Legend of the Great Sage

annot coexist with Mahāyāna buddhism, so please continue dreaming! I’m taking my leave.” Li Qingshan clasped his hands and was about to leave.

“Hold on, the sign I received was not just from the dream.
It’s from you too.” The Upraised Light abbot abruptly pointed towards Li Qingshan with his finger that he was pointing upwards with.

Li Qingshan shivered inside and felt completely uncomfortable.
He could not help but check himself.
“What’s on me?”

“You have a heart of benevolence.”

Li Qingshan laughed.
“Who knows how many wicked deeds I’ve done in my life.
I beat up over ten thousand people just now.”

“Yet not a single one of them is injured beyond recovery.”

The drilling ground was covered with soldiers.
The army doctors moved around and tended to their wounds.
They discovered that most of them had only suffered light wounds.
At most, it was a few broken bones.
With the medical treatment of the cultivation community, they recovered very quickly.

Of course, Li Qingshan had held back, or he probably would have blasted them to pieces with a punch of his.
He would have left the drilling grounds flowing with blood.
However, Chao Tianjiao would definitely end up stopping him, so he could not play to his heart’s content.
In the end, he would even break the military law and give Li Liehuo an edge over him.

He was not trying to play some good guy.
He said calmly, “I just had qualms.”

The Upraised Light abbot asked closely, “If you didn’t have these qualms, would you have held a massacre?”

Li Qingshan was slightly taken aback.
He shook his head.
“Of course not.
They only spoke ill of me behind my back.
There’s no need for me to kill them!”

The Upraised Light abbot said in delight, “In your eyes, they’re still people.” Then a hint of sympathy appeared in his eyes.
“Yet in the eyes of many cultivators, they’re no longer people.
Let alone cultivators, but even to many ruling figures among mortals, they’re not people.”

“Heh, a heart of benevolence.” Li Qingshan fell silent for a while.
“Then do you know just how many innocent people I’ve killed? If the need arises, I’ll still kill them.” For some reason, he found it rather saddening and ironic.
If he had a heart of benevolence, then wouldn’t a certain head of state basically be a living buddha?

“The buddha has said, set down the butcher’s blade and achieve buddhahood.”

Li Qingshan became filled with even more scorn.
“So you can call that enlightenment through murder? Good people can’t become buddhas, while bad people can.
Oh, I understand now.
The ones with the butcher’s blade are still strong enough after all.
As long as they’re willing to convert to buddhism, they’ll immediately become powerful lackeys that can work for buddhism.
Of course, they’re more useful than those weak, vulnerable good people.
Looks like I need to kill a little more in the future.”

Reaching there, his face had already become filled with contempt.
He completely disregarded the fact that this was the Pure Land temple and he was facing a monk who had attained two fruits of buddhism that was stronger than him.

“That’s not true!” The Upraised Light abbot shook his head.
“The so-called goodness of regular people is mostly just because of weakness.
It cannot stand any test.
If you give them power beyond their control, they will act as they please, also becoming butchers and great demons.
Even without power, they will blame everyone and everything but not themselves, refusing to admit their mistakes.
That’s why it’s difficult to bring salvation to everyone.”

“Cultivators and people of superior status have always started off as mortals.
You must have seen many of their faces and heard many of their sayings, either viewing mortals as ants where no matter how they trampled or destroyed them, it was not a crime, or viewing the common people as lambs that were born to be oppressed.
Not only do their butcher’s blade take the lives of others, but it’s even destroyed their benevolence as well.
Everything they do is only for the sake of their own peace of mind.”

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Suddenly, he asked Li Qingshan, “Why must you make yourself suffer?”

Li Qingshan remained silent.

“You have the butcher’s blade in hand and benevolence in your heart.
The more you kill, the more you suffer inside.
You would rather endure this suffering than let go of your benevolence, your view that all are equal.
If someone like that is willing to cast aside the butcher’s blade, they will definitely embrace benevolence, never to be swayed by anything again.
That is why the buddha has said, set down the butcher’s blade and achieve buddhahood.”