Iron Buddha Temple.

Zhou Hong had been guarding Chen Chang's door, when suddenly a group of soldiers passed by him at great speed.

Zhou Hong saw that the leader was Liu Ming. He held the same official position as Liu Ming, but they were not of the same kind. They only became partners because they protected His Royal Highness Prince Hengyang and returned to Jiankang safely.

"Captain Liu, where are you going in such a hurry?" Zhou Hong couldn't help but chase after him and asked.

Liu Ming's steps were so fast that Zhou Hong had to chase him all the way out of the Zen temple before catching up with him.

Liu Ming kept walking and said coldly, "You've become bored after staying in this temple. Go out and get some fresh air."

To be honest, Zhou Hong is also a meat lover. At noon, he accompanied Chen Chang to eat a vegetarian meal in the Iron Buddha Temple. He could hardly eat anything. He is still hungry now and is waiting to return to Jiangling to replenish his appetite.

But Zhou Hong was not stupid. Liu Ming's explanation obviously did not convince 놛. 놛 suddenly stepped forward and stopped Liu Ming: "Captain Liu, as the guard of His Highness, I have the right to know your whereabouts."

Liu Ming frowned: "Didn't I tell you, stop talking nonsense here!"

Zhou Hong stared with one eye and said seriously: "Captain Liu, don't forget that your duty is to protect His Highness's safety, so you must report to His Highness wherever you go."

"What if I don't explain?"

Zhou Hong grasped the hilt of the knife at his waist and said, "I can invite you over to meet His Highness at any time."

As soon as he finished speaking, Liu Ming waved his hand lightly, and a burly soldier stood in front of Zhou Hong.

Zhou Hongyuan opened his eyes and shouted, "Liu Ming, are you kidding me?"

Wherever Zhou Hong went, the soldier moved in that direction and just blocked Zhou Hong from passing. Then Liu Ming led the soldiers to rush out in a hurry.

Zhou Hong was furious. He stretched out his hand and grabbed the saber on the waist of the soldier in front of him. With a light pull, the saber flew away.

The soldier quickly moved to the side to hide, but was caught by a hook under Zhou Hong's foot and fell onto the bluestone slab.

Zhou Hong stepped over him and chased after him.

The soldier hurriedly got up from the ground, not even bothering to shake off the dirt on his body, and chased after him while shouting: "Captain Zhou, please wait, please wait, my captain is really busy and cannot delay you!"

Zhou Hongli ignored him and walked straight forward. Zhou Hong had no choice but to follow him angrily.

When Liu Ming was stopped by Zhou Hong again, the fallen guard also chased after him fiercely. Liu Ming glared at him and said coldly: "If Captain Zhou had not shown mercy, your head would have been moved."

Zhou Hong said: "Captain Liu, the emperor will be waking up from his afternoon nap soon, and then we will set off to return to the post house. I'm afraid it's not appropriate for you to go out now, right?"

Liu Ming said coldly, "Captain Zhou, don't you want His Highness to return to the post station safely?"

From the Iron Buddha Temple's Buddhist hall came the sound of humming sutras and the even sound of wooden fish.

As soon as you enter the temple, you will see the white marble statue of Sakyamuni facing you, with the Eight Arhats lined up on both sides. The statues are solemn and dignified.

The wind suddenly blew, and the iron horses hanging from the eaves of the Buddhist temple made a jingling sound.

Several monks in grey robes were chanting sutras, and the scent of incense was lingering in the air, soothing people's hearts and calming their minds.

A little nun at the door was stunned for a moment when she saw Liu Ming walking in first.

Liu Ming glanced into the Buddhist hall and said in a deep voice: "Where is the abbot now? Something's wrong!"

The little nun was still talking when Liu Ming glared at her face. The little nun chanted a Buddhist name and said she would go and tell the abbot. But Liu Ming grabbed her arm and walked out of the temple: "Don't delay this matter. I'll go with you!"

Time was of the essence, so there was no time for slow communication. The little monk was still struggling, but was hit in the waist by the knife handle, and immediately dared not move.

Just like that, Liu Ming dragged the two trembling little monks and walked towards the back of the temple. The soldiers followed closely behind. A few monks who lacked self-control glanced outside the door, feeling uneasy.

The person Liu Ming was looking for was Master Xu Yun, the abbot of the Iron Buddha Temple.

The word "abbot" was originally a verb, meaning "to maintain and uphold Buddhism". Later, it was extended to mean "a person who spreads the Dharma on behalf of the Buddha and continues the Buddha's wisdom", and later became a noun. Later, it gradually evolved into a respectful title for the head monk of a temple.

From a distance, Liu Ming saw a yellow dog lying on the ground outside the abbot's room, and he was surprised.

I heard from Cai Ye that Master Xuyun was a high monk who had attained enlightenment through meditation. He often preached the Dharma and gave direct instructions, and many of his followers listened attentively.

The little nun explained, "When this dog hears a teacher preaching, it will lie down and listen carefully. When he talks about worldly matters, it will go out. It's really amazing. Why is it so listless now?"

Liu Ming saw that the yellow dog was motionless and was indeed sleeping. He did not think too much. The monk beside him had already knocked on the door gently to inform him. Xu Yun coughed in the dormitory and said, "Captain, please come in!"

Liu Ming pushed open the wooden door and stepped into the dormitory with a junior officer. However, he saw that it was a suite inside. After entering the inner room, it was pitch black in front of him. After his eyes adjusted to the light inside, he saw a gauze curtain blocking the front. Behind the gauze curtain, he could vaguely see an old monk sitting cross-legged on a cushion.

"Captain Liu, what do you want from a poor monk? Has His Highness woken up?" Xuyun's tone sounded a little lazy.

Liu Ming shook his head and said, "Your Highness has been traveling for a long time and is now sleeping soundly and has not woken up yet."

After a pause, he said directly: "Master, we found many suspicious people outside the temple. We suspect that these people want to harm Your Highness, so we will search this temple as well."

It turned out that the assassins outside had been slow to take action, and Hou Andu became a little restless.

If the assassins were only outside the temple, it would be easy. We just needed to inform Zhou Jun.

What Hou Andu was unsure about was whether there were assassins hiding in the temple. Compared with those people outside, the assassins hiding in the temple were the most dangerous.

Hence, Liu Ming deliberately made trouble to scare the enemy.

Relying on Liu Ming's hot temper, there is no need to inform Xu Yun, but Hou Andu asked him to treat the monks with courtesy and not to act rashly. After all, this is on the territory of Hou Liang, so he needs to be doubly cautious and not leave any clues to Cai Yuye and others.

"Captain, everyone in my temple is a Buddhist disciple. There is absolutely no evil person, and we have never colluded with the man outside." Xuyun spoke slowly.

"Master, there are many monks in the temple. It is unknown whether some of them are just filling the numbers. We can only know whether there are any evil people after searching them."

Xuyun said: "This is a pure Buddhist place. How can we allow people to search it as they please?" His voice was kind, yet revealed a sense of majesty.

A lieutenant following Liu Ming said, "If you are innocent, why don't you let us search? If there are no accomplices of the assassins, it will clear your name."

Xuyun said: "Captain Liu, this Iron Buddha Temple is a temple in the territory of Houliang. If you insist on searching, shouldn't you ask Cai Ren?"

In the third year of his reign, Emperor Wu of Liang, Xiao Yan, announced that he would give up Taoism and embrace Buddhism. He personally wrote the "Essay on Abandoning Taoism and Serving Buddhism" and vowed to believe in Buddhism: "The nobles, the hundreds of families, the dukes and the royal family should abandon falsehood and embrace the truth, abandon evil and embrace the truth", "I wish that in the future, young boys will become monks, spread the sutras, convert sentient beings, and achieve Buddhahood together. They would rather stay in the Dharma and fall into the evil way forever than follow Laozi's teachings and temporarily achieve birth and death."

He encouraged and requested the royal family, nobles and even the common people to believe in Buddhism, almost raising Buddhism to the status of a state religion.

Even though Liang was destroyed, the Later Liang was still known to be the successor of Liang, and was extremely courteous to temples and monks, so ordinary officials did not dare to offend them easily.

Liu Ming's eyes flashed with ferocity, and he used all his strength. Suddenly, one of his men rushed in in panic: "Captain Liu, it's bad, there's a fire in the temple!"

Liu Ming frowned and immediately turned around and walked out. The soldiers he brought were pointing at the northeast corner of the temple. Looking up, he saw thick smoke and blazing flames not far away, which were very eye-catching in the clear sky.

Liu Ming recognized at a glance that the direction was the direction of the temple's kitchen.

Before Chen Chang entered the temple to burn incense and worship Buddha, the guards and Liang Jun began to explore the surrounding environment. Some people set up sentries and placed their own people everywhere, including the kitchen. Liu Ming remembered that two people were sent there, both of whom were smart and capable.

When Chen Chang suggested that they eat in the temple, he personally went to the kitchen to check and found nothing wrong.

The fact that the temple kitchen caught fire for no reason during the day was suspicious in itself.

The kitchen was only about 300 steps away from here, so the two men should have reported quickly, but they had not shown up for a long time, which meant they must have been in danger.

Liu Ming immediately gathered the soldiers and ran towards the kitchen to rescue.

Zhou Hong finally found out Liu Ming's purpose, and he dared not leave Chen Chang's side even a step.

But not long after, I saw from the corridor that there were swift flames rolling up into the sky from the direction of the kitchen, and then the monks in the temple ran and shouted to put out the fire, but the kitchen was mostly made of wood, and once it caught fire, it was difficult to put it out with water.

The meditation room where Chen Chang rested was quite far from the kitchen, and there was a vegetable field surrounding the kitchen. Although the fire was very fierce, there was no need to worry about it burning this side.

Zhou Hong didn't wait for the notice, but pushed the door open and walked in. Seeing Chen Chang still sleeping on the Luohan couch, he couldn't help but frown. Ning Jingrong stood up and said in panic, "Mr. Zhou, what happened outside?"

In his haste, his sleeve brushed across the table and actually broke a teacup.

"There's a fire in the temple's kitchen!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Hou Andu and his soldiers hurried over. Hou Andu was dressed neatly and there was no expression on his face.

Cai Yuye arrived soon after, his robe and belt loose, panting. When he saw Zhou Hong, he hurriedly shouted, "Where is His Highness? Is His Highness okay? Is His Highness okay..." Today, he was accompanying Chen Chang to visit the Iron Buddha Temple. If anything happened to Chen Chang, he would be to blame.

Hou Andu gently pointed in the direction of Luohan Couch: "Mr. Cai, don't worry, His Highness is fine, don't worry, don't worry..."

There was a commotion outside the door and a lot of noise inside. Chen Chang gradually woke up. He turned over and opened his eyes. He happened to meet Hou Andu's eyes. Chen Chang said, "Master Sikong, I just had a strange dream!"