Not long after Ye Chen finished speaking,
Zhu Bajie suddenly burst out of the stream nearby with a splash,
bringing a few small fish and shrimp with him.
"Hehe, Master, Master, look at this huge fish I caught!" The silly Zhu Bajie held a plump carp in each hand. They must have weighed about twenty pounds each, and they were still flopping around in his hands.
"Bajie! As a monk, you must have compassion. How can you treat life as mere weeds? Quickly, release those fish back into the stream. You must remember that you're my disciple now, and from here on, you should mainly eat vegetarian food. Bajie, Bajie, have you forgotten why I gave you that name?" Tang Sanzang stared sternly at Zhu Bajie, fingering the Buddhist beads in his hand to urge him to return the fish to the stream at once.
"Master, it wasn't easy to catch these. I..."
"Release them!"
"All right." Crestfallen, Zhu Bajie could only nod and carry the carp toward the stream.
"Hey, Second Senior Brother, wait! What's the rush? If you won't eat them, I will. Isn't that fine?"
"You? Brother Ye, I'm not trying to lecture you, but Master's still angry. Isn't it a bit inappropriate to eat fish right in front of him?" Zhu Bajie kindly tried to dissuade Ye Chen, warning him not to provoke Master.
Ye Chen, however, didn't seem to care in the slightest.
"Come on, it's fine. You're monks, but I'm not. You can't expect the whole world to stop eating meat just because you're monks, right, Great Master?"
Ye Chen deliberately smiled in Tang Sanzang's direction as he spoke.
"Amitabha. I naturally have no authority over what you do, Benefactor Ye, but..."
Tang Sanzang had just begun to speak when Ye Chen interrupted him.