Chapter 85: Alms

When Iron Hammer followed behind him, usually Lu Jinnian would have asked someone else to follow him. However, today, feeling particularly anxious, he didn’t bother with that.

After mounting his horse, he raised his whip and headed toward the city gates.

At the city gates, there were already people gathered, watching the commotion, not minding that their feet had sunk into the muddy ground.

Upon leaving the city, Lu Jinnian looked up and saw the firelight spreading from the Longxing Temple on the mountain outside Qinghe County.

The fire was widespread, but it seemed impossible to extinguish.

“Miaozhen,” Lu Jinnian muttered quietly, gritting his teeth. Two words barely escaped his throat.

His throat was sore, and a sense of regret and confusion filled his heart.

Life in this world should follow the path of a gentleman, walking in an orderly manner through one’s life.

Love, for ordinary people, is nothing but a foolish obsession.

He couldn’t help but question himself, wondering if he was wrong to be so infatuated.

But if he had already fallen deeply in love, how could he ever find a way out?

Lu Jinnian’s mother’s figure appeared in his mind.

As a mother, she naturally commanded admiration from her children, a figure to be learned from. Whenever he felt wronged, he always thought of his mother’s image.

Mother, what should I do? Lu Jinnian wondered, gripping the reins tightly.

His heart was unsettled, yet his body acted on its own, rushing toward Longxing Temple.

---

Outside Qinghe County, Longxing Temple.

“Boom!” The thunder rumbled, hidden in the clouds, with no lightning in sight.

“Run! Run!”

The fire in the temple was not natural; it was clearly man-made.

Qinghe County had always been a peaceful place. Although it had suffered from a locust plague causing great loss, the people still managed to survive.

The locals were still praying for better luck in the coming year.

However, outside Qinghe County, some areas had already been transformed by the locust plague.

Water bandits and mountain bandits ran rampant, and the situation in the southern lands had changed drastically.

The monks and abbot of Longxing Temple had been captured by mountain bandits from the south, all locked up inside the temple hall.

This group of bandits numbered at least fifty or sixty, each armed with knives, looking fierce and menacing.

Longxing Temple had no martial monks, only the abbot and a few dozen novices and monks.

It had rained all day yesterday, and today, fewer devotees had come to pray and make offerings, and they naturally didn’t carry weapons.

As a result, over ten pilgrims and dozens of monks were trapped inside the temple.

Although it was a temple, there was no shortage of incense money.

The bandits had looted more than ten boxes of silver from the temple, roughly a thousand taels of silver.

For a small county like Qinghe, such wealth was astonishing. After raiding the temple, the bandits were very pleased.

The monks thought these bandits were only after money and wouldn’t resort to killing.

After all, it was a Buddhist temple. How could the bandits kill here?

But since they were bandits, they didn’t know the meaning of turning back from evil.

Thus, the killing began. The lamps set the temple on fire, burning the Buddha statues and the temple’s gold and flesh.

The monks and pilgrims managed to break the ropes with fire and barely escaped from the flames, but the bandits found them and chased after them, killing them with a knife to the head.

Terrified and exhausted, those who fell to the ground were slaughtered by the bandits, who laughed loudly as they dismounted to strike.

Under the mountain bandits’ knives, no matter one’s wealth or status, it seemed that all lives were equal.

The heavy sky suddenly started to rain.

Miaozhen gasped for breath, the rain hitting his face as he ran forward, feeling suffocated, and had no choice but to open his mouth to breathe.

His clothes, soaked by the rain, became heavy and sticky, the muddy ground staining his white socks brown.

He had been left behind, and a large man was chasing after him.

“Ah!” Not paying attention to his footing, he tripped on a protruding stone and fell to the ground.

The bandit behind him laughed loudly as he reached him and grabbed his foot, pulling him back.

The bandit didn’t want his life, so he wiped Miaozhen’s face. Seeing his handsome features, he had an evil thought.

While the bandit unbuckled his pants, Miaozhen trembled and grabbed a fist-sized stone, throwing it hard at the bandit’s head.

A purple flash appeared in the sky.

“Boom!” A bright flash of lightning accompanied by a deafening thunderclap.

Warm blood splattered on his face, and the smell of blood filled his nostrils. Looking at the mutilated man before him, Miaozhen’s face showed a look of despair.

He looked up at the sky, the shadows of trees casting on the ground, and the sky was growing darker.

The surrounding sounds faded away.

The flames rising from the distance, along with the black smoke, lit up the mountain road.

“Chao’er! Chao’er!” A familiar voice came from afar.

The novice moved slightly.

That was the name he had before becoming a monk.

Jiang Chao.

His name.

“Spring river tide is connected to the sea, and the bright moon rises with the tide.”

His father had never seen the great river or the sea, so from the few lines he had read, he chose the character “Chao” for his son’s name, hoping he would be as turbulent as the river waves and as vast as the sea.

The blood on his face was washed away by the rain.

His uncle reached him.

Seeing the body near Jiang Chao, his uncle quickly checked his condition. Finding no serious injuries except for a few scratches on his hands, he took him in his arms.

“Good boy, good boy.” Jiang Chao could feel his uncle’s trembling body.

But Jiang Chao was stunned, his eyes devoid of expression.

Good boy?

He had killed someone, broken the precepts. How could he still be a good boy?

---

When Lu Jinnian arrived, the temple had already been burned beyond recognition.

He hadn’t worn a raincoat when he left, and now his clothes were completely soaked.

Initially, he wanted to rush into the temple to look for someone, but Iron Hammer, who had followed him, stopped him.

To avoid him being caught in the spreading flames, Iron Hammer had taken him far away.

He had been so anxious when he arrived, only focused on the temple, but when he turned around, he saw the ground littered with bodies.

The air was thick with the smell of blood, rancid and hard to bear.

“It’s not just a fire,” Lu Jinnian murmured, “It’s not an ordinary fire.”

It wasn’t a natural disaster, but a man-made calamity…

When Iron Hammer brought Lu Jinnian home, he was still in a daze.

That night, he developed a high fever, muttering in his sleep and calling out “Miaozhen” over and over.

Wen Ruyu heard the news and, surprisingly, decided to personally visit her youngest son’s room.

The eldest daughter-in-law was in her confinement period, so Wen Ruyu couldn’t reprimand her for withholding information.

Moreover, this was something Lu Jinnian had caused himself.

He had been timid and cautious, entangled with people from the outside world, yet he had deepened his emotional attachment on his own.

Who could he blame?

The name “Miaozhen,” along with the location of Longxing Temple, made Wen Ruyu realize that this was a junior monk from the temple.

The Lu family frequently visited the temple to pray, so they naturally knew some of the monks there. “Miaozhen” was a common name for younger monks.

Wen Ruyu had heard names like “Xuanzhen” and “Xiuzhen” before.

“What did the doctor say?”

“The doctor said the fever came on suddenly, and it’s due to heart fire being hard to extinguish. He prescribed some medicine and said the Fourth Master is young and should recover soon, as long as his temperature doesn’t rise further. He’ll need constant monitoring.”

Wen Ruyu nodded, not understanding much about traditional Chinese medicine, but after her health had improved, she had grown some trust in the doctor’s skills.

When she reached her son’s bedside, a servant drew back the curtain and offered her a chair.

Wen Ruyu looked at Lu Jinnian’s face.

His youthful, handsome features, once full of vitality, were now pale.

There was a damp towel on his forehead, and even though the water had been wrung out, it still kept pooling at the edges, with two drops hanging from his ear.

“Miaozhen…” Just as Wen Ruyu arrived, Lu Jinnian murmured the name again.

Wen Ruyu sighed and gently patted his chest, as a mother would to soothe a child to sleep.

“Once you’re better, you can go find him. Everything will be fine.”

After Wen Ruyu spoke, it seemed as if Lu Jinnian sensed her presence. His furrowed brow relaxed a little.

After leaving Lu Jinnian’s room, Wen Ruyu returned to her own quarters, listening to Iron Hammer’s news.

“It seems a group of bandits from the south came, and they don’t seem to have planned to enter the city. According to the surviving monks, the bandits didn’t bring many people, and they weren’t planning to stay long. After robbing and killing, they set the temple on fire and fled. The county magistrate has already closed the city gates. They still haven’t figured out where the bandits came from.”

“Recently, there have been disturbances in many areas. The imperial court only sent word today. It was someone from the Lin County Magistrate’s office who relayed the news. It seems the court has allowed Qinghe County to recruit soldiers. The magistrate will soon issue a notice, calling for brave men.”

Wen Ruyu frowned and did not relax her expression.

She remembered the words from her previous life’s dream, where it was said their family wouldn’t be affected by the chaos.

But now, seeing the bandits had reached the gates of Qinghe County, even though they didn’t enter the city and had already fled, how could the people inside and outside the city bear such repeated incursions?

“How much did they steal?”

“They looted the temple’s incense money, reportedly over a thousand taels of silver. The monks’ own money was also taken. The surviving monks came to report the theft. But they still haven’t figured out where the bandits came from, so who can help them recover the money? It’s just a report, hoping to retrieve it later.”

“Especially the old abbot. After a lifetime as a monk, he had all his savings stolen clean.”

Wen Ruyu touched the jade token in her hand and said, “It’s good they’re alive.”

Iron Hammer sighed. “A lot of people died. The bodies were left along the way, all with their heads severed. The Fourth Master must have been scared by the scene.”

When Qiulai, who stood nearby, heard this, he suggested superstitiously, “Should we find a Taoist to exorcise the evil for the Fourth Master?”

Wen Ruyu remained silent for a while before responding, “No need. Let’s wait and see.”

She then instructed Iron Hammer, “Go and ask those monks about Miaozhen. Is he still alive?”

Since the bandits had killed so many, Miaozhen couldn’t have escaped unscathed. Whether alive or dead, it was hard to know, making things difficult.

After giving her orders, Wen Ruyu dismissed Iron Hammer.

After lunch, a servant came to report that the abbot of Longxing Temple, accompanied by a few monks, had come to request a donation, claiming the temple had been burned and needed to be rebuilt.

Wen Ruyu was surprised, thinking they were either brave or quick to act.

The temple had just burned down, and now they were already asking for money.