Chapter 247 — The Twenty Heavens
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
But then many of the Buddha images gave off a faint divine radiance in the dark, keeping the darkness outside. Shen Mu drew close to one and studied it, and his face darkened.
The monks of this temple had actually coated the Wasteland stone statues with a layer of clay, fired them into the shape of Buddha images, and gilded them with gold foil, dressing them up as great golden-bodied Buddhas. When night came, the stone statues sheltered the place, and it looked as though the Buddha images were displaying the Buddha's majesty to protect all living beings.
Shen Mu looked with his heavenly eye, and what he saw was god after god of the Wasteland pouring out ten-thousand-zhang divine light — not the Buddha-light of Buddha images.
There were also monstrous beasts of exceptional ferocity in the temple, which stayed there even by day and never left.
The monks seemed long accustomed to them; the beasts were not even tethered, but left to wander the temple grounds at will. Amazingly, these man-eating beasts were gentle within the temple, putting on the air of vegetarians chanting the Buddha's name, their savage nature quite transformed.
Some of the Wasteland folk lodging there said this was the power of the Dharma. Yet Shen Mu saw the monks secretly feeding the beasts great chunks of flesh and blood, and from that meat rose the smell of a numbing drug. Shen Mu was taken aback and frowned.
"Shen'er, don't meddle too much. " The blind elder said in a low voice, "Great Tingming Temple is very near.
Smashing this temple would only bring word to them and make them trip us up; it does not mean they would save Granny Zhu. " "Hypocrisy!
" Granny Zhu sneered. "This is the hypocrisy of the Buddhist order.
They have no great divine power at all, yet they take others' power for their own and boast that it is the strength of the Dharma. Blind elder, Lord Huo, you are hypocrites too — you have a favor to ask of the old Tathagata, so you dare not expose these bald donkeys' tricks!
" "Whether they have great divine power or not," said Shen Mu, "once we reach Great Tingming Temple and see the old Tathagata, won't Cult Master Li find out?
" Granny Zhu cackled, "Cult Master Shen, are you fit to be the holy cult master of my Sacred Cult?
You are the cult master of my Heavenly Sacred Cult, yet you go begging a favor of the old Tathagata of a rival sect — a disgrace to the renown of my Heavenly Sacred Cult! You have ruined the majesty of my Heavenly Sacred Cult utterly!
When I have fully recovered, I will return to the Sacred Cult and set it to rights, and show you what a holy cult master ought to do!
" Shen Mu betrayed nothing and said, "And what ought a holy cult master do? " "Tear off these old bald donkeys' mask of hypocrisy, smash these Buddha images to bits, and reveal the god statues inside! " Granny Zhu said leisurely, "Then undo the numbing drug in these beasts and let them eat men, let their true nature show, wash these bald heads in blood, devour every thieving monk in the temple to the last!
Let these foolish folk see that this so-called Buddhist Dharma is shit, that it is all useless, nothing but an empty show!
Heh heh, the so-called righteous path is nothing but dogshit — so let the dogshit show its true dogshit face, and stop gilding the outside of a clay idol! This is the doctrine of my Heavenly Sacred Cult, the true and correct understanding of following nature pure and simple! " Shen Mu thought there was much sense in what he said — only the method was somewhat extreme. He had wanted to undo the numbing drug in the beasts himself, but reflecting that once awake they would eat people, he had no choice but to let it be.
At last Great Tingming Temple came into view.
From afar they saw a towering mountain rearing up at the center of the Shenduan Mountains, while the other ranges had been sliced apart by boundless power into sheer cliffs and precipices that no bird could cross, snow-capped and white.