Legend of the Great Sage

out the Hungry Ghost realm, this tavern wouldn’t have been able to remain open.
This is no longer just diluting alcohol with water.
You can’t taste the alcohol at all!”

“It’s always been alcohol.
I’ve given up drinking.”

“Tsk, then why are you drinking away so heartily?” Li Qingshan placed down the bowl and said solemnly, “The Chan Monastery of Deva-Nāga cannot remain in the nine provinces anymore.”

“Buddha nemesis, what are you trying to do?”

Before the Unraging monk could say anything, the Dauntless monk’s furious roar rang out from outside, shaking up all of the dust in the tavern.

“If you call me buddha nemesis again, I’ll actually act like one for once!”

Li Qingshan leapt to his feet.
Actually, he did not have any particularly strong feelings towards the term “buddha nemesis”.
It was like calling a cat a dog and calling an ox a horse.
It merely left him with a bad taste in his mouth.

“Senior brother, why do you call Qingshan a buddha nemesis?” The Unraging monk was perplexed too.

“I personally say the embodiment of Maheśvara behind him!”

“The lord of the māra, Maheśvara!”

The Unraing monk was stunned.
The lord of the māra, Maheśvara, was unlike the other supernatural beings.
Even those “heretics” who worshiped Maheśvara could not condense an embodiment of him!

“What the fuck does Maheśvara have to do with me?”

Only now did Li Qingshan confirm the name of that image, but he did not revere him at all.
Their paths merely happened to coincide, and he merely happened to develop a connection.
Simply as that, he had been written off as a buddha nemesis.
It was an absolute injustice.
However, he did forget about something.
If he coincided with Maheśvara’s path, then what was he if he was not a buddha nemesis? He was only half a monk, but his background was basically even greater than Xiao An’s.

The Dauntless monk pointed at Li Qingshan furiously.
“Yes, this is exactly what it is, this attitude of complete disrespect! You are clearly a buddha nemesis!”

Li Qingshan was speechless.
This was like how someone who said there was nothing wrong with them definitely had something wrong with them.
It was basically impossible to continue this discussion.

“Whatever! If I’m a buddha nemesis, then I’m a buddha nemesis! I’m not going to bicker with you.
The Green province is almost done for, so you better move away quickly.”

As if it was to verify his words, the earth shook again, and the water in the bowl rippled.

The Dauntless monk roared furiously, “It’s you!”

Li Qingshan shrugged.
“It’s me.”

“Do you know what kind of a sin it is to destroy the world and plunge the people into misery?”

“This is war.
The innocent, the weak are always going to be the unlucky ones first.
However, I didn’t start this war.”

Li Qingshan was calm.
Since he had made up his mind, there was no point in acting all sympathetic to the misfortunate.
Leaving the fate of his women and children to the enemy’s benevolence was not something a man should do.
No matter how many innocent people he killed, no matter how many sins he burdened, he would not be changing his mind.

The Dauntless monk was so furious that he was left speechless.
The Unraging monk wanted to say something, but he faltered, only sighing in the end.

Li Qingshan pointed at the bowl of water and said slowly, “Forty eight thousand insects in a buddhist temple’s bowl of water.”

The poem basically described that there were countless tiny organisms invisible to the naked eye in the water.
Even drinking water was committing the sin of taking life and required chanting scriptures and expiation.

“Are the living creatures all equal, or are they not?”

Li Qingshan seemed to be posing a question, yet he also seemed like he was talking to himself.
If they were equal, then killing insects was no different from killing people.
Right from birth, they had committed heinous sins.
If they were not equal, then the difference between mortals and gods and buddhas was probably even larger than the difference between insects and mortals.
As a result, massacring life would be as ordinary as drinking water.

The Dauntless monk and the Unraging monk both possessed great wisdom.
They immediately understood what he was trying to say.
They glanced at each other, but there were only two words in their eyes.
“Buddha nemesis!”

This was questioning the buddhist dharma and slandering the buddhist dharma from its very core.

Li Qingshan drank all the water in the bowl in a single bowl and smiled.
“I’ll call you master one more time, and that’s the end of our relationship as master and disciple.”