Yuan Gang fell silent after the two exchanged a glance, then turned and left.
Niu Youdao watched him go and clicked his tongue. "That demoness isn't going to get beaten up again, is she?"
In the small courtyard, the monks had not lost their Buddha hearts. They seemed to have retained Nanshan Temple's ways: those who read sutras read sutras, those who swept swept. The courtyard needed no one else to clean it; they kept it spotless themselves.
The moment Yuan Gang arrived, the monks became birds startled by the mere twang of a bowstring. No matter what they had been doing, they set down their work and stared at him. They all found Yuan Gang terrifying. Other people were frightening because their moods were unpredictable; this man showed neither joy nor anger on his face and could not be reasoned with at all. He struck whenever he pleased, catching people utterly off guard.
Lately, they had watched Yuan Gang beat Yuan Fang mercilessly every day. Every time Yuan Gang came, he came to beat up the abbot. Now he was here again. Twice in one day—hadn't he already beaten him twice today? Why had he come again?
When Yuan Fang hurried out at the news, he was caught between greeting him and not greeting him. He was thinking the same thing: hadn't he already been beaten twice today?
He was terrified to the extreme, yet he still forced a smile and sidled over, bowing and scraping. "Master Yuan, what are your orders?" The posture did grave damage to the dignity of a temple abbot, though with his bruised and swollen face, there was not much dignity left to damage.
Having followed Niu Youdao in calling him "Monkey," he had slipped up twice and gotten beaten badly twice, so he