Shi Qingjue had entered the monastic life at eight. In the year he turned twenty-seven, moved by a conversation among several patrons, he resolutely chose to leave the monastery. But he was an orphan with no living parents, and once he stepped outside Four Truths Blue Lotus, he had no relatives to turn to. His master had given him a few taels of silver, but it wasn't even enough to pay for an inn.
He had served for many years as a reception monk and understood the ways of the world fairly well. Above all, he knew how important money was. So before telling his master of his decision, he had carefully considered how he would make a living.
First, he needed a name. The words "Shi Qingjue" had immediately sprung to mind.
Second, he needed money—or something he could sell for money. He thought about it all day, and was even scolded by the monk in charge. That, too, became one of his reasons for asking to leave the monastery. At last, he finally thought of a plan.
A month earlier, he had heard that someone was paying to buy information about the backgrounds of Four Truths Blue Lotus's eminent monks. The person telling the story had joked, "Even if each monk is worth ten taels of silver, there are so many monks at Four Truths Blue Lotus—you could sell quite a few!"
And so Shi Qingjue left the monastery he had known since childhood and walked to Biyu South City, thinking it would be simple. As it turned out, he couldn't get so much as a glimpse of the Dragon King or the Unrivaled King, and the mysterious buyer said to be collecting monks' information everywhere was nowhere to be found.
Less than a day after leaving the