Chapter 280:
Capital City, the Zhenguo Temple that was originally thronged with pilgrims.
Silent and empty.
Apart from a few young novice monks sweeping, no one else appeared.
Lu Ziyan, dressed in a set of dark regular clothes, entered a somewhat desolate courtyard with ease and familiarity, his footsteps not pausing as he went straight to the door of a side room.
He pushed the door and entered.
The side room was not large; upon entering, one’s eyes fell on the old monk sitting cross-legged on the cushion.
Skinny and emaciated, qi and blood decline.
Indeed the appearance of one whose lifespan had reached its end.
This was the current abbot of Zhenguo Temple, the enlightened monk renowned throughout the Great Khan.
In his past life, this old monk had died on the road during his travels; by the time Lu Ziyan’s people found him, he had already passed away.
And in this life, he had finally managed to bring the man back to the capital.
He hoped that this “enlightened monk” was not yet another fame-seeker.
In these two years, the “extraordinary people” who had died at Lu Ziyan’s hands numbered at least eight hundred if not a thousand.
Among them were no lack of those with real abilities, who, tempted by high official positions and generous salaries, and the allure of fame across the world, entered the palace intending to serve the emperor.
But their abilities were not enough to satisfy Lu Ziyan.
Therefore, without exception, they all died.
At the beginning, those extraordinary people had eagerly come forward to answer the imperial edict; later, after Lu Ziyan’s reputation for killing spread, it changed to soldiers and generals from all directions capturing them and bringing them in.
The footsteps startled the old monk who was sitting cross-legged.
Master Kongjian’s drooping eyelids opened; his calm, ancient-well-without-ripples facial expression changed upon clearly seeing the visitor.
He pressed his hands together, chanted a Buddha’s name, his aged face full of compassion, “Donor, your sin of killing is something this monk has seen only once in this life.”
“Is that so?” Lu Ziyan did not stop his footsteps, not caring at all.
In past life and this life, the people he had slaughtered were countless; just the Jin Kingdom alone had been destroyed twice by his hand. The heaviness of his sin of killing was probably unmatched even if one searched through all of history, so how could he care about this.
Lu Ziyan said indifferently: “Master, with such discerning eyes, you must understand the purpose of my visit today?”
Master Kongjian was already very old, speaking slowly, “What the donor seeks, this monk is powerless to achieve.”
Powerless!
A “boom.”
It was the sound of Lu Ziyan kicking and shattering the solid wooden square table beside him.
He sneered coldly: “If even the esteemed abbot is a fame-seeker, then in my view, there is no need for Zhenguo Temple to exist any longer.”
Zhenguo Temple had a history of several hundred years, and truly speaking, even longer than the time since the Great Khan was founded.
Before the Great Khan, Zhenguo Temple was not yet called Zhenguo Temple, but it was still a grand temple with flourishing incense.
In the past, when the Great Khan’s founding ancestor was vying for supremacy over the world, he had received guidance from that generation’s abbot, thus after founding the nation, he honored this temple as Zhenguo Temple.
Up to the present day, its great fame resounded throughout the Great Khan.
Now, someone was saying right in front of the current abbot that Zhenguo Temple no longer needed to exist henceforth.
If it were anyone else saying such words, they would surely be deemed to have lost their mind.
But this was the current emperor.
Moreover, an emperor with a reputation for killing.
No one would think his words were a joke.
Master Kongjian’s facial expression changed once again.
Lu Ziyan had already walked up to him, squatted down to meet his gaze levelly, his eyes sharply pressing, “Why doesn’t Master think carefully about how to act, so that I can achieve my wish.”
He had two wishes.
First wish: to summon back his Wanwan’s soul, to be able to see her day after day.
Second wish: to return to the past once more, to start over.
He would use all methods to change the outcome for his beloved young lady, who had met an early death in both lives.
Master Kongjian sighed faintly: “It is not that this old monk intentionally refuses; it is simply that the donor’s wishes are all beyond what human power can achieve. The word ‘fate’—under the guidance of fate, there is predetermined fate.”
