"Master, you don't have to explain so much to a guest like me. I can't meddle in your affairs. Please leave, I'm going to bed."
Jiandun pressed his palms together, bowed to Li Huowang, and walked toward the door. As he brushed past Li Huowang, his soft words drifted back.
"Don't look down on Buddhism. Before I became a monk, I was a Taoist. Daoism is no different—it's just that you don't know it yet."
Jiandun left, leaving Li Huowang alone in the room. He turned his head, gazing at the temple shrouded in darkness in the distance. All sense of majesty and solemnity had vanished.
Li Huowang exhaled slowly into the shadows. "This damned place is filthy. Is there nowhere clean around here?"
Ever since that night, Li Huowang tried not to go out after dark to avoid disrupting the monks' activities and incurring their resentment.
Days passed, one after another, and Li Huowang's mental state steadily improved. He basically stopped having nightmares.
Just as he planned to ask the abbot when things would begin, someone was sent to him in advance.
"Layman Xuanyang, preparations for the grand Pudu ritual are about to begin. The resources required for the ceremony are immense, so please refrain from walking around in the coming days."
"Alright, go back and tell the old abbot that I understand," Li Huowang said to the young novice before him.
Just as the novice left, a familiar figure slipped in. "Hey, little Taoist, so this is where you live! Why didn't you tell me?" he said with pleasant surprise.
It was the old beggar from before, but he looked nothing like his former ragged self.
He wore a brand-new yellow monk's robe, his face and body were clean, and he looked much more spirited.
Although he and the monk had only met by chance, seeing a familiar face in such a strange place made Li Huowang feel a sense of closeness.
"Monk, how have you been faring here?"
"Not bad! I'm well-fed and warmly dressed. But I can't do any good deeds in this temple, which feels a bit odd."
The moment he mentioned good deeds, Li Huowang immediately recalled what happened that night. He looked at the old monk and sighed softly. "Don't worry about all that. Just stay put. This temple's dirty, sure, but at least you won't starve."
"Come, little Taoist, let me show you where I work. The place is huge!" The old monk enthusiastically pulled Li Huowang toward the door.
"The sun is harsh. Let's do it another time." Li Huowang was unenthusiastic; he had no interest in sightseeing around the temple.
"Come on! You definitely won't regret coming to see this! There's so much interesting stuff!" Under the old monk's forceful insistence, Li Huowang was dragged out the door.
They twisted and turned through the temple until Li Huowang found himself in a spacious, open-air courtyard of Zhengde Temple.
It was only now that he realized just how massive Zhengde Temple really was.
DANG! DANG! DANG!
Dust filled the yard where monks with bandaged hands hefted chisels and hammers, carving Buddhist statues. The statues stood in two rows, stretching to the left and right toward the far end of the courtyard.
Under the sunlight, the monks' shaved heads gleamed. They dripped with sweat, wholly absorbed in carving their masterpieces.
"You work here? The conditions aren't great." Li Huowang pinched his nose, his brow furrowed against the dust.
"Yep. I'm in charge of hauling away the useless stone fragments. You could say I've contributed my own effort to these statues," the old monk said, clearly proud of his role.
They wandered along the path between the two rows of unfinished statues, examining the array of forms and features. Monks occasionally passed by but paid them no mind, acting as if they weren't even there.
Zhengde Temple can't possibly be making these for its own use. They're obviously for sale to pilgrims. These monks are quite skilled at generating revenue.
After what had happened before, Li Huowang was no longer surprised by such things.
"This is nothing! There's more up ahead!" the old monk said excitedly, heading for the next gatehouse.
Seeing him go on, Li Huowang started to follow, when suddenly a wave of dizziness washed over him, and his body began to sway.
"Hey! Little Taoist, what's wrong?" Seeing that something was amiss, the old monk quickly hurried back to support him.
What's happening? Once Li Huowang was steady again, he shook his head hard, and the strange sensation gradually faded.
"Are you okay? Did you catch a cold? Maybe you should go back and rest?"
Li Huowang rejected the old monk's kind offer. "I'm fine, really. Let's keep going."
"Alright. In any case, if you really have caught a cold, you should get more sun. Let's keep looking."
Li Huowang looked up at the blazing sun above. Could it be heatstroke? But the New Year just passed. I don't even feel hot.
Feeling that nothing else was out of the ordinary, Li Huowang lifted his foot to follow the old monk.
But as he lifted his foot, he realized the sounds around him had changed. The sharp clang of chisel on stone was gone, replaced by the wet sound of slapping flesh.
"Huh?" Confused, Li Huowang turned to look at the stone carving to his right—and his body froze instantly.
The stone carving was gone. In its place was a pile of white, glistening flesh—a pile of monks.
The monks who had just been carving statues were now huddled together, their eyes piously shut, their bodies squirming like pale, writhing maggots.
"What the... what is this?" Li Huowang's eyes widened as he stumbled back a step.
He slowly raised his head and squinted into the dazzling sun above, confirming he wasn't hallucinating.
He slowly turned around and looked at the statues behind him. As expected, they had all changed. Under the brilliant winter sunlight, dozens of mountains of flesh now lay in their place.
"Taoist! Hurry up!" the old monk shouted from ahead, his voice filled with the excitement of a child eager to show off a new toy.
Li Huowang took a shuddering breath and forced himself to walk on, passing beneath a great stone gateway. Another vast courtyard unfurled before them.
Here, too, mountains of flesh sprawled everywhere, but these were not composed solely of people. There were other things mixed in—pigs, for instance.
They howled in agony, trapped and sinking into the sludge-like mass formed by the devout-faced monks.
"Look, aren't these carved qilin and stone lions lifelike? I wish I had skills like that."
Li Huowang mechanically followed the old monk forward, continuing to observe the "masterpieces" of the Zhengde Temple monks. He saw dogs, horses, oxen, and donkeys.
Upon closer inspection, he discovered an even more bizarre anomaly: the monks were all hermaphrodites!
At that moment, Li Huowang's mind was a buzzing, tangled mess.
Suddenly, the old monk grabbed his arm and pulled him along a few quick steps into a vast, empty hall.
But the slapping sound didn't disappear; instead, it grew even louder, echoing in the vast hall.
Li Huowang's neck stiffened as he looked further inside. The higher his gaze tilted, the smaller his pupils became.
"Look!" The old monk pointed upward, a childlike smile on his face, his voice brimming with awe. "What a gigantic Buddha!"