Offering Incense

Chapter 47: Offering Incense

As soon as Abbot Xinhui finished speaking, he seemed to immediately catch his own slip. He quickly pressed his palms together, closed his eyes slightly, and bowed toward the west.

“Amitabha. A sin, a sin. This disciple has broken the precept against anger. I shall copy the sutras a hundred times as penance.”

After saying this, Xinhui raised his head again and looked at Li Huowang with a calm, peaceful expression. He studied him for a long moment, then gave a slight nod. “I know the reason for this. Benefactor Xuan Yang, come with me.”

Li Huowang glanced at the ring of monks who were watching him like hawks. He didn’t have much choice. He slid the longsword back into the scabbard slung across his back and turned to follow.

Xinhui didn’t go far. He led the group back to the statue-carving grounds from before. “Benefactor Xuan Yang, is this where you witnessed those… unclean things just now?”

Surrounded by monks, Li Huowang stared at what lay before him and froze. The unfinished stone statues that had turned into a mountain of writhing flesh were back, as if the whole thing had been a cruel joke. “How is this —”

“Benefactor, please continue to follow me.”

Accompanied by Xinhui, Li Huowang walked forward slowly. Past the carving grounds, they reached the place where he had seen the livestock.

There were no animals here either. Only rows of unfinished stone qilins and stone lions. Masonry beasts of all sizes stood in orderly lines, silently staring ahead.

Just then, Xinhui suddenly pulled the longsword from Li Huowang’s back and swung it in a single clean arc. The head of a lion no bigger than a palm was severed cleanly.

Xinhui picked up the stone lion’s head and placed it in Li Huowang’s hand.

Li Huowang’s fingers traced the lion’s head. The texture of stone. The heavy, solid weight. It was real!

“But how —” Li Huowang refused to give up. He walked over and touched the sculptures one by one with both hands. They were all unquestionably real.

Finally, he stood at the entrance of the main hall and looked inside. There, seated majestically on a lotus pedestal, was an immense stone Buddha. Its left hand held a begging bowl, its right hand pointed straight down at the ground. It gazed back at him with an expression that showed neither joy nor sorrow.

“That’s impossible! I saw it clearly just now! Plain as day! How could it be fake?”

Hearing this, Abbot Xinhui let out a soft sigh. “Amitabha. Benefactor, you are very ill.”

Li Huowang turned to look at Xinhui, stunned. “Are you saying… I had an episode? Everything I saw just now was an illusion?”

Xinhui gave a slight nod. “Benefactor, you know better than we do what kind of illness afflicts you.”

Li Huowang clutched his head, his expression twisting in pain as he muttered to himself. “Could all that Black Tai Sui I ate only last this long? Am I starting to hallucinate again already?”

When the surrounding monks heard this, their faces, which had been hostile, turned to looks of unease. They gathered together and whispered among themselves.

“So he’s a madman after all.” “If there’s nothing else, let’s send him on his way. What if he has a fit one day and cuts someone down?”

“Hush!” Xinhui’s single word silenced all the monks.

He entered the hall, lit four sticks of incense, then turned around and extended them toward Li Huowang. “It’s no trouble for you to disturb us monks, but disturbing the Buddha is another matter. Offer some incense to the Buddha and make amends.”

“Incense?” Li Huowang’s muscles tensed instantly. His gaze darted between the great Buddha, Xinhui, and the four incense sticks.

“Benefactor, what are you waiting for? This matter was your fault first.” Xinhui extended the incense a little further.

Li Huowang’s mind flashed back to that writhing mound of flesh. The monster draped with monks.

If that thing was real, walking over to offer it incense would be like delivering himself to its mouth to be eaten.

“Benefactor, why do you hesitate?”

Li Huowang looked at Xinhui. A hint of displeasure was beginning to show on the abbot’s face.

He touched the stone lion head in his hand. It was undeniably real. He looked up at the blazing sun overhead.

Li Huowang tossed the lion head aside. He accepted the incense with both hands, stepped over the threshold, and walked slowly toward the stone statue.

He walked very, very slowly. His body and mind were stretched taut. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead.

But no matter how slowly he walked, he eventually reached the foot of the great Buddha. The Buddha was still a Buddha. It had not turned back into that nauseating mound of flesh.

Li Huowang held the incense in both hands as he stood before the incense burner. He looked up again. From this angle, he could see the great Buddha gazing down at him with eyes that held neither fondness nor anger. An involuntary reverence rose in his heart.

He raised the incense above his head. The four sticks trembled slightly. White smoke curled in the air, drifting toward the roof of the hall.

Li Huowang bowed three times, then solemnly inserted the incense into the burner. He turned and walked back outside.

Now that the conflict seemed resolved, the monks gradually dispersed. They returned to their stations, picked up their tools, and resumed carving. The sound of clink-clink filled the air once more.

Xinhui walked with Li Huowang along the brick path between the statues, heading slowly back toward the outer grounds.

“Benefactor Xuan Yang, since your illness is so severe, you should not wander about for now. Just rest quietly until the Great Deliverance Feast.”

“Although your illness is troublesome, Danyangzi is undoubtedly more dangerous. We must eat our rice one mouthful at a time and do our tasks one by one.” Xinhui turned his prayer beads in his hand as he spoke to Li Huowang beside him.

Li Huowang looked up at the bright, cheerful sun once more. He raised both arms high and stretched lazily. “Abbot, for someone with my kind of delusional disorder, does Zhengde Temple have any way to treat it?”

“Hmm. This old monk could have the disciples try. But whether it would succeed is another matter. This temple has no tradition of the Yellow Emperor’s art of healing.”

“It’s fine. I was just asking. I’ve been crazy for so long, I’m used to it.” Li Huowang’s expression was completely nonchalant. “Oh, by the way, Abbot. How did you do that just now? How did the thing I was carrying suddenly end up in your hand?”

“Hehehe. Just a small trick. Not worth mentioning.” Xinhui waved a hand dismissively.

“Come on, Abbot. No need to be modest. If that’s a small trick, then what am I? Not even as good as an insect?”

“Benefactor Xuan Yang, things are not measured that way. Look at Danyangzi. Though he is not as strong as I am, he is still considered mid-tier in the outside world. And yet you were the one who got rid of him in the end.”

“Someone like Danyangzi is only mid-tier? Then what must the top tier be like? Abbot, among experts like yourselves, is there a hierarchy?”

“There is. Something like Heaven, Earth, Profound, Yellow… but those rankings were just thought up by bored people. We who have left the secular world do not seek empty fame. We do not care for such things.”

The path was not long, but the two of them walked slowly and talked for a very long time. Li Huowang learned a great deal of useful information about this world from Xinhui’s mouth.

When they finally left the carving grounds, Li Huowang stopped and bowed to Xinhui. “Thank you for clearing up my confusion, Abbot.”

“Not at all. It was a trivial effort. Benefactor Xuan Yang is unwell, so you should return to your quarters and rest.”

After exchanging pleasantries, Li Huowang looked around. Seeing no sign of the old monk, he turned and headed toward his lodging.

He walked slowly. He seemed troubled, as if he were lost in thought.

After nearly half an hour, Li Huowang finally reached his quarters. The moment he closed the door behind him, his expression twisted into a ferocious snarl. He clenched his fists and slammed them against the wall.

He didn’t know what trick the monks had used to fool his senses. But as a patient who had spent a long time alternating between hallucination and reality, Li Huowang was no good at many things, but he was acutely sensitive to this.

The feeling that great Buddha had given him was unmistakably wrong. It was the same kind of indescribable feeling he got from the hospital in his hallucinations.

“Those stone carvings are fake! The great Buddha is fake too! They’re all illusions! What I saw before wasn’t an hallucination at all!”