abnabooks Chapter 59 The Old Monk Asking for Water Knocking at the Door in the Dead of Night
Chapter 59 The Old Monk Asking for Water Knocking at the Door in the Dead of Night
When it lies still, it is as quiet as if it were dead.
The Taoist Master Zhunti is behind this door.
Three hundred years.
He hasn't come out for three hundred years.
But he's still inside.
The fluctuations in mana proved this.
"Ming Wang..." one of the guardians whispered, "Are we really going to open the door?"
King Puji stared at the stone gate.
The hand was raised.
I put it down again.
He hesitated.
What will you see after you push open this door?
A quasi-saint who has been in seclusion for three hundred years?
A schemer who cultivates puppets?
Or is it an empty, secret room?
King Puji took a deep breath.
He raised his hand again.
Fingertips were about to touch the stone gate.
In that very instant.
He saw it.
On the stone gate.
I don't know when.
There's an extra line of text.
The handwriting was very faint, as if someone had written it with their finger dipped in water.
The handwriting is exactly the same as the "I know" inscription on the lotus throne.
The exact same way of writing.
Four words.
"No need to investigate further."
King Puji's hand froze in mid-air.
His fingertips were only three inches from the stone gate.
But that three-inch distance suddenly became thirty thousand miles.
He couldn't push it any further.
It's not that we're afraid to push it.
It cannot be pushed.
The Buddha's words.
The Buddha's handwriting.
Buddha told him to stop investigating.
This time it wasn't a vague response like "I understand."
This time it was a clear instruction.
"No need to investigate further."
No need.
No need to.
Don't touch it.
King Puji slowly lowered his hand.
He stared at those four words for a long time.
My mind is a complete mess.
No need to investigate anymore?
What does that mean?
Is it true that Zhunti is indeed fine, so there's no need to check?
Or is it that Cundi does indeed have a problem, but Buddha doesn't want him to investigate?
If it's the former, why didn't the Buddha say so earlier? When he delivered the secret report last time, wouldn't it have been enough to just say "no need to worry"?
If it is the latter.
King Puji gasped.
If it's the latter, it means that Buddha knew Cundi had a problem, but he chose not to deal with it.
Why isn't it being dealt with?
King Puji couldn't understand it.
He spent his entire life in middle management at Lingshan, dealing with processes and schedules.
He couldn't compete with the quasi-saints.
"Walk."
King Puji turned around.
The three guardians breathed a sigh of relief and practically ran away from the back mountain.
King Puji did not leave that quickly.
Every step felt heavy.
He turned back for one last look at the stone door.
The four characters on the stone gate are still there.
But it's already starting to fade.
It's like words written in water are slowly evaporating.
By the time he walked out of the back mountain, those four words should have completely disappeared.
It was as if it had never existed.
The Buddha always handled things meticulously.
King Puji returned to the side hall and sat there all night.
He took the secret report about Zhunti out of the drawer.
took a look.
Then place it on the candle flame.
It was burned.
The ashes of the paper drifted in the air.
Nothing was left behind.
The line is broken.
Is Zhunti the mastermind behind everything?
He didn't know.
Buddha wouldn't let him know.
Did Buddha himself know that?
King Puji sat in the empty side hall, staring at the small pile of paper ashes on the table.
Suddenly I realized that all my deductions, analyses, and investigations over the past six months have been in vain.
It might all be wrong.
He kept guessing from beginning to end.
Guess Lu Chen's background.
Guess Lu Chen's purpose.
Guess the forces behind Lu Chen.
I've been guessing for over half a year.
I didn't guess anything.
And what about Buddha?
The Buddha only wrote two lines from beginning to end.
"I understand."
"No need to investigate further."
There are a total of eight characters.
These eight words completely blocked all of King Puji's investigations.
King Puji suddenly felt very tired.
A kind of weariness that runs deep in your bones.
Mountain villa.
late at night.
The campfire in the courtyard has gone out.
Only a few red sparks occasionally popped out from the ashes.
Everyone was asleep.
Nezha and Red Boy squeezed into one room. They argued for a long time about who should sleep inside and who should sleep outside. In the end, they both slept sideways, each taking half of the room.
Pigsy's snoring came from next door, making the paper windows rattle.
Sha Wujing slept silently, just as quietly as he swept the floor.
The jade rabbit curled up in its room, covered tightly with the blanket, only its two ears showing.
There was no sound in Princess Iron Fan's room, but the lights were also off.
Sun Wukong didn't stay at the mountain villa today; he went back to his business to accompany Tang Sanzang.
Lu Chen lay in his room.
I couldn't fall asleep.
He was thinking about what had happened in the days after Yang Jian left.
Mount Ling was rebuilt, the Bodhisattva went into seclusion, the Taoist sects refined weapons, and the Heavenly Court remained silent.
Each signal points in the same direction.
But he couldn't see which direction it was.
He is not omniscient or omnipotent.
His omniscience comes from the memories in that book from his previous life.
But everything has now deviated from that book.
Red Boy was not captured.
Nezha defected.
The Jade Rabbit ran ahead of schedule.
Princess Iron Fan was cooking in her kitchen.
The Bull Demon King came and had a drink.
Erlang Shen and Sun Wukong clinked their empty cups together.
None of these things are mentioned in the book.
From the moment he transmigrated into this world, it began to deviate from its original course.
The further away from the target, the less he can predict.
How will Buddha intervene?
How will Buddha intervene?
he does not know.
The Buddha in the book almost never directly intervenes during the journey to the West. The only time he makes a direct appearance is in the episode of the True and False Monkey Kings, and even then, it's not a fight, but a judgment.
Now that Buddha has been pushed to this point, what will he do?
Lu Chen was caught off guard.
He rolled over.
The moonlight from outside the window shone through the paper windowpane, forming a thin layer.
Just at this time.
He heard a voice.
Footsteps.
Extremely light footsteps.
It was so light that if he hadn't honed his alertness by sparring with various masters over the past six months, he would never have noticed it.
Footsteps came from the direction of the valley entrance.
Step by step.
Not too fast, not too slow.
It looks like someone is taking a walk late at night.
Lu Chen opened his eyes.
He did not get up immediately.
He first sensed the presence of the footsteps.
There was nothing there.
It lacks any ethereal quality.
There was no demonic aura.
There is no Buddhist aura.
There was no fluctuation of spiritual energy.
He walked over like an ordinary mortal.
But it was late at night.
There are no villages within a ten-mile radius of the valley where Wuwu Mountain Villa is located.
Why would an ordinary mortal walk here in the middle of the night?
Lu Chen slowly sat up.
Put on your coat.
Push open the door.
The moonlight bathed the courtyard.
The courtyard was very quiet.
Vegetable gardens, flower fields, stone tables, ashes from bonfires.
Business as usual.
Lu Chen walked to the courtyard gate.
Push open the courtyard gate.
Outside.
under the moonlight.
A person was standing there.
An old monk.
He was wearing a gray monk's robe.
The kind of gray that's been washed until it's faded.
Several patches were applied.
He was wearing a pair of straw sandals.
His head was shaved completely.
The wrinkles on his face were deep, as if they had been carved into his face by the passage of time.
His back was slightly hunched.
He looks like an ascetic who has been wandering outside for a very long time.
There was no Buddha's light.
There are no lotus flowers.
There was no trace of anything related to "powerful beings".
He was just an old monk.
The old monk smiled slightly when he saw Lu Chen open the door.
That smile was very gentle.
It was as gentle as a pot of charcoal fire in winter.
"donor."
The voice was also gentle.
hoarse.
Weary from the long journey.
"I'm bothering you so late at night."
"May I have a bowl of water?"
Lu Chen stood at the gate of the courtyard.
Look at this old monk.
The moonlight shone on the two of them.
One is inside the door.
One is outside the door.
Lu Chen's heart suddenly started racing.
It's not fear.
It's not nervousness.
It's an intuition.
An extremely strong intuition, welling up from the very marrow of my bones.
The old monk's eyes.
Those cloudy eyes, which looked no different from any other old man's eyes.
It had a very faint golden sheen under the moonlight.
It was so faint that if Lu Chen hadn't been standing directly opposite him and the moonlight hadn't been shining from the side, he wouldn't have been able to see it at all.
There's only one floor.
It's as thin as a cicada's wing.
But Lu Chen saw it.
His heart started beating faster.
"Want a bowl of water?" Lu Chen's voice was a little lower than usual.
The old monk nodded with a smile.
"I've been walking all day. I'm thirsty."
Lu Chen looked at the old monk.
I looked at it for three seconds.
Then he turned and went back into the house.
He picked up a rough earthenware bowl from the table.
I scooped a bowl of water from the water tank.
Holding a bowl.
I walked back to the entrance of the courtyard.
The old monk was still standing there.
The moonlight still shone on that wrinkled face.
Lu Chen handed the bowl over.
"Drink it."