Chapter 81: Anci Hermitage

“Ha~ ha~” Li Huowang, drenched in sweat, propped his hands on his knees, panting heavily.

Li Huowang had been climbing for two hours and still hadn't arrived. The nunnery was much higher than he had imagined. He struggled to lift his head, realizing the winding dirt path seemed endless, stretching ever upward. Li Huowang gritted his teeth, grabbed a nearby vine, and continued his ascent.

When his legs were excruciatingly sore from climbing, he finally saw the mountain gate of An'ci Nunnery. Wiping the sweat from his chin with the back of his hand, Li Huowang instinctively looked at the couplets on either side of the mountain gate. To his great surprise, he couldn't understand the couplets on the nunnery gate at all. It wasn't that Li Huowang had forgotten how to read these characters due to Danyangzi; rather, the characters themselves looked extremely strange.

The characters appeared in an elongated diamond shape, similar to the character "多" (duō, many), with the upper right higher than the lower left. They were slender and slanted, resembling oracle bone script at first glance, yet also bearing traces of many familiar Chinese characters.

"Are these... characters? Or something else?" Li Huowang wondered aloud, walking over to touch them. After examining them closely for a while, he stepped inside the nunnery.

However, once inside, the words Li Huowang had prepared in his mind found no target. The overgrown plaza before him was completely empty; there wasn't a single soul in sight. This stood in stark contrast to the bustling, crowded scene at Zhengde Temple.

"Is anyone here?" Li Huowang's voice echoed back and forth across the plaza, but still, no one appeared. Glancing around, Li Huowang walked towards the main hall. There was no incense burning inside, but it wasn't dark at all because the roof was completely open, allowing slanted sunlight to stream in and illuminate everything. The Bodhisattva statue in the center of the hall was covered in dust and drab cobwebs. If not for the lotus-shaped pedestal, Li Huowang would barely have recognized it as a Bodhisattva.

"Did I make a mistake? This nunnery looks completely abandoned."

Just as Li Huowang was thinking this, a faint snoring sound caught his attention. Following the sound, he slowly walked over and, behind the Bodhisattva statue, saw a large, undulating mass of flesh. Upon closer inspection, he realized it wasn't a meatball, but the exposed belly of a corpulent nun protruding from her clothing. With her upturned nose, she lay on the cold ground, mouth agape, snoring, and a sour, foul odor wafted towards him.

Black robes, corpulence, filth — all matched. The person before him was indeed a nun from An'ci Nunnery. Li Huowang, his brow slightly furrowed, scrutinized the "good person" Li Zhi had spoken of. Whether she was truly good or not, he couldn't tell yet, but in her current state, even a villain would hesitate to have too much contact with her.

"Venerable Master. Xuanyang of Qingfeng Temple has an urgent matter to discuss." Li Huowang raised his voice and saluted the large mass of flesh.

The corpulent nun's snoring showed no signs of stopping. She hadn't woken up at all.

"Is she pretending?" Li Huowang stepped forward, raising his voice even more. "Venerable Master! Xuanyang of Qingfeng Temple has an urgent matter to discuss!!" Still, there was no reaction. Just as Li Huowang was about to lean down and shout into her ear, the overwhelming stench from her body pushed him back. The smell, an extreme putrefaction like rotten socks mixed with durian and fermented sweat, was truly unbearable for him.

Before Li Huowang could think of another approach, the corpulent nun gave a jolt and simply sat up on her own. Using her short, thick fingers, she picked at the yellowish-brown eye boogers. Without even opening her eyes, she stumbled towards a side door. "Oh, it's mealtime, mealtime."

"Venerable Master. Xuanyang of Qingfeng Temple has an urgent matter to discuss!" This time, Li Huowang was finally not ignored. The corpulent nun was startled, her triple-layered, greasy chin trembling with her. "You scared me to death! Why do you walk so silently?"

Li Huowang stood rooted to the spot, his expression conflicted. He was no longer wondering if the people here harbored ill intentions, but rather if these nuns truly had a way to deal with Danyangzi.

"If you want to worship Buddha, go light your own incense! Don't disturb my meal!" the corpulent nun said coldly, then continued lumbering inside on her elephantine legs. At this, Li Huowang said nothing more and simply followed her inside.

The entire nunnery was large, but also very dilapidated. If the Bodhisattva in the main hall was in terrible condition, those in the secondary halls would be even worse. Some hall entrances still had characters, but they were identical to the ones at the main gate.

"Master, what kind of characters are these?" Li Huowang asked.

"Nüshu," she replied. "Of course you wouldn't understand; this script is only passed down among women, not men."

Although she answered, the nun seemed very impatient, continuing straight inside. Observing the increasingly unfamiliar surroundings inside, Li Huowang unhesitatingly continued to follow. Everything here seemed real, lacking the peculiar sensation he associated with the hospital. He wasn't sure if it was because he had consumed too much Black Grandis, or because he had been trapped in illusions for so long, but other illusions had little effect on him; even if they did, he could easily discern them.

After wandering around for a while, Li Huowang followed the corpulent nun to a dirt-walled house with a chimney. Noises from within the house indicated others were present, and the strong stench alone suggested it was full of nuns. Watching the corpulent nun rush in with gleaming eyes, Li Huowang, his brows tightly furrowed, took a deep breath, pinched his nose, and braved the eye-watering stench to follow her inside.

As soon as he entered the room, smacking, swallowing, and chewing sounds assailed his ears. Li Huowang almost thought he had entered a pigsty. He saw a group of fat nuns in black robes, grunting and eating around a large black pot. They weren't even using chopsticks or bowls; they simply ate directly from the pot with their hands. They ate with such gusto that they didn't react at all to Li Huowang, a living person, standing right there. As for what they were eating, Li Huowang could barely make it out: it appeared to be oily fried rice with some vegetable leaves.

Li Huowang, his face flushed from holding his breath, found that even opening his mouth to breathe made the air in the room sting his throat. His action finally caught someone's attention. A corpulent nun, having finished her meal, sucked on her fingers and then offered her spot to Li Huowang. "Do you want some vegetarian food? Two hundred copper coins per person."

Hearing her ask for money, Li Huowang, instead of getting angry, felt a surge of delight. "No, thank you, but there's something I need your help with, Master." He tossed a gold bean over.

"Gold!" The corpulent nun excitedly popped the gold beans into her mouth, chewed them with her yellow teeth, and after confirming they were real, spat them back into her palm, mixed with vegetable leaves and saliva. "Are you here to buy pigs? How many do you want? Tell me! Our nunnery has the fattest pigs."

Seeing her lean closer, Li Huowang subtly took another step back. "No, I heard that the masters of An'ci Nunnery are profound and mysterious, so I came here hoping to seek their help in dispelling evil."

"Hahaha~! Aren't you a Taoist yourself? You're asking nuns to help you dispel evil? Hahahaha~!"

As if laughter were contagious, the other nuns in the room burst out laughing, and even Li Huowang found himself struggling to keep a straight face by the end. "Hahaha~!!"