32: Chapter 29 Big Belly Monk 32: Chapter 29 Big Belly Monk Zhou Xuan was in a state of frenzied madness, his thoughts split into two streams.
One was desire, the other was instinct.
Human desires are naturally nurous: lust, craving for alcohol, gluttony, pleasure-seeking…
His gluttony had been provoked by the bizarre image of the Buddha; a sense of hunger filled him, making him want to find fulfilling food inside the Buddha’s belly.
Even if his bones shattered.
Even if the food in the Buddha’s belly was rely a fignt of his imagination, like a mirage or empty bubbles.
Instinct, however, was his desire to survive, allowing him to clearly recognize the dangers he faced at critical monts.
This thought allowed him brief monts of clarity, but with the chanting and bewitching sounds circling his ears, the thought grew increasingly weaker.
Instinct and desire twisted together like two snakes, each trying to devour the other.
Desire took absolute initiative, while the life of instinct was nearly exhausted.
“Are you really a Buddha?
Or a demon…”
Zhou Xuan’s mind was still crazily struggling.
The struggle was already very weak; once instinct died completely, the struggle would disappear imdiately, and he would beco a faithful follower of the Buddha statue, or rather—
—a Puppet.
At the eleventh hour,
Zhou Xuan suddenly recalled his experience as a ghost.
After his death in his previous life, on his way to Soul Shepherd City, he had experienced possession twice; the first ti, due to his unskilled possession, he was nearly scattered by the sunlight.
The second ti, he attempted to possess a sleeping woman but was entangled by countless whispers in her dreams.
He later couldn’t rember how he had escaped from that dream.
He still couldn’t rember now.
“Is there a possibility…
that I did nothing at all, and that’s how I escaped?”
Zhou Xuan ca up with this bold idea.
Doing nothing led to him rembering nothing.
At this mont, the ans used by the Buddha statue, like the whispering in the dreams, were wonderfully similar.
The thod of escape should be applicable.
“Let’s treat a live horse as a dead horse to cure it!”
Zhou Xuan had no other choice; he was rely a step away from succumbing to desire.
“Do nothing, think nothing.”
Zhou Xuan tried to calm himself and gave himself that command.
Yet this ordinary command, like a magically effective witchcraft,
First guided all his strength out of his body, then his body felt light as cotton, and his spirit seed to enter another realm.
He felt as though he was lying in a vast, boundless grassland under a sky full of stars.
Zhou Xuan had a feeling: those stars sprawled across the night sky seed to be watching him.
Apart from the stars, many fireflies were hovering in front of Zhou Xuan, flying slowly, their light at the tails flickering.
Zhou Xuan was quite interested in fireflies, almost instinctively extending his finger to poke at the closest one.
Snap.
The firefly had no physical body; touched by his finger, it dispersed into specks of light, rippling in the air.
In the ripples, it reflected Zhou Xuan’s distorted expression when he was disturbed by the chanting.
“Oh, these fireflies, they must be the mory images from when the Buddha statue bewitched .”
Indeed,
But not entirely,
Zhou Xuan burst all the fireflies one by one, revealing many mory images that had nothing to do with him from the ripples.
The owners of these mory images were the Buddha statue and the people of Corridor River village.
The images were static, initially chaotic, but as more appeared, Zhou Xuan captured the logic between the images.
Among them, five images, after being reorganized by Zhou Xuan, narrated the past events between the Buddha statue and the villagers more clearly.
First Panel,
[Corridor River suffers from drought, the riverbed is dried up.
Villagers, starved and emaciated, gather on the Corridor Bridge, praying for rain with umbrellas made of yellow paper.
In the nearby woods, a pair of bright red eyes watches them.]
Second Panel,
[Corridor River remains dry.
A Big Belly Monk sits on the Pavilion Bridge, holding food in his hands, bestowing it to the villagers who kneel and worship him.
This Big Belly Monk has a pair of bright red eyes.]
Third Panel,
[In the underground Earth Temple, there is a giant stone sculpture of the Maitreya Buddha with its belly wide open and empty inside.
Hundreds of robust villagers, so holding fresh human heads, others carrying steaming buckets of blood, move towards the belly of the stone sculpture.
They are performing a Blood Sacrifice, using human heads and the stone sculpture to give thanks to the Big Belly Monk for all he has done for the villagers of Corridor River.
Behind the stone sculpture, however, the Big Belly Monk wears a nacing look, his mouth full of tusks dripping with thick saliva, a hunger-filled gaze fixed on a small girl with a terrified expression.]
Fourth Panel
[In the dead of night on the Corridor Bridge, the Big Belly Monk lies with his belly cut open, containing not organs but various tasty foods: roasted chicken, roasted goose, pig’s head, stead fish, and so partially transford limbs.
The monk grins, seemingly mocking the villagers of Corridor River who worship him – believing in so-called blessings?
Hah, it’s all just a fair exchange!]
Fifth Panel
[In the early morning, the Big Belly Monk is once more bestowing food to the villagers worshipping him on the bridge, with a noticeably increased number of followers, densely packed inside the bridge.
The Big Belly Monk’s greedy gaze locks onto a bright-eyed little boy at the bridge head, his mouth involuntarily dribbling clear saliva.]
“The Maitreya Buddha of Corridor River is indeed fake; it rely masquerades as Maitreya Buddha, concealing its malevolent nature!”
“A demon that deludes people’s hearts.”
Zhou Xuan then looks towards the distance, where there are mountains, and atop them, a towering stone statue.
The statue is shrouded in dense fog, barely visible but for its tall pointed ears and eyes that pierce through the fog, glinting with an azure glow…
The cold wind in the Earth Temple howls, quickly drying up the urine on the Stone Talisman behind the Maitreya Buddha.
Zhou Xuan wakes up.
“Brother Zhou, are you awake?
You scared to death, I thought sothing happened to you.”
Liu Tianen crouches behind Zhou Xuan, gently patting his back, helping him recover.
Zhou Xuan stands up abruptly, pointing at the Buddha statue, shouting to Qiao Yu and the laborers: “Smash it, break it!
The truth lies inside its belly.”
Liu Tianen hears this and gets nervous, saying: “Brother Zhou, is this really okay?
Such a big Buddha, smashing it would bring so much karma.”
Even more nervous than Liu Tianen are the laborers; hearing that they should smash the Buddha, their legs go weak.
“Qiao Yu, you smash it!”
Zhou Xuan shouts to Qiao Yu.
“I…I…I don’t dare either,” Qiao Yu’s complexion turns to ashen, scared to act.
Ghosts, monsters, gods, Buddhas—as soon as a temple is built and a golden statued body is made, it takes away many people’s courage, daring not to offend.
The larger the statue, the greater the oppression it brings, and the less likely people are to act rashly.
“Fine, none of you dare to smash it, I will do it!”
Zhou Xuan, filled with outrage, is not only angry about the Buddha statue nearly killing him but also has a natural loathing for those who deceive the hearts of the people.
He finds three theater apprentices to hold a thick hemp rope, and slid down the rope into the Earth Temple.
Without stopping, Zhou Xuan picks up a hoe from the mud, dashes to the front of the Buddha statue, and raises the hoe high above his head!
“Buddha?”
Bang!
A shovel strikes the belly of the Buddha statue, creating several cracks, and dark brown liquid seeps out from the cracks.
A foul, bloody scent subtly invades the nostrils of the surrounding laborers.
“Ah, Boss Zhou, stop smashing, the Buddha has shown a sign.”
“The Buddha statue is bleeding, Boss Zhou, please show rcy.”
“If we continue smashing, who knows how much sin we will commit?”
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