The Monk That Wanted To Renounce Asceticism

Fangzheng scratched his nose and smiled bitterly. “What’s the use of my autograph?”

“It’s useful. I’m your fan. My heart warms up seeing you help so many people. Please give me your autograph. Otherwise, I’ll take you back to the police station. We’ll take your statement, and you’ll have to sign your name anyway,” the policeman joked.

Fangzheng was speechless as he obediently gave the policeman an autograph.

After he was done, the policeman wanted to take a picture with him, and Fangzheng didn’t refuse. The policeman immediately found a passerby to help take the picture.

Perhaps it was because of his liking for Fangzheng, but the policeman stood back a little. He held his head high and puffed out his chest. He exuded the stern look of a police officer.

As for Fangzheng, he was different. This was the first time he took a picture with a policeman in his entire life. He scratched his nose and stood there nervously, subconsciously crossing his hands in front of him.

The passerby took the picture and returned the phone to the policeman with a strange smile.

The policeman beamed as he bade Fangzheng farewell. Before Fangzheng left, he gave him his number and said, “Abbot Fangzheng, if there’s anything, call me anytime.”

With that said, the policeman ran over and took the robber away.

However, the muddle-headed robber still hadn’t figured out the situation. He shouted. “It’s just doing some time. I’ll be fine after that!”

When Fangzheng saw the other party’s reaction, he was unsure if he should be angry or amused. He shook his head helplessly and left.

Fangzheng knew one thing. The man was definitely not his mission target. However, he wasn’t in a rush. After all, he was there to hide from the limelight. There was no need to rush back, and he could slowly wander around.

As he walked, Fangzheng saw a notice board. On it was written: “Day tours of Purple Mountain.”

Fangzheng’s eyes lit up. He finally knew where he was. This was Nanjing! But then, Fangzheng’s heart sank. For some reason, he thought of Liu Fangfang from back then. He recalled a song that was sung in a grieving fashion. “Nine one eight, nine one eight…”

Nanjing… A pain every Chinese person feels. Amitabha. Since I’m here, I should pay my respects to those ancestors. With this in mind, Fangzheng sighed and asked someone for directions to the Memorial Hall of the Japanese Invasion’s Nanjing Massacre Victims.

To his surprise, Fangzheng realized that it wasn’t that far from where he was. He just needed to take two turns up ahead.

Fangzheng heaved a sigh of relief when he heard that there was no need to torture himself any further. Following the directions of the passers-by, he quickly found the memorial hall. The memorial hall was free to the public and although it wasn’t a holiday, there were still many people.

Be it the adults or the children, no matter what they were doing or whether they were hearing something happy the moment before, they would subconsciously put away their smiles and wear a solemn look while walking past. It was as if all their joy vanished at that instant. All that was left was endless repression and sorrow.

“Everyone! Gather here, and I’ll give you an introduction. This is the memorial hall’s new exhibition. The new hall is shaped like the bow of a ship that rises high above the ground, representing the ‘Ship of Peace.’ Its profile looks like a broken saber that has been stabbed into the ground. If any of you is lucky enough to view it from above, it resembles a sword turned into a plowshare…” At that moment, a group of tourists walked over, and the tour guide in front of them explained the exhibition as he brought them around.

When Fangzheng heard that, he shook his head slightly. No matter how he looked at the memorial hall, it looked like a huge cemetery! It was a place where countless people’s bones had been buried, a place where countless ghosts were screaming miserably.Read more chapter on NovelFull

There were a total of eight stone sculptures outside the hall; a mother who had lost her husband and son, holding her dead son and grieving despite having been raped moments before; an elderly man who crawled with his instinctive desire to live; a teenager moving forward with his back hunched while holding his dead wife in hand; panicked orphans fleeing in all directions; an old woman carrying an infant in her arms as she carried luggage over her back; a young man carrying his dead father as he lumbered forward; an elderly man suffering all kinds of pain after being skinned; young girls in disheveled clothes with glazed looks in their eyes; an infant sucking on its dead mother’s breast.

As Fangzheng looked at the stone sculptures, he felt as though he had been pulled back to that dark and blood-red era. He seemed to hear the mother hugging her dead child as she screamed silently in grief. It was as if it tore through the confines of space-time, making Fangzheng hear a heart-wrenching yet helpless cry. “Who can save my child…”

It was as if he could see the baby suckling at his mother’s breast in a daze, yet it had no idea that its mother was dead and that it was about to face unknown dangers.

Fangzheng looked up at the statues and subconsciously, the corners of his eyes turned moist. He pressed his palms together, his heart filled with endless sorrow. Finally, he said, “Amitabha.”

Following that, Fangzheng followed the group of tourists in. The venue was free, and anyone could enter, but they were not allowed to bring lighters. Fangzheng saw some unknown tourists handing their lighters over.

Thankfully, Fangzheng didn’t smoke and just followed.

He looked up and saw the words engraved on the pitch-black stone tablet. The words were written in different languages: “VICTIMS: 300,000!”

Fangzheng felt stifled again.

Passing through the wide square of the main entrance, there was a damaged monument that stood erect. The struggling, warped bronze head and a single arm were half inserted in the cobblestone rock. On the front stone wall of the memorial, there were the striking dates: “1937.12.13–1938.1.”

At that instant, Fangzheng’s mind travelled back to that time, and everything in front of him seemed to return to that era.

Upon entering the museum, there was a Nanjing massacre summary engraved on the wall in Chinese, English, and Japanese. A snippet of it was: “… the Japanese soldiers committed 28 mass slaughters, killing 190,000 people, and 858 other slaughters, killing more than 150,000 people…”

Behind the summary, there were real photos of collapsed houses, fleeing crowds, helpless children, as well as evidence of deaths caused by drowning, burning, machine guns, and the contest to see who could kill the most. There were dead bodies strewn everywhere with savage executioners all around them.

Fangzheng didn’t know how he walked through it, but his mind was filled with a heaviness, as well as the cries that penetrated through space-time. His heart was bleeding, and his tears never stopped.

Finally, Fangzheng halted in front of the pit of ten thousand corpses. He looked at the pile of bones and fell silent and motionless.

Vaguely, Fangzheng seemed to see countless space-time fragments, and he felt as though he could see innumerable ghosts airing their grievances. Fangzheng knew that they were real. This was because if there were any souls that had remained, they were bound to act this way.

He stood there for quite a while, having forgotten about time. He stood with his palms pressed together and watched in a daze.

There were fewer and fewer people in the exhibition hall. It was unknown when, but at some point, there wasn’t anyone left in the exhibition hall. Perhaps, there were still some people nearby, but they were all scattered…

At this moment, a few suspicious voices sounded. “Sakata-kun, there aren’t many people left. Let’s begin the battle.”