Chapter 181 - 125: Zeng Anmin: Are Buddha and Bodhisattva a Breed Apart?!

Chapter 181: Chapter 125: Zeng Anmin: Are Buddha and Bodhisattva a Breed Apart?!

He slowly pondered this.

After a long silence, Yingchen raised his head. His clear eyes shone with earnestness. "It seems that for as long as I can remember, there’s been a Mr. Huang in the nunnery..."

He rubbed his little bald head and looked toward the nunnery. "This is where Her Ladyship, Noble Consort Xi, became a nun. It’s been over ten years."

"How old are you?" Zeng Anmin looked down at the young monk.

"I’m thirteen," Yingchen replied, lowering his head in embarrassment.

Thirteen.

Zeng Anmin closed his eyes and slowly thought it over. That meant Mr. Huang had already been here thirteen years ago.

Thirteen years ago.

Zeng Anmin committed this number to memory. He looked at Yingchen again and asked, "Did Mr. Huang know Noble Consort Xi?"

"I don’t know." Yingchen shook his head. "I’ve never been to the back mountain for as long as I can remember."

"I see," Zeng Anmin nodded slowly. He still didn’t have enough clues.

"You’ve never been there even once? Or did you want to go but didn’t dare?" Zeng Anmin asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

A visible blush of embarrassment crept over Yingchen’s face. He pursed his lips. Too afraid to meet Zeng Anmin’s gaze, he stared at the tips of his toes instead. "When I was little, I thought about sneaking up there. But my master said there were man-eating ghosts of dead children on the mountain, so I never dared to go..."

Zeng Anmin paused in slight surprise, frowning at the boy. "Ghosts of dead children?"

Yingchen looked up solemnly and chanted a Buddhist invocation. "When Noble Consort Xi first came here, she was pregnant. But because she had been driven out of the Imperial Palace, her heart was broken, and she suffered a miscarriage... Amitabha."

After saying this, a look of pity appeared on his small face. "The lives of all living beings are as fragile as duckweed. How tragic."

Seeing a profoundness so mismatched with the boy’s age flash across his small face, Zeng Anmin found it rather amusing. Feigning a serious expression, he pressed his palms together and bowed to the young monk. "To think that Master Yingchen possesses such a profound Buddha nature. Please forgive my disrespect."

Uh...

Little Yingchen’s face flushed beet red. He lowered his head again and said in a deeply embarrassed tone, "Please don’t say that. My Buddhist roots are incomplete. I am unworthy of such courtesy."

"How could you be unworthy?!" Zeng Anmin burst into laughter and rubbed little Yingchen’s bald head. "Even if you didn’t have a Buddha nature, my nephew’s sword strike surely carved out your Buddhist roots!

"How else could you utter such open-minded words like ’misfortune is a blessing in disguise’?

"If you ask me, you have the makings of a Buddha!"

Zeng Anmin spoke in an extremely relaxed and casual manner, but his words made little Yingchen cringe so hard that his toes could have dug out a Great Hall.

"Y-you can’t say that..." Little Yingchen was already somewhat incoherent.

"Honestly, if you truly become a Buddha one day, shouldn’t you thank Hu Zi for the enlightenment brought by his sword?" Zeng Anmin looked at little Yingchen playfully. "Why can’t I say that? Are Buddha and Bodhisattva predestined by birth?

"In the future, the Buddhist Scripture will record: Our Buddha Yingchen received a strike from Mr. Hu and awakened his roots of wisdom. His uncle brought gifts to apologize, but was refused by our Buddha, leaving both uncle and Hu in confusion.

"Buddha Dust said, ’Misfortune and fortune lean upon one another. Without the sword strike, how could I have grasped the ultimate truth?’

"If this scene is recorded by future generations, wouldn’t Hu Zi and I both benefit from Master Yingchen’s grace and leave our marks in the annals of history?"

At this point, Zeng Anmin found his own words incredibly amusing.

However, Yingchen stood frozen in place. His eyes went from embarrassed to surprised, then slightly thrilled, before returning to calm and solemnity.

Yingchen slowly raised his head, a compassionate light shining in his eyes. "Benefactor, your words are like a thunderclap scattering the fog. This humble monk... thanks you."

As he spoke, Yingchen seemed to possess a bit more steadiness and profound wisdom than before.

"The hell?" Zeng Anmin blinked.

He thought, "Did my line about Buddha and Bodhisattva being predestined by birth just coax out this kid’s rebellious streak? This is abstract. Way too abstract. Amitabha. Merciful Buddha, your disciple didn’t mean it that way! If this kid actually slaughters his way into the Buddhist Sect in the future and spouts treasonous nonsense like ’The seat of the Buddha rotates, and this year it’s my turn,’ it will have absolutely nothing to do with me!"

Zeng Anmin hurriedly chanted apologies for his sins in his heart.

"Anyway, I’ll be heading back now." Zeng Anmin glanced at the nearby Yellow Bird Nunnery and awkwardly waved at Yingchen. "I’ll bring Hu Zi to play with you later."

"Take care, Benefactor," Yingchen said, bowing politely to Zeng Anbian’s retreating figure.

Watching Zeng Anmin’s figure disappear from sight, the young monk murmured to himself, "Without the sword strike, how could I grasp the ultimate truth..."

Go back?

He thought, "How could I, Zeng Anmin, go back before figuring things out?"

After circling back, Zeng Anmin sneaked to the foot of Fa’an Temple’s back mountain. He specifically chose a secluded, uninhabited spot. Without hesitation, he pushed off the ground and darted toward the summit.

Yellow Bird Nunnery.

The nunnery was deadly silent. There was no one around. When Zeng Anmin sneaked all the way inside, he found absolutely no trace of human presence. Aside from the lack of weeds in the courtyard, the place felt no different from a deserted wasteland.

CREAK.

With a solemn expression, Zeng Anmin pushed open the wooden door in front of him. The door, appearing long unrepaired, let out a painful groan as if overwhelmed by the weight.

He didn’t enter the room housing the Buddha statues. Instead, he headed to the backyard, which seemed to show faint signs of human habitation.

Pushing the door open, he found the room inside to be extremely bare. There was only a bed, the bedding neatly and immaculately arranged.

"Someone lives here," Zeng Anmin noted, his expression unsurprised.

This had to be where the so-called "Mr. Huang" lived. The rest of the nunnery was devoid of life; this was the only spot showing slight traces of use.

With eyes sharp as a falcon’s, he methodically scanned all the furnishings in the room. Aside from the bed, there was nothing else.

"Then what does he eat every day?" he wondered, frowning as he carefully inspected his surroundings.

Finding no other clues in the room, Zeng Anmin slowly backed out and moved on to another room.

"Hmm?" Zeng Anmin raised an eyebrow slightly after entering the next room.

This room was much more lavish than the last. Numerous flower pots were displayed inside. Everything indicated that this was a woman’s residence. Furthermore, the room was spotless. Someone had to be cleaning it every day.

"No way, right?" An utterly absurd thought popped into Zeng Anmin’s head.

He thought, "Although this room looks simple, every table and chair here is definitely worth a fortune. How could an ordinary monastic afford to be so extravagant? One look is enough to tell that this was where Noble Consort Xi lived when she was at the nunnery. But... Noble Consort Xi returned to the Imperial Palace years ago... yet someone still cleans this place regularly. Could it be that Mr. Huang secretly developed feelings for Noble Consort Xi and is obsessively clinging to her old belongings?"

Zeng Anmin felt a strong wave of cheap romance novel tropes hitting him right in the face.

He thought, "I really should have read fewer novels in my past life. It’s messing with my train of thought."

Taking a deep breath, Zeng Anmin steadied himself.

As he walked up to the bed in front of him, his body froze. He stared at the set of women’s clothing laid out on the bed. Seeing the obvious indentation of someone having laid beside the clothes, a bizarre expression crept onto his face.

He thought, "Don’t tell me I actually guessed right?"

"Hmm..." Zeng Anmin examined the other furnishings in the room. This room was clearly lived in regularly. Moreover, the pots, pans, and bowls were all kept in here.

Zeng Anmin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Suppressing the wild ideas in his head, he walked back outside.

Before long, he spotted a tiny burial mound behind the courtyard.

"Tomb of the Lost Child."

Those were the only words on the marker. In front of the grave sat a small brazier containing the wind-blown remnants of burnt paper money.

"This must be the child Noble Consort Xi miscarried," Zeng Anmin realized, recalling the rumor Yingchen had mentioned.

"Sigh." Looking at the small mound, Zeng Anmin let out a soft sigh. "Born into the royal family, one’s fate is never one’s own. To be assassinated before even opening your eyes to see the world..."

He didn’t stay there for long.

Coming here had yielded a critically important clue. Noble Consort Xi and that Mr. Huang definitely knew each other.

Otherwise, how could this Mr. Huang do something so... Zeng Anmin’s mind conjured the image of that crippled man lying in bed, lovingly stroking the women’s clothing next to him.

Tsk.

As he calmly made his way down the mountain, he continued to ponder.

Mr. Huang knew Ren Weizhi.

In that case, Noble Consort Xi...

How interesting!