Chapter 618: Compassion

The rhythmic thudding of the wooden fish, one beat after another, made Li Huowang’s anger flare.

"Li Sui, let's go! Let's see what kind of evil spirits these are!" Li Huowang pulled several swords from under his pillow, and with Li Sui, dashed across the rooftops towards the sound.

Soon, Li Huowang found the source of the sound. It was a group of monks, specifically, monks as gaunt as skeletons.

These monks sat cross-legged at the village entrance, rhythmically tapping their wooden fish. The nearby disaster victims seemed to be awake, but they dared not peek out, burying their heads deep in the straw, trembling.

The moment Li Huowang appeared, the monks uniformly looked his way. Some didn't look with their eyes but with the tonsure scars on their heads, while others had eyestalks with eyeballs that wriggled in and out like maggots.

"Amitabha, donor, greetings from this humble monk."

Li Huowang looked at the old monk who spoke. Though the man was emaciated beyond recognition, Li Huowang immediately recognized him: his appearance was identical to the monk hallucination by his side. This was the abbot of Zhengde Temple from Great Qi!

"Amitabha, this humble monk has come to beg for alms, and hopes the donor can be generous." As he spoke, they pushed the copper bowls on the ground forward. The sound of the wooden fish instantly ceased.

"Alms? I'm not giving you anything! What are you going to do about it?" Li Sui's black tentacles instantly shot out from Li Huowang's body. Each tentacle wrapped around various talismans and torture instruments, suspending them in the air.

Footsteps sounded from behind Li Huowang. Bai Lingmiao, leading a group of White Lotus Society followers who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, quietly stood in front of Li Huowang.

It wasn't just Bai Lingmiao; anyone with a bit of ability in Niu Xin Village quickly dressed and rushed over. In terms of numbers, Li Huowang's side undoubtedly had the advantage.

Just as Li Huowang thought the other party was about to get serious, the abbot of Zhengde Temple surprisingly stood up. He glanced at the White Lotus followers beside Bai Lingmiao, then held the wooden bowl, bowed to Li Huowang with clasped hands, and led his monks away.

"Li... Brother Li, what's going on with those monster monks? Why did they just leave?" Gouwa asked, utterly surprised.

Watching the monks depart into the distance, Li Huowang's brows furrowed in thought for a moment before he turned to Bai Lingmiao. "Take your people and secure Niu Xin Village first. I'm going to see what kind of mischief those monks are up to!"

It's not the thief that's scary, but the thief's lingering intentions. Li Huowang feared these monks had no intention of giving up easily.

"Brother Li, be careful, they are numerous."

"It's fine. Even if I can't win, running away won't be a problem," Li Huowang said. His body began to distort, shifting underground, and he slowly followed them in an invisible state.

He should have realized it sooner: if the people of Great Qi came to Great Liang, and the Dharma sects of Great Qi came to Great Liang, then other monastic orders and factions from Great Qi would naturally follow.

The monks wore no shoes; their footsteps were most visible on the concrete ground. Li Huowang slowed his pace, slowly following them.

They walked for more than two li. Just as Li Huowang was secretly wondering if these demonic monks planned to circle back and ambush Niu Xin Village, he smelled an unfamiliar scent of meat in the air.

Li Huowang remembered that smell: it was the scent of human flesh! Immediately, his expression turned grim.

Looking left and right, Li Huowang used both his limbs and tentacles to climb a tall pine tree. Everything in the distance immediately came into full view, and he quickly saw where the meaty smell originated.

In a distant forest, a large clay Buddha statue rested on an earthen platform, while a large group of ragged disaster victims knelt on the ground, repeatedly kowtowing to the Buddha.

Beside the Buddha statue, Li Huowang witnessed a chilling sight: several monks with distended bellies lay on the ground, their legs raised high. Dark red blood mixed with amniotic fluid slowly flowed onto the earth.

What they gave birth to were not infants, but lumps of deformed flesh, bone, and hair intertwined!

These fleshy lumps, still twitching occasionally and entangled with umbilical cords, were held by some monks and placed into several large vats set over fires.

As lumps of flesh were thrown into the boiling water, the meaty scent in the air grew stronger.

Soon, the disaster victims who had been prostrated on the ground stood up. They spontaneously formed a queue, holding various broken bowls, to receive this meat broth and pour it into their stomachs.

They were actually eating that stuff! Li Huowang immediately felt a strong wave of nausea and disgust.

"Greetings, donor." The voice from the tree instantly sent a chill down Li Huowang's spine; he had been discovered!

Without a moment's hesitation, Li Huowang gripped his spine sword and charged directly down from the tree.

He swung his Fissure, easily cleaving the monk beneath the tree in two. But the bisected flesh surprisingly squirmed, quickly rejoined, and restored itself to its original form.

Li Huowang's attack just now had no effect on the old monk.

Li Huowang glared fiercely at the face before him, identical to that of his hallucination monk. "That's utterly disgusting! What damnable business are you doing with these disaster victims?!"

The old monk raised the hand adorned with prayer beads, clasping them together. "Donor, saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda. We are saving people. Although we understand we cannot save all sentient beings in the heavens, we cannot neglect those right before our eyes."

"Feeding this disgusting stuff to others is saving people? Why don't you eat it yourselves!"

"Amitabha, donor, we are monastics; we cannot eat meat."

"But they have a choice; although it does not violate ethics, ultimately, they simply have nothing else to eat now. If they don't eat, they will starve to death."

The monk's words instantly left Li Huowang speechless, unsure what to say. The monks of Zhengde Temple were indeed using such bizarre methods to conjure food and save these disaster victims.

"Donor, in this age of Dharma's decline, this humble monk truly cannot find any grain. Therefore, we can only borrow the Buddha's Dharma to protect sentient beings and show compassion to all." The abbot of Zhengde Temple spoke these words with a face full of compassion, and on his gaunt, skull-like face, a Buddha's aura seemed to shine.

"Ah! A benevolent one, a truly benevolent one! Taoist, that monk who looks just like you is a good monk!" The hallucination monk standing beside him praised incessantly.

Li Huowang shot him a glare, then turned back to the abbot of Zhengde Temple. He continued, "So... when you approached my village just now, you genuinely weren't begging for grain? You truly have no grain left at all?"

"Donor, this humble monk and his disciples were not begging for alms or anything else. Donor, why must you trouble us, these compassionate monastics?"

Li Huowang absolutely disagreed with this statement. "Compassionate? Why didn't you speak of compassion when you crammed those male infants into bottles?"

"Donor, why bring up that matter? They were all abandoned. If we hadn't kept them, they would have been drowned or buried alive. This humble monk was finding a way for these males to live; this is a good deed."

"So making eunuchs bear sons is also a good deed?"

"A good deed! Of course, it's a great good deed. How is helping someone have heirs not a good deed?"

Li Huowang no longer wished to say anything. He finally understood: these monks from Zhengde Temple were indeed performing good deeds, but only what *they* considered to be good deeds.

Should they ever decide that murder and arson were good deeds, he feared they would undertake them without hesitation.