Chapter 41: The Mantis Stalks the Cicada, Unaware of the Oriole Behind

"Little Six, stop sleeping! Go and see why the crows outside are making such a terrible racket!" Staring at the purple-and-black bruises covering his forehead, Hui'an, the close-disciple of the Abbot of the White Horse Temple, stretched out his leg to kick the young novice monk slumped at the edge of the bed, issuing an annoyed command.

"Yes!" The novice monk opened his drowsy eyes and stumbled as he walked toward the door. Unfortunately, his foot caught on the threshold, and with a heavy thump, he took a thorough tumble face-first onto the floor.

"Thump, thump, thump..." From the adjacent room, the sound of fists or heels hammering against the wall immediately echoed through the partitions. Following closely behind, a stern reprimand pierced right through the wall: "Hui'an, what on earth are you doing? Are you ever going to let people sleep?"

"Hui'an, as a man of the cloth, your heart must remain tranquil. If your heart were not impure, how could you have brought such a calamity upon yourself?"

"Yes, Elder Brother!" Monk Hui'an felt so wronged he wanted to smash his head against the wooden bedframe, but he had to swallow his bitter resentment and reply in a low voice.

During yesterday's conflict, he had lost far more than just a few teeth. Upon returning to the temple, his status within the monastic hierarchy had instantly plummeted by more than half.

Not only did his master, the Abbot, refuse to stand up for him, but he had also given him a severe dressing-down. As for his fellow apprentice brothers, they deemed him far too arrogant and resented the fact that he had provoked a fifth-rank official without consulting anyone.

Given the immense influence Buddhism currently held in the Great Tang, it certainly had no reason to fear a fifth-rank official. However, Buddhism was Buddhism, and the Chang'an White Horse Temple was the Chang'an White Horse Temple. Leaving aside the fact that Hui'an lacked the clout to mobilize the entire Buddhist establishment to back him up, even if his master were to step forward personally, the outcome would be no different.

What Hui'an found even harder to accept was that ever since he returned to the temple yesterday with a face full of scars, Princess Anle had merely sent a maidservant to deliver a single box of ointment. As for the princess herself, let alone coming in person to check on him, she hadn't even bothered to send so much as a single comforting word.

"Heartless!" Thinking of how the princess used to chat and laugh with him so freely, and how his senior brothers once treated him like the stars surrounding the moon, Hui'an could not help but mutter resentfully to himself.

The beating he took was endured precisely to stand up for the princess. He refused to believe that someone as clever as Princess Anle could not guess why he had gone to find Zhang Qian.

Furthermore, the beating was also suffered for the future of the White Horse Temple. The reason he used the water well as a pretext was to secure a stake in the equity of the Six-Miracle Dew. As far as he knew, that was a veritable goose that laid golden eggs. Once the White Horse Temple managed to get a finger in that pie, even a meager half-share of the silent partnership would be more than enough to regild the Buddha statues with gold every single year!

Yet now, none of his senior brothers felt any gratitude toward him, and Princess Anle did not acknowledge even the slightest bit of credit due to him. How could his heart not turn cold?

The bruises on his face would fade in time. The gums where his teeth had been knocked out would gradually stop aching. And he swore to himself that, having experienced such a trial, he would never again voluntarily lift a finger for any of these people.

"Unless—unless they come and beg me themselves!" The mere thought of Princess Anle kneeling beside him and pleading in soft, gentle tones made Hui'an's heart flutter.

'Master is right, this monk's heart is not tranquil. But looking around the Buddhist order today, who among them is truly qualified to claim a "tranquil heart"? Don't think this monk is unaware of the things you lot have been up to; I simply couldn't be bothered to expose them. Even Master himself, back when he went to the Lady of Ningguo's residence to chant scriptures for her deceased husband, didn't he end up chanting right beside the lady's bed...?'

"Bang!" Even as he secretly harbored these disdainful thoughts, a dull, heavy impact echoed from outside. Immediately afterward, the cries of the cold-weather crows suddenly turned frenzied, "Caw, caw, caw, caw..." sounding like starving ghosts stumbling upon a lavish feast.

"Little Six? What is it? What did you bump into this time?" Annoyed to distraction by the raucous cawings of the flock, Hui'an struggled to sit up and raised his head to peer out the window.

To ward off the biting cold, a thick layer of coarse paper had been pasted over the window lattice, completely blocking his view. Moreover, the mica panes embedded in the center of the window were not ground flat enough, allowing him to see only the vague outline of a human figure flashing past in the moonlight.

'It's not Little Six. Little Six is clumsy and uncoordinated; his movements could never be that fast.' Instantly realizing that something was amiss, Hui'an flipped off the bed, shoved his feet into his straw sandals, and rushed toward the doorway in two or three strides. "Who's out there? Help! There's a thief! There—"

"Ah—" A piercing shriek rent the air, instantly choking his challenge back down his throat.

The person outside was indeed not Little Six.

Little Six was already lying on the ground, his fate unknown.

As for that person, he was wielding a steel-whip-like weapon, having just smashed the head of Senior Brother Huineng—who had stepped outside to relieve himself—into a splatter of brains and gore.

"Clatter!" Decisively, Hui'an slammed the half-pushed-open door shut, threw the deadbolt, blew out the lamp, and shoved the heavy bed against the door panel, completing every movement in one fluid motion.

The pain on his face vanished, and the dizziness in his head was instantly swept away. He sank to his knees, curling his body tightly into the corner of the room near the window, determined not to make another sound.

This maneuver was absolute genius, instantly shielding him from the notice of the steel-whip-wielding intruder. Meanwhile, his less-than-clever senior brothers suffered a complete catastrophe. Anyone who dared to rush outside had their head smashed to a pulp by that weapon.

"Thud!" "Thud!" "Thud!" Accompanied by the dull thuds of metal striking flesh, sprays of blood splattered against the window, instantly soaking the paper screen clear through.

"Ah—!"

"Ah—!"

"Mother in heaven—!"

The shrieks pierced straight through the window, endlessly drilling into Hui'an's ears, frightening him so badly that his legs trembled violently and a large patch of the floor beneath him grew instantly damp.

The wielder of the whip outside was no human; he was a demon, an authentic, undeniable demon. Little Six had been beaten to death before he could utter a sound. The robust Huineng had barely managed a single scream.

Yet that demon showed no intention of stopping his slaughter, carrying his iron whip as he continued to hunt down his remaining monastic uncles and senior brothers!

"Namu Amitabha!" The Abbot's voice also rang out in the courtyard, carrying an unmasking grief and indignation, "Esteemed patron, please stay your hand! If my White Horse Temple is destined to suffer this tribulation, I beg you to let me bear it alone. Do not slaughter any more of the innocent!"

The demon made no reply, offering only a low, cold laugh, "Heh, heh, heh..." Following that, footsteps sounded, moving from close to far.

"Clang!" "Clang!" "Clang!" "Clang!"... A rapid sequence of weapon clashes instantly rang in Hui'an's ears, causing his body to shudder and a sudden surge of hopeful light to ignite in his eyes.

"Kill him!"

"Kill him and eradicate the demon to uphold the Way!"

"Though the Buddha is merciful, he too roars like a lion!"

Shouts rose and fell in waves, suddenly instilling strength back into his legs. Struggling to his feet, he lunged toward the window.

The window paper, thoroughly soaked with human blood, tore apart at the slightest touch. Through the rent in the paper, Monk Hui'an clearly saw that the whip-wielding "demon" was fighting side-by-side—or rather, surrounded by—four of his uncles and senior brothers, yet not falling behind in the slightest.

It was not Zhang Yongzhao! Although Zhang Yongzhao's martial prowess was also exceptional, Hui'an could tell at a glance that the demon outside was a good half-head shorter than Zhang Yongzhao!

Furthermore, this person's shoulders were not as broad as Zhang Yongzhao's, yet their hair was far longer than Zhang Yongzhao's!

The only thing resembling Zhang Yongzhao was their agility. Their movements were terrifyingly swift, so fast that the eye could barely track them. Before Hui'an could decide whether or not to vault out the window and lend his uncles and brothers a hand from behind, a sudden "clang" rang out mid-air as a ring-headed saber was knocked flying upward, hurtling straight toward the top of his head.

"Ah—!" Instinctively letting out a yelp, Hui'an ducked his neck and shrank back beneath the windowsill. The shrieking saber flew past a mere half-foot above his head, "crack," shattering the window lattice and paper into a flurry of fragments.

"Thud!" With a single stroke of his steel whip, the demon knocked the formidable Monk Dingfang crashing to the ground, stripping him of his weapon. Immediately afterward, another strike sent Monk Huijing—who was wielding a Zen staff—recoiling in a stagger, vomiting a mouthful of blood.

The encirclement was swiftly breached, and the whip-wielder charged once more toward Abbot Liaokong.

"Namu Amitabha!" Knowing he could not escape his doom, Abbot Liaokong chanted the Buddha's name and closed his eyes to await death. At that very moment, several whistling sounds suddenly cut through the night sky, "Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..."

A volley of feathered arrows flew through the air, their sharp arrowheads gleaming with a bone-chilling frost in the moonlight.

"Damn it!" The steel-whip wielder decisively retracted his weapon, executing a flying-bird-dives-into-the-forest maneuver that swept past Liaokong's legs, rolling and vanishing instantly into the shadows of the courtyard wall.

"Ah!" "Ah!" "Mother!" Screams rang out in alternating succession once more. It was the monks who had previously surrounded the "demon," failing to dodge in time, who were struck by stray arrows. One by one, they collapsed in pools of blood, writhing back and forth.

"Namu Amitabha, many thanks to the righteous patron for coming to our rescue!" Escaping death by the skin of his teeth, Liaokong knew he could not blame the archer for accidentally wounding his junior brothers and disciples, and he bowed tearfully toward the direction from which the arrows had flown.

However, before he could even finish chanting a single Buddha's name, a second volley of arrows arrived, felling him and all the remaining monks frozen in the courtyard flat to the ground.

"Search! That fellow must still be hiding in the temple. Number Four, take men to secure the perimeter. If you spot any night patrolmen, sound the alarm immediately!" A shrill voice echoed in the darkness, devoid of any warmth belonging to humankind.

"Understood, Third Brother!" Someone replied in a low voice, instantly charging into the White Horse Temple.

Every man's face was masked with a piece of black cloth, the sabers in their hands flashing with chilling light.

Monk Huijing, suffering from internal injuries, struggled in an attempt to question the intruders' identity, only to have his throat slit open by a black-clad assassin with a single slash. Dingxing, wounded by an arrow, crawled out of a pool of blood and attempted a stumbling escape, but was hunted down by an assassin who ran him straight through the heart with a blade.

Following closely came Dingzhi, Huizhong, and Huiji, along with the novice monks Xiaosi, Xiaowu, and Xiaogi. The blade light flashed ceaselessly, and blood spurted without pause. Room after room was cleared, regardless of whether or not they housed statues of the Buddha.

"Don't kill me—" Hearing the sounds of slaughter drawing closer and closer, Monk Hui'an finally broke under the pressure, leaping out through the window and shouting as he ran for his life.

A saber slashed down right in front of him, landing squarely in his chest. Letting out a shrill, miserable scream, Hui'an staggered and collapsed. At the moment his vision began to blur, he vaguely caught sight of a throwing dart flashing past his eyes, embedding itself squarely in the saber-wielding assassin's shoulder socket.

"Clink, clang, ding-dong!" The sounds of clashing weapons came from afar, drawing closer, and then receding into the distance.

Who killed whom, or who was hunting whom, Hui'an could no longer see any of it.

He collapsed with his eyes wide open, dying with an eternal grievance, his gaze forever fixed in unblinking death.