The Monk That Wanted To Renounce Asceticism

This time, Old Chang didn’t object as he nodded.

Following that, the two were taken away by the police officers. Outside the station, Fangzheng pressed his palms together in satisfaction as he gave a Buddhist proclamation. “Amitabha.”

Then, Fangzheng left with Lone Wolf while chuckling.

“Master, what now?” Lone Wolf asked.

Fangzheng said, “Food!”

“Right, we have money now. Speaking of which, Master, can you spend this money without qualms?” Lone Wolf asked.

“Aiyah, now that you mention it, I do feel a little uneasy. Forget it, we won’t be eating. Continue starving,” Fangzheng said.

Lone Wolf hurriedly said, “Master, I heard from Fourth Junior Brother that China has the saying of robbing the rich to feed the poor. Look at us, we are quite poor now. It wasn’t easy for you to rob some money. So why don’t we first… Well?” Towards the end of his words, Lone Wolf raised his eyes, as though he was trying to say “feed us”.

When Fangzheng saw this, he was amused. He rapped him on the head and said, “Alright. Let’s feed ourselves first.”

“Oh yeah! Master, I want to eat a huge basin!”

“Alright.”

“I want pickled vegetables too.”

“Okay…”

…

As they spoke, they gradually walked off into the distance.

Meanwhile, Fangzheng was once again thrown into the limelight. The reason was simple. He had gone from Andong to Mount Heng in an instant! Immediately, someone came forward to do the math. It took about two hours from Andong to Hengyang. If one took a high-speed train, it would take an hour. To go from Hengyang City to Mount Heng would take another one to two hours. That meant that the least one could take going from Andong to Mount Heng was four hours. From the time of the livestream to the interaction on Weibo, about four or five hours had passed. So mathematically speaking, it wasn’t impossible.

But even then, everyone still felt something was amiss since the timing was just too ideal. Wasn’t there some time needed to go up the mountain? And to buy the tickets?

However, if one really wanted to give it so much thought, couldn’t Fangzheng have taken a helicopter? What if he was able to do that?

Therefore, after everyone squabbled all day, the topic ceased to be important.

And at this moment, Fangzheng left Hengyang Train Station in a down and out state. He then looked at Lone Wolf as though he had expected better from him. Lone Wolf cried out, aggrieved. “Master, can you blame me? You humans don’t allow animals on the train. It’s not like I was the one who set the rules.”

Fangzheng also knew that he couldn’t pin the blame on Lone Wolf. However, with this impasse before them, he needed to blame someone, right? Himself? Obviously not. Blame the government? Not really… Hence, it could only be Lone Wolf’s fault.

Fangzheng was considering the usage of his divine powers to bring Lone Wolf on board the train. The problem was that he would need to constantly have A Golden Millet Dream activated if he did. Fangzheng believed that he had a pretty good constitution, but to have his divine power activated for hours would exhaust him to death.

Helplessly, Fangzheng could only abandon the thought and walk out of the long-distance train station. In the end…

A few minutes later, Fangzheng looked at Lone Wolf who opened his mouth and said, aggrieved, “Master, why do you humans have so many useless rules? What’s wrong with letting me board the public transport? Do they think I’ll piss and sh*t all over the place?”

As he spoke, a dog ran past them, and it raised one of its hind legs. Without stopping, it peed while running, soaking the flowers and grass with bright colors.

Fangzheng looked at Lone Wolf again who now wore an embarrassed look. “They do not represent me. I’m very well-mannered.”

Fangzheng couldn’t be bothered with him. Since they couldn’t use public transport, there was nothing else they could do. He decided to run. However, having learned his lesson after getting lost before, Fangzheng didn’t dare to run around haphazardly. He took out his cell phone and opened the navigation app. Then he ran along the national highway with Lone Wolf. Whenever he felt up to it, he would activate A Golden Millet Dream to hide his tracts, running as fast as he could. If he felt drained, he would deactivate it and slowly jog or walk with Lone Wolf.

Through this method, Fangzheng walked an entire day with Lone Wolf and passed Andong. Taking the opportunity when no one was watching at night, the two ran as fast as they could. With them often passing through the woods, no one noticed them. Even if someone did notice them, they would appear like a ghostly blur, giving them a fright.

Before daybreak the next day, Fangzhenga and Lone Wolf finally rushed up the peak of a small mountain. Standing there, the clouds beneath the mountain lingered, and they were unsure where they were. Looking far into the distance, rays of sunshine had already escaped the horizon. The emission of the golden rays was dispersing the thin fog.

Fangzheng cupped his eyes and looked around, hoping to find traces of human life.

At that moment, Lone Wolf exclaimed. “Master, there’s a house there!”

When Fangzheng heard this, he saw a house hidden underneath a huge tree. Through the corner of the tree, he could vaguely make out overhanging eaves and blue tiles. It looked like an old building.

Fangzheng was curious. Although the route he had chosen wasn’t completely uninhabited, it wasn’t a flourishing area either. There were little traces of people. On the map, there were few spots which were labeled. Almost everything was empty.

However, to have an ancient building hidden here, one that didn’t look smaller than One Finger Monastery and actually even looked a lot bigger, how could it be completely unheard of? Why wasn’t it on the map? Fangzheng was truly puzzled.

Patting Lone Wolf on the head, he pointed downwards. “Let’s go there and take a look.”

Fangzheng led Lone Wolf down the slope which was filled with trees. It was nearly untraversable, but Fangzheng had the White Lunar Monk Robe protecting him. So as long as there wasn’t a hole, he could just run straight ahead. Lone Wolf was even better at navigating through forests. Therefore, such untraversable areas for normal humans were no different from flat ground to the two of them.

However, after running for a while, they saw the woods suddenly open up into a wide, open area.

On careful look, this path seemed to have been repaired. The path wasn’t made of stone, but it had been made with bamboo. It produced creaking sounds when someone stepped on it. However, when Fangzheng slightly exerted strength to test it, he discovered the simple-looking bamboo stairs contained exquisite workmanship!

Although it wasn’t the work of a master, it wasn’t a perfunctory reparation either. The bamboo path was not only firm and durable, but it was also not slippery. It was a common flaw for bamboo pavements to become slippery upon contact with water due to their texture.

Fangzheng carefully studied the path and discovered that someone had used a special method to treat the bamboo’s outer layer, making it extremely rough. And amid this roughness, there was a special ancient charm to it. Upon seeing this, Fangzheng felt even more puzzled. The more he studied it, the more surprised he was. The patterns on the bamboo surface hadn’t been done haphazardly but carved according to the bamboo’s natural grain. Even some artificial burnishing had been performed to form pictures on the path!

Fangzheng felt enlightened, while also feeling impressed with the carver’s patience. To go according to the grain to carve and burnish was a huge, atypical undertaking. Furthermore, the bamboo path was so long, so how much work must that have taken?