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Chapter 114 The Enlightened Monk Elder Jinchi

As dusk fell, Chen Guangrui left Five Elements Mountain, deliberately circling the outer perimeter several times. As he expected, the Five Directions Protectors seemed to still believe that the Mountain God and Earth God were dutifully patrolling the mountain, and no one stepped forward to stop him.

He traveled swiftly and finally, as night fell, he found the two boys, Jinlu and Yinlu, sighing and lamenting beside a large rock in a secluded spot leading towards Black Wind Mountain.

The two leaned against the cold stone. Jinlu hugged his knees, his small face full of confusion, his brows furrowed tightly.

Yinlu casually placed the jade bottle at his feet and poked at the ground with a twig, clearly also troubled.

The old Taoist priest Yuan Shoucheng had already found the two brothers, but seeing their worried faces, he didn't say much. He found a large rock nearby and lay down, still pondering how Chen Guangrui could trick the Dragon Prince out.

As Chen Guangrui's figure approached from the twilight, neither of the two boys spoke; they simply lowered their heads quickly, making the atmosphere even more somber.

Old Master Yuan gestured towards the two children with his lips, but said nothing.

"How is it?" Chen Guangrui walked closer and asked directly.

The Silver Furnace Boy seemed to have been stepped on; he jerked his head up, his face instantly turning red.

"It's all your fault for using that method; it doesn't work at all!"

He threw the twig in his hand down forcefully. "We went there, and we asked them questions using your method of 'torturing hawks'... no, 'torturing people'!"

The more he thought about it, the more aggrieved he felt, emphasizing, "We took turns questioning him, not letting him sleep, using exactly the same methods you learned. But that old monk Jinchi was fine, even when he fainted, he was perfectly healthy!"

He looked at the Golden Furnace Boy, seeking approval, "Senior brother, don't you think so?"

The Golden Furnace Boy nodded sullenly.
"Yes, Elder Jinchi was very cooperative. He let us search freely, thoroughly inside and outside the temple, and even looked through the account books. But... we really didn't find anything, nothing at all. There's nothing wrong with his Guanyin Temple."

"Well, he... he seemed very open and honest," Jin Lu added, his tone filled with deep frustration. His first time carrying out a "major task" alone had yielded completely unexpected results.

Chen Guangrui listened to their words in silence, then said in an unquestionable tone, "Who said Jinchi is without problems? Have you found the letter from the accountant of Gao Laozhuang?"

“We’ve checked everything we could—the meditation room, the storeroom, the ledgers…we even dug into the cracks between the floor tiles, but there’s no letter written by the accountant at all!”

The Silver Furnace Boy kicked a small stone away in frustration, "That old Taoist priest surnamed Yuan must have miscalculated. He made us waste so much time and effort, we're exhausted!"

Yuan Shoucheng, who had been leaning against a nearby rock, immediately objected when he heard he was being blamed. He slowly sat up, brushed the dust off his Taoist robe, and a look of grievance appeared on his chubby face.
"Hey! That's not quite right. Do you think my reputation for accurate predictions is just a lie? The accountant and the Guanyin Temple's Jinchi are connected; the divination results are quite obvious, how could they not have found the letter?"

He shrugged, his tone carrying a hint of evasion, "Perhaps you didn't search thoroughly enough. This old Taoist priest can't take the blame for this."

His tone was low, but it revealed the shrewdness of a seasoned veteran. He resolutely refused to admit that the fortune-telling was wrong; wasn't that just bullying?

Jinlu Tongzi looked at the two arguing, then at Chen Guangrui, who remained expressionless, and sighed deeply. "Mr. Chen, what should we do now?"

He glanced in the direction of Black Wind Mountain. "Elder Jinchi has also investigated, but found no clues whatsoever. Perhaps..."

He paused, then offered his most direct suggestion, "Shall we go back to Gao Village? Let's just capture Zhu Ganglie and take him back to report. We can tie him up and take him to Heaven; he can't just quit being Marshal Tianpeng, can he?" His voice was low and restrained, hinting at a desire to end this troublesome mission.

The Silver Furnace Boy, however, seemed somewhat melancholy. "If we go back like that, won't we have failed in our mission?"

Judging from his expression, he seemed somewhat unwilling to go back so easily. Seeing that the Golden Furnace Boy was silent, he asked Chen Guangrui again, "Mr. Chen, is there any other way now?"

Chen Guangrui looked at them, but his tone carried an undeniable certainty, "Who said Elder Jinchi is without problems?"

Yinlu Tongzi was clearly confused by what Chen Guangrui said. "We used every method you taught us, from grueling to searching, we almost demolished the Zen temple, but there was no problem at all."

Jinlu Tongzi didn't speak, but when his confused little eyes looked at Chen Guangrui, they were filled with deep doubt. We have tried our best, and even your method failed. What other means do you have to turn the tide?

Chen Guangrui calmly accepted their questioning gazes, seemingly already confident. He didn't directly refute them, nor did he explain what his methods were; instead, he simply made a seemingly unrelated request:

"Prepare a cassock for me."

"A... a kasaya?" The Silver Incense Burner Boy was bewildered, thinking he had misheard. "Why are you looking for that tattered piece of cloth that monk wears? Are you going to become a monk?"

He couldn't understand at all what this request had to do with solving his current predicament.

Chen Guangrui turned his gaze toward the Guanyin Temple and added clearly, "The style should be magnificent, with as many jewels as possible, and the sooner the better."

Silver Incense Burner Boy muttered under his breath, "We just turned their monastery upside down and found nothing. Elder Jinchi is probably still furious. Now, to bring over a shiny gold robe? That's just asking for trouble..."

He thought to himself that Elder Jinchi, with his refined and vigorous appearance, was clearly a learned and Buddhist monk, and would never look down on such a worldly person.

Can we trust what that old cat demon says? Chen Guangrui must have lost his mind with this move.

The Golden Incense Burner Boy beside him remained silent, but his mind raced. He remembered that when he interrogated the old cat at Black Wind Mountain, the demon had indeed said that the Black Bear Spirit loved to collect those ornate robes adorned with gold thread and embroidered with Buddhist treasures.

Chen Guangrui's demand for this kind of kasaya... could it be that he's after Elder Jinchi?
He glanced at Chen Guangrui's expressionless profile, and then recalled Elder Jinchi's "open and honest" demeanor when they searched him, which made him feel uneasy.

Elder Jinchi is a highly accomplished monk; how could he possibly value such material possessions?
However, since Chen Guangrui had said so, he and Yinlu had no other choice but to do as he was told.

“A gleaming golden robe readily available,” the Golden Furnace Boy frowned, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “We don’t have one on us. Even if we did, it would be a Taoist robe.”

Upon hearing his senior brother's words, Yinlu Tongzi's eyes darted around. Suddenly, as if he had come up with an idea, he slapped his thigh with his chubby little hand: "We don't have a ready-made cassock, but we can make an ordinary one."

He looked excitedly at the gold furnace, "The robe is easy to find, the key is the jewelry."

The Golden Incense Burner Boy immediately understood his younger brother's meaning. The materials used for ordinary monks' robes and kasayas weren't rare; what was rare were the priceless jewels and jade adorning them. Where did these things come from? The two little ones almost simultaneously thought of the same place.

A hint of smugness appeared on the little boy's face. He lowered his voice, with a boastful air of "only we have connections," and said, "As for the treasures inlaid on it... let's go to our godmother. She has so many good things, like luminous pearls and golden agate. We can get some of those, right?"

(End of this chapter)