Chapter 91
Chapter 91
At the sight, Ghost Buddha Faceless flew into a towering rage. He pointed at the Buddha statue and cursed at the top of his lungs.
“Cry, cry, cry! Are you heartbroken over those monks who made a fool of me? Every last one of them deserved to die!”
The thousand-year-old Buddha statue came crashing down.
“Hahaha! Pah! A pile of rotten stone thinks it’s worthy of my worship?”
“If I cannot become a Buddha, then I will become a demon. I swear I will slaughter every Buddha in this world!”
That night, lightning split the sky, thunder roared, and bloody rain poured down from the heavens.
One day, three months later, Ghost Buddha Faceless finally noticed the letter soaked through with blood.
Only after opening it did he learn that the old abbot had left him the very best thing of all.
With that letter, Ghost Buddha could go to Mount Wutai, the sacred land of Buddhism, to further his study of Buddhist teachings.
It was the one and only place Jinguang Temple had managed to secure after three generations and several hundred years of effort.
After reading the letter, Ghost Buddha Faceless sat upright in the temple, laughing one moment and weeping the next.
He laughed until he coughed blood, and wept until his tears ran red.
Three days later, he swung his blade and severed his own head.
Suspicion, narrow-mindedness, murdering his fellow disciples and teachers, killing the innocent without restraint, and finally suicide.
Ghost Buddha had truly committed every evil imaginable. After death, he transformed into a vengeful ghost on the spot.
He styled himself Ghost Buddha.
And because he felt he had no face to show the world, he gave himself another name: Faceless.
Fearing that he would lose control again, stir up chaos, and harm ordinary people,
eminent Buddhist monks from Mount Wutai joined forces to suppress him beneath the Buddha statue in the main hall of Jinguang Temple.
After listening to Hu Fei’er’s account, Chen Daji was so shocked his jaw nearly hit the floor.
“Holy shit. This Ghost Buddha Faceless was a total psycho!”
Hu Fei’er could never bring herself to say such outrageous words, so she merely smiled and did not answer.
Deaf Granny looked fondly at Hua Jiunan and the other two, then spoke in an earnest, heartfelt tone.
“There are plenty of people like Ghost Buddha-people with human faces and beasts for hearts.”
“Especially now, in these peaceful times, ordinary folk live and work in contentment. Fewer people die, and more and more children are born.”
“That means there aren’t enough good souls to go around in the Underworld.”
“But you can’t exactly let a newborn child have no soul and be born a fool, can you?”
Chen Daji felt that this really was a problem-and a very serious one at that.
After all, abortions brought karmic retribution…
“Granny, then what can they do?!”
Deaf Granny sighed.
“What else can they do? Pick the tallest among the short, that’s all. Some who should have been born as animals are made exceptions and reincarnated as humans instead.”
“But once that happens, there are many more people like Ghost Buddha, people with human faces and beasts for hearts!”
“When you boys go out into society in the future, you must be extra careful!”
“Remember that old saying: never harbor the intent to harm others, but never lack the caution to guard against them!”
Hua Jiunan and Chen Daji nodded again and again as they listened.
Even Hu Fei’er’s eyes flickered, as if she had fallen into deep thought.
And so the three of them stayed quietly by Deaf Granny’s side, two massaging her legs while one kneaded her shoulders.
The old woman smiled kindly, and before she knew it, she had fallen asleep against the wicker chair.
It was a peaceful, warm afternoon.
Chen Fu and Zhao Aiguo, operating on the principle that they had nothing better to do anyway, made an absurdly lavish dinner.
During the meal, Hua Jiunan said softly,
“Granny, just get a good rest tonight.”
“If any filthy things come looking to cause trouble for Zhao Fei, I’ll ask Brother Chang and the others to deal with them.”
Deaf Granny chuckled and shook her head.
“Silly boy, across all the Northern Lands, there truly aren’t many places safer than our home.”
“With Elder Pine here, you don’t need to worry about that.”
“If he doesn’t allow it, then even if ghost guards came, they wouldn’t be able to find the gate into the courtyard!”
The speaker said it without thinking, but the listeners took it to heart.
Chen Fu and Zhao Aiguo exchanged a glance and realized their chance to perform had arrived.
After dinner, the two of them kept applying fertilizer to the Little Pine Tree in the courtyard.
As they fertilized it, they kept muttering,
“If you’ve had enough, old sir, just let us know.”
“If you don’t say anything, we’ll keep adding fertilizer!”
Only after they had used up several whole sacks of chemical fertilizer did the two men suddenly feel a powerful force slam into them. They were immediately pressed facedown onto the ground.
Their mouths filled with compound fertilizer…
Late that night, everyone went to rest.
As usual, Hua Jiunan got dressed and rose from bed, and Chen Daji followed right behind him.
Because Zhao Fei was afraid, he had not fallen asleep at all.
Seeing this, he hurriedly said, “Hua Boss, where are you two going?! Can you take me with you?!”
“Don’t leave me alone in the room. I’m scared!”
Chen Daji answered irritably,
“You’re a grown-ass man. What the hell are you afraid of?”
“Big Brother and I are going to the courtyard to see if the ghosts have come yet. If you want to tag along, hurry up!”
The moment Zhao Fei heard that, he immediately chickened out.
“You two Big Brothers go ahead, go ahead.”
“I suddenly feel sleepy. I think I’ll go to bed…”
Chen Daji scratched his head.
Damn it, why did that line sound so familiar…