Qiu Yuan Monk truly had a hard life; he descended from the mountain determined to save all living beings, only to find that he could do nothing—possessing great mana, yet without corresponding ans. Faced with such chaos, looking upon the listless populace, the weary all living beings, what could he do?
However, in that instant, Wang Hao found that his current ntal state was cold as stone, frighteningly rational.
He seed to be looking at the monk’s joys and sorrows from God’s perspective, yet he himself felt neither joy nor grief, nor even much psychological fluctuation.
This strange experience made him rather uncomfortable.
"So, in your grief and anger, you chose to commit suicide?"
The monk said, "Not really. Life is precious, like a blind turtle finding a floating log. Suicide is also killing, and I dare not and do not wish to break the precepts. It’s just that, I heard that the child Niu Sanda beca a bandit, and in the following ten years or more, I wanted to persuade him to return to the right path, but I searched in vain."
"There’s more to the story after this."
After many ups and downs, the rapid unraveling of life unfolded, with ti slipping away.
Decades of wandering and wandering, along with the diminishing divine power of Ksitigarbha and the waning influence of the Jiuhua Mountain lineage, led monks to either perish or escape, and they began to retreat to the mountains and forests, disheartened and cold.
Turmoil churns the waters, yet it can wash my feet; looking out for one’s own safety is the prevailing philosophy for most people.
Even Qiu Yuan, a great monk with unique skills, who had been through the vicissitudes of the world, faced the grim hue of the world, uncertain of where the path ahead lay. What was right, and what was wrong? He began to struggle to distinguish, fighting hard amidst the endless world.
One day, Qiu Yuan Monk arrived at a place of poverty, Naihe Town.
The farther away from Floating Mountain, the more destitute and filled with dead bodies from starvation and sickness, as famine and plague beca the norm.
This Naihe Town hadn’t seen rain in a year; the earth was cracked, the crops failed, resulting in a great famine. Hearing that so landlords had hoarded a large quantity of grain, Qiu Yuan Monk attempted to persuade the landlords to open their granaries and release grain to help the disaster victims.
As soon as he entered the town, he saw the very Niu Sanda he had been searching for, who had transford into a robber, about to use his knife on sobody.
At this mont, Niu Sanda was already seventeen or eighteen years old, strong and sturdy, while at his feet lay an old man past sixty.
Qiu Yuan roared, "Evildoer, why harm people here?"
Knowing that Master Qiu Yuan had powerful mana, Niu Sanda quickly dropped his knife and kept kowtowing, "Master, when others slander , cheat , insult , laugh at , belittle , look down upon , hate , deceive , how should I respond?"
Qiu Yuan replied, "Just endure them, let them be, ignore them, stay away from them, put up with them, respect them, disregard them, and wait a few more years—you’ll see."
Niu Sanda, kneeling on the ground, said, "Master, this place is filled with treacherous mountains and rivers, where hunger and bare survival are the norm, and the won, children, and elderly in this village are not good people. They live by robbing passing caravans. This old man not only robs and kills people but also eats them. In Naihe Town, human flesh is sold for money by the pound."
"This old man just tried to knock out with knockout drug to capture and eat !"
"If I endure him, let him be, ignore him, stay away from him, put up with him, respect him, and disregard him, wouldn’t I just be throwing my life away for nothing?"
Qiu Yuan Monk was taken aback and angrily retorted, "Evildoer, how dare you argue!"
Even though, he knew that Niu Sanda was not lying.
But at this mont, he himself was also lost, unsure of how to redeem such a vast number of wicked people.
Niu Sanda kept kowtowing, "Master, you often say, ’If not I enter Hell, who will?’ Now, Hell is right here in the mortal world. Just look at the won and children of this village, with hunger gnawing at their insides, their bellies bound by three strips. If Master could persuade them not to eat human flesh, I, Niu Sanda, would willingly submit to execution!"
Qiu Yuan Monk took out a bit of his travel funds and dry rations, and said, "I don’t want you to submit to execution; I just advise you one sentence: a prodigal who returns is worth more... Now go... Stop doing evil."
Niu Sanda left, looking back three steps at a ti.
Naihe Town, true to its na, "Naihe" (what can be done).
What can be done indeed?
As the monk entered this place, he saw a scene akin to Hell.
Due to years of famine, the people had begun to sell their wives and children as "food people" to be eaten; so even deliberately captured fleeing disaster victims, knocking them out to sell.
A local gentry landlord walked into a restaurant, and the proprietor brought out two "food people," ordering the cook to "quickly cut off an arm" for the landlord to eat.
Qiu Yuan was shocked; the "food people" were barely alive, hands and feet chopped off, and losing blood, clearly not long for this world.
But such was the local custom; under famine, these commoners beca increasingly vicious and brutal.
"How can people devour their own kind? How are they different from wolves and wild beasts?" the monk said to a cook preparing the al.
That sharp-tongued proprietor, baring his teeth, said, "You bald donkey don’t know the taste of hunger. If you were starving, starving for ten days or half a month, you’d eat even Guanyin Soil! We’re already doing well not to eat our own children here, but still, you’re prattling on!"
"I’ll give you so dry rations." Qiu Yuan Monk, reaching into his travel bag, didn’t actually have much food left.
"This bit of dry rations, how could it be enough? Even if it were ten tis, a hundred tis, a thousand tis more, it wouldn’t be enough!" The proprietor paused, seemingly showing a trace of compassion, and said kindly, "Monk, I see you possess unique skills, you’re not from here, and we can’t harm you... It’s best if you leave quickly, don’t get involved in this dirty business. If you can, go far away, hurry on!"
And this act of sharing dry rations attracted a large crowd of beggars.
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