Chapter 218
When Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva practiced the deep Prajna Paramita, he saw that the five aggregates were empty and he was able to overcome all suffering.
"Shariputra, form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. The same is true of feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness."
The sound of wooden fish and the incessant chanting of scriptures are like the tight hoop around Monkey King's head, whispering and omnipresent.
Rong Zhou was lying barefoot in the garden wearing a loose gauze dress, looking at the leaves with a calm mind, not disturbed by anything. However, he didn't turn a page of the book in his hand for a long time.
The chief steward Wen Zhezhi stood aside with his head down, as quiet as a stone.
The other housekeepers in the yard didn't dare to step into the garden at all. The little bear and the little deer were peeking into the yard from a distance.
The calm garden was eerily quiet, and the bamboos that should have been swaying in the wind remained motionless.
"Pah." He threw the book in his hand onto the stone table. "These bald asses have been banging wooden fish outside day and night for 10 days. Who are they trying to annoy to death?"
At first, Rong Zhou thought that these were just wandering monks who passed by a cemetery and chanted the mantra for rebirth, as a way of showing their compassion to help the souls of the wandering ghosts to be reborn.
It would be fine if they could just chant for one day, and on the third day I thought it was over, but who knew these monks would chant for 10 days straight. Except for meal times, they took turns chanting. Their target was not the ghosts and spirits, but to liberate him!
"Master, you can completely block out the sound." Wen Zhezhi, who was cosplaying as a stone, reminded. In fact, the housekeeper breathed a sigh of relief at this time, feeling that the air in the garden was flowing. The air pressure in the home has been getting lower and lower in the past few days, and the goldfish in the pond have stopped spitting bubbles.
"Why should I give in?" Rong Zhou was very annoyed by the incessant chanting. He had endured such anger for so many days. He was the first to come. In order not to scare people, he didn't even show up in the yard. He didn't provoke anyone. A group of bald donkeys ran to his door and chanted scriptures at him.
Even a clay man has his temper, not to mention that his incarnation had already laid so much groundwork before the monk.
Wen Zhezhi stopped talking. She didn't understand what this had to do with giving in. If she didn't want to listen, she could just turn off the sound. Why did she have to be sulking for so many days?
It turns out that being more patient than a monk is a very unwise choice.
She was upset by a word, but she was an obedient housekeeper. She would do whatever her master said and just let it go after a reminder.
"Go, go and drive them away." Rong Zhou really missed Lu Daju who was hanging out outside at this time. If that guy was still there, he would have definitely driven the monks away on the first night they appeared.
"Yes, Master..." Before Wen Zhezhi finished saying the word "Master", the sound of wooden fish and chanting outside stopped.
"Well?"
According to the time outside, they should have been talking all night, why did they stop? Did they decide to withdraw?
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As the weather deepened, the fog thickened. The young monk, sitting on the cushion, felt a chill under his buttocks. The cold air from the ground penetrated into his body. He felt that the chill was the unwilling ghosts lingering in the mass grave.
He stopped chanting, wiggled his hips, and tugged at the sleeve of his senior brother. "Senior brother, how long are you going to chant? It's a bit scary here."
The senior brother opened his eyes and looked at the master chef in front of him. He was still as still as a mountain, beating the wooden fish slowly and steadily. The 10 days were also a test for him. After all, young people had unstable minds. Faced with this cold and strange graveyard, he had long wanted to back out.
The young monk naturally noticed that his brother had opened his eyes. Without waiting for his reply, he continued to ask the next question: "Is there really a monster? It hasn't appeared for such a long time. It must be a rumor."
"There must be something unusual about this mass grave. Which other mass grave can be kept so clean and tidy, with each body buried deeper underground?" His senior brother was convinced that there was a monster here.
"But……."
"Amitabha, if your mind is not at peace, you will be disturbed by all things. Do not think, do not think, do not speak."
"Yes, Master."
As the young monk sat upright and closed his eyes to chant again, other voices came from the white mist.
"Hey, Erdan, let me tell you, with a great monk here chanting, there must be no monsters here."
“There really are monks chanting.”
As they were talking, a vague shadow appeared in the white fog, getting closer and closer. It was two men with pigtails pushing a wheelbarrow.
The monks saw the newcomers, and the two men also saw the monks sitting in the mass grave.
The two men immediately took off their tattered felt hats, and with ingratiating smiles on their shifty faces, they said, "Hello, Master! Hello, Master! Thank you for your hard work! Master, you have boundless magical powers and have slain demons and monsters, ridding Jiang City of this great evil."
The two of them nodded and fawned, flattering each other.
Thinking that monsters had appeared, the group of monks stopped chanting and turned their heads 90 degrees to look at the two unexpected people.
The atmosphere was quiet and a little weird for a while.
The two of them flattered for a long time, but all they saw were expressionless monks' faces. They couldn't flatter anymore. They were already scared and now they were even more scared.
"Hey, hey, hey, the masters are busy, we won't disturb them." The two men said this swiftly. They dragged a roll of mat off the wheelbarrow, threw it aside, and immediately ran away with the wheelbarrow greased on their feet.
"Oh my god, these monks are kind of scary."
"I should have thrown it to the west of the city earlier. You're the one who said it. There are monks chanting sutras here, and no monsters."
"This is closer. The one in the west of the city takes half an hour longer to walk. Besides, there are no monsters there."
The two of them pushed and shoved each other and walked away quickly, leaving the group of silent monks behind to continue -?
"Oh... uh..."
This mass grave was already very quiet, without even the sound of insects. When the monks stopped chanting, you could hear a pin drop.
That tiny bit of sound was amplified infinitely, and everyone's eyes fell on the slightly undulating straw mat.
There is no need to think about it, everyone knows what is wrapped inside. It can be seen everywhere in this era. Corpses are carried out one after another every day in every place. What's more, this is a mass grave. Those thrown here are either corpses or those who are about to become corpses.
"Amitabha, oh, let's go and take a look." This was a helpless cry. He could not save anyone along the way, nor could he save himself.
The two brothers kowtowed and went to check.
"Ah, Amitabha, Amitabha." The brother who opened the straw mat was startled by what was inside.
The young monk stretched his neck and looked around curiously, trying to see something. The senior monk next to him slapped his bald head and said, "What are you looking at? Close your eyes." As he said this, he covered his eyes with his hands.
It was a naked woman who had been tortured beyond recognition. She was not quite dead, but was very close to death. The corner of her mouth was torn open, like a big smile on her face. One of her eyeballs was hanging out in a bloody mess, while the other eye was filled with blood and staring unwillingly.
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