Fruitful Accomplishment Temple had presumably received instructions from the Zen Child, for it handled the subsequent arrangements with great care and secrecy.
The guest-receiving monk who had seen Liu S sui and Little Lotus left Moqiu in high spirits to serve as a medical monk in Juye City, supporting his fellow practitioners of the Wind Saber Sect. Apart from the Zen Child, no one in Fruitful Accomplishment Temple knew Liu S sui and Little Lotus's identities. Even the supervising monk who made their arrangements thought they were merely lay relatives of the head monk of the rear hall.
Liu S sui was not given the status of a lay disciple, because that would have been too conspicuous, and what would Little Lotus do then? As it happened, the couple who had grown vegetables in the temple's front courtyard for thirty years had been taken to the county town to enjoy a comfortable life by their son, who had passed his examinations. Their vegetable garden had become vacant, just in time for him and Little Lotus to take over.
The surroundings were very simple, but fortunately there was a well, so they did not need to carry water. The kitchen was clean too, and Little Lotus was fairly satisfied.
Looking at the green that filled his vision, Liu S sui thought that Fruitful Accomplishment Temple truly deserved its reputation for the protection of Buddhist Dharma, to have so many green vegetables even in late autumn.
Returning to the farming life of a mountain village presented him with no difficulty. What truly troubled him was that the true scripture the Zen Child had given him was rather abstruse and difficult to understand. Yet the Zen Child had made it clear that he could only comprehend this scripture himself. Of course, even if