The Temple's True Face

Chapter 44: Zhengde Temple

Li Huowang found himself once again before Abbot Xinhui in the Hall of the Five Buddhas. This time, however, the abbot was not alone. Four elderly monks sat in a row behind him.

“Since you are here, benefactor Xuan Yang, let us speak plainly. We need to perform a Great Deliverance Feast to guide him.”

“Fine, Abbot. Let’s begin then,” Li Huowang said immediately.

“Patience, benefactor Xuan Yang. The karmic debt of Danyangzi lies with you. Before this rite can be performed, you must first still your own heart.”

“Still my heart?” Li Huowang was confused.

“Amitabha, Benefactor. Your heart is far from still. It is ill.”

Before the abbot could finish, Li Huowang snapped back, his voice harsh, “I’m not sick!”

The words came out so loudly that even he was startled by his own volume.

Seeing the five old monks staring at him with knowing looks, Li Huowang took a deep breath and clenched his trembling fists. “Abbot, I ask you, what must I do to still my heart?”

A sutra with a yellow cover was placed before him. “Take this Sutra of the Five Aggregates' Emptiness. Recite it three times a day, morning, noon, and night.”

Li Huowang took it and flipped through the pages. It was filled with dense, obscure Buddhist scriptures, their meaning completely lost on him, like clouds and mist.

“Just recite it? No special techniques? No alchemy to ingest?” The simplicity of the instructions was far below his expectations.

Seeing Abbot Xinhui shake his head, Li Huowang picked up the sutra and headed for the door. Just as he was about to leave, he turned back to look at the old monks sitting on their round cushions.

“Abbot Xinhui, does Zhengde Temple have any cultivation techniques?”

“Naturally. Should the benefactor wish to shave his head and join our temple, the library is open for you to peruse.”

Hearing this, Li Huowang turned and left. There was no way he was becoming a monk.

“Benefactor Xuan Yang, for now, stay in the temple’s guest quarters. Running back and forth like this is troublesome for you and for us.”

This time, Li Huowang did not refuse. Since he had already decided to trust them, being overly cautious now would only make him seem petty.

A private room in Zhengde Temple was prepared for him. Li Huowang stayed there quietly, studying the sutra he had been given.

The first few days, he was still tense. But he found that no one in the entire temple paid him any attention. Even when he wandered into the bustling main hall and watched the monks interpreting divination slips for visitors, no one bothered him. Gradually, he began to relax.

Late at night, by the light of a single oil lamp, Li Huowang held the sutra in both hands and recited aloud. “My life is ended. The holy life has been lived. What was to be done has been done. There will be no further existence. As this Dharma was being spoken, the five bhikshus, along with their many afflictions, attained liberation of mind. With faith, they accepted and practiced it…”

At first, reciting this so-called Sutra of the Five Aggregates' Emptiness had no effect. But as the days passed, he found his sleep quality improving. That was when he knew this thing was actually working.

After finishing a calm recitation, Li Huowang slowly closed the book, blew out the oil lamp, and prepared to sleep, his mind already calculating his next moves.

“Once I get rid of Danyangzi, I’ll go find the Black Tai Sui. If I can stabilize my condition, I can live steadily in this world.”

“But that Black Tai Sui looked pretty fierce. If I actually catch it, how do I keep it bound? Cut off a piece each month to eat?”

“Right, and strength. I need to gain enough power to protect myself. But that’s also hard to manage.”

Just as he was thinking this, he suddenly saw a human-shaped shadow flicker past outside his door. His body instantly went rigid.

“Is someone in the temple watching me?” Li Huowang slowed his steps, crept over to the door, and slid the bolt open.

He yanked the door open a crack. The small courtyard, bathed in moonlight, was empty. Li Huowang cautiously poked his head out and saw, in the distance, the corner of a yellow monk’s robe quickly disappearing into a dark corridor.

“What is this temple up to?” After a moment’s thought, he hung back and began to follow.

Walking quickly, he caught sight of a shaved head ahead in the moonlight. He couldn’t see the man’s face from behind, but the lack of even a single consecration scar suggested he was low in the temple hierarchy.

And so, through the silent temple, one man walked ahead, and another followed far behind.

As they walked, the monk suddenly ducked through a half-open door.

Li Huowang was about to follow, but then thought better of it. He circled around to the other side of the hall, wet his finger with spit, and poked a hole through the paper window.

Compared to the Abbot’s Hall of the Five Buddhas, this hall was not large. In fact, it was cramped. The statue of a bodhisattva inside, one hand forming a gesture and the other holding a vase, was not much bigger than a person.

Furthermore, only two candles were lit on the offering table, leaving the entire hall in deep shadow.

At that moment, someone was kneeling in prostration before the Buddha. It wasn’t the monk who had just entered, but a woman.

“A woman? At the temple in the middle of the night?”

Before Li Huowang could figure this out, the woman began to chant in a low voice.

“Oh, merciful and compassionate Bodhisattva, I beg you, grant me a son. If I can’t give birth to a son, my husband will sell me.”

As she spoke, a half-naked monk silently emerged from behind the statue’s shadow.

He held a red cloth, which he gently pulled across the woman’s eyes, binding them.

The woman’s body trembled violently, but she didn’t resist. Her breathing grew heavier.

With each inhale and exhale, seven or eight shaven-headed figures emerged from the surrounding darkness. They walked slowly toward her, their hands clasped in prayer.

“This is the truth behind their ‘efficacious son-granting’?!” Li Huowang stared at the scene, dumbfounded. Everything he thought he knew about Zhengde Temple shattered in an instant.

Suddenly, he sensed something. He spun around. Under the bright moonlight in the courtyard, the monk named Jian Dun stood there like a statue. “I’ve been caught!”

Jian Dun looked at him but said nothing. He simply waved his hand and then turned and walked away.

Glancing back at the chaos beginning in the hall, Li Huowang quietly followed.

Jian Dun led him not elsewhere, but back to his own room. He lit the lamp and sat down on a stool.

“I know what you’re thinking, Benefactor. You probably think the monks of Zhengde Temple are impure in their six roots. But Benefactor, do you truly believe those pilgrims are fools? Why would they come to pray to the Buddha in the dead of night?”

Li Huowang stood in the doorway, saying nothing, waiting for him to continue.

“Someone wants sons, so we give them sons. Monastics are merciful by nature. We are doing a good deed.”

Hearing this, Li Huowang couldn’t help but frown. “Your ‘good deeds’ seem to be quite many and quite grand.”

“No disciple of Zhengde Temple has ever said that our Bodhisattva is efficacious at granting sons. That is all propaganda spread by the pilgrims themselves. We never spoke of it, and they never asked.”