Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The green trees cast deep shade, and summer days stretched long.

Thanks to the Grand Princess giving us money to live on, Yujing Tower was not short on funds for the time being.

So I hung up a sign saying we were closed for repairs after a fire, then took the two girls under me out to escape the heat.

The times were hard, and people’s hearts were bitter.

Because of that, Buddhism and Daoism flourished in the imperial capital. Everyone pinned their hopes on gods and spirits.

Inwardly, I sneered at it all, thinking it nothing more than talk used to fool the masses.

But Feng Niang and Ah Rong both believed in Buddha, so I simply brought them to Chunhua Temple in the western suburbs for a short stay.

Feng Niang and Ah Rong each donated some incense money, then knelt in the main hall for a very long time.

I had no idea what wishes they were making.

Suddenly curious, I took advantage of the moment when the monk went to add oil to the lamps and asked them, “What are you two praying for?”

A faint, bitter smile appeared on Feng Niang’s face. “Nothing much-only that a woman like me won’t run into difficult clients in the future.”

She had not yet been listed to receive guests, so it was only natural for her to worry about that.

What she did not know was that from the moment I bought her, her client had already been arranged.

I looked deeply at Feng Niang but said nothing.

Ah Rong had always been gentle and courteous. Only after Feng Niang finished did she speak.

“There’s so much I want to pray for. I hope I won’t meet any difficult clients. I hope Xiao Chun stays healthy and well. And I hope the gods and Buddhas will forgive this lowly woman for being a prostitute in the pleasure trade, and not throw me into an oil cauldron to fry me a few times over…”

“You don’t need the gods and Buddhas to forgive you.” I abruptly cut Ah Rong off.

Then I lifted my eyes to the clay bodhisattva statue in the main hall of Chunhua Temple and the donor murals behind it, and repeated, very seriously, “Not one of the three of us needs the gods and Buddhas to forgive us.”

After a pause, I stared straight at the merciful Buddha statue in the very center of the hall and curled my lips into a cold smile.

“Quite the opposite. The gods and Buddhas should be begging us for forgiveness.”

“If gods and Buddhas truly exist, then why are some people born high above everyone else, while we can only be prostitutes down in the mud?”

“It seems to me that their protection of all living beings is rather lacking.”

Crack!

Outside the main hall, the sky had turned pitch-black at some unknown point. A huge bolt of lightning suddenly tore across it.

It lit Feng Niang and Ah Rong’s panicked, terrified faces a stark white.

Wind and thunder rolled out of the dark clouds.

Turbulent and surging, it shook the soul.

I was not afraid in the slightest. I strode out of the hall, stood beneath the veranda, and raised my head to look straight at the sky. Each word I spoke was bitten off with exceptional clarity.

“What? Was my question unreasonable?”

The rain poured down, soaking the bluestone tiles before the main hall of Chunhua Temple in an instant.

Seeing this, I simply walked out from beneath the veranda and into the rain, tilting my head back to let it strike my face.

“If you think I am blaspheming the gods and Buddhas, then why not send down heavenly lightning and be done with it?”

Neither the rain nor the thunder drowned out my questioning voice.

Flashes of lightning twisted through the clouds like winding serpents, as if even the heavens were enraged.

But in the end, no heavenly lightning struck me down.

By the time the rain began to let up, I was soaked through, yet I still had no intention of stopping.

I wiped the water from my face at random and stared straight at the statues inside the main hall, my tone firm and absolute.

“Clay idols and wooden puppets, that is all you are. And yet you dare sit on high and call yourselves gods and Buddhas!”

“If I ever get the chance, I will topple every last one of you and smash you to pieces!”

After I caused such a scene, the abbot finally appeared, his face dark, and had someone take me to the guest courtyard to change my clothes.

I seriously suspected one thing.

If we had not donated what could be called a generous amount of incense money beforehand…

Chunhua Temple might have let me experience the skills of its warrior monks firsthand.