Fang Henshui swallowed the chewed meat in his mouth, his expression seemingly pained. He looked at Mo Wanwu, who was still waving his only movable arm, and a hint of pity appeared in his eyes. He sat on the ground, leaning against a large tree, a stark contrast to his previous demonic appearance.
"You didn't beat me, but I still intend to talk to you for a while…"
Fang Henshui glanced down at Mo Wanwu, reached out and grabbed Mo Wanwu's severed leg, pulling him to his side. Then he flipped him over, face up. Mo Wanwu's eyes were lifeless, devoid of any vitality. His expression was one of intense pain, contorted and terrifying.
Being flipped over, the shattered back hitting the ground made the pain even more unbearable.
"You probably can't hear me at all right now, but that's alright… I have no one I can confide in right now. You're not my friend, not even my enemy, just a mediocre opponent. But most importantly, you're about to die, so I have no reservations about what I say to you. It's painful to keep things bottled up inside; I don't know if you've ever felt that way."
He paused, his eyes unfocused. "Prince Yi asked me why I suddenly went from a lowly nobody to a powerful cultivator. I told him that the old monk Zhihui, before his death, passed on all his cultivation to me so I could avenge him. It wasn't a great excuse, but Prince Yi probably believed it… because Prince Yi didn't understand Zhihui, his…" "How could someone like that possibly pass on their cultivation to someone else?"
"Actually, we didn't escape Half-Moon Mountain; we hid at the foot of the northern side. Zhihui taught me many methods to conceal ourselves; even the mastiffs of the Imperial Guards couldn't smell us. Zhihui is truly a very capable person, although in the end he just seemed like a useless, skinny old man."
"He taught me to treat external injuries with herbs, to mask scents with pollen, and to practice the tortoise breathing technique, which allows me to sit motionless for two or three days without feeling hungry or thirsty. It's truly amazing… but it doesn't actually prevent hunger and thirst; once the cultivation dissipates, the feeling intensifies."
As he spoke, a glimmer of life seemed to return to Mo Wanwu's previously empty eyes. He slowly turned his head to look at Fang Henshui, his expression gradually calming down.
Fang Henshui pointed to a withered blade of grass not far away and said, "The sap of that grass smells terrible; applying it to the body can mask one's odor. This was taught to me by Zhihui; I really don't know how he could be so learned… In the last few days, to avoid the Imperial Guards' search, the two of us hid in a secluded tree hollow, afraid to go out. When the Imperial Guards gave up the search and withdrew, we sat there motionless for about four days."
"Dispersing the Turtle Breathing Technique, the sudden pain in my stomach made me collapse. It was a stomach spasm…" "You can't understand this kind of pain... Even Zhihui didn't expect the Imperial Guards to linger outside for so long. After my powers dissipated, I didn't even have the strength to crawl out to find food, and he was in even worse shape... He was seriously injured, but he kept lying that he only had minor injuries. How could I not see through him? If it were truly a minor injury, why would he hide instead of fleeing as quickly as possible?"
"After the Imperial Guards left, he sent me out to find food. But you know... there's not much to eat on Half Moon Mountain except for a few wild fruits. When..." However, if weeds were considered food, we could eat them for a while. But at that time, I was truly exhausted, and my stomach was aching unbearably. Zhihui said, "Hurry up and go find something to eat." I said, "I'll go in a bit; I can't move right now."
"He called me useless; he always called me that. He said that young monk named Chenya was a hundred times, a thousand times smarter than me, a hundred times, a thousand times more capable than me. I said, 'Chenya is dead; you killed him. He was your disciple; you're so heartless…' As I finished saying that, I suddenly realized that I was also his disciple back then."
"Speaking of Chenya, Zhihui seemed somewhat guilty, but only a little bit; I only saw a tiny bit in his eyes. He said Chenya had to die because he had finally understood a secret."
Fang Henshui looked at Mo Wanwu and asked, "Do all of you martial artists have many secrets? You seem to be a glamorous and prestigious professor at the Martial Arts Academy; do you also have a less-than-honorable past?"
Mo Wanwu certainly couldn't answer, but his eyes flickered. Fang Henshui smiled and continued, "Now I'm a wanderer of the martial world, and I have many secrets… I begged Zhihui to let me rest for a while before going to find food, and he seemed unwilling to push me too hard, so he agreed. I asked him, 'Why must Chenya die?'"
"He was silent for a long time, then said he had made a grave mistake. He said that at first he thought it was just a simple killing, because that's how Buddhism has always done things. It's been the rule since the beginning of Buddhism, so he didn't suspect anything. So he sent Chenya to kill, and he killed for many years but failed to kill the person who deserved to die. Then, when Zhihui saw that person with his own eyes, he realized he was wrong… He said Chenya must have seen long ago that the person who deserved to die didn't actually deserve to die, but didn't tell him, so Chenya must have betrayed him." He, and then he deliberately abandoned Chenya and escaped when the Sui masters surrounded him."
Fang Henshui was silent for a while before saying, "I don't understand this passage, and he didn't explain it. I thought about it for a long time, but I still didn't understand. So I asked him why someone who should have died later didn't have to die? He said, 'For example, if you want to make a rag doll, at first you make many imperfect ones, and they look awkward, so of course you have to destroy them. But in the process of destroying them, you discover that one of them is actually perfectly made, so naturally you can't bear to part with it.'
"That analogy isn't good, because I still don't understand."
Fang Henshui smiled: "I am indeed very stupid, definitely not as good as Chenya."
…
…
Fang Henshui looked up at the sky. The branches of the big trees hadn't sprouted new green leaves yet, and there weren't many withered leaves hanging on them, so he could see the azure sky.
"I asked Zhihui, 'Why do you think Chenya betrayed him?' Zhihui said he always thought Chenya was his most loyal disciple, so Chenya knew many things about him. But how could the most loyal disciple hide such important information from him? Therefore, he concluded that another high-ranking figure in the Buddhist sect, called Dazizai, had plotted against him, using Chenya's murder to try and bring him down… It turns out the Buddhist sect is just like our Sui Dynasty court; there's a lot of intrigue and power struggles."
"I asked him, 'Are you going back to the Buddhist sect?'
"He thought about it for a long time and said he definitely couldn't go back. That Dazizai sent him to the Central Plains, actually to use someone else to do his dirty work. That 'tool' is naturally us…" "He's a master of the Sui Dynasty. He was exposed because he was trying to save Chenya, and he suspects Chenya did it on purpose, deliberately letting him be discovered by the Sui masters. Chenya must have already been bribed by that guy called Da Zizai, so he said Chenya deserves to die."
"We talked a lot. Actually, you should know that when people get old, they become talkative. Many old people, once they start talking, can't stop. They'll say a lot of boring and meaningless things. Later, he couldn't talk anymore because he was very hungry, and I was very hungry too."
"He said, 'Have you rested enough?'
'I said no, although my stomach doesn't hurt anymore, my hands and feet are weak.'
'He said...'" "Come here, I'll pass on some cultivation to you so you'll have the strength to go out and find food."
Fang Henshui paused, then smiled bitterly: "At the time, I truly believed him, because he really seemed like a kind old man, telling me many stories of the past. He even mentioned Luo Yao, the Left Vanguard General of our Great Sui, who was injured by the Buddhist sect back then. He also mentioned that the Buddhist sect originally planned to eliminate the Great Sui Emperor during his meeting with the Mongol Khan. But because Dean Zhou of the Martial Arts Academy was also in the Sui army that time, the Buddhist sect didn't make a move. When I heard this, I was very proud, because Dean Zhou's presence actually made the Buddhist sect dare not act rashly." "He also said that ten years ago, a great cultivator from the Sui Dynasty traveled west, killing people along the way. So many Buddhist masters couldn't stop him, and in the end, it was the Great Wheel King who suppressed that Sui man. But now he suspects that the Sui man wasn't suppressed at all, but escaped."
"These things have nothing to do with me, but I listened very carefully. Because many of them involve the Sui Dynasty, I want to write them down. Why do I need to write them down?"
Fang Henshui shook his head: "Because I have always been a Sui person. Even if he gave me the name Chen Xiao, I am not a Buddhist, I am a Sui person!"
Mo Wanwu's throat made a few cracking sounds, as if he wanted to say something. Unfortunately, he was on the verge of death, and had no strength left to speak.
Fang Henshui looked at him and asked, "You also think that what I think is correct?"
Mo Wanwu couldn't answer him; he didn't even have the strength to move his eyes.
Fang Henshui seemed to be thirsty, and looked down to find that he hadn't brought a water pouch. Mo Wanwu's water pouch had long been destroyed in the fighting. So he licked his lips, glanced at the bloodstains on Mo Wanwu's severed leg, and hesitated. Ultimately, he sighed softly and did nothing.
"When Zhihui said he would pass on his cultivation to me, I was very happy. Because I've never had the potential for cultivation since I was little. My grandfather spent money to hire a cultivator to test my physique, and that cultivator said I had no hope of cultivation in this life, saying it was a pity I'd only opened thirty-three energy points. My grandfather was regretting the money he spent, not my body. I always felt I wasn't an ordinary person, that I must be special. Later, when I grew up, I realized that everyone thinks like that when they're young."
"So I happily crawled towards Zhihui, hoping to transform from an ordinary person into a cultivator. But as I crawled, I saw his eyes flicker."
"At that moment, I don't know why I suddenly became clever, but I suddenly felt that Zhihui definitely wasn't going to pass on his cultivation, but rather to eat me… He had eaten my flesh before. You might find it hard to imagine that someone from the supposedly most benevolent Buddhist sect, and a high-ranking Celestial Venerable at that, would eat human flesh. But I could clearly see from Zhihui's eyes that this wasn't the first time he'd eaten human flesh."
"After crawling a few times, he realized that Zhihui might want to eat..." "So I lay on the ground pretending to be exhausted."
Fang Henshui seemed somewhat smug as he said this, raising an eyebrow: "I said if Master is really starving, then eat my flesh first. Don't waste your cultivation power transferring to me since you're injured; I'm young, I can walk again after a rest. Zhihui was clearly taken aback, then shook his head and said, 'You are my disciple, how could I bear to eat you? Come here, I'll transfer my cultivation power to you.' I told him I was willing, willing to offer my own flesh and blood to serve Master."
"Zhihui was silent for a while, then said, 'Since you have this filial piety...'" "Hey, come here then. I'll just bite your butt, that'll be enough to regain some strength." He said, "Don't worry, I definitely won't eat much. He also said he's very old and can't eat much."
"I told him, 'Master, I really don't have the strength to crawl anymore, can you come and eat by yourself?'"
Fang Henshui laughed, quite smugly: "He didn't move, saying forget it, he still couldn't bring himself to do it, how could he eat his own disciple's flesh?"
"At that moment, I laughed, laughed very happily. Because I knew that the old codger was actually too weak to even move."