Volume 1: The Divine Crow's Birth Chapter 2: A Piss

  The thief was sneaking up to the wooden chest, while the wooden chest was thinking of moving its body slightly to avoid the thief's obscene attack. However, it was like its owner, the late Master Yanshi, who had passed away not long ago - its state was no longer what it used to be. Unlike Master Yanshi, who suffered from an imbalance of yin and yang, with excessive fire and cold blood accumulating in his body, which led to a fierce battle between water and fire, like the war between China and Japan during World War II, where even the combined efforts of spiritual elixirs and wonderful medicines could not harmonize them, resulting in a sudden attack on the heart due to the weakness of the cold defense. The wooden chest was unable to save itself because it had been severely damaged by the thief's prying and had lost its spiritual energy. Perhaps it was because the evil spirit of the crow that had been nesting on its father's body for many years had invaded its spirituality, causing it to decline gradually like an invaded country. When the crow's nest was burned and its father passed away, its spirituality disappeared without a trace.

  Like the anti-Japanese nun squad that shook the Wutai Mountains in the 1930s and early 1940s, Mu Xiangzi's father, the thousand-year-old pine tree that died unfortunately due to the crow's involvement, is also a top-notch hero among all the pines and cypresses in this Buddhist holy land.

  "Deep snow presses on the green pine, but the green pine remains straight and upright; if you want to know how lofty and pure the pine is, wait until the snow melts."

  Although Chen Yi's poem is about the green pine, the green pine and oil pine are of the same root and family, even just a finger apart with only one or two joints. Therefore, Mu Xiangzi thinks that this poem is most suitable for his father's generation.

  In 1937, before the Pingxingguan Campaign, the commander of the Japanese 5th Division, Itagaki Seishirō, ordered a large-scale attack on the Wutaishan Anti-Japanese Nun Squad with a force of one regiment. At that time, Yang Paifeng, the original owner of the wooden box, sang an empty city for the little devils, and the Japanese lieutenant colonel who later fled to Degoucun was left empty-handed. In a state of desperation, he ordered his men to set fire to the Qingfeng Temple, destroying a thousand-year-old temple in an instant. The only thing that was slightly injured but not seriously damaged was the ancient cypress tree in front of the temple - his ancestor. The Japanese lieutenant colonel burned down the temple but still did not feel relieved, and he wildly hacked at his ancestor's body with his command knife. His ancestor suffered only minor injuries to the skin, but his command knife became a hundred-toothed steel axe that could no longer even chop firewood.

  The wooden box said proudly: "Our ancestors absorbed the essence of the sun and moon, rich in spirituality, standing tall on ice and snow, reaching for the sky. Can a small Japanese fire burn us down? Can a small Japanese military sword cut us?"

  As of September 21, 1954, a small crow's nest was burned, but it brought a devastating disaster to the parents, which is not something that can be explained in one or two sentences. Otherwise, why would it be listed as a temple mystery by its former owner, Yang Pailong?

  The thief had taken aim and was about to fire when the wooden box, in a state of extreme anxiety, hoped that Qingfeng Temple's abbot would come to its aid. It eagerly pinned its hopes on the abbot as she finally spoke up.

  "Amitabha Buddha, I'm guilty!"

  The abbot's words, though only lingering in her heart, were sensed by the wooden box. The wooden box thought that since she had such a sinful idea, it must be accompanied by action. However, the abbot was not her own master, and the wooden box had only been with her for one day, staying in her trembling arms for just a short while, making it impossible to have any spiritual connection. Moreover, having followed Master Yan Shi for so many years, the wooden box felt that the current abbot, apart from being a devout nun who ate vegetarian food and recited Buddhist scriptures, did not have anything remarkable about her. Furthermore, she did not have the experience of surviving in the midst of gunfire and bullets like Master Yan Shi and Old Master Yang Pao Feng, let alone compared to Master Yan Shi, who had annihilated the "Crow" squad led by Japanese Lieutenant-General Kawachi in De Gou.

  The abbot, of course, was unaware of the wooden box's resentment and cold eyes. After silently reciting the phrase "Amitabha" in his heart, he opened his eyes and glanced at the thief. His actions made her feel that the world had suddenly become terrible. The half-moon shape on top of his head gradually disappeared into the clouds, the stars in the sky gradually faded away, and the originally shallow blue night sky gradually darkened. The rolling black clouds were like thousands of horses and soldiers, rushing towards the top of Mount Wutai. The things in front of her were complex and chaotic, the temple was hidden and visible, the trees were mottled and scattered, the graveyard was gloomy and eerie, the thief's face was ferocious and sinister, and the wooden box was mysterious and magical.

  Maybe he had prostatitis or urethritis, or maybe he just wanted to attribute all his disappointments to the wooden box, so he didn't want a single drop of urine to spill out. The thief struggled for about 20 seconds and didn't even manage to pee properly.

  The long wait led the abbot to misunderstand, thinking it was a process of stopping sin, so he recited "Amitabha", which is a kind of affirmation of the thief's "stop sin".

  It was this cry of "Amitabha" that startled the thief, and instead of stopping him, it caused him to urinate freely and without any obstruction.

  The "whooshing" sound was like a barrage of flying darts, shooting towards Zhu Shi one after another, making her feel that the adage "to spare someone is to spare oneself" and Master's theory of "non-interference" were wrong. It was this wrong theory that allowed the thieves to brazenly urinate on the wooden chest of Yan Shi Shifu like the Japanese during World War II, who would ride on Chinese people's heads and defecate and urinate at will.

  The urine poured out continuously, splashing up dust and smoke. The wooden box that had once been revered by the Red Guards as a treasure of the temple, indeed lived up to its mysterious legend, and the insult it suffered shook the heavens.

  The sky was suddenly cut through by a dazzling flash of lightning, followed by the sound of thunder. A deafening explosion shook the air, making people's scalps numb, and then the thief let out a heart-wrenching scream: "Ah——".

  This was just like the strange cry of a crow, which reminded the abbot of the scene where the crow's nest was burned on September 21, 1954. A crow let out a miserable "wa——" and suddenly darted out from among the lush branches of the oil pine, disappearing in the blink of an eye without leaving any trace.

  After the abbot regained his composure, he saw a dazzling blue light bursting out from the wooden box. The thief inside was trembling and struggling as if electrocuted, and soon fell to the ground, losing his life in an instant.

  "Amitabha Buddha, have mercy and spare his life."

  The abbot was performing a ritual to help the thief transcend when a black smoke burst out of the blue light, shooting up into the sky and merging with the rolling dark clouds to form a mushroom cloud like an atomic explosion. This mushroom cloud indeed stored tremendous energy, and the next clap of thunder was earth-shaking and terrifying, making Qingfeng Temple seem as if it were also in turmoil.

  A rumble of thunder rolled away, dark clouds slowly moved, the crescent moon revealed its sickle-shaped tip, and the sky gradually brightened. Mount Wutai finally became clear and peaceful.

  When the abbess looked at the wooden box and the thief again, there was no trace of anything, but the paper that had been thrown away by the thief earlier appeared in front of her eyes. It fluttered like a white butterfly in mid-air and flew to her side.

  "Got it?"

  The abbot looked at the white butterfly that had fallen in love with him, and hesitated to move his hand, after all, there was a secret of his master on it.

  "Master, you can rest assured and go."

  The abbot hesitated, thinking more deeply that this was not an ordinary piece of paper, but the embodiment of the world-weary Shifus' soul. The master had let the thief stir up trouble and returned to the temple she didn't trust.

  "Master, I'm sorry! Please forgive me!"

  The abbot hastily knelt on the ground, facing White Butterfly and kowtowing to her, saying: "The disciple followed your teachings and did not stop him from doing what he did. Forgive me, forgive me!"

  This piece of paper still refused to leave, like a butterfly in love with flowers, it clung to her hand as if it were a flower, until she put it into her bosom.

  The abbot hastily returned to the temple, and walked straight into the scripture hall. As she creaked open the large door, the bell tower's bell rang three times in a row, and it was already the third watch of the night.

  She locked the door, and with a guilty conscience, inserted the bolt again and again to verify if it was secure. After feeling at ease, she walked in front of the gods, lit incense and candles to pay respects to the Buddha. Only after all the Buddhist rituals were properly performed did she calm down and take out the paper, using the light from the Buddha's lamp to read with a nervous heart.

  This piece of paper was written with some words, sparse at first and dense later, still starting with that sentence:

  "A wooden box and a bubble of urine, gave birth to a mischievous god crow, first making trouble in Pingxingguan, then making trouble in Diaoyu Island..."

  Although the abbot felt that this sentence was a bit inexplicable, he suddenly understood it when he thought about the strange things that had just happened.

  The following text is all about the nun's aversion to the world, and the abbess looks at it with wide eyes, even afraid to look again. However, curiosity makes her unable to give up, and she reads through all the texts in amazement.

  "Is it ruined? As a disciple of the hermit master, one should keep the master's life forever hidden in their own heart."

  The abbot thought to himself, and the hand holding the paper naturally stretched out towards the Buddha lamp. When the paper approached the Buddha lamp, she felt that she was a bit too careless again.

  From the scattered discussions of the pilgrims, the abbot knew that Japan still evades the issue of comfort women and claims that China's Diaoyu Island is its territory. Although he should not interfere with worldly affairs, patriotism is a basic quality that every monk should possess.

  "Leaving home without forgetting patriotism, entering the world to destroy Japanese bandits, punishing evil and promoting good."

  This was the patriotic theory that Qingzheng Shitai, the first abbot of Qingfeng Temple, often imparted to her nun disciples during her lifetime.

  The abbot thought of Qing Zheng Shifu's words and suddenly felt that he had almost committed a serious unpatriotic mistake.

  "If Little Japan continues to cover up the comfort women issue, this paper will give it a fatal blow. Moreover, the dying instructions of Yan Shi Tai also cleverly expressed this meaning."

  The abbot thought of this and folded the paper carefully, placing it in the master's lecture place, making a slight bow to it, then made an important decision secretly.

  "Amitabha Buddha, everything has its own destiny, just go with the flow."

  The abbot picked up the paper and found a safe place to store it, waiting for the wooden box to be made, then put it in the box as a secret transmission of the temple.