Chapter 9

A 3-Year Old Waist Chopped off

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He fearfully opened his eyes so that he could see the straps of his rucsack removed from his shoulders and the Bodhi-bead rosary entanlged upon the small wooden fish, given as presents by Chank'-jack senior mage and their Mother,had dropped out.

I was disappointed to find out that the nephrite Tara-pearls's eyes in my preivous dream were those that presented right in front of my eyes belonged to the disasterous locusts pest –outbreak; which turned their flames of eyesight, literally speaking, when they swamped in thousands passing my face. I was frightened because after all these years accompanied by My Second Brother that it was the first time I had encountered such calamity on the fields of the peasants, by myself, alone.

I was puzzled of how fates work . I expected that these nearest peasants who had been supporting The Adornmnet Temple to be safe and sound, as I continued to travel along after leaving the mountainous temple and the deadly swampy river on the forest trails.

Then the locusts were here flocking in the outskirt in unbelievable number.

He recalled what he wrote on the Travel Diary.

He did not understand that the universe works in E=mc2,in terems of Matter, Energy and Meaning in a Trinity of Ying and Yang; but such formula did not work like 2+2=4 for the manipulation of fates.

The teenage mage walked on the side of the rice paddies.Thousands of locusts sweeping by in a flying army, puffing, puffing; entrainment of paddy rice as big as their bodies, like rain, pounding, and pouncing on his face.

He put down his rucksack amidst the sound of spreading their wings, folded his palms together and looked at the sky speechlessly. He saw tens of thousands of locusts flying for miles around him, rushing towards his face, and rubbing his face. The sky is gloomy. The sky was slightly covered. The peasants ran hurriedly in the gloomy fields, the sky was speechless, unable to do anything, and wanted to cry without tears.

He took the courage to remove his hand from his face, and wanted to put his palms together to chant.

“Namo Merciful Bodhisattva-Goddess…,you would come to console”

His face was rubbing hot, and he stood still for a moment.

He sighed. After everything passed by, the silence was heartbreaking; he walked weakly, he felt that wind was blowing and people wailed in pains from far, like ghosts howling; he shivered,it was rather a cold autumn, eventually he reached out of the bushes across the field and and he saw an open field,and for the first time; he saw peasants travelling with their old folks and children along the clay road.

However, something was not right.

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"Master, I have a lot of pain... Can you bless me with some scriptures?"

The child lay alone on the grass next to the grey dried bush.

“Are you okay, kid?” The child was unable to answer The Monk’s answer-in-question. He looked at The Master. The Master asked again, “Do you mean you want me to recite a scripture for you?”

The kid nodded weakly. He was thin with dirty and torn clothes hanging on his tiny shoulders. His face was pale, his lips white, and there were cracks with verticle strains of blood stain. The Monk rubbed the remaining ointment he had left on the child's lips.

"Why? You think scripture would help you get rid of your pain?"

The child sat up, and his tears rolled down.

"Then, Master, do you think reciting scripture will make my hunger disappear?"

"Okay, I have no medicine left with me for you, my child; I have no food either,so, I guess I could recite The Heart Sūtra for you, okay? Then, yeah…you will feel better…"

"Yeah, Master? The what Heart Sūt… you told me…it will make me feel better yeah? But, even so, will it also make me not to feel frightened anymore? I mean…will it also make my fear go away…?”

The Young Monk pursed his mouth, unable to answer. The child saw that his eyes wet, the lines crawling down his cheeks were deep, and his face pale, involuntarily, it had twitched.

He shook his head weakly, clasped his palms, and chanted.

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Namo, Pay homage to The Avalokiteśvara, The Merciful Bodhisattva-Goddess

She sees your mourn as if inches away; she trails your suffering…

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"Ah! Master...Master...." The Master had fainted.

Passers-by said, "Nowadays, even monks have no food to eat. How many days had he starved himself?"

Flocks of peasants passing by, all helped old folks with walking sticks and weary children. Their luggage simple and old. The Young Monk had been on the road for many days amidst the most serious faminie of the century.

A peasant gave the Young Monk some dried food and water. The Novice Monk stood up, took a sip of the water, and together with the food he gave them all to the child. The child gobbled it up, passers-by shook their head, sighed, and helped the child get up, held his hand and walked down on the pathway.

It was for The City of The Forever-Peace.

He expected a smooth travel. He was eager to achieve independence, in that matter of fact.

“Are you okay now, Master?”

An old man had asked him. The Young Monk nodded weakly. Pains on the foreheads were rather unbearable.

I had to be strong. I cannot fail myself…

“Master travelled from far?”

“Yes, I travelled from The Adornment Temple.”

“That was far away. It was a good place for cultivation. Why did you have to leave, isn’t that life simpler and much easier in the mountains?”

You mean we robed for the sake of an easy life?

He begged to differ but did not respond.

As if reading his mind, the old man said something rather traumatizing.

“Master, you may beg to differ. Do you know what people will do in these draughts?”

“What?”

“A father was said to chop off his three year old boy for flesh, you know, people saw that the corpse with dismantled limbs and waist sitting on the stone grinder,he told the stunning neighbors that he couldn’t stand the boy to suffer and he rather eat him than let him rot as a corpse…”

The young mage felt disgusted, “I do not believe that, you were just trying to scare me off. Why would you want to do that?”

The old man did not say anything anymore.

Autumn sun took over the chills at noon and the autumn sun burn made any edible vegetation dry off and die away.

The old man emanated some odor from his neck and The Young Monk couldn’t help but lifted his broad colar to find that worms in pus-grey and phlegm-yellow crawled on his putrified wound on his neck. He was startled. The old man shook his head gently, “It’s okay, they will pass, or, I will pass…Master, you should hurry and get to The City,I’m pretty sure they’ll be able to take care of you.”

The Young Monk frowned, paused and stood there for a while watching the old man walked by, sweates and tears rolled down at the same time, his chest filled with pains of sorrows he thought as unbearable as any horrors of suffering he had to see for one day.

He remembered that he had never really seen wounds, let alone those being eaten by the crawling mothy worms on the wounds and scars rotten with wet flesh and blood stain on the old man’s neck. He did not feel disgust this time, except that goosebumps crawled all over edges of his chins and he immediately realized that he had excellent reservoir of knowledge that would not mend pains nor heartaching suffering…

He walked and walked, and then the old man was seen lying on the ground near to the front of ruins of an abandoned ancient temple, which showed some signs of previous prosperity. He brisked through and heard the old man mourning, but it wasn’t the same old man. This old man had all what the earlier old man had plus a serious Tinea pus that looked like contagious. The young mage hesitated for a second, and the next second, he found himself help the old man up, putting his hand on his shoulders and they both walked into the only broken room left of the ruins.

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