"What a fine 'spreading sutras across the land.' Great Awakening Temple truly has living Buddhas walking everywhere—golden-bodied ones are cheaper than dogs. Xiang admires you."
"What a fine Guanyin Bodhisattva. To make up tales about a Bodhisattva in front of a monk, Benefactor, your audacity truly reaches the heavens. This humble monk is no less than immensely impressed."
The two of them found each other disagreeable; Lingxiu was even more disgusted. Tearing up the slip of paper, he mocked, "Perhaps the Bodhisattva mistook you for a heavenly demon and saved you on the spot!"
"If you put it that way, I won't argue."
Xiang Yuan shrugged. Absurd as it was, that was the truth. Every word he had said was the honest truth.
Lingxiu, on the other hand, opened his mouth and immediately seized the moral high ground, every bit the Buddhist—
Oh, Buddhist. Then it was no problem.
The two stared wide-eyed at each other, each inwardly disdainful. Never had they seen someone so brazenly shameless.
When words did not agree, even half a sentence was too much. Xiang Yuan turned to leave, but as soon as he rose, his heart skipped a beat. He turned back and looked Lingxiu up and down, a somewhat outrageous yet not impossible suspicion rising in his mind.
The mastermind behind the scenes... was Great Awakening Temple's abbot, Huixing!
Bai Wuyan had been unable to divine his methods, only telling Xiang Yuan that the mastermind was hidden in the east. According to Dry Abyss Realm's map, that meant within Southern Jin.
Considering Bai Wuyan had calculated herself into coughing blood, her divinations were good for a laugh at best and could not be taken seriously.
Though the absent-minded Daoist Que Xin had not explicitly named the mastermind, he had fled in advance rather