The Monk That Wanted To Renounce Asceticism

The moment he said that, Fangzheng attacked. The two knives in Wang Qingzhi’s hands were easily snatched away by Fangzheng, scaring Wang Qingzhi and Wang Laosi into a retreat.

Fangzheng laughed and ran towards them. Wang Qingzhi yelled quickly, “Master, calm down! You are a monk. How can you think of killing? That’s against the precepts! Besides, murder is against the law!”

Fangzheng was instantly rendered speechless. To actually raise the law in front of him at this moment in time? What had they been doing all this while? However Fangzheng had no intention to kill. Instead he weighed the knives in his hand before cleaving himself in the head!

At that instant, Wang Qingzhi slumped to the ground as he shouted, “I didn’t do a thing. Everyone saw it. He was the one who attacked himself… Ah!?”

Clank! Clank!

Two metallic sounds appeared as sparks were produced where Fangzheng’s head was. Then, both knives shattered as the broken blades flew out and slammed at the spot in front of Wang Qingzhi’s crotch. Having nearly kissed father’s day goodbye, Wang Qingzhi peed his pants at that very moment…

The onlookers were first astounded by Fangzheng’s metallic head before being amused by Wang Qingzhi’s guts. All of them laughed out.

Only a few of them were Wang Laosi’s men. The rest were just chronic gambling addicts. They knew Wang Laosi was someone who ate his victims clean, so they never gambled with Wang Laosi’s men. They only borrowed his tables to gamble among themselves. Of course, they did not prevent Wang Laosi from entrapping his victims and instead cooperated by flattering the victim. Naturally Wang Laosi would also provide them with benefits in the form of booze and cigarettes.

Therefore all of them knew very well what kind of a person Wang Laosi was. Now that Wang Laosi was suffering, they naturally gave their kudos. No one stepped forward to help him.

Unlike those people, Wang Laosi was truly scared out of his wits. His heart seemed to fall to the bottom of an abyss. He was no match fighting Fangzheng, nor was it possible to kill him. If he attempted to run… He would only end up in ‘haha’ land. Were there any other choices for him?

Finally Wang Laosi, Long Face, Fierce Face, and Wang Qingzhi returned to the table. But this time, they no longer had any greed on their faces. All that was left was despair as though their parents had passed away! They knew that they were likely going to go bankrupt today!

“Venerable Fangzheng, who do you want to deal the cards?” Wang Laosi’s voice was very soft as though he had squeezed them out.

“Up to you.”

Wang Laosi immediately took the cards over. Although Fangzheng was very odd, he refused to believe that his gambling skills were no match for Fangzheng’s luck.

However Wang Laosi also had an idea. “Venerable Fangzheng, how about we change the way we play?”

“Oh? How?” Fangzheng smiled. His row of pearly white teeth appeared especially bright.

“Uh… No one is to touch the cards. A third party will do the flipping. Whatever that is flipped open counts, how about that?”

Fangzheng nodded without minding that. “No problem. Who shall do it?”

“Liu Laosan,” said Wang Laosi immediately. He knew Fangzheng was odd, so it did not matter who did it. At the very least, Liu Laosan was his subordinate. And his hands were nimble. It wouldn’t be impossible for him to secretly switch the cards.

Fangzheng nodded without caring too much. Liu Laosan immediately ran over. He washed the deck and handed out the cards. Then he looked at Fangzheng. “How much will you be betting?”

Bang!

The sack of money was thrown onto the table as Fangzheng smiled. “Everything.”

“Pfft!” Wang Laosi nearly committed blood as he exclaimed, “You are betting more than three million?”

Fangzheng said matter-of-factly, “Yes. Everything. All of you are out of money, but that’s alright. Just write an IOU. This Penniless Monk will lend each of you three million. Play boldly while having no worries in mind. As long as you make This Penniless Monk not wish to continue, all these IOUs will be written off. On the contrary, if This Penniless Monk isn’t done and you give up, This Penniless Monk will hound you for your debts.”

Wang Laosi nearly stopped breathing. This was basically wanting him dead!

However, they still had to continue. They only had one goal, which was to accompany the darn baldy in gambling until he scrammed!

Game on!

Liu Laosan skilfully switched Fangzheng’s cards, but Fangzheng did not appear to have noticed it. Wang Laosi, Wang Qingzhi, and company were secretly overjoyed. Were they going to turn the tables?

However when Liu Laosan flipped over Fangzheng’s cards, they were dumbfounded because…

“Three As?”

“How is it possible!?”

…

Wang Laosi and company instantly fell into despair. They had clearly swapped the cards, but why did Fangzheng still receive three As? When they looked back at Fangzheng again and thought of all the feats he had done, they immediately felt a cold chill run down their backs. The monk was definitely not using ordinary cheating skills, but divine skills!

Fangzheng grinned widely. “Everyone, don’t look at This Penniless Monk like that. This Penniless Monk only has good luck. By the way, do you believe there are ghosts in this world?”

He had suppressed his voice almost to the point of a whisper for the latter half of his sentence. Wand Laosi and company seemed to vaguely see a few blurry shadows standing beside Fangzheng. They felt goosebumps run all over their bodies! The tiny schemes they had been hatching instantly vanished! They had no intention to win anymore. All they wanted now was to accompany this ancestor and send him off.

However…

An hour passed, followed by two hours. Soon half a day passed…

Their stomachs moaned in protest, but Fangzheng remained energetic!

A day passed, and the few men nearly vomited from gambling for so long. They had stayed up all night the previous day and had been playing the entire day. They could no longer take it, but when they saw the IOU slips on the table, they gritted their teeth and pressed on.

At midnight, the few of them felt like the world was spinning around them. They could not hear a word of what others were saying, but they could not sleep because the IOU slips in front of them constantly reminded them that they would have to repay the money if they fell asleep! If they wanted to repudiate their debts? Just the thought of the ghosts behind Fangzheng jolted them awake.

A night passed as the few of them were tormented until their eyes were bloodshot, as though they were members of the living dead. As for Fangzheng, he continued as he played with the meditation beads in his hand and gambled in a relaxed manner.

They obviously did not know that the meditation beads were sacred Buddhist items. Each Buddha Bead could cast a divine power, and the Buddha Beads themselves could keep him awake and rid him of fatigue. Although they were inferior to the wooden fish, it was not a problem for him to persist without sleeping for about six days. As for food?

Fangzheng just needed to place the others in a dream. They might not see Fangzheng eat, but in fact, this fellow was having a great time eating food that Zheng Jiaxing brought him.

Instead it was Zheng Jiaxing who was confounded. Weren’t they hungry after not eating for two days? However, since they did not mention it, he did not say a word either. He just watched silently as the few bastards were tortured. Batch after batch of onlookers came and went.

The table which had more money than IOU slips slowly turned into the situation where there were more IOU slips than money. For this, Zheng Jiaxing had to specially buy quite copious amounts of paper.

On the third day, Long Face finally gave up. He collapsed his head onto the table and dozed off.

Fierce Face also failed to persist. With a lamenting cry, he said, “So what if I die! I want to sleep!” Then, he fell asleep as well.

Wang Qingzhi and Wang Laosi exchanged looks with their bloodshot eyes. They could hardly see a thing.

On the fifth day, at the instant Wang Qingzhi flipped open his cards, his head drooped down and loud snores reverberated.

At night time on the fifth day, Wang Laosi fell asleep with his eyes wide open…