Killing Monks

When it was Xiao Ni's turn to see the doctor, she sat there and looked at the doctor.

The doctor was an old man with white hair and a hunched back, but his hand was very steady. When he placed his hand on her wrist, it was like a leaf falling on the water, so light that she couldn't feel it, but she knew it was there.

"I don't need to look anymore," Xiao Ni said.

The sound was so soft that she couldn't hear it herself. She thought the doctor couldn't hear it either. But the doctor heard it. He looked up at her; his eyes weren't big, but they were very bright, as bright as the brightest star in a winter night.

"Why?" the doctor asked.

"I'm a slut," Xiao Ni said.

She said those four words so smoothly, as naturally as drinking water, eating, or breathing.

She's been saying it for years, she's gotten used to it, and saying it doesn't hurt anymore.

It hurts more when she doesn't talk about it. When she doesn't talk about it, the words get stuck in her throat, unable to come up or go down, choking her and making it hard to breathe.

Once she spoke it out, everything was alright. Once she spoke it out, she accepted it. Once she accepted it, she didn't have to think about it anymore. And once she stopped thinking about it, she felt relieved.

The doctor didn't let go. His hand was still on her wrist, and the leaf was still on the water's surface, not sinking.

"No," he said, "you're not cheap."

Xiao Ni looked up at his eyes. Those eyes were still bright, but what was inside them had changed. Not that they had dimmed, but that they had deepened.

It's as deep as a well. If you lie on the edge and look down, you can't see the bottom, only your own face bobbing on the surface.

But this time, the face on the water was different. It wasn't a ghost, it was a person. It was herself. A version of herself she had never seen before.

"You are the old man's child," the doctor said.

His voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear and distinct, like a knife carving into stone, each stroke deep and indelible.

"With this old man here, you are a person. Not a lowly woman. You are a human being."

Xiao Ni's tears started falling again.

This time was different from the last. Last time, the tears fell on their own; this time, she made them fall. She made them fall because she didn't want to hold them in anymore.

She had held it in for so many years, for far too long. So long that she thought she had no tears left to shed.

So it was still there. Still there. It was just pressed down, pressed down very, very deep, pressed down so hard it couldn't move.

Now that someone has moved that stone, tears are flowing. They're flowing, and it's all better. They're flowing, and my heart feels empty.

Only when it's empty can new things be made.

"Can I become an old man?" Xiao Ni asked. Her voice trembled, her lips trembled, and her hands trembled as she asked the question.

She was afraid. Afraid of being rejected.

I'm afraid of being laughed at. I'm afraid the doctor will say, "You alone..." "They don't deserve it either."

She waited a long time, but these weren't the words she received.

"We welcome you," the doctor said. His hand was still on her wrist, but this time, it wasn't for a medical consultation.

It is within reach.

I'm holding the hand of someone who's standing. A standing person is different from a sitting person. A standing person can move forward.

Keep walking forward, and you'll reach the place you want to go.

"My suffering sister, you are not dirty. It is this world that is dirty. It is this world that has polluted you."

Xiao Ni lowered her head and looked at her hands.

His hands were rough, with yellow stains that couldn't be washed off under his fingernails, scars on his wrists from being strangled by ropes, and burn marks on the back of his hands from being burned by cigarette butts.

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She used to think these hands were dirty, so dirty that she couldn't show them to anyone, so dirty that she didn't even want to look at them herself. Now, looking at these hands, she suddenly doesn't think they're dirty anymore.

It wasn't that they were washed clean; someone told her they weren't dirty. She believed them. And because she believed them, they weren't dirty anymore.

Later, Xiao Ni recovered her health.

The doctor prescribed her medicine, a bitter, dark bowl of it. After drinking it, her tongue went numb and her stomach churned.

She drank it, one bowl a day, one bowl a day, for a month, two months, three months.

As she drank, her complexion improved, her spirits lifted, and a light returned to her eyes. The light was faint, as faint as a candle flame in the wind, easily extinguished. Yet it shone. And because it shone, it did not go out.

She started working for those people.

Serving tea and water, washing clothes and cooking, cleaning the yard, running errands and delivering mail.

She does everything, without being picky. After finishing, she asks if there's any more. If there is, she continues; if not, she sits and waits. While waiting, she's not in a hurry. She knows there will be more.

There are endless tasks, countless people to save, and endless suffering. But every little thing you do is one less to do; every person you save is one less to save; every person you help stand up means one more person standing in this world.

When there are more people standing, there are fewer people kneeling. When there are fewer people, there will be no one left to make you kneel.

She became an old man.

He wasn't the kind of old man who led the group; he was just an ordinary old man. He was one of many old men, and even an ordinary old man was still an old man.

The old man wasn't alone; he was part of a group. What a group of people can do, one person can also do.

If you do it, you're an old man.

No matter how big or small the task, it's still doing something. If more people do the small tasks, then the big tasks will be done.

Xiao Ni later changed her name to Lao Bo Nu (Old Man's Daughter).

She is the old man's daughter!

Xu Laoda, Ma Wu, and Tai Jiu stood on the city wall of Shangjing, looking at the distant lights. Not the flames of war, but lights.

One by one, the lights shone outwards from the city center, illuminating one street after another, until they could no longer see them.

Those lights weren't lit by the government; they were lit by the people themselves. They lit the lights and hung them at the door, in front of the window, and on the crooked jujube tree in the yard.

The lamps weren't expensive, and the oil wasn't expensive either, but they didn't use them before.

It's not that we can't afford to light it, it's that we dare not. If we light the lamp, we attract people. But those who come aren't good people, they're bad people. When the bad people arrive, the lamp goes out, and the people disappear too.

Now they've ordered it. Now that they've ordered it, they're not afraid anymore.

It's not that I'm not afraid of bad people, it's that I know bad people are afraid of other people.

Those people are called "old men".

Guangyuan stirred up a huge wave with the word "old man".

It wasn't something that happened in a day; it happened day by day.

Like waves in the sea, you can't see how they rise, but once they rise, they get bigger and bigger, bigger and bigger, big enough to capsize ships, destroy shores, and uproot things that have stood for hundreds or thousands of years and thought they would never fall.

The Tang Kingdom was washed away by this wave.

It's not about whitewashing the ground, it's about whitewashing the people.

Wash those who sit in government offices, sit in the halls, sit on the heads of others.

They thought they were firmly in control, that their backsides were made of gold, iron, and were unshakeable.

But then a wave came, and the chairs wobbled. With the wobbling, they couldn't sit still anymore. Unable to sit still, they fell. And once they fell, they could never get up again.

As Xu Laoda looked at the lights, a thought suddenly came to mind—the real key to the Heaven and Earth Society was Guangyuan.

It wasn't a knife, it wasn't a gun, it wasn't the cities captured, the enemies killed, or the alliances signed. It was Guangyuan.