After parting with Cheonma, I walked towards the palace with Seoyoung, who had been waiting outside the training area. Passing through the palace where the investigation team stayed, a man stood around with his eyes closed. A bald head with six lines clearly stamped on the center of the forehead. It was Buddhist monk that the Central Region dispatched from Shaolin.
I was going to pass quietly because I thought that I would interfere with his meditation, but he opened his eyes and put his hands together. As if he wanted to say something, he stuck out his
left pinky. I hesitated for a moment and approached him because I didn’t want to ignore it.
“Hello, were you meditating?”
“I was praying to Sura.”
“Who’s Sura?”
“Buddha has many names. It’s one of them.”
“…oh, I see.”
Strange. As far as I know, Sura wasn’t one of the names that Buddha had.
I wondered if the Shaolin said so in the original work, but I couldn’t think of anything even if I looked back on my memory.
He asked me, lost in thought.
“Does the Lady believe in the afterlife?”
“Yes, I do.”
I’m experiencing my second life right now, but I can’t help but believe.
“That’s a relief. This little monk is relieved.”
“……what?”
“It means the Lady is in Sura’s arms, too.”
No, that isn’t true. I’m in my dad’s arms.
At first glance, he seemed to speak of the doctrine of Buddhism: reincarnation. But it sounded unusual to me. I don’t feel right about something.
“Is it just my feelings?”
Well, if there was a problem, the grandfathers would have told me as soon as they saw it on the first day. I could have been too sensitive.
I replied, hiding my anxiousness with a smile.
“You aren’t having dinner tonight?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m fasting.”
“….I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Well, then this little monk will take his leave.”
After putting his hands together, the monk went back into the palace.
I tilted my head as I watched his back disappear.
“Nanny, isn’t that weird?”
“I know! Does it make sense to come to someone else’s house and fast? It’s as if he thinks we would poison the food.”
“That’s not what I mean… calm down, nanny.”
I went back to the palace while soothing the angry Seoyoung.
***
The monk did not attend the dinner as expected.The rest of the investigators annoyed me, but they seemed to enjoy themselves quite a bit.
‘What’s the point of coming all the way here?’
There was nothing special about the actions they showed for a week. They wandered in front of the palace for a while, but that was only for a bit. Then they quickly went into the palace. It was too short of a time to plan anything.
‘Today I’ll find something out.’
I glanced at the forest as I headed to the training center with the investigation team.
Truthfully, the elders were sneaking along somewhere in the woods.
I felt somewhat at ease when I thought the elders were watching. I sighed inwardly and opened the closed-door training center.
“This is the closed-door training center. All the sect masters trained here.”
Investigators made a fuss as they rushed in.
“Oh, the smell alone makes me feel like my dantian is overflowing.”
“I feel the energy of nature strongly. If one trains here, they will improve quickly.”
“Who discovered a place like this? He must have been an oddball.”
I only guided them to where the public was allowed and stopped.
“No more entry is allowed. This cave stretches like a maze all over the mountain. It is said that the cave is so complicated that even the sect master quickly gets lost.”
“Isn’t it likely that the previous sect master is asleep somewhere underground, or that there’s a great deal of medicine?”
“Maybe that’s why I feel so strong! I want to go in!”
Since they all said that they wanted to see the closed-door training center, I thought that they all would like it. But that wasn’t the case.
There was also a person who fainted facedown with a white face. One of the men trembled as if he was sick.
“Is everything okay with you? I still don’t feel good when it comes to caves. I think I’ve seen everything, so get out of here. Oh, come on!”
“You were like that how long ago? You are still like that?”
“Anyway, my friend. You have to be aware of your weakness.”
“What? Why do you think I am so weak?”
The man was furious at the teasing of the investigators. However, he didn’t ask me to leave anymore.
I couldn’t resist my curiosity and approached Jegal Hyun quietly.
“Those people. Did something happen?”
Jegal Hyun lowered his voice after glancing at the grumbling investigators.
“Was it about 10 years ago? There was an incident in which children from the major sects went missing all at once. There was an uproar.”
I think I read this story in the original story. I perked up my ears.
“We gathered people from the family and searched the vicinity, but we couldn’t find them. There was no clue as if they had evaporated into thin air.”
Oh it was this incident!
One of the worst incidents committed by the magyo in the original book.
I shouldn’t have asked!
I hid a look of embarrassment.
“I guess they were close to the… missing people.”
“If they were close, they were of close relation. Because it was them.”
“…yes?”
When I opened my eyes wide, Jegal Hyun grinned.
“By the time they all gave up thinking that they were dead, they all came back on their own. They were perfectly fine.”
“How…?”
“They got lost in the mountains and stayed in caves. But it was sure that they had gone missing from their homes.”
It was so different from what I knew.
In the original, the missing children were found as cold bodies. Each of them committed suicide in a different way and it was determined that the magyo had done it because of the signature.
Every day the children who were kidnapped commited suicide.
It was unbelievable without someone intervening.
Therefore, it was a natural procedure for Magyo to be pointed out as the criminal.
But it was just conjecture, and there was no conclusive evidence that the magyo was involved.
In the end, the sects had no choice but to grind their teeth. I looked back at the original story and forced up the corners of my mouth.
“Right? It’s not something I’ve experienced myself, but it’s so famous that everyone knows about it.”
The reason why their names were unfamiliar was not because they were unimportant in the original work.
‘It’s natural that I didn’t know their names because they were described as missing children.”
So the rest of the investigators, except Jegal Hyun, were those who should have died 10 years ago.
As soon as I realized it, my head spun.
What the hell happened? Did someone disguise themselves as dead children?’
It was an event that often appeared in martial arts, where other people appeared with disguises.
But Cheonma said it was unlikely. The elders could obviously notice if they were disguised.
Then there was one conclusion. ‘
‘The original story has changed!’
Jegal Hyun asked anxiously.
“Lady, all of a sudden, your expression turned dark. Why is that?”
“Oh, no. I’m a little stuffy… ..so I have to leave.”
“That’s too bad. I’d like to see more.”
“I’ll show you around next time if I have a chance. Shall we go back now?”
I looked around the investigators and found someone missing and asked.
“By the way, where is the monk?”
Jegal Hyun looked around and pointed back.
“There he is.”
Looking back, Buddhist monk was doing something in the entrance of the passageway.
‘What’s that?’
He was laying small stones on the floor. At first, I thought it was random, but it looks like it’s arranged intentionally .
I tilted my head and asked him.
“Sir Monk, what are you doing there?”
After he had placed the last stone, he stood in the middle and stretched his back quietly. Then he looked at me.
-Sura wants all the people in the Central Region to be in Nirvana.
Monk Jeonghyeon and I were standing at the beginning and end of the passageway, so the distance was quite far.
And yet it sounds as clear as if he was right next to me?
Rather than hearing it, it was like that his voice seemed to jump over space and directly into my
ears.
The hair in my ears stood up and tickled my ears. His voice continued again.
– The monk has a mission to cleanse the world by burning himself. And it takes blood to clean up.
Blood?