Zanxing (Retranslated)

Chapter 287 - The Good Person (2)

Zanxing knew that she was not a particularly intelligent person. She was stubborn and had no inherent talent for the Buddhist path. Therefore, she took every lifetime’s trials very seriously.

She earnestly experienced the love and hatred in the mortal world, the partings and reunions. She had endured pain and tasted joy. She could not control birth, aging, sickness, or death. Love and separation were the norms of human existence. She took all happiness and suffering to heart.

She knew she was an outsider and that each incarnation of herself was merely an illusion, yet the experiences she went through could not be simply resolved with the phrase “let it go.”

“It seems that I am truly destined to be without a connection to Buddha, and I lack the wisdom to understand. So, after much contemplation, I still cannot let go.” She looked at Zifeng and said, “You have harmed my entire family. Just a simple statement of sincere repentance cannot offset the blood debt. Such things do not exist in the world.”

“Buddha said to put down the butcher’s knife and become a Buddha on the spot.”

“Buddha also spoke of cause and effect,” Zanxing interrupted him. “Where is your retribution?”

Yang Zifeng was momentarily stunned, while the surrounding citizens began to speak up. They knelt and pleaded, “Master, please spare them. He has already acknowledged his mistakes.”

“Yes, you are a good person, please save us.”

Zanxing looked at them and said calmly, “I am a good person, but I am not a fool. I cannot feed a tiger with my own flesh. I am just an ordinary person with a narrow mind and a vengeful spirit.”

Bu Jiang once said, as long as one is shameless, nothing can restrain them.

“Please, Master.”

“Besides,” Zanxing continued, “whether I kill him or not makes no difference to you.” She looked at the pleading crowd and said, “If I kill him today, I will settle a grudge. All the grain in his estate will be mine and can be used to aid you. Trust me, what I can give you is more than what he can.” Zanxing smiled slightly, her tone gentle. “After all, he is a high-ranking official, while I am a kind-hearted and good person.”

The entire city was stunned by her words.

Yang Zifeng was also taken aback.

Zanxing shook her head, her expression serious. “Being a good person and seeking revenge are not necessarily contradictory. If the price of being a good person is enduring unspoken suffering and bearing such grievances, who in the world would choose to be a good person?”

The sunlight, like golden frost, slowly solidified in the air.

Zanxing tightened her grip on the staff.

She knew the correct answer, she understood the intention of the Five-Wheel Pagoda. The so-called loved ones and friends were merely grains in the mortal world. As long as she let go of the butcher’s knife, abandoned her grudges, and saved the people, this lifetime’s trials would be over. All the love and hate, the entanglements, were just fleeting illusions. She wouldn’t remember the current grievances or the grudges of the past.

It could be done easily, with no attachments or barriers.

But she simply would not.

In this world, there is affection and righteousness, cause and effect. If the wicked escape unscathed while the good suffer indignities, it would be a great absurdity. She couldn’t understand it and didn’t want to.

She only wished to act according to her true intentions.

“You should not seek my forgiveness,” she said, looking at Zifeng. “The one who can forgive you is not me. You are looking in the wrong place.”

Zifeng’s eyes widened in fear, his body beginning to tremble. The large expanse of honeysuckle blooming behind him was dazzling, nearly capturing everyone’s attention.

The air seemed to distort for a moment, and the sacred verses from the cloud suddenly intensified, filling the ears with a dense, omnipresent sound from all directions.

“…One should cultivate great compassion. Observe all beings, without letting go. Reflect on all phenomena. Never cease. Perform supreme deeds. Do not seek rewards. Understand the realm as if it were an illusion, a dream, a shadow, an echo, or a transformation.”

“…Due to the adornment of compassion, one should not harbor anger towards beings; due to the adornment of pity, one should always be willing to give up; due to the adornment of joy, one should not be envious of those who practice good; due to the adornment of equanimity, one should be free from love and hatred in both favorable and unfavorable circumstances.”

“Not clinging to appearances anywhere. Not generating hatred or love within those appearances. Also, no attachment or aversion.”

The golden Buddha light seemed to envelop and consume everything, but amidst the endless Buddhist chants, someone shook their head. “Stop reciting. I have no intention of becoming a Buddha.”

The man in front of her showed a look of terror, his features twisted into a grimace. Zanxing raised the golden staff in her hand and struck it fiercely at him—

The piercing sound of the chants suddenly vanished.

The city, the people, and Yang Zifeng seemed to fade like colors on a painting, with heavy darkness surging from all sides. This darkness seemed endless, capable of swallowing all living things. Zanxing took a few steps, sensing something, and looked up to see a pair of eyes watching her coldly from above.

It was a massive golden Buddha statue, set amidst the darkness. The Buddha was immense, its width as vast as a palace. Standing before it, Zanxing seemed as small as an ant compared to an elephant. The grandeur and minuteness felt like the contrast between a deity and a mortal.

“This is…” Zanxing’s heart stirred.

The golden Buddha had a face with compassionate eyes, its mouth gently curved into a smile, eyes slightly squinted, but the gaze was calm and indifferent. It silently, from a lofty position, looked down upon her.

The golden staff in Zanxing’s hand had inexplicably transformed back into the Wuyou Staff. She understood now; the cycle had ended.

“It ends here,” she mused, lifting her eyes. “The final wheel was the experience of Master Jingshan?”

Mingjing had once said that Master Jingshan, known for his role in repairing the Five-Wheel Pagoda, was most renowned not for his cultivation, but for his virtue. Many years ago, in a drought-stricken region of Duzhou, where countless people had died and refugees numbered in the tens of thousands, Master Jingshan had generously offered aid, saving thousands of people. His immense merits were widely spoken of and revered.

She did not know the true nature of the ‘extensive benevolence’ was like this.

When she fell into the cycle of the Eight Sufferings, she remembered that she was Zanxing, but she had to genuinely experience everything that Zanxing went through in the cycle. Now, detached from it, the taste of those experiences was different.

It seems this was the true trial of the Five-Wheel Pagoda. To experience the sufferings of the mortal world through endless reincarnations and, in the final life, to undergo the life of Master Jingshan, to let go, realize, and break through.

As for the current situation… Zanxing looked at the immense and majestic golden Buddha and couldn’t help but smile. It seemed she had not passed the trial of the Five-Wheel Pagoda.

Indeed, Master Jingshan was a practitioner of Buddhism. A Buddhist seeks virtue throughout their life, just as Master Jingshan let go of grievances and saved countless people. Naturally, he hoped that the trial seekers coming to the Buddha Tower would make similar choices. Those with wisdom would naturally be able to discern the intentions of the Buddha Tower’s master from the earlier reincarnations and make the correct choice.

Those like her, who stubbornly insist on their own way until the very end, might be rare.

Well, those without wisdom, even if they reluctantly choose the correct answer, would probably not realize much. Zanxing glanced around: since she had not passed the trial of the Five-Wheel Pagoda, there was no need to stay here. She should think about how to get out.

At this moment, a deep and ancient voice suddenly echoed from the void.

“Why not let go?”