"Xiao Ci Temple?"
Xu Qing looked at the temple before him, his gaze deep and contemplative.
Memory spun back, time returned to the day before arriving at Xiao Ci Temple.
Outside the suburbs of Quyang County, a man and a cat traveled together.
On both sides of the country road were countless fertile fields. In the late autumn season, newly sprouted wheat seedlings stretched into a field of green. If the wind blew, tender green ripples would undulate across the fertile land.
At this moment, Xuan Yu had transformed back into a cat. And when in its cat form, it reverted to its lively and restless nature.
For example, it would dash into the wheat waves, hide its form, get ahead, and when Xu Qing led the horse there, it would twist its body, gather strength, and suddenly burst from the waves, startling the tall horse into jumping and dodging to the side.
Besides, the cat would occasionally scoop at pebbles by the road with its paw or chase the insects flying in the wheat fields.
Who would ever think that such an active cat could be a mystical creature?
Passing through vast stretches of fields for over a dozen miles, Xu Qing finally arrived at the village.
The township before him had a pleasant name, Shuiyue Village.
Shuiyue Village was originally a rich and fertile land, with numerous streams and rivers. Even in years of drought, Shuiyue Village could ensure a bountiful harvest with its geographical advantages.
According to the geographical guide's description of Shuiyue Village, Xu Qing instinctively felt that this village must be a prosperous place.
However, when Xu Qing truly set foot in the village, he found the whole place in a scene of impoverished devastation.
Broken houses, villagers wearing tattered clothes, and even the children in their lively years had dull, lifeless eyes...
Xu Qing lowered his head to look at the guide filled with words of prosperity and affluence.
Then he raised his head again to look at the impoverished villagers and saw only desperation and hardship.
Xu Qing found it all perplexing. He had set out from Qianzhou City, traveled over three hundred miles to reach within Quyang, and along the way, he encountered and heard many things, yet never about a poor harvest this year. Why then were so many people starving?
Especially in a place like Shuiyue Village?
Xu Qing inquired with the villagers, but no one was willing to answer him, or perhaps they were numb and unwilling to waste effort on an outsider like him.
"This village is indeed strange."
Xu Qing wasn't discouraged. He walked along the village road, occasionally asking some villagers for news.
When he reached the entrance of a household, Xu Qing stopped.
Outside the wooden gate hung white mourning cloth, and if one listened carefully, one could even hear the sorrowful cries.
Xu Qing pushed open the unlatched wooden gate.
Upon entering the yard, he saw an elder and a young person in a decrepit main house, wiping a man's corpse.
When they saw Xu Qing walk into the desolate courtyard, both were visibly stunned.
Stopping their actions, the elder feebly approached the threshold and asked Xu Qing if there was any reason for his visit.
Xu Qing spoke truthfully, confessing he was a Funeral Master, usually engaging in feng shui surveying and funeral services.
The elder immediately understood, realizing that he was a traveling master looking for business.
"My humble home is bare, possessing nothing of value, not even a decent meal, so let's not trouble the master."
Xu Qing shook his head and said, "As the saying goes, do a good deed each day. I've come here today and happened to see you setting up a funeral hall; this is fate between us. I won't charge, nor do I need you to provide food, consider it destiny between me and the deceased."
While speaking, Xu Qing stepped into the mourning hall. It was merely a straw mat and a few wild vegetable cakes as offerings. Beyond that, there wasn't even a candle or a coffin.
The elder did not stop him further. Looking carefully, Xu Qing finally noticed that the deceased was actually the family pillar in his prime.
The two remaining were elderly, infirm, and a youth who appeared no older than ten, with shoulders too frail to bear the family's burden.
Looking at the deceased again, in his thirties, his face was covered with bruises, his nose broken, his body covered in contusions, even several ribs had been fractured.
He was beaten to death!
Before even conducting the funeral rites, Xu Qing had already discerned the cause of death.
The back of the deceased's head had sustained fatal trauma caused by a blunt object, aiming for instant death.
As Xu Qing recited the Sutra of Salvation over the corpse, he examined the deceased's life's story.
The first half of the deceased's life was average and monotonous, spent working as a tenant farmer for landlords, earning some commission or food to sustain life.
Five years ago, a three-month-long heavy rain caused the Qianjiang River to break its banks, flooding most counties in Qianzhou, including Shuiyue Village in Quyang County!
Shuiyue Village's tens of thousands of acres, more than half of which were under the management of Cizhao Temple.
Cizhao Temple was dozens of miles away from Shuiyue Village. For easier management of this fertile land, the temple dispatched monks to establish a small temple outside the village, known as Xiao Ci Temple.
In the twenty years since Xiao Ci Temple's establishment, how many tens of thousands of acres of fertile land has it enclosed?
Not just Shuiyue Village, even the lands in surrounding villages have mostly been seized by Xiao Ci Temple through various means.
The villagers, in order to have a full meal to live, could only become tenant farmers and tenant farmers, begging for food under the monks.
Five years ago, when the Qianjiang River flooded and crops were lost, the temple steward monks, in a fit of anger, raised the rent from three-tenths to five-tenths, claiming that this year's yield was halved, leading to enormous temple losses, which must be compensated because they must have not been farming properly!
The tenant farmers swallowed their anger, hoping that by the following year, life might improve.