of the scriptures. What Tang Sanzang is doing now is merely making someone confess their sins and then touching their forehead; this is more like carrying out a death sentence than performing a ritual for the deceased.
"We need to compile new Buddhist teachings again."
Lin Zhu muttered to herself, her voice filled with deep reluctance.
This is what bothers him the most.
Last time, in order to teach Tang Sanzang something else, he had racked his brains to come up with a set of seemingly plausible Buddhist theories, breaking down and rearranging the words in the Buddhist scriptures, and even he himself was not sure whether what he said had any basis in Buddhist principles.
But Tang Sanzang was completely swayed by this. He believed everything he was told, and once he did it, the system actually counted it as approved.
This means he now has to come up with a completely new set of ideas.
Lin Zhu pulled a small notebook from his sleeve and flipped through some excerpts of Buddhist scriptures he had previously recorded. He had obtained this notebook from the Merit Pavilion; it contained many classic Buddhist sayings and was used for his daily lesson preparation.
He flipped to the chapter on "salvation," read a few lines, and then closed it—those orthodox sacrificial scriptures were too long; reciting a single Ksitigarbha Sutra would take more than half an hour. In Tang Sanzang's current state, it would be faster for him to just punch everyone to death than to patiently recite scriptures for half an hour.
It needs to be simplified, but not too much.
Lin Zhu felt increasingly frustrated and couldn't help but look up at the sky. The sky was deep blue, a few stars had begun to twinkle, and the night breeze blew in from the west, carrying the scent of pine resin from the mountains and forests.
The world is so wonderful, yet he has to create new Buddhist theories for a bald, muscular monk in the clouds, and then find a way to teach him so that he can use these theories to help a group of bandits escape their suffering, and finally get the elixir that he has worked so hard to earn.
"This world is so unfair."
Lin Zhu muttered something and stuffed the notebook back into her sleeve. "I have to do the work myself to get paid. Why can't the system just give me the pills directly?"
Despite his words, he still mustered his energy and began to study the new Buddhist teachings. The core of deliverance lies in two points: the purification of the deceased's soul and the accumulation of merit for the living.
Tang Sanzang has only fulfilled a small part of the first point—making people confess and repent, which can indeed purify some sins. But the system says that this is not enough, which means that the second point has not been achieved, or that the purification method is not thorough enough.
Lin Zhu's gaze fell on the row of corpses in the corner of the courtyard that had been given a proper rite of passage. The expressions on those corpses were indeed much calmer than when they had just died, and there were even faint smiles on their lips, which showed that Tang Sanzang's method had indeed had some effect.
However, after careful observation, Lin Zhu discovered that each corpse still had a very faint layer of black mist remaining on it—that was karma that had not been completely purified. Without the complete dissipation of karma, the soul could not be considered truly liberated, and the deliverance could not be truly completed.
"It turns out the problem lies in the blessing of the scriptures."
Lin Zhu suddenly realized.
Words alone are not enough; they must be combined with the power of Buddhist vows. When Tang Sanzang recited the scriptures, the power of the scriptures would transform into an invisible power of vows. This power of vows could cleanse the karma of the deceased, doubling the effect of repentance.
The problem is that, given Tang Sanzang's current state, it's unrealistic to expect him to sit down and recite a Ksitigarbha Sutra.
I need to come up with a shorter version.
Lin Zhu fell into deep thought.
Meanwhile, in another direction on the horizon, Guanyin Bodhisattva stood on a lotus platform, her face as black as the bottom of a pot.
She had sensed something was wrong just now. The trace of Buddhist consciousness she had left on Tang Sanzang sent a ripple through her, telling her that Tang Sanzang had murderous intent.
She immediately looked down with her discerning eyes, and what she saw almost made her fall off the lotus platform in anger—Tang Sanzang was standing shirtless in a courtyard, where monks lay dead haphazardly on the ground, and another monk was embedded in the screen wall, his legs still twitching. "He really killed them."
Guanyin Bodhisattva gritted her teeth and squeezed out four words.
She stretched out her finger and gently wiped her eyes, opening her divine eye and piercing through the clouds and twilight to look directly at the top of Tang Sanzang's head.
She was stunned again upon seeing this—the karmic red light above Tang Sanzang's head was so faint as to be almost invisible, floating there lightly like a feather, its color as pale as diluted cinnabar water.
If an ordinary person committed murder, the karmic red aura would be thick and almost black, like the color of dried blood. But the red aura above Tang Sanzang's head was light and faint, like a speck of rouge that had been accidentally smeared on him.
Guanyin Bodhisattva blinked and looked again carefully. Indeed, it was very light. Although karma is real, its weight was so light it was practically negligible.
This shows that, from the perspective of the law of cause and effect, Tang Sanzang's act of killing did not create too much negative karma.
"justifiable defense."
Guanyin Bodhisattva squeezed out these four words from between her teeth, as if reciting an extremely bitter judgment.
With a wave of her hand, a pure Buddhist light shone from her fingertips, gently sweeping across Tang Sanzang's head. The faint red karmic force vanished without a trace, like dew meeting sunlight, and Tang Sanzang's head returned to its pristine state.
For a being of Guanyin Bodhisattva's caliber, erasing this bit of karma is no more difficult than brushing dust off one's clothes.
But the panic in her heart did not disappear just because the karma was erased.
Tang Sanzang actually dared to kill someone.
Although it can be considered self-defense from the perspective of causality, although the karma is so light as to be negligible, and although he killed bandits, killing is still killing.
A monk who grew up in a temple, chanted scriptures for decades, and wouldn't even step on an ant, now smashes a person's sternum with a single punch, embedding the person in a wall, and looks at other monks with that compassionate expression. The contrast is simply too outrageous.
Guanyin Bodhisattva took a deep breath, her chest heaving several times before she could barely calm down. She told herself not to panic; this was the path she had chosen.
From the moment she threw the Pill of the Pillar to Tang Sanzang, she knew that Tang Sanzang would change, but she didn't expect him to change so quickly and so thoroughly.
"Guanyin, oh Guanyin."
She whispered to herself, "When you gave Dongliang Dan to him, didn't you already have a plan? Let him vent, let him cause trouble, and then step in to clean up the mess for him, while using this favor to teach him a lesson and make him behave himself."
This was your plan, why are you panicking first?
She gripped the jade bottle tightly, her knuckles turning white from the force. Her sharp eyes were fixed on the bald, shirtless man below, fearing he might rush forward again and kill all the remaining monks.
And this concern is becoming a reality.
In the courtyard, Tang Sanzang's "compassionate speech" continued.
But his tone had changed from gentle to a kind of cold judgment. Every word he spoke carried a chilling murderous intent. Although his words were about compassion and salvation, to the monks, they sounded like a death sentence.
"Fellow disciples."
Tang Sanzang clasped his hands together, his face filled with a compassionate expression as if coated with honey. "It is both fate and karma that this humble monk meets you all today."
You have been robbing and plundering in this place for many years, your hands stained with the blood of countless innocent people. You must feel considerable guilt and unease. Though I am not talented, I have cultivated a method of deliverance, and I wish to help you escape this sea of suffering and be reborn in the Pure Land.
After saying this, he raised his head, his gaze slowly sweeping across the faces of each monk. His eyes were clear and firm, like a true high monk looking at a group of lost sheep, ready to use the supreme Dharma to ferry them to the other shore.
"Which senior brother is willing to be the first to receive this humble monk's salvation?"
Tang Sanzang asked with a smile.
The courtyard fell silent for a moment.
Then all the monks took three steps back in unison. The more than thirty people retreated at the same time, their footsteps hitting the bluestone ground with a uniform, muffled thud, like someone beating a drum in the courtyard.
Nobody wants to be the first.
Tang Sanzang's smile froze for a moment, then he patiently took two more steps forward: "Don't be afraid, salvation is a good thing, it's a relief for all of you."
"You have committed evil deeds here for many years, living in constant fear of revenge from your enemies and sieges by the government. How miserable your lives must have been! My salvation will be completed in an instant, without any pain. After the salvation, you will no longer have to live in fear."
The monks collectively took three steps back.
Guangzhi couldn't take it anymore. He forced himself to walk out of the crowd, his legs still trembling, but he knew that if he didn't speak up, this bald devil could talk them all to death one by one.
He cleared his throat, using all his strength to suppress his strange accent, trying his best to make his words sound like those of a respectable monk—although his expression remained extremely lewd.
"Uh uh..."
Guangzhi first uttered two meaningless syllables, then took a deep breath, "I don't know... this person..."
He paused, his mind racing. The bald, burly man had claimed to be a monk from the Tang Dynasty in the East, but Guangzhi couldn't see the man as a monk at all.
He had seen many wandering monks, and those monks were either thin and dusty or ruddy-faced and fat. He had never seen a monk with such a physique that he could punch someone into a wall.
Guangzhi hesitated for a moment, but still asked the question that was on his mind: "You...are you really a monk?"
Tang Sanzang's carefully crafted expression of compassion instantly crumbled.
He stared wide-eyed at Guangzhi, his face full of disbelief, his voice rising two octaves: "Of course I am a monk!"
He reached up and touched his bald head, slapping it twice with his palm. "Look at this humble monk's bald head, these ordination scars, this monk's robe—although the robe is off now—can't you tell this humble monk is a monk?"
Guangzhi was startled by the gesture of patting his bald head and jumped back half a step, waving his hands repeatedly: "Don't hit me, don't hit me! This humble monk is just asking, just asking."
But the group of monks behind him weren't so polite. Someone muttered under their breath, "Looking like that, he's a monk? Calling him a member of the Shaolin martial arts troupe would be an understatement." (End of Chapter)