His own life was now precious, with Huaxia backing him up from behind, and a Great Zen Master in front. Who would dare make a move against him? If anyone did, they’d have to hold back a little, right? You don’t slap someone in the face. With this thought, Ye Tian gently caressed his own cheek, stopped talking, and obediently stood aside, watching the little monk bow with his hands pressed together to the people around before retreating from the yard. Thus, only Ye Tian, Bodhi, and the others remained in the yard.
One against five, just not enough for the other side to divide among themselves.
Ye Tian was anxious, forcing out a smile to be friendly to the other party. It seemed, however, that they ignored Ye Tian’s smile completely, sitting with their eyes closed in meditation, legs crossed. There was even someone with disheveled hair lying against the wall, asleep, dressed in a Taoist robe, with a compass for feng shui in front of him. Ye Tian pondered secretly – are even Taoists joining in the commotion?
"Junior has finally arrived, truly worthy of being the Great Zen Master’s closed-door disciple—with exceptional talent, the only one in my life I’ve seen," said Bodhi, who sat motionless on his cushion. He caught Ye Tian surveying the surroundings and spoke abruptly, causing an unprepared Ye Tian to shudder – after all, he used to be a soldier, and suddenly turned into a cultivator; he still couldn’t adapt to the role change, especially when facing a group of old folks with freakish strength.
If there was just an opportunity for him to throw punches at the wealthy and drive Mercedes, at least there would be some space for growth. But this guy, he goes straight for the kill – who can withstand that!
Already on edge, Ye Tian jumped when Bodhi called out so suddenly. Calming his nerves and patting his chest, he said, "So it’s the Bodhi Master. It’s been a long time, I’ve really missed you!"
"Yearning without acting, a mere meeting made you remember me, how unusual," Bodhi commented.
"Very kind of you to say."
Bodhi asked with a smile, "In the past, the Great Zen Master would attend the transmigration gathering. I wonder why he didn’t come this time, is there any inconvenience?"
Ye Tian had never considered this question. He pointed to the top of his head and said, "The secrets of Heaven cannot be revealed."
Bodhi shook his head, smiled, and said, "Then I must wait and see what the Great Zen Master’s secret of Heaven is after all."
Ye Tian turned his head and stopped looking at him.
A breeze swept through, and outside the courtyard was flat terrain covered in green grass. As the wind blew, the grass bowed down, bending with the wind direction. From a distance, it looked like the waves at sea, layered from shallow to deep, extremely beautiful – had it been water, it would have shimmered with blooms.
Half of Ye Tian’s head peeked over the top of the wall, his eyes filled with a melancholy gaze as they rested on the green "waves."
Bodhi, the most talented among the Brahmins in a hundred years, a talent not just as simple as people spoke of.
Legend had it that, a thousand years prior, in Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, throughout the whole of Southeast Asia, a plague spread. It was said that over eight million miles of land, there lay a stretch of eighty thousand miles of corpses; dead bodies were everywhere, yet no sign of life could be found. Even more terrifying was that this plague was man-made. Dark cultists occupied all the palaces and temples. Monks who weren’t killed were mercilessly enslaved to eat the most barbaric of foods – human flesh – daily, skillfully cooked by chefs into delicious dishes with complete flavors, indistinguishable from regular food; they were even clearly labeled as human flesh.
It’s not terrifying to kill a person, but to destroy one is.
Whether Brahman or Buddhism, or the Orthodox Church and the newly-arrived Christianity, all suffered devastating blows during this period. No one wanted to eke out an existence under such conditions, nor lose their dignity before their faith. Countless Buddhists died, preferring hunger or suicide to being burnt alive rather than yielding in this collision of faiths. Buddhists suffered an annihilating defeat, and nearly all perished.
Whenever God ends a period of darkness, He sends one or two formidable individuals, then says, "Let so-and-so go, to save this world from darkness."
Undoubtedly, the Three-eyed Bodhisattva, the one who rode the White Bull, was such an individual from the Brahmins. When Shangtan Jiaye appeared, Buddhism in the entire Southeast Asia region saw light again. This light was not only from the sun but also from a person who brought it through their own strength.
Shangtan Jiaye single-handedly eliminated the dark followers from all over Southeast Asia and then, knowing the depths of his sins, deliberately plunged into the eighteenth level of Hell under close attention, forever enduring that deepest pain and sin. All that later generations could do was to build temples and shrines to offer incense for his atonement.
The Great Zen Master told him this history. When Ye Tian asked why he shared it, the Great Zen Master just shook his head and said, "A thousand years ago, there was such a person, and a thousand years later, there will be another."
Needless to say, this person was the Bodhi seated before him.
Ye Tian turned to look at Bodhi, who was meditating on the cushion, but no matter how he looked, he couldn’t see what made this man so particularly special, how he became a genius that comes once every five hundred years?
That year, the Great Zen Master only took one disciple, the very Bodhi before him. For those pursuing spiritual practice, they need the five elements – Heaven, Dharma, Earth, Companions, Wealth – and Bodhi had them all. Given time, the Great Zen Master asserted that he would surpass himself, becoming the most gifted of all time. However, everything changed after the Bodhi seeds were given to him.
The Taoist whisk and Buddhist relics are powerful magic artifacts, but in the hands of the Great Zen Master, more important than these were the seven remaining Bodhi Tree seeds in the world. There were two small Bodhi seeds and five large Bodhi Tree seeds, all of which were handed over to him. When he mentioned this to Ye Tian inadvertently, his words were full of regret and sighs. Although silent, his expressions revealed an indecisive and melancholic conflict, as if caught in an interminable quandary.
With the Bodhi Tree seeds, Bodhi was metaphorically adding wings to a tiger and gilding the lily. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say he was divinely assisted. Soon, with his rapidly advancing cultivation, he left most people far behind. At this moment, he also started to find discrepancies with Buddha’s Great Path.
If humans were not created by Buddha, then why should they believe in Buddha? If Buddha can teach humans, why can’t humans teach Buddha? In theory, humans should be the masters of Buddha. So why should they create statues and offer incense to the Gods and Buddhas who can’t help them?