In the small courtyard of Shaojiu Alley, the two Mountain Lords sat facing each other, blades drawn and bows bent.
Only when the young Chang Ghost brought in thin porridge did the tension in the yard begin to dissolve.
Under the Treasure Monkey mask, Qi Xiao rumbled, "What’s the point of wasting words on him? Just take him down. Even if he adds a few more people, they’re still no match for us."
Yu Yuan whispered, "Don’t speak yet. There’s sothing fishy about those two. Let’s eavesdrop and then report back to Lord Bai Long."
Yao An looked at Treasure Monkey, sighing in admiration, "I’ve long heard that under the Treasure Monkey mask dwell many people. Seeing you today, it is indeed so. The Path of Paying Homage to the Sage Phase is truly wondrous."
But Chen Ji ignored the others. He was first to open his mouth and probe: "Senior brother went to such pains to follow today, wanting to lock gazes with in the crowd and dispel the palpitations between our Paths?"
Yao An smiled. "Wasn’t it you, junior brother, who spotted first? Why bother asking what you already know? This foolish brother was rely curious. By rights you shouldn’t recognize —so how did you discover ... ah, this foolish brother understands. It was that little monk at your side who spilled Heaven’s secrets."
Chen Ji confird his own guess: the little monk had seen Yao An, but on the long street today, there had been a third person cultivating the sa Path as himself.
Yao An had originally wanted to et his gaze, only for Chen Ji to happen to lock eyes with that third person first and then abruptly rise, scanning the crowd for the figure.
This move made Yao An mistakenly think he had been discovered, so he left ahead of ti, and what the little monk saw was Yao An’s back.
Then who was this third person hidden in the crowd on the long street?
Yao An asked with great interest, "Junior brother, do you know what Telepathy is? Telepathy is attained by cultivating the wholeso dharmas of this world; it is both the Mind Wisdom among the Six Divine Powers and the Other Mind among the Ten Wisdoms. Only a Buddha who, upon the Forty-nine Heavens, has accrued great rit and, after dying peacefully and being reborn, can be fully endowed with it. With it, he may ferry himself, and ferry all beings."
Yao An studied the look on Chen Ji’s face. "There is a rumor in the Yunzhou Esoteric Sect that the Great Vow Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva has already entered final nirvana in the Five Muddied Evil World above the Forty-nine Heavens, intending to pass through ten lifetis of reincarnation to save all beings. Yet it so happened that on the seventh day after Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva’s nirvana, the first life of that Rochusaga was born. Tell , is that coincidence or not?"
Chen Ji frowned in silence. He had heard of the Five Muddied Evil World—that was where the Five Mad Soldiers were held and exiled.
But what Yao An said showed that the man had been to Yunzhou and understood the Yunzhou Esoteric Sect very well... Could the Yunzhou Esoteric Sect uprising also bear the hand of the Jing Dynasty Military Intelligence Departnt?
"Telepathy can behold the thoughts of others, subdue vexations, and shatter self-clinging. The Mahayana Bodhisattvas use it to discern the faculties of beings, preach in accord with their conditions, and resolve knots of resentnt." Yao An’s tone shifted. "Yet Telepathy is not omnipotent. It knows only the present, not the past or the future. It knows only the Desire Realm and the Form Realm, not the Formless Realm. It cannot know the mind that has entered ditative absorption and beco thoughtless; it cannot replace Prajna Wisdom and liberation. Misused, it easily breeds arrogance and prying into privacy, increasing vexation instead."
Chen Ji said evenly, "Why are you telling this?"
Yao An smiled. "Do you not know, junior brother, that there is predestined karma in this world? Rochusaga being endowed with Telepathy is already a cri of carrying a treasured jade. His master demanded that he never speak aloud what he saw in the minds of others—this was to protect him. To speak of destiny may sound a bit abstruse, so this foolish brother will put it plainly: as long as he can keep the secret, no one is eager to make things difficult for a Reincarnated Buddha. But once he fails to keep it, so will fear him, so will wish to use him. Then he is no longer a Bodhisattva, rely a tool."
Chen Ji countered, "Which kind are you?"
Yao An pondered for a mont, then said candidly, "Both."
At this ti, Treasure Monkey stood behind Chen Ji, and the young Chang Ghost stood behind Yao An. The dishes on the table had gone cold, yet no one lifted his chopsticks.
Chen Ji finally asked, "Since this is a struggle between Paths, senior brother could have just co straight to kill at my door. Why bother with all these plots and twists?"
Yao An glanced around the small courtyard, at the kitchen, then at the old grapevine, and answered with sothing that seed unrelated: "That winter, in the Imperial Capital, it snowed for seventeen days. It was bitter cold. My parents went to Changping Imperial Mausoleum to serve corvée... By rights, a husband and wife should not both be on corvée at the sa ti, but they offended the village chief. First he used ’Li Jia Zhengyi’ to draw my father for service at the Imperial Mausoleum. Then, while my father was away from ho, he attempted to seize my mother by force. My mother refused and stabbed his belly with scissors. The village chief flew into a rage and, taking advantage of the ’Miscellaneous Duties’, had my mother also drawn to the Imperial Mausoleum."
Chen Ji’s expression turned pensive. Under the Ning Dynasty, corvée labor was divided into three kinds. The first was "Li Jia Zhengyi": one hundred and ten households ford one "li"; every ten years each household took one turn at service, sending one person to fulfill it.
The second was "equal corvée": all adult n served in person, such as soap slaves, gatekeepers, storehouse workers, postn, prison guards, and civilians conscripted as soldiers. One could buy exemption with spending silver. In the early Ning Dynasty this system still existed, but now it was an empty shell, wholly occupied by the sons of local gentry.
The third was "Miscellaneous Duties": used for building palaces, mausoleums, waterways, and city walls; for transporting goods, cutting timber, carrying firewood, and repairing bridges and roads. It was irregular and without fixed quotas, conscription issued by sudden order, the heaviest of burdens and a constant source of popular resentnt.
This village chief had made deft use of the rules to ruin a family and destroy its line.
Yao An’s tone was flat. "Not long after, a neighbor brought news that my parents had both frozen to death in Changping. My uncle and aunt took our fields and drove out of the house. No matter how I cried and begged outside the door, they would not Open Door. I ate snow outside for two days. When I could no longer bear it and had nowhere to go, I could only beg along the street, and in the end I collapsed at my master’s doorstep."
"In a daze, I saw my master walk up to . The first thing he did was curse that I was dying at his door and bringing him bad luck." Thinking of this, Yao An did not grow angry. Instead, a hint of a smile surfaced on his face. "I told him not to mind —I was going to see my parents. I wanted to drag myself away from his door, but I simply couldn’t move. My master used Copper Coin to divine ten hexagrams before he finally asked my birth date and eight characters, then picked up and carried into his ho."
Yao An pointed at the kitchen: "He wouldn’t let into the room, just threw into the kitchen. I rember it clearly—he cracked an egg and brewed a bowl of hot egg tea, put in half a spoon of brown sugar, then fumbled half a piece of flatbread out of the dicine chest. The flatbread was hard as stone; only after soaking it in the egg tea could I bite it. He just sat beside watching eat, watching and cursing at the sa ti: Eat slower, don’t choke yourself to death, I don’t have ti to save you a second ti."
Yao An looked at Chen Ji: "Junior brother, that was the best thing I’ve ever eaten. Not because I’d been hungry for four days, but because finally there was soone sitting by my side watching eat. You may never understand what it feels like to lose both parents; only after losing them do you realize, just having soone watch you eat is already very good."
Chen Ji remained silent.
The firewood in the kitchen crackled; a burst of firelight leaked out from the door, falling across half of Yao An’s face and tracing that weathered profile in flickering light and shadow.
He looked again toward the grapevine: "Junior brother, do you know, that grape arbor was put up because I begged Master to build it. Master sohow got hold of a piece of grapevine and stuck it into the soil at the foot of the courtyard wall. He said this thing only bears fruit when it’s old; for the first year or two after planting, you can’t eat any grapes. I couldn’t wait that long, squatted under the vine every day watching it sprout new leaves. Master scolded : You can stare your eyes out and you still won’t stare grapes into being. But I waited two years, and it really did bear fruit."
Chen Ji shook his head: "Master never told any of this."
"There’s plenty you don’t know." Yao An rose and walked to the window of the West Wing Room, reached out and brushed that window: "Master had a sharp tongue and a soft heart. The West Wing Room I lived in leaked wind in winter. I told Master I was cold; he scolded to my face for being delicate, said I didn’t have the fate of a young lord yet caught a young lord’s illnesses. But at night he would still quietly bring back used window paper from the Imperial Hospital and paste it over and over. In the end the patches of paper on that window overlapped patch on patch, so thick light could barely get through. I said it was still cold; he scolded delicate again, and then the next day he went and got a broken brazier and put it in the room."
Chen Ji also recalled bits and pieces of Old Yao. The old man always seed to be scolding people, yet when Chen Ji truly ran into trouble, the old man would go to the Luocheng City Spy Bureau governnt office to help him keep Mr. Feng there for one two hours.
Chen Ji lifted his head to look at Yao An: "But you did not cherish it. After mastering dicine, you actually went and secretly poisoned officials..."
Yao An cut him off: "You think I was wrong? Which one of those officials didn’t deserve death? You think it’s for nothing that the Minor Minister of the Ministry of Rites, Mr. Zhang, has deficient kidney yang? That man forced decent won into prostitution, seized the wives and daughters of his subordinates—his death was far from enough. And that Junior Minister of the Ministry of Imperial Stables, Lord Zhou—he embezzled Silver Tael from the Horse Administration, swapped the border army’s warhorses for old geldings, and skimd off eight thousand taels in profit. In the winter of the 13th Year of Jaining, the Guyuan Border Army, lacking proper warhorses, had its left wing shattered by the Jing Dynasty Tiger and Leopard Cavalry; more than four hundred n died."
"And the doctor of the Ministry of Works Repair Departnt, Lord Zhao—while supervising the construction of the Changping Imperial Mausoleum, he cut corners. That year, in a heavy rain, three sections of the mausoleum passage collapsed, crushing seven laborers repairing the tomb, but what he reported to the court was ’act of heaven.’"
"And then there’s Sun Langzhong of the Ministry of Personnel Examination Departnt." Yao An sat back down beside the stone table. "This man oversaw the capital evaluations and openly set prices to accept bribes. A county magistrate wanting to be promoted to Prefect—3,000 taels. A Prefect wanting to beco Magistrate—eight thousand taels. Those without money would be demoted to distant malarial hellholes. In the 14th Year of Jianing, among the seven County Magistrates he demoted to Yunzhou, three died in office. Junior brother, tell , did they or did they not deserve to die?"
Changsheng muttered under his breath: "That’s really how it is. My Jiefan Guard has the evidence of these n’s cris; it just isn’t ti to move on them yet."
Yao An cast a glance at Treasure Monkey, then continued. It was as though he were leafing through an old account book, and with each page turned, he read out another na: an Assistant in the Ministry of Communication, who intercepted disaster reports from the South, so that twenty thousand starved to death in Henan Province while the court still thought it a minor disaster. A certain Imperial Censor in the Imperial Inspection Office—once he took money, he would press down impeachnt morials; the victim had barely knelt before the Imperial Palace Gate when he was dragged off by the Five Cities Military Departnt.
Yao An laughed loudly: "All those your foolish elder brother killed were people who deserved death a hundred tis over. Where is my cri?"
In his heart, Chen Ji let out a sigh. Everything has two sides; every person faces two hard choices. Perhaps these very words, Yao An had once said to Old Yao as well, which was why Old Yao gave him a chance to turn over a new leaf.
He suddenly asked: "What about the Hospital Director then—did he also have sins?"
Yao An’s expression did not change: "If he hadn’t ddled, Master wouldn’t have noticed any of this. Master didn’t manage the dicinal stock and didn’t involve himself in the Imperial Hospital’s daily affairs."
Chen Ji sighed: "Yet you still wanted to poison Master."
Yao An said nothing.
All those other matters he could argue his way around, but this one alone was sothing he could never justify. After twenty years, even he himself could no longer explain why, back then, he had let greed cloud his heart.
A mont later, Yao An looked at Chen Ji and gave a free and easy smile. Though he was smiling, there was a blaze in his eyes—envy, and also jealousy: "Junior brother, just now you asked why I frad you? Your foolish elder brother has drifted about outside for twenty years and beco a man with no ho; you ought to taste that flavor too. Or perhaps you and I can also compare and see which of us is truly Master’s most formidable disciple."
So-called greed and desire.
Greed for wealth: greed for money, land, and precious treasure.
Greed for lust: greed for worldly passions and beauty.
Greed for fa: greed for reputation, status, praise, respect, and achievent.
Wanting more, unwilling to let go, obsessively possessing, indulging in enjoynt, keeping up with others out of vanity, fretting over gains and losses, being unable to cut things off—all are forms of greed and desire.
Chen Ji fixed his gaze on the other man’s face. He was certain that the person the little monk had seen, whose heart held only greed with no anger or delusion, was indeed this senior brother before him.
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