The abbot stopped there, but anyone could sense that his mood was not calm at the moment.

"Died by hanging..." A scene flashed through Jiangcheng's mind. It was in the lewd Hall of Merit, where Huiqing主动伸出手 (zhudong shenchu shou - voluntarily reached out) and pulled the hand of the monk Huicong to place it on her body.

Huiqing... she was willing, and so were the women like Huiqing!

Realizing this, Jiangcheng's breathing became rapid. He suddenly began to understand those women, and this understanding filled him with fear.

"It was a tragedy, more than a dozen lives just vanished like that. Since I became the abbot, I have never been so angry. I... I rushed out of the temple and found the village chief sitting on the stone steps smoking his pipe. I asked him why he did this?"

"But do you know his answer?" The abbot let out a miserable laugh, "You should have already guessed it. The village chief narrowed his eyes and knocked his pipe on the sole of his shoe, nonchalantly saying that the stone women had hanged themselves, and it had nothing to do with him. Those stone women cried all night outside the door, and before they hanged themselves, some of them were cursing, but not their husbands, nor the village chief who sent them, but us... us monks who stood by and watched!"

"Saying that we monks who eat vegetarian food and chant Buddhist scriptures harmed them! Saying that saving all living beings is a lie, all a lie! We didn't even want to save these poor stone women, didn't dare to save them, couldn't save them!"

"After the village chief finished speaking, he dusted off his behind and left, without even collecting the bodies, because the village cemetery doesn't bury stone women. They considered it unlucky. It is said that burying the bodies of stone women would affect the ancestral graves of the family, and the family would no longer be able to produce male offspring to carry on the family line, and might even become extinct."

The abbot's tone became more intense as he spoke, "I couldn't stand it, so after the villagers went down the mountain, I sent the disciples of this temple to take down the bodies of the stone women, and then found a place, and chose a good day to bury them."

"But... but who knew, on the day of the burial, just after the bodies were buried, before our Buddhist ceremony was finished, a lot of people came rushing over."

"They were all women from the village. I don't know where they got the news, but the young and old daughters-in-law of each family all came. They were aggressive and carried various farm tools. They came up and pushed over the tombstones, and then began to dig up the corpses while scolding."

"Do you know what they said?" The abbot took a deep breath, "They were scolding, scolding us monks for being nosy and meddling in other people's business. These stone women deserved to die. They were suffering heavenly retribution for their sins in their previous lives. Such people must not be allowed to rest in peace, they must be dragged out and exposed, otherwise it would hinder their luck. What if they couldn't have children either? There were still many who were not married."

"My disciple was pure and kind-hearted, and he even knelt down to them, saying that it must not be done, these people were all miserable, why should women make things difficult for women?"

"Hehe, but it was useless. These women used ropes to hook the bodies and dragged them to the edge of the cliff and threw them down, saying that this way we wouldn't be able to find them. The cliff..."

"My disciple knelt blankly by the cliff for a whole night. The next day, after being carried back, he fell seriously ill. When he was at his worst, he held my hand and asked me in a daze, he asked me if we had done something wrong? If we had opened the door at that time and let those stone women in, would... would no one have died?"

"I told him not to think wildly and to take care of himself, but I didn't expect that that incident would affect him so much. After he recovered from his illness, he was like a different person." The abbot sighed with difficulty, "Although my disciple is not old, he is extremely talented. He has almost no opponents in the temple's Buddhist debates, but who would have thought, who would have thought that he... he actually..."

"He changed, he became less obedient to me. He secretly ran out every day, and no longer meditated in front of the Buddha. At first, I thought he was just a child at heart, so I didn't restrain him too much. But later, more and more rumors about him spread, and they became more and more excessive."

"It started with stealing wine, then eating meat, and finally... finally it even evolved into..." The abbot paused, and finally sighed after a moment, "One night, I was meditating when a disciple suddenly ran in慌慌张张 (huanghuangzhangzhang - in a panic), loudly telling me that it was terrible, Huicong had been tied up, and a group of people were押着 (yazhe - escorting) him outside the temple gate."

"When I rushed to the temple gate, I saw that Huicong was tied up tightly, and his whole body was injured. It was obvious that he had been badly beaten."

"But before I could ask, I saw a man rushing up aggressively. Only then did I realize that there were two women who were being treated the same as Huicong. The women were not very old, and they were stripped naked and tied to wooden donkeys, and carried up the mountain just like that."

"Later I learned that Huicong had broken the precept against lust, and was caught with those two women at the foot of the mountain... The angry man was the husband of one of the women."

"Such a thing was simply a disgrace to the face and reputation of our temple. We pleaded and offered some money to save Huicong. Fearing that the two women would be浸猪笼 (jin zhulong - drowned in a pig cage) when they returned, I had no choice but to find a few trusted lay disciples to send them down the mountain overnight, to a remote and unfamiliar village, leaving some money to allow them to live incognito for the time being."

"Back in the temple, I was furious and also broke the precept. I hit Huicong dozens of times with a rattan, until the disciples pulled me away crying, and then I stopped."

"I hated it, hated Huicong for ruining the reputation that the temple had accumulated for hundreds of years, and even more, hated that I had failed to live up to expectations. Huicong was once my most proud disciple."

"I don't know... I don't know why he turned out like this."

"But no matter how much I beat him, no matter how much I asked him, Huicong refused to say a word. He just looked at me, quietly looked at me, and under his gaze I didn't dare to beat him or ask him anymore..." The abbot actually became frightened as he said this, "There was a compassionate aura in his eyes, that was... that was the gaze of the Buddha."

"Just two months later, those villagers came again. I originally thought they were here to make trouble for Huicong, but I was wrong. They were actually here to thank Huicong. The man at the head, I had seen him before, he was the husband of one of the women. He brought generous gifts and said happily that his woman had returned home, and had喜 (xi - good news)!"

"He had finally had offspring after working hard all his life, and he couldn't live in a daze anymore. He planned to build another house for the woman to live in, and he also slaughtered a sheep he raised to nourish the woman."

"The man took the喜帖 (xitie - wedding invitation) and insisted on donating incense money to the temple."