Chapter Two: Great Thousand Zen Temple (2)

Hua Sheng had not understood. He was just about to ask again when the door opened.

A young novice monk entered, looking no more than six or seven years old, carrying a bowl of medicinal broth with steady hands.

The old monk said to him, “Bu Xu, help this benefactor finish the medicine. Let him rest well.”

“Yes, Master,” the little novice said with a bow.

The old monk then left, gently drawing the door shut behind him.

The novice came to the bedside with the porcelain bowl in both hands.

“Please, benefactor, drink.”

Hua Sheng groaned inwardly. He still had no idea what this Great Thousand Zen Temple was up to, but whatever the case, at least he was no longer in that original infirmary. That at least meant his gamble had paid off. Yet Taishang Xiaojun was nowhere to be seen, and that left him uneasy about his present situation.

At the thought of having to drink Chinese medicine, he could not help wrinkling his brow.

“Benefactor, it’s best taken hot,” the novice said, lifting the bowl toward him.

Hua Sheng reached out to take it, then froze.

If it was herbal medicine, the broth should have been black as ink. Yet the liquid before him was clear to the bottom, indistinguishable from plain water.

He asked, “Is this hot water?”

“No. It is a herbal decoction prepared by this humble monk.”

“What kind of medicine comes out looking like water?”

The novice replied in a child’s voice, “It comes from herbs grown in the temple’s rear courtyard. So it has no color and no form.”

Still doubtful, Hua Sheng took the bowl and brought it to his lips. At once he found the transparent broth fragrant and fresh.

He sipped a little, and to his surprise it was wonderfully sweet, nothing like any Chinese medicine he had ever known.

Without delay, Hua Sheng drank the miraculous herbal decoction in one gulp.

The novice took back the bowl and said, “Please rest well, benefactor. It will soon be time for the meal. This humble monk will prepare food for you.”

Hua Sheng felt deeply embarrassed at the thought of being waited on by a novice who looked barely old enough to be in preschool. “You’re still so young. Making something to eat is easy enough, so there’s no need to trouble you, little master.”

The novice immediately replied, “Oh no, that will not do. The abbot has already instructed us to serve you properly. Please, benefactor, just rest in peace.”

Hua Sheng asked, “The abbot you mean is the one from earlier?”

The novice shook his head. “No. That was the temple’s guest monk. The abbot of Great Thousand Zen Temple is Master Ruokong. When you fell, Master Ruokong happened to see it. He personally carried you here.”

Hua Sheng said, “Could I meet this Master Ruokong? I know I’m injured, but this kind of injury is nothing in Holy Serenity. I don’t need to recuperate here. If I can just return to the Academy of Arts and Dao, I’ll be healed in no time.”

The novice tilted his head. “Benefactor, if you ask me, even if Master Ruokong were willing to see you, you still could not leave.”

“Why not?”

“Because the temple gate is locked on ordinary days. Not only you, even we monks cannot get out.”

“Ah?” Hua Sheng exclaimed. “Locked? What do you mean? Are you all trapped here?”

“The monks of the whole temple can’t leave either? You’re all locked inside?”

The novice burst into laughter. “Not trapped here. It’s just the rule of Great Thousand Zen Temple: once every hundred days, the gate is opened for only three days.”

“I see. You’re all monks living in a monastery—no, monks—so of course you have to obey the monastery’s rules. But I’m an outsider. Even if the rule says the gate stays closed, I can simply go say hello to the abbot. No need to trouble the old man to open the gate for me. I’ll be out the door with a single urgent decree and fly far away!”

As he spoke, Hua Sheng spread his left palm and used one finger of his right hand to mime something flying away from his hand.

The novice shook his head again. “Sigh. I’ve long heard that disciples from your Academy of Arts and Dao rely on a few immortal spells and think themselves so remarkable. Do you really believe Great Thousand Zen Temple is a place you can come and go from as you please?”

Hua Sheng was a little bewildered. “Little master, what do you mean by that?”

“What I mean is that when the temple gate does not open, you cannot leave. It is not only the main gate of the Zen temple that stays shut. You cannot get out from anywhere in the temple.”

“Could there be a lid over the whole temple? So even flying won’t do?”

“Sigh, benefactor. Even the Monkey King, with one somersault covering a hundred and eight thousand miles, could not escape from the palm of the Buddha. Was there some lid over the Buddha’s palm?”

Hearing this, Hua Sheng suddenly blinked, then seemed to understand a little.

“Little master, do you mean there is an immortal barrier over this Great Thousand Zen Temple?”

The novice pressed his palms together. “This is not the Academy of Arts and Dao. There is no immortal art here. But the Buddha’s law is boundless, truly boundless!”

“That can’t be right!” Hua Sheng suddenly thought of something. “If there’s a barrier, how did I get in? I clearly fell from the sky into Great Thousand Zen Temple, little master. By what you’re saying, that should have been impossible.”

The novice answered, “Because you are fated with the Buddha.”

“What kind of explanation is that?”

The novice mischievously blinked and went on. “This humble monk says you are fated with the Buddha because when you fell yesterday, it happened to be one of the days when the temple gate was open.”

“Ah?” Hua Sheng covered his forehead. “There really is such a coincidence in this world?”

“Benefactor, all methods arise from conditions. There are no coincidences in this world, only causes and affinities.”

The little novice spoke with solemn seriousness, again pressing his palms together.

So spoken to, Hua Sheng was left momentarily speechless.

The novice put away the porcelain bowl and left the room.

Though the chamber was not large, with Hua Sheng lying there alone it felt especially empty.

The broth he had just drunk was pleasant enough, but it was still nothing like the Ninefold Return Elixir he had taken before. That elixir was like a shot of strong medicine to the heart; to say it restored him instantly to full health would not be an exaggeration.

This herbal broth, at most, had warmed his stomach. The places on his body that hurt still hurt, and when he felt dizzy, he still felt dizzy.

Hua Sheng thought to himself that Zen temples were said to be places for cultivation of body and mind, and it seemed the saying was no lie. Faced with the slow pace of monks, whether in the mortal world or in Holy Serenity, one simply had no choice but to accept it.

At the mention of Holy Serenity, he became puzzled again. What had the old guest monk meant earlier, saying this place was Holy Serenity and yet not Holy Serenity? Why was this temple so strange, opening only three days out of every hundred? And why, by the strangest of all coincidences, had he fallen in here?

Hua Sheng tried to stretch, reflexively drawing his back taut, and at once a wave of pain ran all through him from spine to limb.

“Ow! It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!”

It seemed just as the guest monk had said: his bones and muscles had indeed been injured. If he wanted peace and quiet, he would have to rest.

But the questions that had just occurred to him would not let him settle. If, as that novice Bu Xu had said, he had fallen into Great Thousand Zen Temple yesterday, did that mean he would have to wait a full hundred days before he could leave? No wonder the old monk had said that injuries to sinew and bone take a hundred days to heal. That was not merely a figure of speech; they were really going to keep him locked in this temple for a hundred days!

That would not do. He had finally returned to Holy Serenity, and what had become of the outcome of the Heaven and Earth Guard battle? He had pierced through the Veil of the Jovian Star, but after that he had been struck by a spell and, in a daze, wound up in that so-called “real world” of illusion.

What had become of those disciples from the Academy of Arts and Dao? Where had Taishang Xiaojun gone? What about Master Yuran, Master Jueguang, Master Huolei, Tianjizi, and Mieying?

And yes, there were also the two groups called Hope and Brave, well over a hundred people in all. Were they safe?

More than that, after taking away the Golden-Hooped Staff, would that great building collapse? No, his immobilizing spell should have long since worn off. What if it fell apart? He had to hurry back.

And then there was Wanyu...

How could Wanyu have been Mingyou? Everything had happened so suddenly there had been no time to think.

Hua Sheng recalled the visions he had seen when he pierced the Veil of the Jovian Star.

Were those scenes of the future all things she had truly lived through herself?

At the thought, his heart grew heavy. Why had things come to this? How much better it would have been to understand sooner. Looking back now, it was not as though there had been no signs at all. Perhaps he should have guessed long ago that Wanyu had been carrying so much.

And yet, who could have foreseen that the truth would be this?

No.

Hua Sheng made up his mind.

He still had to return to the Academy of Arts and Dao. He must not be trapped here!

He would find a way out. As for the abbot, he could come back another time to offer his thanks.

Hua Sheng forced himself to sit on the edge of the bed. When he touched his chest, the iron hoop chain was still there, and joy surged through him. Lifting the chain, he saw that within the inverted triangular pendant a ribbon of scarlet flame was rolling and turning.

Suspended in the flame was a shining golden needle.

It was the Ruyi Golden-Hooped Staff.

What kind of broken temple could possibly imprison a supreme treasure like the Golden-Hooped Staff? What a joke.

Thinking this, Hua Sheng instantly rallied all his strength. Though his whole body still hurt, it seemed to be only strain and injury to the bones and muscles, not to any vital part.

He gritted his teeth, rose to his feet, and took a few steps to the door, pulling it open.

Outside was sunlight he had not seen in a long while. Gentle light poured straight down from the sky, and the first thing it touched was the back of Hua Sheng’s hand.

Even the touch of light on a single inch of skin made his whole body feel warm.

The feeling was so familiar. Hua Sheng sighed in his heart. This was Holy Serenity! Not any other place, but Holy Serenity!

No matter what the old guest monk had just said, instinct alone told him this was the warmth of the immortal realm of Holy Serenity, irreplaceable by anything else.

Holy Serenity.

An immortal realm where immortals, spirits, and humans coexisted.

By chance and fate, he had come here through the hidden amendment known as the “Minor Protection Law” of this immortal realm. Here he had met Taishang Xiaojun, Wanyu, Mieying, Tianjizi, and Masters Yuran, Qingmiao, Jueguang, and Huolei.

Then he had cultivated immortal arts and set out on this “journey” that he could no longer control.

“I really want to go back to the Academy of Arts and Dao and lie by the shore of Drunken Heart Lake.”

Hua Sheng could not help sighing softly. The faint breeze brushing his face, the willow branches hanging over the lakeside and swaying in the wind, the disciples in Dao robes sometimes riding clouds through the sky.

The surface of Drunken Heart Lake seemed right before his eyes, glittering with ripples and light. Whether it was Drunken Heart Lake or the pond atop Black Tortoise Divine Mountain, immortal energy overflowed everywhere, making wanderers reluctant to leave.

Hua Sheng stepped out of the room.

A trace of the temple’s special incense drifted toward him. One light breath was enough to make him feel refreshed. He could not help taking a deep breath. Compared with the herbal broth from earlier, this temple incense instantly swept away his fatigue, and the pain in his body seemed to ease by more than half.

Only then did he see clearly that Great Thousand Zen Temple occupied an exceedingly vast tract of land. Its halls were arranged in neat and orderly fashion, pale yellow walls and red glazed tiles, together with the faint scent of incense lingering in the air, lending the ancient temple an even more solemn and dignified air.

At the center of the temple square stood an enormous jade incense burner, so tall that Hua Sheng had never seen its equal. Its height was such that it did not lose even when compared with the rooftops of the nearby halls.

The incense burner was dark green all over and stood nine tiers high. On its side were written four golden characters in brush script:

Incense Burner of a Thousand Ages.

So the faint fragrance of Buddha incense that drifted through the monastery had been spreading from this Incense Burner of a Thousand Ages to every corner of the Zen temple.