Volume Two: Rogues of This World, Chapter Eighty-Eight: The Monk's Bearing

Xieli Town was quite a name in the western reaches.

Though its reputation was abominable: a paradise for bandits, a capital of harlots, as if every thing that ought never to have converged had gathered there to create a bustle that should never have belonged to some barren wilderness.

And yet, in that very place of indulgence, one found the last stubborn thread of honor.

The rough bandits in the city held out until the day the walls fell, and only then did they become the first to be swept up in the slaughter.

They begged for mercy as they died, but never once did they let go of the weapons in their hands. The mountain city was reduced to ruins, and from that scorched earth a new order was born: a land of propriety and ceremony proclaimed with a single sweeping gesture by Lin Yuan.

This citywide slaughter is rather weak, isn't it? So many commoners survived.

Perhaps someone else stood in for these lambs... only, the new master disliked such things. He remade the face of Xieli Town entirely, and in the newly built sheepfold, whether prostitute or beggar, any stain upon Xieli Town's good name made one an enemy of all.

Let alone the bandits who had sold even their lives. Still, that was fine; dying without a burial place had always been their fate anyway.

...

Lin Changtian muttered under his breath. Wherever he went, he had to pick at something, as though being a contrarian were a job one also had to clock in for.

"This Xieli Town... isn't half bad, actually. It looks ruined, yet everyone behaves like a gentleman. They greet passersby and merchants alike without missing a one. When the granaries are full, people know courtesy; this place must be fairly prosperous."

It was Chen Mo speaking. These words were not meant for anyone else; all that spittle was aimed at one target.

Well then, let's see if you, Lin Changtian, can still find fault with this.

"It's really got a respectable air about it. It seems Lin Yuan's third son put in quite a bit of work. In that case, tying him up and sending him to Ma Hui would make us the shameless ones, wouldn't it?" Rarely, Lin Changtian did not retort. Instead, he even said a few good things on Xieli Town's behalf.

Chen Mo curled his lip, smugly pleased. Ha, at last he'd put that contrarian in his place once.

"I'm going to gather some information. You lot stay put. Don't run off, or you'll get lost." Lin Changtian reminded everyone very seriously, though all he got in return were eye-rolls and jeers.

Had this fellow forgotten how he himself had once gotten lost from the northern wastes all the way to the Central Lands? And he still dared say such a thing...

...

From the south came a monk, and he happened to run into the contrarian who had gone north to gather information.

He was not truly a monk, but he really was bald. Wearing a sleeveless vest over a fur coat, carrying winter and summer on his back at once, he looked thoroughly out of place.

If he were in the Central Lands, even if he really were a monk, people would still laugh at him for his poverty.

The monk looked at Lin Changtian. The man was asking questions, his eyes serious; what came out of his mouth, however, was... rather amusing.

...

"I still don't get it. If both your parents have the surname Zhao, why on earth did you end up with the surname Li, little one? What, were you too ugly, so someone threw you away and someone else picked you up?" Lin Changtian said with a grin, offering a piece of sweet candy to the boy, who was as tall as a stone stool.

The boy took the candy with a cheerful smile, gave a proper bow first, and then launched into a long, vile string of curses. The single insult he used for that filthy thing alone drew on more than a dozen obscure dialects. It seemed the family genealogy was beyond saving.

"Who taught you all that?" Lin Changtian asked, unbothered, and handed him another piece of candy with a laugh.

The boy scratched his head, a little embarrassed. He took the candy and stuffed it into his mouth, answering honestly, "I learned it from my mother and father. At home they always talk like that, and after hearing it long enough, I picked it up too."

"What a talent from the northern wastes. A rare and cultured soul indeed." Lin Changtian sighed, giving the boy a thumbs-up and praising him without end.

The boy felt something was off, but having missed out on education, he could not quite say what.

"Are you from somewhere else? Xieli Town is no good. What are you doing here?" The boy blinked and spoke in an air of mystery.

Lin Changtian took the bait and asked along with him, "Oh? I think this place is pretty good. Everyone knows how to bow and greet people. Looking across the entire northern region, that's rare enough. As for teaching and refinement, I must say I'm impressed by whoever runs this city."

The boy shook his head and said very seriously, "My father always says it's bad, and my mother will stop him if he starts grumbling. But it's not just my father. A lot of the clan uncles curse about it in secret at home too. Once they step outside, though, they're all very obedient."

"How do you know what they say in private?" Lin Changtian asked with deliberate suspicion, intent on provoking the boy.

The boy pointed to his own ears, looking rather proud. "My ears are sharp. Since we all live in the same compound, when a house goes dark at night I creep over and listen by the wall for a while. I can learn plenty of secrets that way. Those clan uncles can hardly be called men. At night they all fight with their concubines, beating them until the whole place rings with screams! When I grow up, I won't be like the uncles. I won't go bully Wang Erni next door."

"So you like Wang Erni next door?" Lin Changtian patted the boy's head and said with a suppressed laugh, "But you still have to fight the nighttime 'battle,' or else you don't count as a man."

The boy glanced at Lin Changtian from the corner of his eye and sized him up from head to toe, secretly resolving: so even the outsiders are like this. I would never do such despicable things as beating women. But every time the clan uncles do it, they love to use the stick between their legs to hit the concubines. Yet we're both places where people piss, so why is mine soft? Seems I'd better cut it off before I grow up, so I don't go and ruin Erni later...

"But you still haven't said what those people were cursing about. Taking someone's candy and not making yourself clear is hardly gentlemanly, you know." Lin Changtian handed over the last piece of candy on his person. He seemed to be in an excellent mood.

The boy did not take the candy. Instead, he said honestly, "You've already given me plenty. Asking for more would be too greedy. Mother says greed gives you cavities. What my uncles and father said was more or less the same—they all said the officials above don't treat people like people."

"Why say that? The townsfolk seem perfectly polite to me. I imagine they've been forced to learn it with a knife to their throats. Are they unhappy with it?" Lin Changtian forced the candy into the boy's hands, frowning.

The boy suddenly widened his eyes, clearly indignant at Lin Changtian's words.

"What kind of nonsense is that? We only learned all this useless courtesy because they forced us to miss the planting season! Books are even contraband here. Anyone who dares teach others in secret, outside the schoolhouse, gets their head chopped off!"

"All this is the work of the officials?" The boy looked toward the horizon, then lowered his head and began counting the many ants on the ground. "Long ago, there were no such big shots. Well, I don't even know what a big shot really is. I only know that the delicacies we could never eat would often show up in the slops at their mansions. Later the soldiers came. My father took me and ran for our lives. We only dared go back home once the fighting stopped, and when we returned, everything was like this. Many of the villains who used to give me candy got nailed to the wall. That official pointed at them and said this was the end for bandits who defied the heavenly troops! I was young, and I never understood why snatching back my candy and fighting with my fists counted as a crime. Nor did I understand why someone suddenly showed up one night claiming they would civilize us. But many days passed, and besides getting less and less food, nothing seemed to change. Mother said this was the so-called civilization: I was supposed to keep my head down and smile for people, and when I saw a big shot, I mustn't smile in a fake way, or I'd get beaten..."

Rain began to fall from the horizon; it turned out the countless ants were moving house.

"Here are some coins. Hold onto them properly. Take them home to your mother and say you earned them yourself. And under no circumstances spend them on candy." The boy still wanted to say something, but Lin Changtian gave him a solid kick in the backside and sent him home.

He watched the child go, then tilted his face up and let the soft rain strike his tongue, as though he were trying to taste what heavenly dew was like.

"The surname Lin, the foremost of the old Seven Great Houses. In terms of inheritance, it is no less than the literary lands of the Central Continent. Such conduct is quite normal."

The monk came over and sat in the place where the boy had been, counting ants.

Hurry and scurry, from one end to the other. When food falls to the ground, the sight is more unbearable than death.

"What was once a paradise for bandits and a capital of harlots has disappeared. Is that a merit, or have they merely committed new sins?" Lin Changtian pressed his lips together, as though asking the monk, as though asking himself.

The ant was exceedingly bold. It let the monk crush a bit of food and hold it to its mouth, then carried it off in its jaws, drawing a circle on the ground as though mimicking a bow.

"The bandits were not always bandits. Among the common people, some could no longer survive as farmers, while others were wicked men who fled here for refuge. They took up arms and stole a little money, but they did not touch the town itself. They robbed wealthy merchants who came from outside. There was evil, yes, but they did not take lives, so their crimes did not merit death. As for the women of the pleasure quarter, who among those who have ever heard the sweet talk of the brothels has no story of their own? It sounds like a joke, but what hangs on their lips are often the burdens in their hearts, things they cannot let go of. New sins were indeed committed, but a merit? That hardly counts. Aside from whitewashing and squeezing them dry, no one truly wants to civilize the ignorant masses."

The monk devoutly returned the bow to the ant, not caring whether it understood him or not.

"Then why not I kill every one of these filthy things and civilize them myself? One strike of a blade, and even Lin Yuan's third son would lose his head." Lin Changtian gestured with his hands, nodding toward the horizon, very serious.

The monk pointed to his own head, only smiling as he walked away, not answering.

"Where are you going, venerable monk? Monastics do not speak of killing. That was my oversight. Those were careless words from a youngster. Please forgive me." Lin Changtian straightened his back and bowed deeply toward the monk's retreating figure.

Then he lifted his head again, only to find a broad banana leaf in his line of sight.

"Sitting motionless in the rain, others would take us for oddities. Still, ever since the awakening of this world, the species have grown far more diverse. Even in the northern wastes, one can find such large leaves to shelter people from sun and rain." The monk gave a salute, then simply spread his fur coat on the ground.

He joined his palms and let his Buddha's bearing be seen clearly.

"All beings hate the wicked." The monk pointed at Lin Changtian, then at himself, and finally drew a circle in the air.

Lin Changtian laid his knife on the fur between them and bowed respectfully to the blade. "Fortunately, I do not believe in Buddha. So when I kill, I do so without guilt. Has the bronze image in your temple ever seen the misery of Central Zhou City? Has it ever awakened the fools of Eastern Zhou? Even here in this northern wilderness, so often denounced as barbaric, one can scarcely find a few properly dressed monks descending the mountain to save the world."

"So I am merely a little bald, without even a proper kasaya. But all beings hate the wicked, and that can also mean..." The monk pointed at the sky, lifted the blade aside, and picked up the fur garment. With his sleeveless vest still on, he walked farther and farther away, as though fleeing because he had no answer.

Then, in a flash, a voice drifted over, so startling that heaven and earth seemed to thunder with rain, as if unwilling to let Lin Changtian hear it.

Yet that voice was clear and forceful, compelling heaven and earth to fall silent.

"All beings hate the wicked, so all beings may be slain!"

Lin Changtian seemed about to bow again, then to bend his knees and touch his forehead to the ground in salute, but his body only grew straighter and straighter, so upright that not even the peals of thunder could press it down.

His mind was made up.

Wasn't it time to find the northern wastes a new master?