"Is Chen Shigu still alive?"
The instant those words emerged from the old monk's hoarse throat, Wei Xun's fingers closed silently around it.
Tanlin did not resist-or rather, he had no strength to resist. He could not even be bothered to open his eyes.
"The poison has sunk deep into you. You have little time left."
There was not a trace of fear in his voice. It was as deep and steady as though he were expounding Buddhist scripture.
Wei Xun's heart jolted. He did not know how the monk had seen that his life hung by a thread, nor where he had heard the name Chen Shigu. He hesitated over whether to twist the old man's neck and break it.
"What poison have I been afflicted with?"
"The three poisons spoken of in Buddhism: greed, hatred, and delusion. Greed is the craving that pursues fame, profit, wealth, and all worldly possessions. Hatred is the anger and resentment born of adversity, making one fierce and quarrelsome, slaughtering living beings. Delusion is to be trapped by attachment, unable to free oneself, with false thoughts proliferating and giving rise to every kind of evil deed. Of the three poisons, yours is foolishness poison."
Wei Xun smiled. "I've never had any schooling. I don't understand this mystical nonsense."
Tanlin opened his eyes a sliver, seemingly astonished. "A disciple of Chen Shigu has never had any schooling?"
This old baldhead was a high court official before becoming a monk. How could he know anyone from the Rivers and Lakes? Wei Xun deliberately asked in return, "Who is Chen Shigu? I don't know him."
Tanlin pointed at the dagger at Wei Xun's waist and said gravely, "I was the one who deciphered the bronze-script inscription on this Fish Intestine all those years ago. It used