Simon, composed, asked, "Tell me, how do you want to compete?"
Kun Qing chuckled, "If we only competed in one thing, and you lost decisively, the Little Bald Donkey would surely cry. How about we compete in three things, best two out of three?"
"You, this Daoist, may not have great skill, but your tone is not small. Bring forth whatever crooked tricks and poisonous schemes you've concocted. If This humble monk so much as frowns, he won't be a true hero."
The onlookers, enjoying the show, secretly laughed. Even a small novice monk called himself a hero.
"For our first round, we'll each publicly choose a guest to tell fortunes for. We'll recount their past, and regardless of whether the result is accurate, it will all depend on what the surrounding common people say. How about it?"
Simon smiled and nodded, "As you wish."
Kun Qing picked a middle-aged man in plain clothes. He looked like an artisan, with an air of having weathered many hardships, and his eyes held a glimmer of hope for life, a pursuit of happiness.
"My good sir, were you not robbed of some silver by someone last month?"
"Yes."
Kun Qing would ask a question, and the other party would answer, nine times out of ten affirmatively, with only one or two offering supplementary details.
He continued to deduce the artisan's life back ten years, unleashing various personal and strange events one after another, until the man was practically doing a Sichuan opera face-change, before Kun Qing finally stopped.
Everyone applauded enthusiastically.
"Excellent!"
"Excellent!"
What a brilliant Daoist!
The laughter slowly faded, and people turned their gaze to Simon.
The young monk looked left and right, then walked into the crowd, gazing up at everyone. His pupils reflected face after face, and the human forms stretched on his full-moon-like eyeballs, becoming distorted phantoms. Those whose eyes met his felt a strong sense of falling for a moment, as if about to plunge into Simon's heart lake.
So, as his gaze swept across, the crowd let out suppressed gasps, and some trembled, shrinking a bit, in waves like an undulating sea.
Daoist Kun Qing's calm expression immediately became solemn.
Simon strode through the crowd like a whale breaking the surface, rushing directly in front of an old man in the midst of the people. He jumped up, grabbed his collar, and slammed him to the ground.
"Ouch! Murder! The Bald Donkey is going to kill someone!"
Simon poked him in the ribs with a finger, making him gasp for air, then touched his mute point. Afterward, he rubbed his face, pulling off a thin mask to reveal a young face.
"You rascal! Today, your luck is bad. You've stumbled into this critical moment, and This humble monk has no choice but to make an example of you!"
The people around whispered.
"Isn't that Widow Liu's son? Why is he hiding his face and acting so furtively?"
"Liu Ma-jie, who used to wash clothes at Shopkeeper Sheng's? It's indeed her son."
"I heard that kid is involved with Liu Qi-shou!"
"That cheat? Not a good sort."
"If you ask me, he's Liu Qi-shou's son..."
Simon surveyed his surroundings, his imposing gaze silencing the noise. He shouted, "This person has no grudge against This humble monk, nor is he an acquaintance. The following pieces of evidence are all seen by This humble monk's Heavenly Eye. Listen carefully!"
Then he began to recount the young man's life story, from birth.
"This person's name is Liu Deli, unable to speak at five, with brute strength from a young age. He's the one the neighbors called 'Mute Donkey'."
The crowd chuckled at the words.
"At six, his father passed away. In his profound grief and pain, on the day of the funeral, he coughed up blood and found his voice, which sounded like a cuckoo weeping and a gibbon howling."
Everyone immediately fell silent.
"At seven, he entered a private school; at eight, he was expelled; at nine, he learned a craft; at fifteen, he finally mastered it; at sixteen, he started gambling, and in one morning, he lost his family fortune. Heh! What do you think he would do for money?"
A gambler?
One of the representatives of chaotic elements.
He would resort to any deceit or trickery.
Hesitant gazes, like knives, pierced Liu Deli's body, making him feel intense burning pain and bone-chilling cold. He curled up, then struggled, like a live fish half-filleted on a cutting board, still thrashing.
"First, he stole from neighbors, then from distant relatives. Not too much, not too little, not causing too much pain. No one reported it, and all was well."
Someone started to clamor.
"Gambling is like a raging fire, and silver is like firewood. As the old saying goes: 'Carrying firewood to put out a fire, the fire will not die until the firewood is exhausted.' This Liu Deli, at twelve, accidentally found a secret manual in the mass grave three li east of the city. It turned out to be a secret art of disguise. After diligent study, he finally learned the method of bone-shrinking and tendon-shifting. At fourteen, he dug up graves and stole corpses, cutting bones and taking skin to make masks. Since then, he has often disguised himself and used aliases. To get gambling money, he deceived outsiders, extorted, and robbed."
The plain words seemed to possess terrifying magic, flying to the ground and turning into leeches and horseflies, drilling into Liu Deli's skin and marrow, sucking his blood, taking away all his strength and vitality.
"These are all minor evils. They are not enough for This humble monk to drag him out in public. What is most heartbreaking and infuriating is that three days ago, he personally killed his own birth mother because she discovered his secret. It turns out that a month ago, this person, introduced by Liu Qi-shou, colluded with human traffickers to abduct children and dismember them for profit. His mother found a blood-stained piece of cloth in the woodshed, torn from a boy nicknamed Yang Sheng when his left forearm was cut."
Simon smiled slightly, "This humble monk has been waiting like a 'waiting for the rabbit' these past few days and has pretty much gathered the evidence against these human traffickers. If the constables are quick, they should have already rounded up all these villains."
From outside the crowd came two constables in dark blue uniforms, pushing through the already clamorous people, like two heavy black iron blocks sinking into boiling oil.
"Young Master Miaoji, all the culprits have surrendered, except for this Mr. Liu."
The constables took away the dazed man on the ground.
Simon achieved an undisputed victory.
Everything that happened today would appear in storybooks and be sung for a thousand generations.
Kun Qing sighed, "What skill! Is it truly the Buddhist 'Heavenly Eye'?"
"It depends on how you understand it. Tell me about the second round, how do you wish to lose?"
Kun Qing irritably scratched the whiskers on his chin. He felt that he was bound to be disgraced today.
"For the second round, we'll compete in a ritual, to pacify the grievances of the deceased and avert heavenly punishment."
According to ancient legend, if too many corpses remain in a place with bad feng shui, thunder will descend from the heavens, and the earth will shake incessantly. Heaven and earth will attack until the malevolent and deathly qi are resolved, and that place will become a desolate dark abyss, difficult to pass through.
So, monks and Daoists have an obligatory task: to perform rituals in graveyards and battlefields to pacify the souls of the departed.
This was indeed a new task that Simon had not encountered before, but he remained unafraid.
"Where shall we perform the ritual?"
"Let's choose the mass grave east of the city, where you said that Mr. Liu accidentally found the secret manual."
The two of them walked side by side to the east, with a vast procession behind them. A monk and a Daoist, one old and one young, looked as if they were going to fight monsters.
Simon and Kun Qing, both skilled in martial arts, were light-footed and walked quickly. The common people behind them gradually fell behind. As the two in front moved faster and faster, the procession stretched longer and longer, until finally, only a few other martial artists could barely keep up at the end of the line.
After running for about half an hour, they arrived at the mass grave.
Simon squinted, observing. This area was flat and open, with withered trees growing in clusters and tall grass reaching to the sky. The grave mounds swelled like pustules.
What a desolate place.
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