Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 532 Ascetic Monk

“That’s a good idea.” Sun Hang nodded. “In the big cities in the mainland, there are many rich second-generation kids who like to seek thrills. You could target them as customers. These people have a lot of money, are not afraid of death, and have already tried all sorts of fun things in the real world. Their excitement threshold has been raised very high. You could take a carload of these guys to the Gobi Desert and let them enjoy the feeling of being chased by a deadly sandstorm while their adrenaline is soaring. That should be very profitable.”

Yang Qiaoxi glanced at Sun Hang in surprise. She hadn't expected that Sun Hang would seriously propose a detailed plan when she had just made a casual joke. Moreover, judging from his tone, he seemed to have really thought about such things.

“I’ve already given you the idea, consider it my investment in your creativity.” Sun Hang reached out and patted Yang Qiaoxi on the shoulder. “Boss Yang, if you become rich and powerful, don’t forget me!”

"Ha... Actually, someone did this several years ago." Yang Qiaoxi said with a wry smile, "A three-day, two-night tour of the Hexi Corridor's no-man's-land, the route was from Longcheng to Yumen and then to several ruined towns within 20 kilometers of Yumen that had been completely swept clean by hunters, including food, lodging and personal safety, for 130,000 yuan per person, guess what happened in the end?"

"What's wrong?"

“That ‘travel agency’ was shut down by a big boss from the mainland in less than three months,” Yang Qiaoxi said, pursing her lips. “Business was good at first, and they made a lot of money, but those people were blinded by the lure of cash. Later on, as long as someone was willing to pay, they would take people to the Hexi Corridor without even checking their basic personal information. Unfortunately, they ran into that big boss’s only son who joined the tour group…”

"Oh wow." Hearing Yang Qiaoxi say that, Sun Hang could roughly guess how the story would unfold.

“That big boss has hundreds of billions of dollars in assets waiting for this kid to come back and inherit, but this kid just happens to love courting death—free climbing, wingsuit flying, mountain rappelling, he’s tried almost every extreme sport available in the mainland. Just when he started looking for new fun, he happened to see this travel agency’s advertisement online. He paid for the tour almost immediately and secretly ran away to Longcheng without telling his own father,” Yang Qiaoxi said.

"And then the accident happened, right?"

“Yes… They encountered a deadly sandstorm on their way to Yumen. They probably couldn’t find the stone forest to hide in time. The entire tour group, including two guides, six mercenaries, and eleven tourists, went missing. The rescue team searched for more than four months but couldn’t find any trace of them. In fact, based on our experience, if someone has been missing in an uninhabited area for more than a month, they can basically be considered dead.” Yang Qiaoxi sighed.

Just as she was about to continue speaking, a figure suddenly appeared directly in front of her, blocking the only way for the vehicles.

"Holy shit!" Yang Qiaoxi cursed, slamming on the brakes and bringing the car to a stop less than five meters from the person.

"Is it human?" Yang Qiaoxi's first reaction was to put her hand on the holster at her waist.

“He’s neither a monster nor an infected person… I can’t sense any monster meme aura on him.” Sun Hang shook his head and looked at Xue Yue.

Xue Yue tilted her head, stared at the person for two seconds, and then said, "It's not a ghost... but it's very strange."

"What's strange about it?" Zhulong asked immediately.

"He seems to have... no negative emotions at all."

Blocking the middle of the road was a human male who was about 1.75 meters tall. His face was covered in dust, and his stubble beard and wrinkled dark skin made it difficult to judge his actual age.

He wore a tattered cloak made of a rough, yellowish-brown canvas, its edges worn and patched in layers, with fine dust and sand embedded in the gaps between the fabric fibers.

He wore a tattered bamboo hat on his head, just like his cloak, and as he moved, sand kept falling off the hat.

His left hand was held upright in front of his chest, forming a gesture commonly seen in Buddhism called the "single-palm salute," while his right hand was resting on a cracked wooden stick, at the top of which was a copper ring covered in green rust.

"If he's human, why would he be here?" Yang Qiaoxi squinted at the other person, looking suspicious. "Judging from his appearance, he doesn't seem like a mercenary..."

"What does he look like to you?" Sun Hang asked.

“He looks a bit like a monk,” Zhulong said. “Back in the early Tang Dynasty, monks from the Central Plains would travel through the Hexi Corridor and the Western Regions to India to seek Buddhist scriptures. The most famous of these monks was Xuanzang, the prototype of the character in Journey to the West. His attire does resemble those devout monks who trekked through the deserts of the Hexi Corridor back then.”

“The Tang Dynasty was over a thousand years ago… You can’t exactly tell me this guy is a time traveler, can you?” Sun Hang rolled his eyes.

“I’m just describing a feeling he gave me,” Zhulong said in a deep voice. “To be honest, he does have an extremely heavy historical aura about him, as if he has traveled through thousands of years and walked step by step to stand before us.”

"I think he's more like an antique dug out of the Gobi Desert, exuding an ancient and decaying aura," Sun Hang muttered. "Speaking of which, does our Chinese civilization have any records of making mummies?"

“He is clearly a living person; the life monitoring equipment can detect his heartbeat and pulse.” Zhulong shook his head.

The "monk" slowly walked to the front of the car, rested the wooden stick in the crook of his elbow, and then clasped his hands together in a gesture of respect to Sun Hang and the others.

Then, he said in perfect modern Chinese, "Esteemed benefactors, I have been waiting for you here for quite some time."

"Who are you?" Sun Hang rolled down the car window and leaned out to ask.

"I am merely an ascetic wandering between deserts and ruins, and as for my name... I have long forgotten it," the man who called himself an ascetic replied.

Since the other party was not infected, Sun Hang used his mind-reading ability without any scruples. However, when he tried to read the ascetic's thoughts, he found that the other party's mind was blank. All Sun Hang could feel was infinite tranquility... In the distance, he seemed to be able to hear distant Zen music and the sound of chanting scriptures.

The ascetic monk looked up at Sun Hang, his eyes devoid of joy or sorrow. Sun Hang, however, scratched his head awkwardly—for some reason, he felt as if the other man had seen through his mind-reading ability.

Without any weird memes in his body, he cannot be mind-read, yet he can move freely in this dangerous no-man's-land... If he's not an infected person, could he be a superhuman?
"Where do you come from? Where are you going?" Sun Hang directly posed the remaining two of the three ultimate philosophical questions.

“I came from there, and I’m going here.” The ascetic pointed behind him, where the outline of a town ruin could be vaguely seen on the distant horizon.

“Nanhua Town?” Sun Hang asked him to confirm.

The ascetic nodded.

"When did a monk start living in Nanhua Town?" Yang Qiaoxi muttered to herself. "I've never heard anyone mention it before..."

"You said you've been waiting for us here for a long time, what are you waiting for us for?" Sun Hang asked again.

“I know why you have come here, and I have come specifically to guide you,” the ascetic replied. “But at the same time, I would also like to advise you to give up the search for that thing.”

Sun Hang: "What do you know?"

The ascetic monk clasped his hands together and remained silent.

“I’m a little puzzled. If you’re going to advise us to give up looking for that thing, then why are you guiding us?” Sun Hang asked again. “Guiding you is my mission, and I won’t stop you from seeking that thing,” the ascetic sighed. “However… the sea of ​​suffering is boundless, but turning back is the shore.”

"Can you stop with the riddles?" Sun Hang was speechless. He hated dealing with riddle-solving people the most.

"Greed, anger, and ignorance are the root of all suffering in the world. Only by eradicating these three poisons can one purify one's heart and attain peace and joy," the ascetic monk said.

Is it greed, anger, and ignorance again?
Sun Hang immediately thought of the phone call he had with Pei Zongjun after Chen Hongjuan turned into a monster.

According to Pei Zongjun, greed, anger, and ignorance are the three most common negative emotions among humans. A series of events that followed have repeatedly verified that when negative human emotions become strong enough, they can generate a kind of "materialized" "energy" that creates strange memes out of thin air and transforms humans into strange beings.

In other words, even without contact with any memes, humans are still susceptible to "infection"—because the negative emotions hidden in human thought processes can themselves be considered a kind of "immature" meme.

Following this line of thought... could it be that the earliest strange creatures in the world originated from negative human emotions?
Are the monsters born from humans?
But that doesn't seem right either... In many prehistoric legends, there are already records of strange creatures. According to the descriptions in the stories, those strange creatures have existed for countless ages. They came into this world before humans even appeared... So the theory of human origins is completely untenable.

While Sun Hang was still pondering the information Pei Zongjun had left him, Zhulong continued the conversation, asking, "You mean, if we find that thing, we'll be plagued by negative emotions like greed, anger, and ignorance, causing us to kill each other... or even transform into strange creatures?"

The ascetic nodded.

"If that's the case, why don't you just destroy that thing, or simply hide it away so no one knows where it is?"

The ascetic remained silent.

Sun Hang seemed to remember something and patted Yang Qiaoxi on the shoulder: "Hand me the radio."

The communication signal was very poor, and Sun Hang tried several times before he was able to contact the main convoy, which was taking a detour to Nanhua Town.

"Nagano Soya, can you hear me?"

"Yes... hiss... the convoy can't get through Giant's Hill... hiss... we are..."

“I know you’re taking a detour. We’ve arrived in Nanhua Town, but we’ve run into a problem. I have something to ask you.”

"Hiss...you said..."

Was there a monk in your father's team back then?

“It seems…there isn’t one…hiss…To obtain all…hiss…treasure map…fragments…hiss…I searched for every…survivor from back then…hiss…inside…hiss…there was no…monk…”

"Besides the survivors?" Sun Hang changed the subject. "I mean, among all the people, including those who didn't return, was there a single monk?"

“I can’t… hiss… be sure,” Nagano Soya replied. “I need to ask… hiss… those survivors from back then… hiss… but I can’t contact Yumen and Longcheng right now… I need to… wait…”

"Okay, let me know as soon as you have any news."

After Sun Hang finished speaking, he hung up the phone and jumped out of the car.

"Zhulong, Xue Yue, you two come with me," Sun Hang said. "Boss Yang, you stay in the car."

"Why should I stay?" Yang Qiaoxi asked, somewhat indignantly.

"No reason why." Sun Hang patted the car, and all four doors locked instantly. "The locks will automatically unlock in two hours. I suggest you don't do anything stupid."

"What do you mean?!" Yang Qiaoxi roared, pounding on the car window. "You bastard, are you kicking me while I'm down?"

“Sun Hang just doesn’t want you to put yourself in danger,” Zhulong said calmly. “My intuition tells me that the journey ahead will be very dangerous.”

"Danger? If it's dangerous, why are you taking this little girl with you?" Yang Qiaoxi looked at Xue Yue.

“She’s a hunter, she’s infected, and you’re just an ordinary person,” Sun Hang said. “Perhaps staying in Yumen is the best choice for you.”

"Fuck your mother!" Yang Qiaoxi shouted.

……

The ascetic monk didn't say much. He glanced at Sun Hang and the other two, then silently turned around and led them toward Nanhua Town.

"How many years have you lived here?" Sun Hang asked tentatively, following behind the ascetic monk.

“Many years… I’ve forgotten exactly how many years,” the ascetic said in an extremely calm tone. “Occasionally, I would cross an entire desert to go to other places, but no matter where I went, I would eventually return to this place.”

"What are you going to do in other places?" Sun Hang asked. "Explore? Forage for food?"

“I’ve forgotten.” The ascetic leaned on his wooden stick, the bottom of which made a dull thud as it struck the hard, dry ground. “I’ve forgotten a lot of things.”

"Are you unable to leave this place, like... like a bound spirit?" Sun Hang narrowed his eyes.

The "thump-thump" sound stopped, the ascetic paused for a moment, and then continued walking forward.

“Maybe,” he said.

"Is it because of that thing?"

(End of this chapter)