The Path Toward Heaven

The Fruit Formation Temple must have gotten the words from Young Zen Master, meaning the subsequent arrangements were proper and secretive.

That receptionist monk who had met Liu Shisui and Xiao He left Moqiu happily and went to Jiuye City as a doctor monk to help his colleagues at the Windy-Broadsword Sect. Nobody else in the Fruit Formation Temple, save for the Young Zen Master, knew the identities of Liu Shisui and Xiao He. Even the caretaker monk who was responsible for arranging accommodations for them knew only that they were lay relatives of the chief caretaker monk.

Liu Shisui wasn’t taken as a lay disciple of the temple, because it would be too noticeable. What should they do with Xiao He? It happened that the couple who had grown vegetables in the front garden of the temple for thirty years was brought by their son, who had successfully passed the county exam into the city, and was enjoying life. As such, the position for growing vegetables in the vegetable garden was vacant at the moment, a good opportunity for Liu Shisui and Xiao He to take over the job.

The living conditions were very austere, but fortunately there was a well here, so they didn’t need to fetch water from somewhere faraway, and the kitchen was quite clean. Xiao He was rather satisfied with it all.

Seeing the green color everywhere here, Liu Shisui thought this was indeed the Fruit Formation Temple protected by the Buddha, and that there were so many vegetables of different sorts in the late autumn.

It was not a hard life for Liu Shisui, who had been accustomed to farming life when he was in the village. Yet, the hardest part was that true Script given to him by the Young Zen Master, which was really hard to understand. The Young Zen Master also made it clear that he had to learn it all by himself. On the other hand, even if he wanted to ask someone to help him understand it, where would he find such a person here?

That person came in the early morning next day.

He was a handsome young man who possessed a genuine smile.

For some reason, Liu Shisui found that young man was quite approachable and familiar at first sight.

Likewise, that young man was taken aback when he laid his eyes on Liu Shisui.

Seeing the large basket the young man brought with him, Liu Shisui guessed he was the servant of the Fruit Formation Temple who had come to pick up the vegetables. “What’s the matter?” he asked the young man.

That young man came back to his senses and said with a laugh, “When I suddenly saw a young man instead of Uncle Gong, I thought he had taken some sort of magic pill to become you.”

Liu Shisui laughed as well, as he helped pick up the vegetables from the garden and put in the basket. “How do I address you?” Liu Shisui asked.

“My name is Yin Fu,” the young man replied with a smile.

…

…

Liu Shisui had the same lifestyle day in and day out.

Besides taking care of the vegetable garden every day, he spent all his time trying to comprehend the Script, but his progress was excruciatingly slow. Xiao He spent her time embroidering all sorts of things while sitting by the window quietly. At this pace, she would have already embroidered the clothes for her grand-daughter’s wedding dress when Liu Shisui figured out the meaning of the Script.

That young man Yin Fu came to the vegetable garden to pick up vegetables every day, so he and Liu Shisui soon became close.

One day, a State Duke came from Zhaoge City, and he was said to be have come to keep a promise on behalf of the Emperor.

The relationship between the Fruit Formation Temple and the Royal Jing Family was very close, so this sort of thing happened often. One would see quite a few State Dukes here every year, and the monks in the temple were used to it, not thinking too much of it. However, the accompanying nobles and officials wanted to taste the famous vegetables of the Fruit Formation Temple, and a large quantity of vegetables was needed by the kitchen.

Seeing a few baskets filled with the green vegetables, Liu Shisui helped Yin Fu bring the vegetables into the kitchen.

This was the first time Liu Shisui had come to the kitchen of the Fruit Formation Temple.

It was quite hot in the kitchen. An old man stood before the stove with the bare upper body, stirring the contents in the pan forcefully using a spatula.

The old man had very little hair, and it was hard to guess whether he was a monk working in the kitchen or a lay chef paid by the temple.

The old man picked up a grayish white towel now and then to wipe off the sweat on his face. It was unclear if he wiped his nose too many times with the towel or it was too hot here, but his red nose was quite noticeable.

Hearing something behind him, the old man said without even turning his head around, “Put the vegetables in the same place.”

Yin Fu said, “You’d better check it yourself, in case you blame me again for putting it in the wrong place.”

The old man seemed surprised to hear this. He yelled out with widened eyes as he turned around and saw Liu Shisui.

“What happened?” Liu Shisui asked in surprise.

Yin Fu cocked his head to look at the old man, and didn’t say anything while smiling at him.

The old man said abruptly, “It’s fine. I’m fine. The cooking oil is mixed too much with other stuff today, so it’s easy for it to pop everywhere. I’ve just been burnt by a squirt of oil.

…

…

It was night.

In a bedroom in the backyard of the Fruit Formation Temple.

The old man with the red nose stared at the young man and said, “You have come all the way here to find him!”

The young man said innocently, “I swear in the name of the ancestors of Green Mountain that this is utterly a coincidence.”

The young man was naturally not Yin Fu, but Yin San.

And the old man with the red nose was not a chef monk of the Fruit Formation Temple but the Great Grandmaster of the Mysterious Dark Sect.

“Why did you insist on coming here then?” the Great Grandmaster of the Mysterious Dark Sect complained angrily.

Yin San sighed, “My life has been burdened with too many wrongdoings, so I came here to ask for Buddha’s forgiveness.”

The Great Grandmaster of the Mysterious Dark Sect spat as he said, “I have no idea which speech you made is true and which is false; but I’m sure what you have just said is definitely bogus!”

“It could be true; you never know,” Yin San said with a half smile.

“It would not be a big deal if this place is somewhere else; but this is the Fruit Formation

Temple. The Chief Monk has reached a profound state of the Buddhist Cultivation, not inferior to mine, to say nothing of that Young Zen Master, whose Cultivation state was unknowable…”

The Great Grandmaster of the Mysterious Dark Sect continued seriously, “What if we were discovered? I can flee easily, but what about you?”

Yin San gave a broader smile this time, saying, “If I couldn’t flee, you would be in a big trouble.”

“That’s why I’m so worried,” the Great Grandmaster of the Mysterious Dark Sect said with a bitter smile.

Yin San didn’t stick to the subject. He walked to the window, looking out at the night sky, and said, “As I said to you before, I like this child, Liu Shisui.”

It was written clearly in front of that temple in White Town.

“Pleading for oneself by praying to the Buddha and the Daoists.”

Regardless of pleading the Buddha or the Daoists, eventually one had to rely on oneself for everything.

Maybe, what Yin San wanted could be found on Liu Shisui; otherwise, why would they meet here in this Buddhist temple?

Thinking of this, Yin San placed both hands behind his back, stroking that bone flute gently.

The bone flute had become increasingly smooth, and that red line on it had grown more evident.

Standing behind Yin San and watching him, the Great Grandmaster of the Mysterious Dark Sect thought with narrowed eyes that maybe this bone flute was used by him to block the Green Mountain Formation and to connect with the spiritual souls?

Had he snatched this bone flute or destroyed it…what would have happened?

“What are you thinking about?”

Yin San suddenly turned around to face him.

The Great Grandmaster of the Mysterious Dark Sect kept the same countenance, and he said with the same narrowed eyes, “You have been saying that the Green Mountain is yours. In that case, Jian Rushan was a disciple of your later generation; why did you get him killed?”

“More disciples of Green Mountain had died by my hands than those you killed,” Yin San said with a smile.

The Great Grandmaster of the Mysterious Dark Sect praised, “You have killed even more of the Green Mountain’s enemies.”

Yin San waved his hand dismissively and said, “We haven’t found the First Child Sword or the corpse of Su Ziye; what are your thoughts?”

Though the Great Grandmaster of the Mysterious Dark Sect managed to keep the same expression, he was actually quite stunned.

Yin San’s Cultivation state was still very low, so Yin San relied on him for many things.

He didn’t even know about such secretive news, so why did Yin San know it?

Did this mean that Yin San had already, without his noticing, connected with the remaining members of the Old Ones…or those elite members of the Old Ones?

Thinking of this, the Great Grandmaster of the Mysterious Dark Sect answered honestly, “I don’t know anything.”

…

…

Since the monks ate nothing but the vegetables, there were many vegetable gardens surrounding the temples.

The Fruit Formation Temple was the same, so was the Baotong Zen Temple in the southwest far away.

The loofahs in the vegetable garden had been mostly picked up, except for a few of them that would grow for a bit longer and then be used for scrubbing the dishes.

The summer was over, so the purple eggplants were gone, and only the green ones were left.

Su Ziye’s face had already turned to his original green color from the purple one, meaning that the poisonous elements in his system were basically flushed out. He lay in the bed, watching He Zhan and Tong Yan having a quarrel. He felt bored, musing that if the disciples of the orthodox Cultivation sects were all like these two, how could they have oppressed his deviant sects so much back then?

“I really don’t know what Tong Lu will do.”

Tong Yan said this while looking at the chessboard, sitting by the window.

Walking behind Tong Yan, He Zhan asked confusingly, “Then, why did you let him take the First Child Sword back to the West Ocean?”