Now, the monks had lost their lawsuit.
The monks believed themselves to be in the right, but the official's torrent of twisted reasoning left them unable to plead their rightful case, and in the end, they lost.
With no other choice, they could only return to the monastery.
Inside Zhiyuan Monastery, the craftsmen were working at a feverish pace, repairing the roof tiles of the Buddha halls, restoring the doors, windows, and wooden structures, patching courtyard walls large and small, leveling the blue-brick and stone paths, and touching up the gold lacquer on the Buddha statues.
Watching this scene, the new abbot began to regret his decision.
He had assumed that, with such extensive monastery holdings and so many promissory notes, the silver needed to repair the monastery would amount to little. But now...
The new abbot summoned a foreman and, through roundabout hints, asked whether some of the silver could be returned.
The foreman said that the bricks, stone, and timber had already been purchased. The deposit had not even been enough, and much of it had been bought with money the foremen had pooled themselves, cutting off whatever the new abbot had intended to say next.
Trouble! Trouble! Trouble!
Not only had they failed to recover the monastery's holdings, but they now owed over nine thousand taels in outside debts.
Oh, Buddha! What were they to do?
By chance, the new abbot noticed that the craftsmen at work included the very crew he had driven away the first time.
As it turned out, repairing the entire monastery was too large a job for any one crew to swallow, so the craftsmen in the city had joined forces to work on it together.
In common parlance, they were not keeping the whole meal to themselves.
The new abbot felt