Hu Xiaotian turned his head and happened to catch the lingering smile at the corner of Mingjing's lips. He deliberately said, "Look not upon impropriety, listen not to impropriety. Good indeed, good indeed!"
Mingjing hurriedly lowered his gaze, murmuring under his breath as though repenting to Buddha for the words he had inadvertently overheard.
"Senior Brother Mingjing, what is your ambition?" Hu Xiaotian asked.
"Those who cultivate Buddhism have neither desires nor demands," Mingjing replied.
"I don't believe it!" Hu Xiaotian said. "Anyone who's human has desires."
"Every desire is a sin," Mingjing said softly.
"Without the seven emotions and six desires, can you still call yourself human?" Hu Xiaotian asked.
Mingjing smiled. "You are not a fish, so how can you know a fish's joy?"
Everyone stood at a different spiritual height, so naturally their ideals and ambitions differed. Although Mingjing claimed to have neither desires nor demands, Hu Xiaotian did not believe him. Who but the dead could be free of desire? It flew in the face of common sense. Still, if Mingjing said he had none, then none he had. Perhaps he simply did not wish to tell Hu Xiaotian. Weren't those who entered the monastic life forbidden to lie? If he clearly had desires yet claimed otherwise, wasn't he breaking Buddhist rules?
You are not a fish, so how can you know a fish's joy? Hu Xiaotian had finally begun to discover pleasures of his own. Once his life was filled with enjoyment, his surroundings undoubtedly became a paradise, even in this age of beacon fires rising everywhere, even with danger lurking on all sides. Just as Qiqi had said, he himself was someone content with an ordinary life. He loved adventure; the dutiful, rule-bound existence of his previous life had long since sickened him to