Jiang Luo grabbed a baseball bat and smashed the car Chi You had sent. Feeling better, he contacted a used car market and sold the million-dollar luxury car for 100,000 yuan.
He used that money to buy a new phone and a second-hand sedan. The next day, he took Ge Zhu straight to the Dazhao Temple.
The temple didn’t refuse buddhist worshippers during the New Year because many people had the habit of burning incense and worshiping Buddha during the holiday. Ge Zhu, familiar with the place, took Jiang Luo to meet Master Chengde, who was chatting and watering flowers with the abbot.
The two were the abbot and a respected elder of the Dazhao Temple. Upon seeing Ge Zhu, their kind faces showed surprise and joy. Master Chengde said “Amitabha” and smiled warmly, “Ge Zhu, I didn’t expect to see you during the New Year.”
From the moment Ge Zhu entered Dazhao Temple, he seemed a bit dazed. Hearing the question, he forced a smile and said, “How have Master Chengde and the Abbot been this year?”
“Quite well,” the two elders laughed together. “A timely snowfall foretells a bountiful year; the fortunes this year are indeed good.”
Jiang Luo listened to their brief chat, then Master Chengde looked toward him: “Senior Brother, this is the Benefactor Jiang Luo I told you about.”
The elderly Abbot’s eyes also brightened as he looked over. “Hahaha, a good young man.”
Jiang Luo humbly said, “I wanted to visit Dazhao Temple earlier, but I came so late—please forgive my disrespect.”
“What disrespect?” The Abbot chuckled warmly, eyes gleaming with shrewdness. He turned to Master Chengde and said, “You take Benefactor Jiang Luo for a walk around our temple. Ge Zhu, you stay and keep me company; I haven’t seen you for a long time. Talk with your Senior Uncle for a bit.”
Ge Zhu’s eyes instantly reddened. “Yes.”
Dazhao Temple occupies an entire mountain peak, towering and majestic, with a solemn and splendid appearance. Jiang Luo and Master Chengde visited several temple halls, chatting casually. Master Chengde was very patient, answering all Jiang Luo’s questions openly. Under his guidance, Jiang Luo worshiped the Buddha and entered some restricted temple areas meant only for Buddhist disciples.
Jiang Luo sighed, “Dazhao Temple is magnificent. After this tour, I feel spiritually uplifted. Truly a holy place in the Buddhist world.”
Master Chengde smiled. “Dazhao Temple wasn’t always like this. It was built brick by brick over many years. Even now, there are still places not yet restored. Let me show you.”
He led Jiang Luo to a ruined site and pointed: “This place has never been repaired.”
The ruins were charred and collapsed, blackened beams scattered, a devastating sight. Yet from the remnants, it was clear how magnificent the building once was before the fire.
Jiang Luo was moved. “This is?”
“This was once the sutra library of Dazhao Temple,” Master Chengde sighed. “It’s no secret anymore. If you ask around, you’ll find out. Over the past century, our Buddhist order had one unfilial, heartless disciple—Ge Wuchen. Just hearing his name makes me angry. When Ge Wuchen betrayed the temple, he set fire to the sutra library. A truly evil man. His master and senior uncle were both inside! That fire took three elder monks’ lives!”
Master Chengde’s chest heaved with anger as he spoke. “He burned the sutra library, killed several brothers of his generation, and then disappeared. He committed evil deeds, but the one who suffered most was his younger brother! Ge Zhu is sensitive and thoughtful. After that incident, he never spoke about it, but he felt guilty deep inside. Soon after, he left Dazhao Temple with a few brothers and sisters who followed him closely.”
“If I ever see that traitor again, I will force him to kowtow in apology at the graves of our brothers,” Master Chengde said, choking up slightly.
Jiang Luo listened quietly. He had already heard this story from Ge Zhu before. Hearing it again, he only felt one thing — there was definitely more beneath the surface.
Master Chengde wiped his tears and asked, “Benefactor Jiang, what brings you to Dazhao Temple?”
Jiang Luo asked curiously, “Ge Zhu told me a lot about Dazhao Temple. I heard it was once called Bailu Temple?”
“Yes,” Master Chengde said, “but that was two hundred years ago.”
His eyes flicked to a tall pine nearby, suddenly flashing with pain. “Benefactor Jiang, nature calls. I need to use the restroom. Please wait here.”
Before Jiang Luo could reply, Master Chengde clutched his stomach and quickly ran off.
Jiang Luo: “…Master, take care.”
With Master Chengde gone, Jiang Luo relaxed. He squatted beside the ruins and picked up a piece of wood. Black soot smudged his hand instantly. Snow on the wood had melted into water, dripping steadily to the ground.
“The sutra library was burned down years ago, right?” Jiang Luo muttered to himself.
“Five years.”
Jiang Luo suddenly stood and turned, seeing Ge Wuchen step out from behind the pine.
Ge Wuchen wore simple monk’s robes. He stood in the snow with hands joined, bowed to Jiang Luo, and smiled, “Amitabha, Benefactor Jiang. We meet again.”
Jiang Luo dusted off the dirt from his hands and squinted at the bald monk. “Never thought I’d meet a Buddha’s child here.”
Ge Wuchen smiled slightly, his handsome face looking like an exiled immortal beneath the snow. He walked over beside Jiang Luo. “Benefactor Jiang, I came specially to find you.”
“I figured,” Jiang Luo said calmly, “you came because of Ge Zhu?”
Ge Wuchen said, “No, it’s for my master.”
Jiang Luo’s face twisted briefly.
Ge Wuchen acted as if he hadn’t noticed, holding prayer beads, eyes sincere, voice earnest: “Benefactor Jiang, please be with my master.”
Jiang Luo sneered, almost losing his temper. “What if I don’t?”
Ge Wuchen sighed. “I sincerely want to unite you and my master. Believe it or not, no one in this world wishes for you two to be together more than I do.”
“Really sincere?” Jiang Luo deliberately changed the subject. “Ge Zhu is your real brother, and you almost killed him. Your master and uncle are your real elders, yet you never showed mercy when you set fire and killed them.”
“Amitabha,” Ge Wuchen smiled unchanged. “Benefactor Jiang, do you know your place in my master’s heart?”
Jiang Luo spat out between his teeth, “I don’t want to know at all.”
Ge Wuchen was full of sincerity: “You are very important to Master. I have never seen Master treat anyone so specially. He has changed a lot because of you. If it’s you, you can definitely stop him and successfully bind Master to your side.”
Jiang Luo didn’t respond to that. Instead, he shifted the topic: “It was your idea to drag my friends into the dream, wasn’t it?”
After saying this, he threw a punch straight at him. Ge Wuchen was like a poisonous snake; he wouldn’t just stand there taking it. The two exchanged blows back and forth for a while. Both knew if they didn’t use other means, neither would yield, so they stopped simultaneously in a neat pause.
Standing beside the ruins, Ge Wuchen surprisingly pulled out a cigarette and offered it to Jiang Luo. Jiang Luo thought how surreal it was—smoking with a monk in a temple in the middle of winter.
Ge Wuchen flicked the ash onto the ruins. “Do you know how many tens of thousands it cost to build this sutra library?”
Jiang Luo: “Not interested.”
“Three thousand,” Ge Wuchen said, feeling like Jiang Luo was a slippery eel who wouldn’t bite any trap. He patiently continued, “Three thousand taels of silver—two hundred years ago. Over a hundred years ago, it was expanded again, costing more than five hundred thousand. Think about what that amount meant back then.”
Jiang Luo shook the ash from the cigarette and looked up at the blue sky and white clouds.
“…But the most valuable thing isn’t the building, it’s the books inside. The sutra library held books you couldn’t buy no matter the price—countless ancient Buddhist texts handed down through generations. Any one of those was worth enough to make Ge Zhu gasp. But I set fire to it.”
Jiang Luo finally threw him a stingy look. “Why did you burn it?”
“Because my Master and my Senior Uncle told me to.”
If Ge Wuchen wanted to act, he was definitely a gifted actor. His eyes darkened as he turned the cigarette around and placed it standing on the ruins like an incense stick.
“My Master was the previous abbot of Dazhao Temple, also the foster father of both me and Ge Zhu. I know why you asked about Bailu Temple, because the Fated One came from there. Before he became the Fated One, he was just a small monk at Bailu Temple.”
“A monk born with a natural affinity to Buddha, effortlessly able to comprehend Buddhist teachings.”
As if knowing what Jiang Luo wanted to hear, Ge Wuchen spoke plainly with no evasion: “The Fated One was an orphan; no one knows who his parents were. Two hundred years ago, he was brought back by the Bailu Temple abbot from outside. The Fated One had great insight and spent most of his time in the sutra library. Most of the books there, seventy or eighty percent, were collected by him.”
“But for some reason, one year, he left Bailu Temple. When Bailu Temple became Dazhao Temple, he also became the Fated One of Changbai Mountain, still with the exact same appearance as two hundred years ago.”
Jiang Luo listened quietly, filing these uncertain stories in his mind, still wondering why Ge Wuchen was telling him all this.
Finally, Ge Wuchen got to the point, his expression calm: “Benefactor Jiang, you should also know the Fated One once gave a prophecy—divining the future of the entire metaphysical world. When the culprit of the disaster was identified as Chi You, the metaphysical community’s elders discussed whether to kill Chi You outright. My Master was among them. Being kind-hearted, he didn’t want to cause killing, so he supported keeping Chi You alive and guiding him to goodness.”
Jiang Luo snorted inwardly, thinking how well they guided him—destroying the world in dreams and masturbating late at night.
“But five years ago, Master discovered something wrong. He and my Senior Uncles spent five days preparing and divined all night in the sutra library to foresee the metaphysical world’s future,” Ge Wuchen said without emotion. “After the divination, they realized the Fated One lied terribly. The prophecy the Fated One gave was about himself. In his prediction, Chi You would kill him, not destroy the metaphysical world. To avoid the killing, he altered the prophecy to have others kill Chi You. According to my Master and Uncles’ divination, Chi You was tortured to lose his humanity by that lie, and ironically, would truly destroy the metaphysical world.”
Jiang Luo suddenly stubbed out the cigarette, looking at him with doubt.
Ge Wuchen said, “My Master and Senior Uncles were severely weakened by that divination; their lifespan shortened, and they only had days left. At dawn after the divination, my Master took my hand and told me to find Chi You, do my best to make amends, and try to persuade Chi You to avoid the final catastrophe.”
“But they also feared that the Buddhist sect’s harboring of Chi You would anger the Fated One. They worried the Fated One would kill them if he found out they had uncovered the true future. So to prevent the Fated One from noticing, they told me to burn down the sutra library—and kill the three of them who knew the truth in the fire. Let the world believe I betrayed Buddhism so even if I help Chi You, the sect won’t be blamed or hated by the Fated One. Nor would the Fated One discover that my Master and Senior Uncles died because of the prophecy.”
The monk’s calm face reflected the cigarette’s flame standing on the ruins. The firelight flickered, as if reliving that day’s inferno.
He seemed so deeply immersed in the story, recalling the memory:
His Master, also his foster father, Master Chengwen, old and frail, gripped Ge Wuchen’s hand tightly. His hands were dry and warm, covered in calluses and wrinkles. The Master’s grip was so strong his fingers trembled, veins bulged.
“Ge Wuchen,” Master Chengwen scolded sternly with tears in his eyes, “You burn this place down. Once it’s burned, run away and don’t look back!”
At that time, Ge Wuchen was gripped by fear and panic, like a lone boat in a storm, cold and shivering: “Master…”
Behind him, his two Senior Uncles had lost their eyesight from the divination. His usually rough-tempered Second Uncle gripped his other hand tightly, shouting, “Not enough! Not nearly enough! No one here can be left alive. You must kill them all in front of the others—kill them to show the Fated One. Do you understand?!”
“Senior Uncle, I’m afraid…”
In the sutra library, there were three other junior monks who had come with him to deliver the vegetarian meals.
They were about the same age as Ge Zhu, several years younger than Ge Wuchen, the youngest only thirteen. After hearing this, they wiped their tears, handed a dagger to Ge Wuchen, then turned and ran outside. “Senior Brother, you go! We’ll run toward where there are people!”
The flames blazed hot and bright. Ge Wuchen set the fire as ordered, but he still did not heed his master’s words — at the last moment, he looked back.
In that glance, he saw his master and two senior uncles staring fixedly at him through the fire. This scene Ge Wuchen would never forget for the rest of his life.
“My three junior brothers ran in front of the others at Dazhao Temple, so others witnessed me killing people from Dazhao Temple and defecting from Buddhism,” Ge Wuchen instead laughed bitterly, “My three junior brothers accidentally ran right in front of Ge Zhu and the others.”
When Ge Wuchen killed in front of his juniors, the youngest junior brother fell beside his ear and said, “Senior Brother, I’m sorry…”
When they were killed by Ge Wuchen, their tone was both comforting and remorseful.
Sorry to make you do this.
Sorry that Ge Zhu saw it.
…
Sorry, Senior Brother, you will have to walk alone from now on.
Ge Wuchen suppressed these memories and said crisply, “Do you know why Master told me to burn down the sutra library?”
Jiang Luo looked at him with a complicated expression. “Why?”
Ge Wuchen’s eyes darkened with a cold smile. “Because the method for the Fated One to become a god came from a certain book in the sutra library.”
