Chapter 6 (Revised) Lust is a sword that harms the body; greed will inevitably lead to…
The leader of the thieves sneered, "Young lady, you are clever and beautiful, but I didn't expect you to be so bold and arrogant. Why don't you come and play with us and have a brief affair?"
Bao'e roared in fury, "You beast in human skin! Let's see how many lives you have to marry me! Since we're in a Buddhist temple, let me use my rake to deliver your bastard soul from suffering!"
She strode forward and struck the thief with her rake, causing his brains to splatter and killing him instantly.
The other thieves, seeing him carnage the floor tiles, were so terrified they begged for mercy.
Bao'e, with a sharp rake, struck again, taking the lives of three people in an instant.
The remaining thieves scattered in panic and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
She was too lazy to chase after him, and only asked the young man anxiously, "Young master, how are you? Are you injured? Can you still stand up?"
The young man's face regained color, and he stood up, brushed his sleeves, and bowed in gratitude, saying, "Thank you for saving me, Bodhisattva. I am slightly injured, but it's nothing serious."
The attitude remains neither too close nor too distant, neither too intimate nor too distant.
Bao'e was intrigued by his behavior and asked, "Why are you here alone, attracting the thieves' attention? If I hadn't come, you would have lost your life in vain."
The young man explained in detail: "I have been weak since childhood and am easily attracted to evil spirits, so I cultivate in this holy place. Today, the servant I was taking care of went down the mountain to buy things. He was only gone for an hour, but who would have thought he would run into such a disaster."
Bao'e, holding her rake, snorted, "That servant left at the worst possible time. Oh well, oh well, he's just a mortal, how could he possibly stand up to those thuggish bandits? You might as well give me some money and I'll help you guard this temple."
The young man lowered his eyes and remained silent, only asking her, "How could a Bodhisattva come to this desolate wilderness, a place rarely visited by people?"
"I was escorting my master when we happened to pass by here." Wu Miao was unwilling to talk more about the journey to the West, and then inquired, "I still don't know the young master's name."
"My name is Nie Guiyu."
Bao'e didn't remember such a character in Journey to the West, and said, "Good name! Good name! Just call me Bao'e." Just then, she felt hungry again and touched her flat stomach.
Nie Guiyu seemed to sense something and suddenly said, "I have prepared some vegetarian food. If Miss Bao'e doesn't mind, you may stay and have some as a way of thanking me."
"Good! Good!" Zhu Bao'e stepped forward happily without being polite. "Young Master Nie is so considerate. Please have as much as you like. I happen to be hungry."
Nie Guiyu remained silent upon hearing this, only a slight smile appearing on his handsome face.
Bao'e stared at him, her eyes wide with longing, her heart itching, her gaze fixed on his face, unwilling to look away.
She habitually disregarded the adage "lust is a sword that harms the body, and greed will surely bring disaster," and upon closer inspection, she suddenly noticed that his shoulders, neck, and arms were covered with scars of varying sizes.
This fool didn't bother to hide anything and asked bluntly, "Young Master Nie, you said there were no injuries, so how come you have all these wounds? You'd better get them treated quickly to avoid scarring."
She spoke with concern, but the young man's expression suddenly changed, and a murderous look appeared on his pale face.
"The vegetarian meal is not yet fully prepared, please wait a moment, Miss Bao'e." He turned and left, not allowing Bao'e to stop him.
Unaware of his presence, Bao'e watched him walk away, thinking to herself: This journey to the West is arduous, but it also has many delightful surprises.
Then I thought of that young master Nie from earlier. He was stern and unsmiling, and seemed to defy frost and snow. Unlike the gentle and approachable young master Gao, he was like a prince.
Bao'e couldn't help but smile broadly, but suddenly something stung her.
"Oh dear!" she exclaimed, covering her face in anger. "Where did these stinky mosquitoes and bees come from again? They've bitten me so badly, I can't face anyone now!"
She muttered and cursed for a while, then suddenly remembered that she had come here to explore the temple, where the monks were waiting for her.
“We almost ruined everything. It’s a small matter if that monkey starves to death, but if Master starves to death, we’ll have to pack our bags and go home. Although it’s a good thing, I’m afraid the Bodhisattva will blame us.” She dragged her rake back, not forgetting to flatter herself a bit, “Good Master, without me as your first-rate contributor, how could we have made it to the pilgrimage? If we go back like this, he might think the food came too easily, and we’ll have to say some things about subduing demons and monsters to fool that naive monk.”
Bao'e rushed back and saw Sanzang waiting under the tree, while the Monkey King jumped up from the tree and looked around.
She was panting and complained, "Master, my senior brother is really enjoying himself. While I've done all this hard work, he's just enjoying the view from the tree. He's really having a great time."
Sanzang said, "Wumiao, it's hard on you to go and explore the temple, but your senior brother is staying here to protect me. Don't make a fuss."
Bao'e snorted, and the traveler jumped down from the tree, laughing as he asked, "Fool, what hardships and suffering did you endure when you went to explore the temple?"
Bao'e almost burst into tears.
She wiped her face and complained, "There were many monsters in that temple. I went through all sorts of hardships to drive them away."
Upon hearing this, Sanzang was on the verge of tears.
“My disciple, you have suffered.” He looked at Wukong. “Wukong, please do not wrong Wumiao.”
Bao'e immediately stopped crying: "What injustice? Could it be that the stable boy is badmouthing me behind my back?"
"Don't cry, don't cry!" the pilgrim laughed. "Wumiao, there's no need to talk about the rest of the grievances. I'll make up for them for you."
Bao'e retorted angrily, "What can you do to help me while you're here guarding Master?"
"Those demons and monsters are all disguised as bandits. You could easily wipe them out with two blows of your rake, wouldn't you?"
Bao'e panicked and her face changed instantly.
The traveler then asked, "You rescued a young master from that bandit monster and planned to coax him into marriage, so you could guard that huge temple together, is that right?"
"Senior brother! Those bedbugs, mosquitoes, and poisonous bees that were sneaking around biting my face, were you?!"
The traveler chuckled coldly, "I told you to go explore the temple, but you insisted on hiding in that grassy hut. Look at your bewitched, delusional state! If I hadn't reminded you twice, you might have actually stayed in the temple and married that ghost!"
Bao'e was so angry she jumped up and down, brandishing her rake and saying, "You bastard monkey who talks nonsense! I'll break your head! Those ghosts are all spirits of the underworld, how dare they come out in broad daylight!"
“Not a ghost, but a demon formed from evil spirits.” The traveler took out the golden cudgel from his ear, shook it, and enlarged it to the thickness of a bowl, using it to block her rake. “You stick your head out first, let me hit you a few times, so I can wake up your idiotic mind.”
Bao'e was terrified of his iron rod, and said with both fear and anger, "You turned into that stinky mosquito and stinky bee, stung me and played me first, and now you want to hit me instead."
"Wukong, Wumiao, stop making a ruckus!" Sanzang interrupted, then rebuked, "Wumiao, have you really committed a terrible crime, murder?"
Bao'e, leaning on her rake, said angrily, "If I don't kill them, those thieves will harm that innocent young man. To thank me, he even arranged a vegetarian meal for us. Master, hurry up and go. You can argue all you want, but don't miss the mealtime and waste their good intentions."
"Nonsense! He's a robber, a criminal, and the authorities will punish him. How can you harm a life?" Sanzang hurried away, "Quickly point out where the soul is, so this humble monk can offer a prayer."
Bao'e pointed to the place and followed anxiously behind, complaining, "Master is being unreasonable. That thief harmed people, can't we just kill him? What government is there in this desolate wilderness? Are we going to have this white horse carry him to the Western Paradise to ask Buddha to judge right and wrong?"
Wukong laughed from the side, "Master is truly kind-hearted. Not to mention you, I killed several bandits to save him, and he cursed me and even tried to drive me away. Good monk, you would rather be flesh in the intestines of those bandits than break the precept against killing."
Whether his words were a compliment or a mockery, Sanzang frowned and sighed repeatedly.
The three of them, master and disciples, rode their horses straight to the deserted temple.
Tang Sanzang walked at the front and saw a young man carrying a large stack of firewood entering the temple from outside.
He was rather muscular, with well-defined muscles covering his exposed arms, and scars of varying depths crisscrossing his skin.
Looking at his face, he had sharp eyebrows and bright eyes, and was handsome and imposing.
Sanzang, thinking he was the person Wumiao had saved, hurriedly stepped forward: "Benefactor, please wait!"
Wu Miao recognized that the swordsman was not Nie Guiyu and was about to remind him when Sanzang hurriedly spoke up: "My disciple was so eager to save people that he committed the mistake of killing. Benefactor, please do not be afraid."
The swordsman glanced at him sideways and suddenly laughed: "Wild monk, what nonsense are you spouting? There's no vegetarian food or reward money here, go somewhere else to show off your acting skills."
After he finished speaking, he strode away, leaving Sanzang standing alone outside the door. After a while, he silently shed tears.
Fearing that his two disciples would see and laugh at him, he secretly wiped away his tears before turning back.
“Wumiao,” he asked, “you said the person you saved was refined and kind-hearted, and arranged a vegetarian meal for him. How could such a good person be so contemptuous of this poor monk?”
Seeing his red eyes and sore nose, Wu Miao thought to himself that this tender-skinned monk was truly a delicate creature made of water, with endless tears to wipe away.
She said nonchalantly, "Master, you've mistaken him for someone else. Don't you see? That man looks incredibly strong; he could easily defeat a few thieves."
Upon hearing this, Tripitaka could no longer bear it and began to weep again.
"This humble monk has traveled a long way to this place and has suffered countless hardships. How dare he treat this humble monk so badly, when he is a complete stranger to me?"
"Why are you crying? Why are you crying!" Wukong laughed. "It is often said that 'a pure Arhat is free from slander.' When will someone like you attain the Great Dao? Stop thinking about it. Put aside your thoughts and go beg for alms to quench your hunger and thirst."
Sanzang agreed, wiped away his tears, forced a smile, and entered the temple with his two disciples.
Zhu Bao'e felt uneasy thinking about the robbers' corpses, but when she entered the temple, it was quiet. There were no corpses, no bloodstains on the ground, and even Nie Guiyu was nowhere to be found.
She found it strange and looked around.
Tang Sanzang asked, "Wumiao, where are those bandits you killed?"
"It should be right here." Wu Miao scratched his head. "How come it's gone?"
The traveler laughed and said, "There are no thieves. This fool is probably bewitched and possessed by evil spirits. He doesn't even know it and is just staring blankly."
"Nonsense again!" Wu Miao looked at Tang Sanzang. "Master, don't listen to your senior brother's nonsense. Those thieves may not be dead, they may have escaped far away."
Tang Sanzang did not suspect anything when he did not find the body. He only instructed her to be compassionate in the future and never commit murder again.
Wukong thought that this wicked demon needed to suffer some hardship to learn her lesson, so he didn't say much, but just patted her back with his stick and pushed her forward two steps.
He said, "Go, go, if you're hungry, go find a stove yourself so you can set up a pot and cook."
Bao'e reluctantly went inside, hoping to find Nie Guiyu and ask about the whereabouts of the vegetarian meal. However, she searched the entire deserted temple but could not find him. She only saw the swordsman from before in front of the kitchen.
He was sitting casually on a low stool, his two long legs bent and stretched out, chopping wood in front of the house.
The swordsman had a wasp waist and a slender back. His wide sleeves were rolled up high, revealing his muscular arms, which were bulging and concealed a great deal of strength.
He raised his axe high and chopped down fiercely, sending wood chips flying, which made Bao'e's wicked heart tremble.
She looked at him, completely forgetting the elegant and handsome Young Master Nie, and stepped forward to the swordsman, saying, "Brother, let me ask you something."
The swordsman swung his axe down hard, and half of the axe blade got stuck in the wood.
He didn't get up, but lazily raised his eyes to look at her and laughed, "What a bold and wicked demon, you've delivered yourself to my doorstep. Aren't you afraid of taking your life?"
A note from the author:
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