A heretical cultivator in Bureau 749, I'm the fiercest at pulling out tendons and skinning peop

Oh……

In the end, this is how it all ended.

His foundation was destroyed by a mediocre apprentice who never took him seriously, and he was turned into a plaything by an even more unruly and undisciplined junior.

It's really... ironic.

Yeah.

This century of scheming, this millennium of obsession, this myriad of karmic burdens... are finally about to be burned away.

This flame is so cold.

It's so cold... it reminds me of winters at Nanhua Temple a long, long time ago.

Back then, the ancient cypress trees in the temple weren't this tall, but the incense was so strong that it could warm even the winter snow.

I was still a novice monk, wearing a faded robe, following behind my fellow monks, tiptoeing to add oil to the ever-burning lamp.

Watching the wisps of smoke rise straight to the dome of the main hall, seeing the devout men and women kneeling in worship, and hearing the chanting and bells echoing through the mountains and forests...

My heart is filled with a deep sense of pride and honor.

Our Nanhua Temple is a leading Buddhist temple in Beijing and Shanghai, a place of true Dharma with a resident Buddha presiding over it!

What glory! What majesty!

Then... the catastrophe that swept across China came.

The country was in turmoil, war raged, and countless lives were lost.

The monks of Nanhua Temple, when they take off their robes, they take off their battle armor; when they abandon their wooden fish, they pick up their precept knives.

The entire temple was almost empty, with nine out of ten rooms empty.

The golden statues of Buddha in the hall have all dimmed.

But we held on! We protected these mountains and forests, and we protected these people.

At that time, I felt sorrow and pain, but even more so, I felt the relief and hope of surviving a disaster.

As long as the Buddha is still here and the lineage continues, the roots of Nanhua Temple remain.

As long as the roots are there, there will always be a day when it flourishes again.

However, misfortunes never come singly.

That day, the earth shook—they now call it an earthquake.

The master said that it was the wrath of heaven and earth caused by the damage to the earth's veins and the leakage of spiritual energy.

The entire land was wailing; rivers changed course, mountains collapsed, people were displaced, and corpses of the starving littered the fields.

That day, the only resident Buddha statue at Nanhua Temple emerged from seclusion.

He walked barefoot down the stone steps behind the mountain, and with each step, a golden lotus bloomed beneath his feet.

As I reached the mountain gate, I glanced back at the temple's plaque—

That plaque for Nanhua Temple, which has been hanging since the temple was first built and has been permeated with incense smoke for a thousand years.

Then he laughed.

"It's time to pay it back," he said.

That day, a pillar of light shot into the sky, transforming into a towering, illusory image of a Buddha amidst the clouds.

The phantom lowered its head, looking at the ravaged land, and then—dispersed.

Transformed into countless points of light, they fell like rain into the mountains and rivers.

The earth's veins have stabilized.

The Buddha passed away peacefully.

Only a dimly lit relic and a sentence that drifted away with the wind remained on the spot:

"This body and these bones shall return to heaven and earth."

From then on, there was no Buddha in the temple.

The Buddha is gone, but the reputation of Nanhua Temple seems to have grown even stronger.

But what good is this reputation?

Can it be eaten as food, or can it be used for cultivation?

The master led us to guard the dilapidated temple, and little by little, we rebuilt the halls and restored the golden statues.

The reconstructed golden statue is a clay figure, a puppet; it has no Buddhist power, no spirituality.

It's okay, we still have our senior brother.

Senior Brother, you were a true genius of our generation, a born Buddha. You could recite the Diamond Sutra at the age of three and were born with Buddha's light at the age of seven.

The master said that he was the future hope of Nanhua Temple and was destined to become a Buddha.

We all believe it.

The eldest brother has the best temperament, is gentle to everyone, and is the most diligent in cultivation.

His aura was a warm, jade-white color that felt comforting and reassuring when it shone on you.

Our Nanhua Temple will eventually reach its peak, and everything will be alright...

in case……

If it weren't for that severe drought.

That drought lasted for three years.

Even though the temple's food reserves were running low, we started drinking only one meal of thin porridge a day.

That day, the eldest disciple returned from outside, his monk's robe was covered in mud, and his hands were empty.

He remained silent for a long time before saying to his master:

"Master, let's sell those spirit grains and herbs from the spirit fields behind the temple. Trade them with other sects for ordinary grain; we can get dozens or even hundreds of times more. The area down the mountain... is about to collapse."

The master didn't speak, he just looked at him.

The second senior brother panicked: "Eldest senior brother! Those spiritual grains and herbs are the temple's last resources for cultivation! They're for you to break through your bottlenecks and for us to build a solid foundation! What will happen to us if we sell them? What will happen to Nanhua Temple?!"

Third senior brother, fourth senior brother... all joined in the persuasion.

The eldest brother simply shook his head, his gaze eerily calm.

"If you run out of cultivation resources, you can find more. But when a person dies, everything is gone."

"But they are just ordinary people!"

The second senior brother's eyes turned red.

"A hundred years from now, we'll all be just a handful of dust! Is it worth ruining your future and the future of Nanhua Temple for them?!"

"Amitabha."

The eldest brother clasped his hands together, lowered his eyes, and spoke in a soft but clear voice.

"The Buddha said that all beings are equal. They are not just ordinary people, but lives."

"Senior brother!"

I couldn't help but speak up. At that time, I still called him "senior brother" and held him in awe.

"You are a born Buddha, you have the opportunity to become a Buddha! It's not worth it for these ants who live only a day and die at night!"

The eldest brother turned his head and looked at me.

That was the first and last time I saw a faint trace of pity and disappointment, seemingly penetrating to the core, deep within his always gentle and peaceful eyes.

"Eternal Awakening".

He called my name.

"What is the purpose of attaining Buddhahood?"

I was taken aback.

"If one becomes a Buddha, yet stands idly by while countless lives are lost beneath one's feet, what difference is there between that Buddha and a cold stone by the roadside?"

After he finished speaking, he stopped looking at us, turned to his master, and bowed deeply.

"Please grant my request, Master."

The master looked at his young face, which was filled with determination, for a long, long time.

Finally, he closed his eyes, waved his hand, and seemed to age a hundred years in an instant.

"Fine... whatever."

The spirit grains were sold, the spiritual herbs were sold, and even some unused ritual implements and scriptures passed down in the temple were sold.

They exchanged it for mountains of ordinary rice, which were then hauled down the mountain in truckloads.

The eldest disciple, along with the other disciples who were still able to move, personally went to distribute porridge and save lives.

I saw that those dying disaster victims, drinking our porridge, had their eyes regain their light.

They knelt down, kowtowed to their senior brother, and called him "Living Bodhisattva".

The senior disciple simply helped them up, saying, "Amitabha, it's the right thing to do."

His face shone with a strange radiance, a radiance even more dazzling than the Buddhist light he emitted during his cultivation.

It stung my eyes.

Nanhua Temple is completely deserted.

It doesn't refer to people, it refers to the underlying foundation.

Without resources, everyone's cultivation slowed down.

Incense offerings? Yes.

The people were grateful for the kindness and would occasionally send over some vegetables they had grown themselves and some simple cakes.

But what can that meager willpower, mixed with distracting thoughts, accomplish?

They could barely keep the few ever-burning lamps in the main hall going!

Nanhua Temple, once a leading Buddhist temple in Beijing and Shanghai, has become an ordinary, even somewhat shabby, temple.

The eldest disciple continued to chant scriptures and meditate daily, his face serene.

I know that the Buddha in his heart may have been realized.

But the Buddha at Nanhua Temple is dead.

I found the roll in the most remote corner of the library, in a pile of miscellaneous items where damaged scriptures were stored.

It's not a proper Buddhist scripture; the material is strange—neither silk nor cloth, neither leather nor paper—and it's icy to the touch.

There's no cover; it starts with strange, distorted symbols that make you dizzy after looking at them for a while.

But for some inexplicable reason, I hid it.

At night, by the light of an oil lamp, he would carefully examine and ponder the details.

It was a method I had never seen before, or even imagined.

They do not cultivate compassion, do not refine their physical bodies, and do not understand cause and effect.

It's about... "stealing".

They steal people's fortune, their moral foundation, and their human potential to enrich themselves.

The methods described inside are insidious, bizarre, and chilling.

My palms were sweating and my heart was chilled as I watched, yet a strange, burning impulse coursed through my veins.

I closed the scripture, looked up, and gazed out the window.

The pale moonlight shone on the silent Zen temple.

The light was still on in the senior disciple's meditation room; he was probably meditating again, contemplating his "compassionate" Buddha.

The faint sound of the second senior brother's snoring could be heard.

My master is old and no longer cares about things.

The sound of the bell at Nanhua Temple grew fainter and fainter each day.

Like a dying beast, barely clinging to life.

In my ears, I seemed to hear the grateful voices of the disaster victims again, and before my eyes, I saw the dazzling radiance on my senior brother's face.

A surge of anger suddenly welled up inside me!

Silly!

A bunch of idiots!

For the sake of those ants-like mortals, for the sake of that vague and illusory gratitude, the roots of Nanhua Temple have been severed! The path to Buddhahood has been cut off!

Do they remember even the slightest good they did for you?

After three years of severe drought, they were able to eat and dress well again. Who would remember which temple or which foolish monk had sold his possessions to save their lives?

They will only go to the new temples where the incense is more thriving and the Buddha statues are more golden to kowtow!

Attaining Buddhahood...

I looked down at my hands, which were somewhat thin and dry due to a long-term lack of spiritual nourishment.

Nanhua Temple is beyond your capabilities...

I slowly clenched my fist, my nails digging into my palm until they bled, but I didn't feel any pain.

That cold, insane, yet incredibly clear thought deep within me, like a poisonous vine, grew wildly and coiled tightly around my heart:

I come.

Master, senior brother, junior brother...

What you can't do, I will.

I will sever the "compassion" that you are reluctant to give up.

The "future" you've lost...

I slowly grinned, revealing a distorted smile that even I found unfamiliar, to the pale moon outside the window.

I'll come and take it back.

In my way.

The moonlight shone on my face, half bright and half dark.

The cold, evil spell lay quietly on the table, the twisted symbols on the cover seeming to come alive and wriggle gently in the moonlight.