Not long after the man in red fled in terror, pounding sounded at the farmhouse gate. The old man on the rattan chair grew somewhat impatient. Covering himself with his palm-leaf fan, he yawned, rolled over, and said to the two children still playing nearby,
"Dabao, Erbao, go open the door."
The two children answered crisply and went to open the gate together, only to find that it was not a familiar neighbor, but someone dressed in strange clothes with a smooth, bald head.
"Strange man, who are you looking for?"
The little village was isolated, and the children were young and ignorant. Naturally, they did not know this was a monk, so they called him a strange man.
Children's words carried no taboo. The great monk did not take offense. Instead, smiling, he rubbed the little heads of the two children with their skyward pigtails and said gently, "This monk has come to see your grandfather."
The monk had a square face and large ears, bulging cheeks, upturned nostrils pointing toward the sky. He could hardly be called handsome. Only his gentle, benevolent bearing gave others a sense of closeness.
Yet that was merely an appearance. If the red-clad man who had just fled saw what this person looked like now, his jaw would likely drop to the ground.
Was this still the executioner reputed to be the most savage, bloodthirsty, and inhuman man of the Ku Hai lineage? Surely someone had changed his face and impersonated him.
"Hey, monk, take your hand away at once. With such heavy killing intent, it would be no good if you corrupted my two precious grandsons. This Old Man has tolerated you again and again—don't go shoving your nose in where it doesn't belong, mistaking kindness for weakness."
Seeing the monk place