Though the temple was tiny, some care seemed to have gone into it. Rather than being piled together from adobe, its three walls were built with earthen bricks, and a few gray tiles covered its little roof.
The reason it housed a clay bodhisattva rather than a Land God was that the statue inside sat cross-legged on the ground, palms pressed together.
By now, Chu Hang had shaken Yang Bencai awake in the carriage. Both had climbed out and were stretching their limbs nearby.
Seeing Yi Shuyuan examining the Small Temple, the driver came over too. Standing beside him, he pressed his palms together and bowed several times to the Buddha statue inside.
"Brother, which bodhisattva is this?"
Only after finishing his bows did the driver answer Yi Shuyuan.
"No idea which bodhisattva it is. It's always been here, anyway. When we stop to rest, we bow and ask for a safe journey."
Yi Shuyuan nodded. If even someone from the carriage company did not know, he could only regard it as a nameless bodhisattva for now.
Hui Mian also peered through Yi Shuyuan's hair at the Small Temple, whispering into his ear.
"Sir, this isn't an empty temple, but it's so strange..."
Yi Shuyuan knew that, of course. Small though the temple was, its Buddha statue had been properly consecrated. He simply did not know whom it enshrined.
As for the strangeness Hui Mian mentioned, that was because the temple's master was sitting there. Yes, simply sitting there.
An ordinary Buddha statue might have a connection to a bodhisattva, but an actual deity rarely sat within one. The supposed myriad incarnations were merely a way of describing those connections to statues, unless one was truly lucky and the deity's dharma body happened to wander through.
Even having noticed this,