The Husky and His White Cat Shizun - Chap 239
Mo Ran listened blankly and stiffly.
He had already stopped shouting. He sat in his original place, his eyes staring straight ahead.
“Originally, everything was going smoothly, but during that time, the lower cultivation world had a serious fissure. Refugees were everywhere, and there were starving people in the wild.”
The scene before him brightened up again. It was early winter. Fine snow fell from the lead-gray sky. A mountain road slowly appeared in front of Mo Ran. The road was covered with a layer of white frost and fresh snow. There were also crisscrossing carriage tracks.
“I didn’t expect that one day, when he and I went to the foot of the mountain to collect spirit stones, we would meet a child who was about to starve to death.”
Mo Ran continued to watch numbly.
Chu Wanning and Huaizui appeared on the mountain road. Chu Wanning had a basket on his back. Inside it were spiritual stones. He wore a cotton winter cloak and walked beside Huaizui.
“Shizun.” Suddenly, Chu Wanning stopped and turned his head to look at the grassy slope. “There seems to be someone there?”
“Let’s go take a look.”
The two of them walked over together. Chu Wanning’s slender, white, and clean fingers parted the grass. He was shocked and slightly opened his phoenix eyes. “It’s a child …”
He immediately turned his head and said to Huaizui, “Shizun, come quickly. Look at him. What’s wrong with him?”
What’s wrong?
Whether it was Huaizui or Mo Ran, it could be seen at a glance.
That child was dirty and smelly. His clothes were thin and ragged. If he took off those clothes, he definitely wouldn’t be able to put them back on. They were full of holes. To put it bluntly, the dogs in the temple ate leftovers and lived a better life than this child.
If it weren’t for the fact that the child was still moaning and breathing, there would be no difference between him and a pile of rotten meat.
What’s wrong? What else could it be?
Every time in front of a great disaster, human strength was so insignificant. Not to mention the death of a child, it wasn’t a rare thing to eat a child.
Only Chu Wanning, who grew up in a temple, could ask such a stupid question in a daze.
Huaizui frowned and said, “Don’t worry about it. Go back first. I’m here to see him. ”
Chu Wanning trusted his Master, so he immediately stood up obediently. But before he could leave, a dirty little hand tugged at the hem of his cloak.
That hand was so powerless that the pulling force was so weak, like a little puppy gently scratching.
Chu Wanning lowered her head and saw a dirty little face with indistinguishable facial features.
The child’s voice was as soft as a mosquito’s hum, as if another snowflake falling from the sky would crush him to death.
“Rice …”
Chu Wanning was stunned for a moment and didn’t react. “What?”
“… Rice …” The child whimpered. His face was completely black, and there were only two spots of white in his eyes. He trembled as he made a gesture of eating rice and said sorrowfully, “Eat …”
Outside the scroll, Mo Ran blinked his eyes and came back to half of his senses.
But his mind was still numb. He couldn’t react quickly, but he vaguely felt that this scene was very familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.
He stared straight at it.
And inside the scroll, Chu Wanning was already stunned.
He opened his eyes wide in shock. He finally understood what was going on. At first, he was at a loss and couldn’t believe it. Then he became flustered and anxious.
He only knew that the world was beautiful, but he had never seen a child who was so thin that only his skin was left. He was like a kitten or puppy that was about to starve to death, curled up in the grass on a snowy day. The only thing on his body that could resist the cold was a rag that was too cold to wear in summer. Tugging at him, he only said two words.
Rice, and eat.
Huaizui sternly said, “You go back first.”
But this time, Chu Wanning didn’t listen. He looked at the child who was like a dirty little dog and felt extremely distressed. He hurriedly took off his cloak and wrapped it around the child’s body.
He was burning with anxiety, as if the one who was suffering wasn’t the child, but himself. He said, “Are you hungry? Wait, I have rice porridge here, I have rice porridge. ”
He went to ask Huaizui for it, but Huaizui frowned.
“I want you to go back. This is not something you should care about.”
“Why shouldn’t I care?” Chu Wanning was at a loss. “He … he is so pitiful. Shizun, do you see? He just wants to ask for something to eat. If he continues like this, he will starve or freeze to death. ”
When he said this, he felt that it was somewhat inconceivable. He muttered, “What is going on? Didn’t they say that the world is peaceful? Why is it … ”
“Go back.”
Chu Wanning was stunned. He didn’t know why Huaizui would suddenly act like this. In the end, he bit his lip and said, “I want to feed him some rice porridge …”
“I couldn’t persuade him, so I agreed.” Huaizui’s empty voice carried a bit of a sigh. Together with the boundless wind and snow, it drifted into Mo Ran’s ears. “I gave him a flask of rice porridge and allowed him to personally treat the child who came without warning. At that time, I didn’t know how this would make Chu Wanning feel, or what choice he would make. At that time, I didn’t know anything. ”
Mo Ran stared blankly as Chu Wanning opened the flask and brought it to the child’s mouth.
The child hungrily leaned over, but couldn’t suck.
He was already on the verge of starvation and didn’t have any extra strength.
Mo Ran’s Adam’s apple moved.
He suddenly felt as if a seed had sprouted in his skull, bursting out of the mud.
He suddenly felt that everything in front of him was so familiar …
He looked.
He was coming back to his senses.
Then, at a certain point, a flood dragon broke through the waves, and the clouds and water rolled.
He suddenly stood up, his fingers clenched into a fist —
He remembered!
“It’s you?” He hurriedly ran towards Chu Wanning in the picture scroll, his pupils rapidly shrinking. “You’re him? It’s him? You actually … you actually … ”
He couldn’t continue. He suddenly covered his eyes with his arm.
His throat was full of bitterness.
He never would have thought.
It was actually Chu Wanning.
— — The child who was about to freeze to death in the haystack was him who had crawled down from the mass grave after burying his mother. He had nowhere to go and was begging everywhere!
The illusion overlapped with the memory. Mo Ran never forgot that snowy day, the boy who took off his cloak and wrapped it around him.
Chu Wanning asked worriedly, “What’s wrong? Can’t drink it? ”
Little Mo Ran couldn’t say anything more. He only let out a weak whimper from his throat. He narrowed his dark eyes and looked at him weakly.
“Then I’ll pour it out for you. Don’t mind.”
He opened the pot and the porridge was in the boy’s palm. He carefully handed it over. He looked a little hesitant, probably because he felt that it was a little dirty. Maybe the child wouldn’t be willing to drink it.
But he was thinking too much.
Dirty?
From Linyi to Wubei Temple, Mo Ran drank river water, rainwater, and the turbid liquid in the pond. He ate wild fruits, leftovers, and when he was most helpless, he even swallowed earthworms, licked ants, and ate soil.
He crawled on the ground and leaned over to drink the porridge. At that time, he only felt that the porridge flowing through his throat was the dew of the willow tree, and the person who gave him the porridge was the Ninth Heaven.
“Slow down, slow down. If it’s not enough, there’s more.” Chu Wanning was shocked and sad. He looked at the dirty little head buried in his palm, miserable and embarrassed. He greedily and pitifully licked the porridge. His tongue rolled up and down like a small animal drinking water.
“Where did you come from …” He couldn’t help but ask.
But Mo Ran whimpered and didn’t answer. The porridge was finished, and there was only a little left in his palm. He refused to let it go and kept licking the little brother’s palm, making Chu Wanning itch and hurt.
The itch was in his hand, and the pain was in his heart.
“It’s okay, there’s more. I’ll pour you some more.”
Chu Wanning filled another handful of porridge. During the process, Mo Ran kept looking at him. When his hand reached over, he leaned over again and couldn’t wait to continue licking and drinking.
Chu Wan-ning cupped a full pot of rice milk and squatted down to feed him until he finished drinking it.
Mo Ran never forgot.
In fact, in the ups and downs of his life, he had thought countless times — — if he hadn’t met this person at that time, what would have happened to him?
He had deduced many possibilities and had many hypotheses, but in the end, he couldn’t escape a word.
Death.
Starving to death, freezing to death, being eaten by wild wolves and dogs, and his heart, liver, spleen, and stomach eaten.
If he hadn’t met this brother, he would have gone to meet his mother in the netherworld.
So later, when Mo Ran became the Emperor Ta, he deliberately went back to Wubei Temple to look for his old benefactor. But because too much time had passed, he couldn’t remember the benefactor’s face clearly. Facing the courtyard full of shiny bald heads, he only felt indescribable irritation. In the end, he waved his hand and left.
At that time, the abbot was scared witless. He didn’t know how Wubei Temple had offended the Emperor Ta, and had been anxiously waiting for the punishment. However, on the second day, the Emperor ordered people to bring hundreds and thousands of boxes over. When they opened them, brilliant light flowed out. They were actually full of gold.
“His Majesty didn’t know who the old friend was, so he treated them equally and rewarded each of the monks of Wubei Temple with ten thousand gold to repay the kindness of saving his life.”
So it turned out that the benefactor that he couldn’t find after going in circles was trapped at the pinnacle of life and death, imprisoned by him all day long and bullied by him?
In the past, the little brother took off a warm cloak and wrapped it around his thin body.
Fate played tricks on him, but every night, he rudely tore apart the clothes of the little brother and pressed him between the blankets of the bed.
On one hand, he went everywhere to find his benefactor.
On the other hand, he unknowingly forced his benefactor to kneel between his legs. He was humiliated in every way and bowed his head.
Mo Ran looked at the scene in front of him, blood vessels filling his eyes little by little.
“How … how could it be you?”
In this life, in these two lives. Deep fate met the Emperor, shallow fate misled the Emperor.
It was all fate.
Everything in front of him turned dark again. Only the sound of wind and snow could be heard, and Huaizui’s lonely voice echoed in the distance.
“At that time, I asked the child if he was willing to stay in Wubei Temple for a while, but the child said that he wanted to return a favor for his mother, so no matter what, he had to go back to Xiang Tan first. I couldn’t keep him, so I gave him some dry food and some silver. ” Huaizui said, “When the child staggered down the snow slope, Wanning stood where he was and watched until his figure was completely swallowed by the wind and snow and disappeared into the wilderness. Only then did he turn around and return to the temple. I went to hold his hand. I remember that his hand was as cold as ice at that time. ”
He was quiet for a while, but the pain in his voice was still not suppressed.
“After that day, Wanning mentioned to me several times that he wanted to go down the mountain to support the Dao, but I didn’t allow it. I even scolded him for having an unstable Dao heart. A stubborn stone fell into the water and affected his Zen heart. Therefore, I punished him to go to Dragon Blood Mountain to reflect on his mistakes and trapped him there for a total of 164 days. ”
“At first, he asked me to let him out, but later on, he was probably extremely disappointed and didn’t want to say anything anymore. “One hundred and sixty-four days. Every single day, I would ask him what he had comprehended. Every single day, I hoped to change his attitude, but the answer he gave me was always one word.” Huai Zui let out a long sigh. It was as silent as the snow.
“Enter the world.”
Everyone was cultivating outside the world, but he was willing to fall into the world of suffering just because he saw the suffering of a child once.
“Later on, he burned the scriptures I gave him and was reborn. I was worried that this couldn’t go on, so I ended his house arrest. I planned to change my method of preaching to him. After another year, when his spirit core was stable, I could take him to the Ghost Realm, and everything would be over. ”
“… What I didn’t expect was that on the night I ended my reflection, Chu Wanning left without saying goodbye. I only found a letter in his meditation room. The letter said that even though a long time had passed, he still felt tormented every time he thought about the child he met, so he wanted to go down the mountain and travel for ten days. He was afraid that I would lock him up again, so he left in the night. At that time, I held that letter, angry and anxious, but there was nothing I could do. ”
Huaizui sighed. “I don’t know where he went at all.”
A new scene lit up again.
This time, it was in the courtyard of Wubei Temple.
Chu Wanning had returned. His body was covered in blood, but his eyes were particularly bright under the moonlight, full of vigor.
At this moment, he was like a divine weapon that had been forged for a long time, and no one could stop his edge.
Huaizui stood in front of him. The two of them didn’t speak.
However, in Mo Ran’s ears, Huaizui’s voice was still slowly narrating. “Ten days later, he really did come back on time. My heart relaxed, and I secretly rejoiced that nothing had happened. I planned to reprimand him a few times, then let him return to his room to rest. But I didn’t expect that what I was waiting for was a sharp knife without a sheath. ”
In the scene, Chu Wanning knelt down and kowtowed to the ground.
Huaizui frowned slightly. “What are you doing?”
“Perhaps Shizun has been in seclusion for a long time, but the outside world is very different from what Shizun said. Disciple sincerely asks Shizun not to stay on the mountain any longer, but to go down and take a look. This world is a boundless sea of suffering, and it’s no longer the paradise that Shizun said it was. ”
Huaizui suddenly became angry. “Absurd! Do you know what you’re saying? ”
Chu Wanning originally thought that by telling the truth he saw with his own eyes, he would be able to change Shizun’s attitude of closing his ears. He didn’t expect Huaizui to have this kind of reaction. He was stunned for a moment before he said, “Shizun has always told disciple to worry about other people’s worries and difficulties. … In these ten days, disciple went to a total of twenty-three villages in the upper and lower cultivation world. The scenes I saw were shocking. If Shizun went down the mountain and saw this, he would also … ”
Before he could finish, Huaizui angrily interrupted him. “Who allowed you to leave the mountain without permission?!”
“There is no sun or moon in this mountain. You should have cultivated to perfection as soon as possible and ascended. Why did you hastily leave the mountain and care about the affairs of the mortal world before you had even seen through the mysteries of heaven?!”
“The suffering of the mortal world is endless. How could a little cultivator like you manage it? Why do you think so highly of yourself?! ”
The more Huaizui spoke, the angrier he became. Chu Wanning’s eyes also opened wider and wider.
He watched as his Shizun paced back and forth under the moonlight, flicked his sleeve, tapped the tip of his nose, and scolded him loudly and sternly. The begonia tree cast a thick shadow, cutting Huaizui into pieces. Mo Ran looked at Chu Wanning’s face. At first, he was at a loss, then he was at a loss, then he was shocked, then he was disappointed, and finally he was in pain.
Chu Wanning closed his eyes.
Huaizui said angrily, “Do you know your wrongs?!”
“… …”
“Say something!”
“Disciple.” Chu Wanning paused. His voice was as hard as iron. “I don’t know.”
Huaizui slapped him. “You’re impudent!”
A red mark immediately appeared on Chu Wanning’s cheeks, but he immediately turned his face back. His eyes flashed with confusion and resentment. “Shizun, all these years you’ve always taught me to do things properly, to worry about people and the world. Why is it that when we really encounter a great calamity, you want me to stand by and do nothing?”
“… That’s not the same thing at all.” Huaizui gritted his teeth. “You … came out of the mountain at this time. What can you do? You’re indeed gifted, but the dangers of the world are simply not something you can imagine. Why did you go out? To betray your Shizun’s fourteen years of kindness in raising you, to sacrifice yourself for the sake of your personal feelings? ”
He paused. His words were sonorous, like metal falling to the ground.
“Chu Wanning, you can’t even save yourself, so what can you save others?!”
At this time, Chu Wanning looked at his Shizun with anger and sorrow.
He slightly raised his chin, his phoenix eyes gradually becoming misty.
Huaizui had probably never seen Chu Wanning’s tearful appearance before. The moisture in his eyes more or less extinguished the evil fire in his heart. He stared blankly for a moment, then hesitantly said, “You … Ah, forget it. Did I hurt you just now?”
But Mo Ran, who was watching from the side, clearly knew that it wasn’t.
Chu Wanning didn’t feel pain from the slap just now. He felt pain for the Shizun that he had respected since childhood. He actually said something that was completely inconsistent with the lofty image in his heart.
Chu Wanning slowly closed his eyes. After a moment, Mo Ran heard those words that couldn’t be more familiar.
He said, “If you don’t know how to save others, how to save yourself?”
Huaizui froze. His body was like a motionless clay statue in a Buddhist shrine that was being worshipped and worshipped.
Chu Wanning’s voice was slightly hoarse. “The suffering of the mortal world is right in front of me. Forgive this disciple for being slow-witted. I don’t know why Shizun sits high all day, closing his eyes and ascending to heaven.”
After he finished speaking, he slowly got up.
Under the moonlight, his clothes were no longer pure white. There were stains of mud and blood on them.
But they were so tall and dignified, magnificent and divine.
“This immortal, it’s fine if I don’t cultivate.”
Huaizui was shocked and furious. His head and eyes were dizzy. He sternly said, “Traitor, do you know what you’re saying?!”
“I only want to do what you taught me since I was young.” Chu Wanning was also at a crossbow. But in between tension and relaxation, he slightly trembled, his eyes full of sadness. “You taught me. Is your morality only on paper?! Millions of victims are homeless, and orphans die day and night. What I should do is not to go out of the mountain to support the Dao, but to accompany the oil lamp and ancient Buddha, practicing Zen?! ”
Huaizui roared, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets. “After you achieve Dao and ascend, you can do many good deeds!”
Chu Wanning stared at him, as if he had never seen this person before.
His chest rose and fell, his palms clenched into fists, and his eyes surged. Mo Ran originally thought that in the next moment, he would sweep across the ground like a dragon breaking through the water, setting off huge waves, and choke Huaizui’s throat to make him know his mistake.
But Chu Wanning trembled for a while, and in the end did nothing.
In the end, his eyes were slightly red, and he said hoarsely, “Shizun, I cultivate, not to be free and unfettered, to transcend the mortal world. Is cultivation only for the sake of becoming an immortal? If so, I’d rather not. I’d rather give up halfway, I’d rather achieve nothing, I’d rather stay in the mortal world. ”
“Give me all I have, and die of exhaustion.”
“… …”
“Shizun, please ascend. When I’m done with all the people I can, I’ll come and follow you.”
“Chu Wanning!!”
Even though it was an illusion, Mo Ran could feel Huaizui’s monstrous anger at that time, the secret fear in his heart, and the deep disappointment in his heart.
It was just a wooden statue. How could it dare to frown at the person who gave it the order? What did “it” count for?!
Huaizui’s eyes were red, and there was a hint of blood in the bottom of his eyes.
He was unwilling, and he was angry. Who should he tell the bitterness and secret in his heart?
He had nowhere to vent.
In the end, he called out to Chu Wanning, who was about to step out of the courtyard, and his voice was extremely cold. “Traitor, stop right there.”
