Buddha Mind

Our Zhao Qian wasn't a mere flower vase. Naturally, she had a way to break this kind of spell. I watched her pick up the paper talisman and silently chant an incantation, easily separating the paper figure from the talisman.

"That man is awful. He made me bump my head." Yu Xiaoxue was angry too. Rubbing her forehead, she looked thoroughly displeased.

Only then did I remember that Yu Xiaoxue had been sitting in the back. I hurriedly checked her injury and found that it hadn't swollen. A little rubbing would make it better.

Our cheerful mood along the way changed because of this incident. Zhao Qian had just cried, and she wasn't talking much anymore. I felt that we ought to teach that man a lesson.

The Zhao Family ancestral residence occupied a huge area, practically a holiday estate. There had to be some particular knowledge behind the placement of the trees around it. After all, it was an Arcane Sect feng shui clan, so nothing here could be simple. Unfortunately, I couldn't understand any of it.

Come to think of it, Grandpa Zhao was practically a local tycoon. Turning the ancestral residence into a resort for recuperation and rest wasn't difficult.

The parking lot outside the estate was gradually filling with cars. Most were expensive vehicles worth three to five hundred thousand yuan. It seemed that the people attending this time were either rich or powerful.

Zhao He was already anxiously waiting for us at the estate gate. It seemed Zhao Yi had told him about the attempt to trip us up.

"If Second Uncle hadn't been there, I almost beat that punk up just now. That bastard was so sinister!" Zhao He cursed the moment he opened his mouth.

"Thank goodness for Brother Tian, or I would've been struck by disaster. He somehow got hold of my hair and tied a little figure inscribed with my Eight Characters to that talisman. He wanted me to be plagued by bad luck every moment of every day."

The talisman had been smeared with glue and stuck directly to the ground. With cars constantly running over it, the effect was much like when old grannies stomped on paper figures representing people they hated. After the Evil Deeds Talisman was tied to it, it had been upgraded to the level of being trampled by a thousand people and ten thousand feet. The cursed person might merely trip while walking at first, but over time, they would inevitably encounter car accidents when leaving home, or suffer other strokes of misfortune and die unjustly. It was vicious beyond measure.

"People like that will suffer retribution, right, Brother Tian?" Yu Xiaoxue said, waving her little fist.

I nodded and looked toward Zhao Qian. She happened to meet my gaze, and her face flushed with emotion. This time, I had saved her life again.

"That old beast! He even used such a vicious hand against his own niece. I'm going to demand an explanation from Zhao Zhou!" Zhao He couldn't stand it any longer. He rolled up his sleeves and went off to confront Zhao Zhou, but Zhao Qian grabbed him.

"Brother, if you try to reason with him, he'll never admit it. Wasn't it the same last time? Once he complained to Grandma, we became the villains." Zhao Qian was getting anxious. Zhao He had nothing but straight lines in his head—how could he compete with someone who twisted and turned around every corner?

"Even so, we can't just let him off!" Zhao He was so furious that his teeth ground together audibly.

"All right. Dad is probably already waiting for us. Let's take things one step at a time. Besides, they didn't actually hurt me." Zhao Qian had a good temper, all things considered. Something as underhanded as the Evil Deeds Talisman was no joke.

I followed the two siblings with Yu Xiaoxue to the ancestral hall behind the estate.

As expected of a great family, the ancestral hall was enormous. It occupied at least two hundred square meters, and from outside, it looked to be more than ten meters long.

The Zhao Family had no rule forbidding outsiders from entering, so quite a few people had gathered inside. There were dozens upon dozens of men and women, and several great-grandchildren were already running wild throughout the hall.

The old man of the Zhao Family was probably still inside the inner hall, burning incense and making offerings, so the hundred or so people had split into several groups. The people from the eldest son Zhao Xi's branch had gathered together, as had those from the second son Zhao Zhou's branch and the third daughter Zhao Yuan's branch. Their camps were clearly divided. Their respective people probably hadn't all arrived yet, so the situation was unclear, and nobody bothered greeting anyone else. It had the air of the Three Kingdoms standing in opposition.

Zhao He led us to the camp on the left.

A thin, pale man in his fifties stood beside several Daoist masters. The rest were relatives from Zhao Qian's maternal side. Her mother held one of the county's four top leadership positions. Although she hadn't come this time to avoid suspicion, Zhao Qian's uncles had all come to hold down the fort.

"Dad!" Zhao Qian and Zhao He both greeted Zhao Xi.

"Mm." Zhao Xi nodded. He glanced at me and Yu Xiaoxue behind Zhao Qian and realized that we hadn't managed to invite Granny Zhou. A trace of disappointment appeared on his face. "You couldn't invite Senior Granny Zhou?"

"No. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but..." Zhao Qian bit her lip and was about to introduce me and Yu Xiaoxue to her father.

"Forget it if you couldn't invite her. Senior Granny Zhou doesn't act lightly." Zhao Xi waved his hand directly. "You must be Zhao He's and Zhao Qian's friends, right? Sit down for now. I have something to discuss with these Daoist masters, so I won't have time to look after you."

"Dad! He..." Zhao Qian was about to say something, but I stopped her.

"Not at all, Uncle Zhao. Please attend to your business." I replied politely. It couldn't really be blamed on Zhao Xi. We had come purely to watch the excitement, after all. The fact that he was this courteous already meant he was treating us well. Expecting him to receive us like honored guests would have been terribly tactless.

I glanced at the Daoist masters in yellow robes but couldn't tell which sect they belonged to. I couldn't tell without seeing them act, and none of them even looked us in the eye.

Seeing that her father didn't particularly want to bother with her friends, Zhao Qian and Zhao He's expressions turned awkward. Of course, Zhao Qian handled herself much better than Zhao He when facing their father. If Zhao He had brought friends by himself, Zhao Xi probably wouldn't have bothered with him at all.

Many tables had been set up in the ancestral hall, covered with cold dishes such as spiced beef and pork tongue with cashews. They were for guests like us. Yu Xiaoxue was young and soft-spoken, and she hadn't gotten a chance to say a single word just now, so she could only feast at the table.

"I'm sorry. My dad is actually quite nice normally. It's just that he hasn't been feeling well lately, so he's in a bad mood," Zhao Qian explained to me.

"It's fine. I didn't come here to help, anyway." I smiled as I picked up my chopsticks and began eating some cashews and spiced beef.

Zhao Qian didn't know what to say, so she looked toward her brother. Zhao He glanced at me and rubbed his chin, at a loss.

After a while, he blurted out, "Brother Tian, how about... we have some liquor?"

"Brother, is that appropriate?" Zhao Qian immediately tried to stop him.

"It's fine. Let's have a little." I agreed readily.

He acted as soon as he spoke. Zhao He ran off, brought back two bottles of Jinliufu, and filled a cup for me.

The two other branches nearby hadn't paid us any attention. Zhao Yi was even chatting away with several of his wastrel friends, so the two of us immediately started drinking. Zhao Qian and Yu Xiaoxue, meanwhile, stood by in bored bewilderment.

Before long, almost everyone had arrived. The old man of the Zhao Family was wheeled out of the inner hall. He was skin and bones, his face covered in age spots. He lay in a grand armchair with an IV drip hanging from him, and he could barely get a word out. He looked as if he might die at any moment.

I swept my gaze over the old man of the Zhao Family but saw no trace of an evil ghost clinging to him. It seemed that the ghost had hidden itself because there were so many people and this was an ancestral hall, a place that suppressed Baleful Intent. The ritual would probably have to begin by summoning the ghost; otherwise, there was no way to handle it.

Grandma Zhao had a fierce air about her. She had probably been the one who managed the household when she was young. Pushing the wheelchair, she frowned and swept her gaze across the three branches.

"Zhao Xi, Zhao Zhou, Zhao Yuan, you've all seen what happened. Your father was turned into this by that thing. Now is the time for you to save his life. Who's going first?" Grandma Zhao spoke with great authority, naming them without wasting a single word.

The people in charge of the three branches immediately grew restless. Each of them was confident in their ability to save him. After all, these were experts they had recruited at great expense and with deep personal connections. Whoever saved their father first would be the one in charge of the family in the future.

"Mom, I'm the eldest brother, so let me go first. I've invited Lay Buddhist Shenyun and several of his disciples from the Three Immortals Temple. They specialize in driving out evil ghosts. If they fail, Second Brother and Third Sister can take over." Zhao Xi pulled rank over the other two. As the eldest brother, he had always behaved this way, never yielding to anyone.

Zhao Zhou let out a cold snort but didn't argue. He merely exchanged a glance with the seventy- or eighty-year-old man beside him. The old man remained imposing without anger, as if telling Zhao Zhou to remain calm. He then revealed an enigmatic smile.

Grandma Zhao looked at the old man beside Zhao Zhou and smiled delightedly. She even nodded at him, as if they knew each other. Clearly, the old man's identity was far from ordinary.

"Big Brother, where did this Three Immortals Temple come from? Don't blame your little sister for living in the city and not knowing much, but how much did you even pay? My husband donated eight or nine hundred thousand in incense money to Climbing Heaven Temple and had to ask several times before he could invite Abbot Monk Jishi. Our dad is already in this state, so let Abbot Monk Jishi examine him first. We can't let some low-class charlatans come and torment him again." Zhao Yuan refused to accept this. Why should she? Her husband was a man who had connections on both sides of the law in the city. Her brother-in-law had money and did whatever he pleased!

The person they had invited was Monk Jishi, after all. Just look at the abbot's bearing. Could those impoverished bull-nosed Daoists from your Three Immortals Temple compare?

And sure enough, when I looked toward Monk Jishi, he had an imposing air. He wore a brilliant red kashaya, rested a coiling-dragon monk's staff in his right hand, and carried a red sandalwood alms bowl in his left. They were all high-priced goods. Anyone who didn't know better might have thought Zhang Jizhong was remaking Journey to the West.

Moreover, Monk Jishi had brought more than ten henchmen with him. Tang Sanzang had only three disciples. With this kind of momentum, it wasn't just exorcising ghosts—if it came to a group brawl, no one would dare step forward and challenge them.

Monk Jishi was probably in his sixties or seventies, yet he had a kind, benevolent face. Anyone who saw him would indeed feel as if they had swallowed a calming pill. He stepped forward and kindly shook his head at Zhao Yuan. "Benefactor, do not speak recklessly. The Patriarch Bodhidharma once said: Buddha is not sought outside; Buddha is within the heart. The incense offering your husband paid for did not invite this humble monk, Jishi. It invited the Buddha-nature."

Grandma Zhao was actually quite devoted to Buddhism. Upon hearing Monk Jishi speak of the Buddha-nature, she felt that he truly seemed like an enlightened monk. Her face immediately brightened as she nodded. See? Those few sentences alone show his caliber. He might really be able to do it.

Unexpectedly, Zhao Yuan froze when she heard Monk Jishi speak that way about her. She stared at him blankly. "No, wait. Abbot, you're on my side. My husband paid a fortune. I don't understand this Buddha-nature stuff. We spent so much money, so just tell me—can you actually fix him or not?"

Grandma Zhao frowned. What was wrong with her third daughter? Why was she such a blunt fool?

"Everyone is originally a Buddha; confusion makes us ordinary mortals. The Buddha-nature is the process by which we break through delusion, attain enlightenment, and recover our true nature. Benefactor, evil does not come from outside. It is all born from the mind. When the righteous Dharma arises in the heart, evil naturally departs." Seeing that she didn't understand, Monk Jishi explained once more.

But Zhao Yuan hadn't understood a word. Money was all she saw. Hearing this, she assumed the old monk couldn't do it and immediately became fierce. "Can you fix him or not?"

"I can... I can fix him!" Monk Jishi's face sagged. I've never met someone this uncultured. Was it easy for me to say all that? And that's all you took from it?

"Brother Tian, Xiaoxue understood. He said he can fix him." Yu Xiaoxue said this while chewing on spiced beef.

Zhao Qian, who was beside me, burst out laughing. The liquor I had just swallowed sprayed out, leaving me utterly speechless. Sigh. Poor great monk. He picked the wrong person to show off in front of.