The Monk That Wanted To Renounce Asceticism

Fangzheng turned even more worried after sending off Yang Hua. He had a good impression of Qi Liya. Although she was not considered pretty, had an average figure not taller than 1.6 meters and average intelligence, she was a gentle girl with a little frailty to her. Fangzheng had once seen Qi Liya buy two meal boxes for an entire week. She would eat one herself and give the other box to a vagrant the entire time until the vagrant left the school’s vicinity.

With this in mind, Fangzheng turned even more worried for Qi Liya. Could it be that she had encountered something similar?

With this in mind, Fangzheng could no longer sit still. However the moment he thought of the remote south, the fact that his pockets were empty posed a trouble. Ignoring airplane tickets, just train tickets were not cheap either!

“System, you have collected so much incense money. Can you give me a bit of it?” asked Fangzheng bitterly.

“I can!”

Fangzheng was surprised, but he sneered. “Can we not have the huge pauses in between your sentences? Just say it directly. Can you or can you not?”

“I can.”

Fangzheng was completely taken aback as he attempted to confirm. “You really can?”

“I can!”

“Are you sure you can?” Fangzheng asked again.

“Can you stop being irritating? If you don’t want it, forget it. I’ll keep it!” The System was infuriated.

“Then why all this idle talk? Take it all out for This Penniless Monk!” Fangzheng exclaimed.

“All? Dream on! Up to this month, the total merit you earned has exceeded 2500. You have fulfilled the minimum requirement. You can obtain ten percent of the merit money for your living expenses.”

Fangzheng was immediately excited when he heard that. The System was really not pulling a fast one on him this time. He would really have money he could use! Therefore Fangzheng immediately asked, “How much money do I have now? How much can I draw out? Also, why didn’t you say it earlier?”

“What’s the use of saying it earlier? Without sufficient merit points, you can’t get a thing. Fantasizing about something, having your attention diverted, and wasting your efforts to pursue something is not necessarily a good thing,” said the System matter-of-factly.

Fangzheng already no longer felt that the System was a sore sight. He did not care what the System said, since it was always able to sound reasonable.

The System continued. “Up to now, you have received incense offerings totaling 68,736 yuan! The amount you can get in cash is 6,873.60 yuan.”

“That much?” Fangzheng was truly given a fright. On careful thought, Fatty, Monkey, and company had all donated quite generously. Yang Hua had done the same too. There were also many visitors. Dozens of visitors came every day, and even if they placed only a few yuan, that would not be something trivial when accumulated. But on second thought, the money he needed to upgrade his divine powers required more than hundred thousand a pop. Fangzheng suddenly realized how poor he was!

However that wasn’t important at the moment. He immediately withdrew the money, and instantly, there was a wad of cash in his hands. Fangzheng’s eyes squinted into a tiny sliver from his smiling. He leaned against the wall and began counting! One, two, three…

“Counting cash feels awesome!” Fangzheng beamed. All this while, although he had held wads of cash, it had always been money he could see but not spend. Now that he could finally spend some money, he felt elated.

However, moments after his elation, Fangzheng took out his cell phone and sat under the bodhi tree.

As expected, Fangzheng saw Liu Dacheng send him another message.

“Fangzheng, have you thought about it?” When will you be coming?” Liu Dacheng went straight to the point.

An idea came to Fangzheng as his eyes darted around. “No. Too poor. This Penniless Monk doesn’t have enough money to buy a plane ticket, so This Penniless Monk can’t go despite wanting to go. Sigh, the money hasn’t been disbursed by the country. This Penniless Monk won’t be able to go now. Why don’t we talk about it at the end of the year?”

Boom!

A lightning bolt struck the spot in front of Fangzheng. He grinned as he had fully known that it was not a white lie. Actual lying would result in lightning strikes, but he was already accustomed to it and thought nothing of it.

Liu Dacheng said: “Why don’t you just borrow some money from the villagers?”

A cold glimmer flashed in Fangzheng’s eyes when he saw that. Liu Dacheng was indeed problematic. However Fangzheng still continued: “This Penniless Monk would not borrow from others unless necessary.”

It was the truth, so there was no lightning.

Liu Dacheng fell silent and only after a long while did he reply with the message: “Sigh, you are really troublesome. Alright, send me a picture of your identification document. I’ll get my secretary to book a plane ticket for you.”

Fangzheng was stunned. Had he been wrong about Liu Dacheng? In any case, he sent a picture of his identification document.

Liu Dacheng replied with an emoji with an OK hand gesture. He then vanished saying that he had a meeting.

In the afternoon, Liu Dacheng replied: “I got my secretary to book a ticket for you, but all the tickets have been sold out. Since you apparently have not taken a plane before, it would be troublesome if you had to do it now. Planes these days are delayed for no particular reason. A train would be more convenient. I took a look at the high-speed rails. There’s no direct line, so I got you an ordinary express ticket with a hard seat. Sigh, it’s really troublesome these days with students on break in July. Just buying a hard berth ticket is so difficult. I used a contact in the rail department to help you buy the ticket. How about it? Shouldn’t you thank me?”

Fangzheng was in no hurry to buy Liu Dacheng’s story. Instead, he searched on the Internet. Indeed there were no more normal plane tickets, but there were still first-class tickets available! And there were clearly plenty of train tickets left. Why did he say that there were none? There were indeed no ordinary hard berth tickets, but there were soft berth ones!

Fangzheng pricked up his brows and replied: “Is that so? That’s fine, This Penniless Monk is used to hard seats. It’s fine if it’s a hard seat.”

“Okay, great. You just need to retrieve the tickets when you reach the train station.” Liu Dacheng then sent a picture which indicated how Fangzheng could retrieve the ticket. He repeatedly exhorted him not to miss that particular train.

Fangzheng was finding it more and more curious. Wasn’t this Liu Dacheng a little too enthusiastic? Was he really inviting him to have fun because they were former classmates? This matter was likely not as simple.

The train tickets were for nine in the morning the next day. Time was a little tight, but now, Fangzheng had money. He was no longer worried. Besides, he still had his disciple!

The next day, Fangzheng called out to Red Boy just as the sky lit up slightly. Then the child was made to carry Fangzheng with his eyes hardly open. They rushed for Black Mountain City using the GPS on their phones. It had to be said that Red Boy’s flying speed was really good. Wind howled in Fangzheng’s ears, and he arrived in Black Mountain City after taking only slightly more than twenty minutes. He told Red Boy to return home as he stood by the train station’s entrance. He carried a huge cloth bag, and in it were Crystal Rice dumplings. Although he had announced to the public that there were none left, for Fangzheng himself eating these was too simple. He could make them at anytime. He would always make some dumplings and bring them along with him so that he would not starve to death.

It did not take long before the train arrived. Fangzheng joined the long lines to board the train. Fangzheng realized that the trains were indeed occupied by students. There were young faces everywhere as they chatted merrily. It added an additional youthful feeling to the train carriage. Fangzheng could not help but sigh inwardly. “It’s indeed good to be young… Uh, it seems I’m not that old either!”