"Zuo Xiulan, Lu Wenxie, Zhang Hechen, Jiang Jian..."
"My apprentice kept naming one person after another, then describing the disasters they would cause in the future: bandit raids, wars, epidemics, floods, wildfires... In short, they were all terrible events that would claim the lives of countless innocent people."
"I recognized some of those people. My apprentice had already killed them himself. There were others I didn't recognize. They... they were still alive then, all villagers from nearby."
"The names came one after another. Listening to him made my scalp go numb, along with those of my fellow senior and junior monks. There must have been more than a hundred. When I thought of my apprentice having to kill so many people, I just... I just..."
"Alas—"
The abbot let out a long sigh and fell silent.
Thinking of Monk Huicong's foolish appearance now, Jiang Cheng couldn't connect him with a mass murderer at all. "What happened after that?"
Jiang Cheng didn't know much about this sort of thing, but judging by the debate, Monk Huicong had completely overwhelmed the abbot's junior brother, backing up his arguments with solid reasoning. As for his mysterious ability to foresee the future, Monk Huicong had also used that painting to prove he really could do it.
"Before my junior brother could answer, our Eldest Brother moved. He suddenly began to weep—the kind of tears you shed from overwhelming joy. Then he... he got down on his knees and crawled all the way over. He wrapped his arms around Huicong's legs and cried like a child, shouting, 'It's true... you really have attained Buddhahood! This disciple is guilty. I beg the Buddha to save me!'"
"'This disciple is guilty. I beg the Buddha to save me!'"
Jiang Cheng froze. It took him a long while