Take control of Wei Zhongxian at the start and confiscate 100 million from him!

Chapter 266 Half Life, Half Death
The sun is blazing hot.

At noon, the scorching summer sun of Nanjing poured mercilessly onto the white marble open space of the temple, like a basin of molten gold.

Liao Fan's wide-open head still radiated warmth on the bluestone slab, and the scalding blood, under the scorching sun, began to steam up a wisp of nauseating mist.

The open space was deathly silent.

This silence was more terrifying than ever before.

Compassion is false, precepts are false.

At this moment in this temple, the only real thing is death.

The emperor stepped over the corpse with a light and graceful movement, as if he were simply stepping over a rain-soaked step in his own courtyard.

His dark casual clothes, far from feeling hot under the scorching sunlight, actually absorbed all the light and heat around him, condensing into a cold black hole.

He stopped in front of the group of monks and laypeople who were terrified and trembling, his gaze calmly sweeping over their distorted faces.

No one dared to talk to him.

Zhu Youjian continued, "I am very angry today."

He paused, that brief pause like a cruel official leisurely wiping the blade before execution, giving everyone present a fleeting moment of illusion, only to shatter that pitiful illusion in the next instant.

Therefore, half of the people in this temple were eventually able to survive.

"what!"

half!
This word was like a silent guillotine, instantly severing the last shred of hope in everyone's hearts.

Half alive, half dead.

They are poisonous insects thrown into a jar of poison, waiting to tear each other apart!
Just as everyone was terrified and on the verge of fainting, the emperor's voice, like a devil's whisper, rang out again, clearly announcing the rules of this bloody game.

"From now until sunset, there will be approximately two and a half hours."

"Leave only half alive before sunset."

How can I survive?

To everyone else, the emperor's smile looked like that of the King of Hell in the underworld.

"Simple."

His voice was like a viper's hiss, full of cold allure.

"Whoever can be the first to stand up and accuse another of a crime, expose their secrets, reveal their private affairs... any crime will do."

"For example, embezzling incense money, hoarding temple property, raping innocent women, and taking the lives of the innocent..."

The emperor's gaze suddenly sharpened like a knife, sweeping over the richly dressed officials, gentry, and wealthy merchants who were sweating profusely.

"For example, who imitated the Earl of Xincheng by 'donating land to Buddha'? How much was donated? Was it for floods or droughts? And how did they collude with the monks in the temple to deceive the court and evade national taxes?"

“If any of the allegations are verified to be true, then the person who made the accusation will receive a life sentence.”

"First come, first served."

He extended a finger and gently shook it in the dazzling sunlight, like a Buddha offering guidance, or a demon plucking strings.

"Half the spots are filled. All spots are taken..."

"Those who haven't yet received their first characters..."

The emperor did not continue.

……

The breathing of everyone on the open ground quickened again.

Everyone was stunned.

Their chaotic thoughts seemed to have been instantly stripped of all their tendrils by this simple yet cruel rule, leaving only two words—survival.

Then came the frantic thinking!
sin……

Who is without sin?
In this temple, which claims to be a pure Buddhist sanctuary but is in reality a den of iniquity, whose hands are clean?
Who doesn't hide dirty secrets beneath their robes?
Everyone's eyes started to change.

They no longer looked at the headless corpse, nor at the emperor high above them.

They started looking at the people around them.

Look at those "senior brothers," "junior brothers," "junior uncles," and "senior elder brothers" who usually address me as brothers and discuss Zen and Taoism...

Look at those classmates, colleagues, and close friends who once shared drinks and laughter with me, who relied on me for support...

Their eyes met silently in the blinding sunlight.

There was suspicion, doubt, weighing of options, and calculation...

In the end, they all turned into a green light that devoured people!
At this moment, the gates of the hell of humanity were completely melted by the scorching sun!

After a brief and suffocating silence, a frenzied outburst ensued!
"Plop" sound.

The first person to react was a monk who usually received worshippers at the temple but was often suppressed by Liaofan because of his poor speech!

Fear overcame hesitation, and the will to survive prevailed over everything!
He stumbled and crawled out of the crowd, tears streaming down his face, and knelt at Zhu Youjian's feet. With all his might, he pointed to the still-bleeding corpse next to him, where an old monk, equally pale and stunned, let out the first roar that shattered his pretense!

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty! This humble monk... no! This sinful monk! This sinful monk must report this!"

His voice was shrill, like a wildcat whose tail had been stepped on, piercing the sweltering air.

"The sinful monk is going to report Abbot Liaochen!"

The old monk he was pointing at trembled violently, looking at this junior who usually obeyed him in disbelief.

The monk in charge of receiving guests had completely gone mad!
He poured out all the resentment he had suppressed for years and the secrets he had discovered, like pouring out beans!

"Liao Chen is nominally the abbot and in charge of the temple's discipline, but in reality, he is Liao Fan's right-hand man and the number one jackal! He is in charge of all the temple's shady dealings!"

"The matter of donating land to the Buddha was negotiated directly between him and those officials and gentry! For every piece of land, Liaofan got 30%, and he got 10%! Over the past ten years, he has embezzled at least 80,000 to 100,000 taels of silver! The gold bars hidden in his meditation room are enough to collapse the roof beams!"

"Not only that!" The monk's voice grew increasingly excited, his face flushed with a sickly redness.

"He has long been defiled by worldly desires and has broken the great precepts of Buddhism! He has set up a residence in Willow Leaf Lane in the south of the city and is keeping four or five women! Some of those women are female relatives of officials who come to offer incense, and some are respectable women who have been deceived by him!"

He also... he fathered seven or eight illegitimate children with those women! The oldest is almost fifteen this year! Their monthly expenses are all drawn from the temple's donations!

"Wow—"

An uproar erupted in the crowd!
Abbot Liaochen was a well-known figure in the temple for his impartiality and incorruptibility; even Liaofan had to show him respect!

Who would have thought that he had such a shocking secret!
Liao Chen's face instantly turned from deathly pale to a deep purplish-red. He pointed at the guest monk, his lips trembling, unable to utter a single word for a long time: "You...you...you're spouting nonsense!"

However, he was met with Zhou Quan's cold gaze.

"Take him there. Search him."

At a command, several fierce-looking Imperial Guards pounced on him, grabbed the limp Liao Chen, and led him, led by the guest monk, straight to the abbot's meditation room.

This beginning is like a boulder thrown into the abyss of humanity, stirring up the most filthy and darkest monstrous waves!
"I'm reporting this! I want to report this too!"

Another monk stumbled out, pointing hysterically in the direction of the scripture pavilion:
"The head of the Sutra Repository is Liaokong! He is related to Wang, the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue in Nanjing, by marriage! Vice Minister Wang owns 5,000 mu of fertile land, all of which are registered under the name of the Sutra Repository for the repair of books! Those 5,000 mu of land are nominally temple property, but 90% of the annual output is personally escorted by Liaokong and secretly delivered to Vice Minister Wang's residence!"
That wasn't a donation of land; it was clearly collusion between officials and Buddhist monks, using my sacred Buddhist land to evade taxes and corvée labor! They signed a dual contract! One copy was submitted to the authorities, and the other was kept privately! That private contract was hidden inside the lining of his copied copy of the *Surangama Sutra*! The Buddha's scriptures have become their fig leaf for concealing their filth!

"The Embroidered Uniform Guard!" Zhu Youjian's voice remained calm. "Go and fetch it."

Before he could finish speaking, a burly monk in the crowd suddenly sprang up, punching a hesitant companion to the ground, and then knelt down and roared!
"Your Majesty! This humble monk has something to report! The head instructor in charge of the tenants in the temple, Liaotong! This man may seem dull-witted, but he is actually ruthless! Last autumn harvest, three tenant families in Zhangjiazhuang behind the mountain were unable to pay their rent due to a flood. He actually led his men to their door and beat those three families to death!"

Even infants in swaddling clothes were not spared! The bodies were buried in the abbot's favorite bamboo grove on the back mountain! Everyone in the temple's martial monks' hall knew about this! They simply dared not speak out, fearing the tyranny of Liaofan and Liaotong!

This was like stirring up a hornet's nest!
“I’m reporting! I’m reporting the abbot’s own junior brother, Zen Master Liaoxin! He’s Liaofan’s henchman. Whenever a monk in the temple disobeys, Liaoxin leads his men to punish him with sticks! It’s called discipline, but it’s really private torture! Over the years, he has ‘accidentally’ beaten more than a dozen monks to death! Their remains have all been thrown into the dry well behind the mountain!”

"I'm reporting! I'm reporting Liaochi of the Merit Hall, who is lending money at exorbitant interest rates under the guise of being a monk! He lends out money nine times and returns it thirteen times, with interest compounding on interest! He has driven countless families to ruin and death! The principal he lends out is all misappropriated from the merit money donated by believers from all over the country to make Buddha statues!"

"I am reporting Liao Neng of the Medicine King Temple! He colluded with several pharmacies in the city to sell the cheap medicinal herbs purchased by the temple at high prices, and then replace them with inferior medicinal herbs! I don't know how many people who came to seek medical treatment have been harmed!"

"I'm reporting..."

"I'm reporting..."

crazy!

Everyone is going crazy!
As the sun gradually slanted westward, the sunlight, no longer so scorching, became even more oppressive, pressing down on everyone's heart like a red-hot iron.

These virtuous monks, who usually appear respectable and kind, constantly chanting Amitabha Buddha and expressing their compassion, have completely shed their pretenses for the sake of a chance to survive!

They tore each other apart, attacked each other, and exposed each other!

They eagerly revealed each other's dirtiest, most secretive, and most shameful crimes, fearing that they would be too slow to speak and fall behind!

Master and disciple turn against each other, drawing their swords against one another! Brothers become enemies, harming their neighbors!

Just moments ago, they were united in their hatred of the "foreign enemy," but now they have turned into a relentless internal power struggle!

An old monk with a pale face and no beard cried and accused his disciple of having an affair with the wife of a wealthy merchant from the foot of the mountain and of stealing antiques and paintings from the temple as gifts.

The young monk who was accused countered that his master had instructed him to do so in order to maintain a relationship with the wealthy businessman so that the temple could purchase the land from the businessman at a low price!
Those officials, gentry, and pilgrims who had been detained completely broke down after the first round of killings and joined this frantic game of self-rescue!
"Your Majesty! This humble subject is going to sue the temple and sue Liao Fan! Last year, this humble subject donated five thousand taels of silver to rebuild the statues of the Four Heavenly Kings in front of the temple gate! But to this day, the statues are still in a dilapidated state! This humble subject's silver must have been swallowed up by him!" A fat merchant knelt on the ground, crying and wailing.

Before he could finish speaking, a business associate who had been doing business with him for a long time immediately jumped out and pointed at him with a sneer:
"Your Majesty, do not listen to his nonsense! His claim of 5,000 taels of silver is a donation, not a bribe! He wants Liao Fan to persuade the Jiangning Imperial Textile Bureau to award him the business of 500,000 bolts of tribute silk this year! This is not a meritorious deed, but clearly collusion between officials and merchants to bribe the Buddha!"

“And him!” The man pointed to another trembling scholar in a Confucian robe, “Master Qian, the grain commissioner of Yingtian Prefecture! He is also a great ‘philanthropist’ of the temple! He ‘donated’ all of his nearly 1,000 acres of official land to the temple, under the guise of ‘praying for the emperor’s blessings.’”

In reality, the temple only needed to give him 30% of the profits each year; the remaining 70% could be swallowed up under the guise of 'tax exemption for temple properties'! The national treasury's grain was thus embezzled by these Buddhist rats and corrupt officials!

On the open ground, cries, curses, hysterical screams, and the sounds of fists and feet mingled together, creating a symphony of hell on earth.

The setting sun cast long, long shadows on everyone, like ghostly figures dancing on the ground.

In the center of this chaos, the emperor still stood quietly.

Behind him, the Embroidered Uniform Guards, the Imperial Guards, and dozens of skilled clerks brought by Zuo Liangyu had already been divided into groups.

Every report was promptly documented.

Immediately after the record was made, a captain of the Imperial Guards escorted the person who made the identification, leading a small squad of soldiers straight to the location of the evidence.

One command after another was issued from Zhu Youjian's side, carrying an unquestionable authority and efficiency, and was implemented in every corner of this ancient temple.

The entire temple resembled a termite mound that had been smashed open with a heavy hammer.

Countless filth and sins that are usually hidden in the darkness are now exposed in the sunlight as day turns to dusk, leaving them nowhere to hide!

Time slipped away quietly amidst this chaotic frenzy.

Half an hour, then another half an hour.

Every time Zhou Quan stepped forward to report "the time has come," it meant a bloody elimination.

The bowstring twanged, and a rain of arrows fell.

Then came a brief silence, followed by a new and even more frenzied tearing apart.

At first, people were just reporting others.

Later on, in order to survive, some people even started reporting themselves!
"Your Majesty! This sinful monk is guilty! This sinful monk stole two bronze Buddha heads from the previous dynasty from the temple and sold them to merchants from the Western Regions! He hid the silver he received in the base of the seventeenth Arhat in the Arhat Hall! I beg Your Majesty to give this sinful monk a chance to live!"

A monk knelt on the ground and wailed, just to save his life before others exposed him.

The sun finally sank behind the western mountains.

As the sun dipped below the horizon and dusk settled in, the sun began to set.

Vast expanses of fiery clouds rose on the horizon, their brilliant yet poignant orange-red hue contrasting sharply with the bloodstains on the ground, which were beginning to congeal and turn black, creating a breathtaking scene.

As the last ray of sunlight was swallowed by the distant mountains, this frenzied mutual devouring finally subsided into deathly silence.

There were no more desperate whistleblowing reports, no more frantic attacks.

Because all the secrets that could be told have already been told, and all the hidden secrets that could be exposed have already been dug out.

All that remained was numb silence and the gasps of relief after surviving a catastrophe.

The open space was a mess.

Nearly a hundred corpses lay scattered in pools of blood, each in a different pose, their deaths gruesome. The blood, in the gradually cooling air, emitted an increasingly strong stench.

On the other side were more than a hundred ghostly figures who emerged from the carnage, only to be awarded the epitaph of "survivor".

They were either monks or laypeople, all dressed in rags, covered in blood and dust, with empty and numb eyes.

They survived.

They survived by stepping over the corpses of their comrades and betraying everyone's secrets.

An indescribable sense of relief, like a faint flame, slowly rose in their long-frozen hearts.

Night finally fell.

The bleeding Buddha smiled silently in the evening breeze, a strange smile that seemed to witness the suffering of all beings!

(End of this chapter)