Tales of Herding Gods

Chapter 250: Words Kill

Translator: Ninetales Editor: DarkGem

When Qin Mu saw a familiar person, he couldn’t help feeling affable. Since he was young, he had always mingled around with Blind and Cripple. From the moment he could remember things, he was always learning all kinds of knowledge from the nine elders of Disabled Elderly Village. It could be said that he didn’t have any playmates during his childhood days, which made them dull and dry.

Even though he had only fought one match with Mong Ming Xin, they were of the same age, so it was natural to feel affable upon meeting him again.

Monk Ming Xin recited one of the many names of Buddha to suppress his own angry thoughts and smiled. “You defeated me back then but you might not defeat me today. After losing to you, I had pondered about the painful experience and fixed my weakness. Why don’t do have another battle?”

“You changed the sutra?” Qin Mu asked in astonishment.

Pleased, Monk Ming said, “I was defeated when you struck my throat the previous time, so I will definitely not let you have your way this time!”

Qin Mu cried out, “Monk Ming Xin, how old are you, how could you change Rulai’s Mahayana Sutra as you like? With your current horizons and knowledge, the more you change it, the more mistakes and flaws would take shape! Rather than carelessly changing it, wouldn’t it have been better to ask Rulai and let Rulai teach you… Uhm, I also carelessly changed my technique and to the point it’s beyond recognition, so I can’t really say anything to you.”

Qin Mu blushed with shame. He had also changed his technique, and Overlord Body Three Elixir Technique had been changed more than once. Great Educational Heavenly Devil Scriptures was even fused with his it, solving the flaw on the left shoulder.

Him saying something to Monk Ming Xin about carelessly changing his technique was like the pot calling the kettle black. Maybe the other had indeed erased the flaw on his throat.

Monk Ming Xin began to stir and said, “In that case, could you condescend to teach?”

Qin Mu was about to say something when an old monk said, “Disciple, don’t be impudent, this is Cult Master Qin of Heavenly Devil Cult!”

Monk Ming Xin jumped in shock and cried out, “When have you become the old devil of Heavenly Devil Cult?”

Qin Mu sighed. “This is hard to explain. I didn’t want to do it, but got pushed onto the seat of the cult master without the choice to refuse.”

He looked toward the old monk and recognized him as Old Monk Jing Ming. This old monk was Ming Xin’s master, and his personality was very much like his name, very shrewd. He had pointed out that Qin Mu was the devil cult master of Heavenly Devil Cult not to notify Ming Xin, but to tell all the monks that were present.

With the shout in his loud voice, all the monks that were studying Hundred Dragons Portraits looked towards Qin Mu and recited the many names of Buddha under their breath. It was evident that they all couldn’t restrain themselves and suppress their thoughts of wanting to subdue the devil.

Monk Ming Xin immediately said, “In that case, you should quickly withdraw and not be the devil cult master anymore, since you’re going to die! There are many eminent monks who hate evil with a passion and are used to killing devils. Every time they go out, they subdue a few devils to accumulate merit, and you will be killed! I shan’t compete with you, you should quickly flee down the mountain.”

Qin Mu shook his head. “Thank for your kind intentions, but I’m now a guest. Old Rulai is my senior brother and he said I should be allowed to say in the monastery. In this case, would they still subdue the devil?”

Ming Xin hesitated for a moment, then said, “This, I can’t say for sure. They will most likely debate with you, advising you to turn over a new leaf. If they can’t talk you into it, they will most like beat you to death.”

Qin Mu was speechless. He indeed saw a few monks walking over to him.

“Amitabha!” A monk placed his palms together and raised a difficult question first, “Devil, do you dare to debate with me?”

Qin Mu asked, “Have you been completely indifferent to worldly temptations?”

That monk was slightly shaken. “Not yet.”

“Then what’s the debate for?” Qin Mu broke out into laughter. “You haven’t even achieved your Dao. A half-baked, fake monk like you has only the ability to flaunt misunderstandings from gossip. Fall back.”

That monk was tongue-tied and another monk beside him immediately said, “Devil, I shall talk to you about truth, compassion, and beauty—”

Qin Mu asked, “Are you Rulai?”

That monk’s complexion turned beet red, and he replied, “I’m still not Rulai…”

“Then you haven’t achieved the word ‘truth’.” Qin Mu smiled. “Rulai is the true state of things, receiving and achieving the word ‘truth’. If you aren’t the truth yourself, how can you want to talk about truth, compassion, and beauty? Fall back, don’t embarrass yourself, we will talk when you achieved that height. Don’t take what you can’t do and force it on me. If you want people to do as you say, you have to set an example.”

The monk was left speechless, and another one stretched out his hand out. Golden springs poured out from the earth, and a lotus bloomed. “Buddhism has anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, the highest perfect awakening, the supreme perfect wisdom…”

Qin Mu asked, “Have you achieved supreme perfect wisdom?”

“Fall back.”

Another monk laughed loudly. “Devil cult master is an eloquent and fluent speaker. Since you won’t respond if I talk to you about scriptures, I shall talk to you about the secular world.”

Excited, Qin Mu came over to that monk and said, “Great Monk, don’t speak first. Let me ask you, if everyone converted to Buddhism, didn’t reproduce, didn’t marry, had no children, wouldn’t the human race be extinct a hundred years later? What grudge do the humans have with you? Why do you want to eradicate the human race?”

The monk was stunned for a time, then said, “What I want to talk to you about is that your Heavenly Devil Cult does too much evil and the magic in your cult is evil and sinister. It uses live people to cultivate—”

Qin Mu didn’t give him time to say more. “What’s that compared to eradicating the human race?”

The monk stared at him with wide eyes, barely holding back his anger. “This is different from what I want to debate with you!”

“In that case, let us talk about this. When I met a hall master of Heavenly Saint Cult who used infants to cultivate, he was slain. Just now, I saw a monastery raising strange beasts at the foot of Mount Meru by mixing anesthetics with bloody meat to lie to the people. Where did the meat come from, did they take the lives of living creatures? I dealt with the scum in my cult, it’s your turn now. Go eradicate that monastery and kill all those monks.”

The monk was furious. “This is different from what I’m debating with you! I’m going to talk about the teachings with you! Our Great Thunderclap Monastery has tens of thousands of buddhist scriptures, each and every one of them is passed down from generation to generation, teaching people to be compassionate!”

Qin Mu said in astonishment, “If your own Buddhism hides dirt to conceal corruption instead of cleaning it up and the monks in the monasteries aren’t compassionate, how can you teach people to be compassionate? The foolish like to lecture others, but they can’t do it. Oh well, did you say teachings, I’ll talk to you about teachings. The path of the saint is none other than the one that can be used by common people. Can your dharma be used by common people every day? If they can’t use it, what’s the point of just having it recorded in a book? If it’s useless, won’t it be better to just burn it?”

“You devil!” The monk was really furious now and wanted to pounce over. “Preposterous arguments and harmful teachings, burning scriptures and eradicating buddha, your devil nature is indeed very serious. I’ll fight it out with you!”

“Hold it.” Qin Mu raised his hand and smiled. “You want to kill me, but let me ask you, do the buddhist scriptures allow you to take the life of a living creature?”

The monk stopped in his tracks and suppressed his anger. “Buddhist scriptures advise people to be compassionate, to not take the life of a living creature. However, against devils, even Buddha will be angered and subdue them!”

Qin Mu asked, “Grass, is it life?”

“Naturally,” the monk said angrily.

“Seedlings grow from grass and many of them turn into grains, which means that grains are also lives, so why do you eat them? You have been eating vegetarian and praying to Buddha, thinking about compassion, thinking about beauty, thinking about truth, but you don’t even know how many lives were lost in a mouthful of your food!” Qin Mu said. “The older you get, the more lives you have eaten. What face do you have to talk about buddha’s heart, to talk about compassion?”

He took out a flower seed from his taotie sack and held it in his hand. When he executed Earth Aeon Creation Technique, a soft shoot sprouted from the flower seedling and grew. Its roots broke out from their shell, and a spirit grass rose up in his hand. The plant was delicate, and a flower bud soon sprouted. It trembled gently, and a tender and lovely flower bloomed.

“Is it beautiful?” Qin Mu asked.

The monk was slightly infatuated and nodded in agreement. “Beautiful.”

Qin Mu brought the flower to the monk and said, “This flower is the grains you eat, they are its fruits. They are a beautiful life, yet how many of them have you eaten? When are you going to pay them back? If they had spirit and cultivated into a demon, would they cry about how you ate millions and millions of their race? Do you ever think about the damned souls of countless flowers and grasses surrounding you, waiting for you to pay with your life day and night?”

The monk held the beautiful flower in both of his hands as his expression became more and more defeated. He felt the beauty of the tender flower becoming sinister and terrifying, demanding his life. Suddenly, the monk sat down in a lotus position with tears rolling down his face. “I’ve eaten countless people from your race and my grave sins are hard to resolve! I’m willing to turn into a pile of ashes to nourish you!”

When he was finished with his words, the fire of karma lit up around his body and burned him cleanly in an instant. But even though the fire burned him completely, it didn’t harm the beautiful flower in the slightest. It landed softly onto the ashes, still tender and lovely.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Cultivating Buddhism still comes to naught at the end, only good enough to be used as fertilizer.”

Qin Mu bent over and gathered the ashes together to plant the flower seedling. “Monk, you have been useless all your life, but you are finally useful after you died. This flower will grow well, and it will bear many seedlings which will grow into even more flowers. You will be gratified if you know this in the netherworld.

“Even though the flower isn’t the common people, but by using your ashes as fertilizer, you have indeed achieved that goal of the everyday use of common people. Excellent, you and I are of the same path.”

He stood up and looked around. Even though he was a youth, he had the air of a cult master about him as he said unhurriedly, “Which great monk still wants to debate with me?”

The surroundings were silent.

Qin Mu looked at the serious and solemn monks, but the other side immediately avoided his eyes, not daring to meet them.

Old Ma and Blind had been standing far away, chatting with some old monks. When they saw what happened, Blind smiled. “If Mu’er remains in Great Thunderclap Monastery and the monks don’t immediately make a move to slay him… With just a few days’ time, half of the monks in Great Thunderclap Monastery will return to the normal life, a small half will be possessed by the devil, while those who won’t will all be fake monks. He’s really even more powerful than Granny Si.”

Suddenly, a monk shouted sternly, “He’s the devil! He’s a heavenly devil! Bewitching everyone with his demonic words!”

Another monk shouted out right after, “He used demonic words to kill Senior Brother Xin Kong! We can’t let this devil live, kill him to get rid of the devil!”

In an instant, everyone was furious and shouted out their wish to subdue Qin Mu and kill the devil.

At that moment, the youth started laughing with merriment, his voice growing louder and louder. The commotion around him gradually vanished, but his laughter still continued on.

Once laughing subsided, Qin Mu said coldly, “You guys wanted to debate, so I debated with you. When you wanted to pull in the sect’s teachings, I agreed to talk about the teachings. When you couldn’t win against me, you guys talked about taking the life of a living creature. Fine with me, let’s talk about taking the life of a living creature. When you couldn’t succeed even in that, you guys actually want to kill me? What’s the use of you cultivating Buddhism? Fall back, return to your normal life.”

Some monks were at a loss and their hearts became empty. After a moment, some actually sighed and really turned away and went to pack their luggage to leave the mountain.

The rest of the monks didn’t fall back but stood with unpleasant expressions.

Qin Mu shook his head and smiled. “So it still comes to fighting in the end? If that’s how it is, why flaunt your inadequate knowledge first!” With a roused spirit, he looked around, and his eyes flashed like lightning. “Who’s coming to die?”