劍問蒼天 - 第176章 俗世佛堂 - 翰墨軒

Fa Cheng glanced at him, and after an unexpected pause, said quietly, "That martial uncle's name was Pu Zhao. He has been dead these ten years and more."

Ming Li's body went rigid, as though the two words "Pu Zhao" were a thunderclap out of a clear sky, striking him full in the mind and shattering it.

Fa Cheng watched the shifting expressions on Ming Li's face—now grief, now fury—and sighed. "Enough. Let us go. The abbot is waiting for us."

Ming Li followed him woodenly. His step, which had been fairly light before, was now unbearably heavy. After some few zhang he suddenly turned back, his face a tangle of feeling: far off, the crowd surged and murmured, countless people passing along that stone stair—old men, women, children—each with a devout face, each murmuring the Buddha's name as they climbed, as though by walking this road they drew a little nearer to the Buddha.

Ming Li's face was unreadable; his hands clenched into fists and slowly loosened again. At length he turned his head and walked on. Fa Cheng, waiting ahead, pressed his palms together and invoked the Buddha's name, and said no more.

The two went on together, leaving behind them that countless throng of worshippers and that silent road of Buddha, there in the mortal world.

This place was the mortal world already, no longer a realm of immortals and buddhas.

********

Past the Mahavira Hall there stretched yet another long succession of halls and shrines; Fanyin Temple was, after all, a great and famous sect, its grandeur beyond any common temple's compare. Yet Fa Cheng led Ming Li on and on without stopping at any hall or tower, making straight for the rear mountain.

Ming Li followed in silence the whole way, his face heavy with thought, the ornate and beautiful buildings around him going quite unseen.

Only at the last, when Fa Cheng brought him out by the temple's rear gate and onto a small mountain path leading up toward the summit of Mount Sumeru, did Ming Li frown and ask, "What—is Abbot Pu Cheng not in the temple?"

Fa Cheng nodded. "Correct. Though the temple is open to the world, and that is a deed of boundless merit, monks after all need quiet. My master and several of my martial uncles are all lovers of stillness, and have always lived in a small temple at the summit—what we generally call 'Little Fanyin Temple.'" He smiled, showing two rows of white teeth.

Ming Li nodded silently and said no more, following Fa Cheng up toward the peak of Mount Sumeru.

Mount Sumeru could not compare with the Heaven-Reaching Peak of Canglan Gate, which pierced the clouds, but it was by no means low. The Fanyin Temple they had just left already stood halfway up the mountain, and yet they climbed a full half-hour more before the plaque of Little Fanyin Temple came into view.

Seen from outside, Little Fanyin Temple well deserved the name "little": a compound of no more than three successive courts, far removed from the vast splendor of the temple below. But here, far from the mortal world, ancient pines and tall bamboo grew in dense groves on every side; when the mountain wind passed, the pines stirred and the bamboo swayed, with a quiet elegance beyond words—a flavor altogether different from the bustle below.

Ming Li, barely recovered from grave wounds, had walked a long way, and his brow was lightly beaded with sweat. He halted to rest a moment and looked back: far down the mountainside, Fanyin Temple was thick with incense smoke, curling up in threads and wisps, so clear even at this distance, and through it faintly came the sound of voices, devout and solemn beyond telling.

Ming Li gazed into the distance for a long while, lost in a daze, and who knows what he was thinking. At last he turned, and Fa Cheng nodded and led him into Little Fanyin Temple.