Chapter 47: Burning Incense

Chapter 47: Offering Incense

Hardly had Xinhui finished speaking when he seemed to instantly realize his slip of the tongue; he hastily pressed his palms together, closed his eyes slightly, and bowed toward the west.

"Amitabha, sin and transgression, this disciple has broken the precept against anger. I shall copy the sutras a hundred times afterward as penance."

Having said this, Xinhui raised his head again, looking at Li Huowang with a calm and peaceful gaze. After scrutinizing him carefully for a moment, he gave a slight nod. "This old monk knows the reason for this. Benefactor Xuanyang, please follow me."

Eyeing the pack of monks glaring at him like tigers eyeing their prey, Li Huowang had no choice but to comply; he slid the long sword in his hand into the scabbard on his back, turned, and followed.

Xinhui did not go anywhere else, but led the crowd back to the site where the Buddha statues were being carved. "Benefactor Xuanyang, was it here that you just witnessed those foul and defiled things?"

Surrounded by the monks, Li Huowang stared at the scene before him and froze in astonishment; the unfinished stone statues that had previously turned into mountains of flesh seemed to be playing a joke on him as they reappeared before his eyes. "How could this—"

"Benefactor, please continue to follow me."

Accompanied by Xinhui, Li Huowang walked slowly forward, passing the Buddha carving site and arriving at the place where he had previously seen the livestock.

Here, too, there was not a single beast; there were only the unfinished stone qilins and stone lions, these auspicious stone creatures of various sizes arranged in neat rows, silently gazing ahead.

Just then, Xinhui suddenly drew the long sword from behind Li Huowang and slashed down with force, severing a lion's head the size of a palm.

Xinhui grabbed the stone lion's head and placed it in Li Huowang's hands.

Li Huowang gently stroked the lion's head with his fingers; the texture of the stone and its heavy, solid weight made it undeniably real!

"How could this be—" Still unconvinced in his confusion, Li Huowang walked over and ran his hands over the sculptures one by one, finding that they were indeed genuinely real.

Finally, he stood at the entrance of the great hall and looked inside, only to see a majestic giant stone Buddha sitting cross-legged on a lotus throne, holding an alms bowl in its left hand and pointing straight down to the earth with its right, looming majestically before Li Huowang.

"This is impossible! I just saw it clearly, as clear as day! How could it be fake?"

Hearing Li Huowang's words, Abbot Xinhui sighed softly, "Amitabha, Benefactor, your illness is truly severe."

Bewildered, Li Huowang turned to look at Xinhui and said in astonishment, "Could it be that my illness has flared up? Were all those things I just saw merely my own hallucinations?"

Xinhui nodded gently, "Benefactor, you must surely know what ailment you suffer from better than we outsiders do, correct?"

"Could it be that the vast amount of black flesh fungus I consumed can only sustain me for this long? Am I starting to hallucinate again?" Li Huowang clutched his head with both hands, murmuring to himself in agony.

Hearing Li Huowang say this, a group of monks nearby, their faces showing repulsion, huddled together and began to whisper among themselves.

"So after all this fuss, it turns out he's just a lunatic."

"If there's nothing else, let's hurry and ask him to leave; if he goes mad someday and hacks someone, that would be terrible."

"Silence!" A single word from Xinhui quieted all the monks.

He walked into the hall, lit four joss sticks, then turned around and held them out to Li Huowang, "It is no great matter to trouble us Buddhist disciples, but it would not be right to disturb the Buddha; please offer these incense sticks to the Buddha properly."

"Offer incense?" His muscles instantly tensing, Li Huowang's gaze darted back and forth between the great Buddha, Xinhui, and the four joss sticks.

"Benefactor, what are you still waiting for? You were the one in the wrong to begin with." Xinhui extended the four joss sticks in his hand a little further forward.

In Li Huowang's mind, the image of that writhing mass of a monster resurfaced, that grotesque lump covered all over with monks.

If that thing was real, going over to offer it incense would be nothing short of delivering himself right to its mouth to be eaten.

"Benefactor, what are you hesitating about?"

Li Huowang looked at Xinhui, who had spoken these words; a trace of displeasure was now beginning to show on the abbot's face.

Feeling the genuine stone lion in his hands, he then looked up at the blazing sun high above.

Tossing the lion's head aside, Li Huowang took 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 taut with extreme tension, cold sweat beginning to bead on his forehead.

Yet no matter how slowly he walked, Li Huowang eventually reached the foot of the great Buddha; the Buddha remained the Buddha, and had not transformed into that nauseating mass of a monster.

Holding the incense in both hands, Li Huowang stood before the incense burner and looked up once more; from this angle, he could see the giant Buddha perfectly, gazing down at him with eyes devoid of joy or sorrow, involuntarily inspiring a profound sense of awe in his heart.

As Li Huowang raised the incense high above his head, the four sticks trembled slightly, and the white smoke curled in a swirl in the air, drifting up toward the ceiling of the hall.

After bowing three times with the incense, Li Huowang solemnly inserted the sticks into the burner, then turned around and walked back out of the hall.

Seeing the conflict resolved, the monks gradually dispersed, returning to their places and picking up their tools to resume carving, the continuous clinking sounds ringing in the air.

Xinhui and Li Huowang walked slowly outward along the stone-brick path that ran through the middle of the statues.

"Benefactor Xuanyang, since your illness is so severe, you should not wander about any further; just wait patiently for the Grand Universal Fasting Assembly."

"Though your illness is troublesome, compared to it, Danyangzi is undoubtedly far more dangerous; one must eat rice one mouthful at a time, and handle matters one by one," Xinhui said to Li Huowang beside him while turning the prayer beads in his hand.

Li Huowang raised his head, looked once more at the bright, sunny sky above, and stretched his arms high into the air with a vigorous yawn. "Abbot, is there any remedy in Zhengde Temple for my kind of hysteria?"

"Hmm... this old monk can let the disciples try, but whether it will succeed is another matter entirely, after all, our temple has no lineage in the medical arts of Huangdi and Qibo."

"It's fine, I was just asking casually; anyway, I've been mad for so long that I'm used to it," Li Huowang said with an air of indifference. "By the way, Abbot, how did you do that just now? How did the thing in my arms suddenly end up in your hands?"

"Hehehe, just a mere parlor trick, nothing worth mentioning, nothing worth mentioning at all."

"Abbot, there's no need to be modest at a time like this; if that's nothing worth mentioning, then what does that make someone like me? Less than a mere insect, I suppose."

"Benefactor Xuanyang, matters are not calculated that way; take Danyangzi, for instance, though his strength was inferior to mine, he could still be considered mid-tier in the outside world, yet wasn't he ultimately eliminated by you?"

"Someone like Danyangzi is only mid-tier? Then how formidable must the top-tier be? Abbot, among high-level experts like yourselves, is there a hierarchy of ranks?"

"There is, with classifications like Heaven, Earth, Mystery, and Yellow, but those are merely arbitrary fabrications by idle folks; as monastics, we do not seek empty fame and care not for such things."

Though the path was not long, the two walked it for quite a while and spoke of much, and Li Huowang gleaned a great deal of useful information about this world from Xinhui.

Upon leaving the carving site, Li Huowang stopped, bowed to Xinhui, and said, "Many thanks to the Abbot for clearing my doubts."

"Not at all, it was but a trifling effort; Benefactor Xuanyang is unwell, so you should head back and rest."

After exchanging a few more polite words, Li Huowang looked around but saw no sign of the old monk, so he turned and headed toward his own quarters.

He walked very slowly, looking burdened with heavy thoughts, as if pondering something deeply.

After walking for nearly half an hour, Li Huowang finally reached his quarters; the instant he closed the door, his expression instantly twisted into a ferocious grimace, and he clenched his fists and punched the wall with all his might.

Though he did not know what methods those monks used to deceive his senses, as a patient who had long alternated between hallucinations and reality, Li Huowang might not be good at much, but he was exceedingly sensitive to such things.

The feeling that great Buddha gave him just now was clearly wrong; it was the same indescribable, eerie sensation he experienced in the hospital within his hallucinations.

"Those stone carvings are all fake! The great Buddha is fake too! They were all conjured by some illusionary trick!! What I saw before was absolutely not a hallucination!"

(End of Chapter)