I Was Just a Hired Hand

It was him.

Lu Bian guessed the stranger's identity.

A gust of Qingfeng swept through, carrying off the statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva. The dark, burly man was the Black Bear Spirit, the mountain guardian deity of Mount Luojia under the Bodhisattva's command.

The Black Bear Spirit was highly skilled. Back during the trial at Guanyin Zen Temple, he had fought the Great Sage several times on Black Wind Mountain without falling behind. It took Guanyin Bodhisattva herself, armed with the Golden Hoop given to her by Tathagata Buddha, to subdue him. The Great Sage wore the Tightening Hoop, while the Black Bear wore the Golden Hoop. The last Forbidden Hoop was on Red Boy.

Lu Bian rubbed his eyes, wiping away the dust.

His thoughts had wandered for a moment, drifting to the matter of the Golden, Tightening, and Forbidden Hoops.

Since everything here had been settled, Lu Bian went to find the old man from three days ago. He had promised to go to Luzhou and make a statue, and had already kept the man waiting for three days. There was no time to waste; he could set out right away.

Lu Bian walked past the worshippers. They hurriedly cleared a path for him to leave.

"..."

"Why aren't you stopping him?" the emperor of Great Song whispered to the civil official beside him, hiding at the edge of the crowd.

"How could we stop him? And why would we?" the official asked, puzzled.

"True enough." The emperor of Great Song watched as Lu Bian entered the gates of Dongjing City and disappeared from sight.

The emperor had wanted Lu Bian to make a few statues for him, too.

He just hadn't decided what he wanted sculpted yet.

Lu Bian had astonishing skill as a stonemason, and the emperor wanted to watch him carve a stone statue up close.

He could have kept Lu Bian in the imperial palace to work while he and his consorts watched.

But if he did that, the civil officials would have plenty to say about their emperor. They already criticized him for enjoying flowers and keeping birds; the thought was simply tiresome.

The emperor of Great Song considered it, then quashed the idea. After enjoying the spectacle, he returned to the palace with some regret.

Inside Dongjing City,

Lu Bian followed the address the old man had given him and found the place. The old man had made all the arrangements, and the carriage was ready to leave for Luzhou at any moment.

Luzhou lay in the southeastern part of the Shu Region, a major hub of the southwest, a thousand li from Dongjing. The sooner they left, the sooner they would arrive. The old man hadn't been home in years, and had kept in touch with his hometown mostly through letters. His longing for home had swelled in his heart until he could hardly wait to fly back to Luzhou.

The old man set out with his servants, while his sons and younger relatives stayed in Dongjing to continue their business.

On the road, Lu Bian asked him, "Old sir, what kind of statue would you like me to make?"

"A statue of a goddess," the old man replied.

"A goddess? Is there a story behind her?"

"That goddess is known as the Third Holy Mother. She's the younger sister of Erlang Shen of Guanjiangkou. She once walked among mortals, dispelling plagues and relieving the suffering of a devastating freeze. The people of my hometown have been grateful for her kindness for many years."

"I see."

Lu Bian nodded to the old man.

The old man continued recounting the past. "Years ago, I heard that the Holy Mother Temple on Jade Maiden Peak of Mount Hua was destroyed in an earthquake. It still hasn't been rebuilt. The Third Holy Mother's mortal worshippers lost their place to offer incense, and it's weighed on my mind ever since."

"What?"

Lu Bian had been thinking about the Third Holy Mother's story when he heard that the Holy Mother Temple had been destroyed.

A bad feeling stirred in his heart.

Why had the Holy Mother Temple on Mount Hua been destroyed?

It must have happened—that event!

"...The Third Holy Mother came down from heaven, gave birth to Chenxiang, and lived with his father~~!"

The theme song from Lotus Lantern immediately began playing on a loop in Lu Bian's head.

Journey to the West had been part of Lu Bian's childhood, and now the story of Lotus Lantern had arrived, too! And it was happening right in the era he was living in.

"I think I understand something..." Lu Bian murmured.

"Master, what do you understand?" The old man watched him with curiosity.

"Old sir, do you think the world is prosperous?" Lu Bian asked.

"Prosperous."

"Are the people living happily?" Lu Bian continued.

"It's been barely more than a hundred years since the chaos that followed the fall of the Tang. Back then, people had to make one meal last two days. They had no proper clothes or enough to eat, and wandered from place to place... By comparison, they're happy now."

"And what do you think of scholars and literati?" Lu Bian asked again.

"Scholars?"

"Hard to say," the old man replied mildly.

Clearly, the old man didn't want to tell Lu Bian what he thought of scholars and literati.

He was a merchant, last in the ranking of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants. Great Song was open-minded and encouraged commerce, but merchants still held a somewhat awkward position. Some things could be said aloud; others had to stay buried in one's heart.

In the Song dynasty, the emperor governed the realm alongside the scholar-officials. The status of the educated had risen higher than ever, to the point that they could even stand as a counterweight to imperial authority.

In Great Song, scholars truly enjoyed freedom of speech.

Taking the old man's answer into account, Lu Bian thought it over. He came to the conclusion that only the scholars and literati of Great Song could have bewitched a heavenly goddess like the Third Holy Mother.

The Holy Mother Temple had been destroyed, which meant Erlang Shen had imprisoned the Third Holy Mother beneath Mount Hua.

In Lu Bian's memory, he had seen several different versions of Lotus Lantern. In each version, the mortal scholar Liu Yanchang, whom the Third Holy Mother fell in love with, had a different story.

In one, Liu Yanchang had heard of her but never met her, and Erlang Shen sent him to the underworld early on. In another, Liu Yanchang lived quietly with his son Chenxiang, hoping to scrape by as an ordinary mortal for the rest of their lives. In yet another, Liu Yanchang turned into a lump of mud, lost the will to live after losing the woman he loved, and spent every day eating and waiting to die without caring what became of his son Chenxiang...

Lu Bian only wanted to treat the affairs of the Third Holy Mother's family as a bit of entertainment, something to watch and hear about.

After all, Chenxiang would become a disciple of Victorious Fighting Buddha Sun Wukong, split open Mount Hua, and rescue his mother.

A month later, Lu Bian and the old man arrived in Luzhou.

"Rebuilding the Holy Mother Temple on Mount Hua would be difficult, so this old man will fund a new one here."

"Master, you can begin sculpting first. Once the statue is finished and the temple has been built, we'll have Qi Lishi carry the Third Holy Mother's statue inside, where it can receive offerings of incense."

Lu Bian followed the old man's arrangements in every respect.

—It was the old man who asked me to sculpt the Third Holy Mother's statue. I'm just a hired hand. Erlang Shen, please don't come looking for trouble with me, Lu Bian!

Lu Bian silently repeated this to himself.

As he prepared to sculpt the Third Holy Mother, the old man somehow found a portrait and asked Lu Bian to use it as a reference.

"..."

The moment he glanced at the person in the portrait, Lu Bian's heart gave a jolt.

"Who painted this?" Lu Bian asked, alarmed.

"The artist's name is here." The old man pointed to a corner of the portrait.

"Uh..."

He made out the characters. The artist was Liu Yanchang.

—Oh no. This was painted from the Third Holy Mother herself.

And Lu Bian still had plenty of questions he wanted to ask.

For instance, where had the old man gotten this portrait?