Starting from a peasant family, he mastered the profound art of martial arts.

Chapter 30 The Poor Monk

When I woke up early this morning, the sky was rather overcast.

The three of them drank a bowl of noodle soup, boiled two eggs with the bluefish, made some pancakes, and took with them freshly picked dates, the yellow paper cut out yesterday, and the snacks given by Meng Chen, before setting off.

Old Chen rode on a donkey, Qingyu led the donkey, and Meng Chen carried a bundle on his back. They traveled southeast for an hour or so and arrived at the ferry.

Qingyu is not from Dazexiang, but a boatman from Liangshuixiang. He has always made a living by fishing in the reed marshes, so he needs to take a boat for this trip.

A ferry was moored in front of the ferry dock, and several people were paying to board.

"Brother, look! There's a bald monk!" Qingyu pointed to a monk on the boat.

The monk seemed to have heard Qingyu's words, so he quickly turned his head, put his palms together in a gesture of respect to Meng Chen and the other two, and put on a kind and benevolent smile.

However, this monk was really slovenly. His cloth shoes had his toes sticking out, and although his robes had no patches, they hadn't been washed in a long time and were covered in grease. His face was also not very clean.

"How about we take the next boat? It's not a good omen if a monk gets on the boat!" Qingyu said in a low voice when she saw the monk looking at her.

The monk, as expected, could no longer hear him, closed his eyes, and began chanting sutras.

Meng Chen asked curiously, "What's the explanation for this?"

"Monks are monks, so how can we go out fishing and come back empty-handed?" the bluefish added. "That's what my father taught me."

"Your father didn't teach you anything good either!" Meng Chen was speechless for a moment.

"Your dad won't let you on the new ship yet!" Old Chen, riding on his donkey, kicked Meng Chen's rump and said, "Why don't you mention that his name has the character 'Chen' in it? An empty ship is better than a sunken one, isn't it?"

Sure enough, this remark immediately silenced the usually lively and talkative Qingyu, leaving him speechless and unable to refute it.

At this moment, the boatman also saw Old Chen and quickly came over, calling out "Uncle."

Old Chen was a well-known centenarian in the surrounding villages, and he was also a virtuous man with a wide circle of friends.

"Why should I pay you? It's just my child taking a boat ride, how can I take your uncle's money?" The boatman declined a few times, but finally accepted the money.

Meng Chen and Qingyu boarded the boat, and Qingyu kept waving to Old Chen, reminding him not to forget to feed the chickens when he got back.

The ferry wasn't big, but it was packed with about ten people.

Seeing that Meng Chen had nowhere to sit, the monk shrank back and squeezed to the side.

Meng Chen nodded to the monk in thanks, then pulled Qingyu down to sit.

"Amitabha." This monk was very kind; whenever anyone looked at him, he would put his palms together in greeting.

A woman holding a child sat next to Qingyu, and Qingyu took out a few dates for the child to eat.

Meng Chen sat next to the monk, wanting to chat for a bit, but seeing the monk picking lice with his head down, he didn't dare to say anything.

After walking for a short while, a dense patch of reeds appeared ahead.

A little while later, the boat suddenly rocked, and the boatman cried out, "Hero, spare my life!"

A small, covered boat emerged from the reeds, with six or seven men standing on it. One of them was holding a hook and had hooked the ferry.

Soon, a man boarded the ship at both the bow and stern, each carrying a steel knife and looking very fierce.

These must be bandits blocking the road.

Chaos erupted on the ferry; children cried, women screamed, and the monk, terrified, stopped picking his lice and just buried his head in chanting sutras.

"Grandpa's a hero of the marshlands, he only cares about money, not his life!" The bandit at the bow, shirtless, pulled out a bowl. "Hand it over obediently, or I'll have to take matters into my own hands!"

The monk was first in line, but he kept his head down even lower, neither paying nor responding.

"What, a bald monk here? This is a bad omen! I don't want to leave empty-handed! Damn it, this isn't bad enough!" The bandit, seeing the monk, shared the same thought as the bluefish, immediately slapped the bald head and said irritably, "Do you have any money?"

The monk, though slapped, didn't dare to get angry. He did manage to raise his head and said bitterly, "Sir, this humble monk truly has no money."

"You don't look like a rich guy either!" The bandit patted the bald head again. "The other monks are all fat and bloated, look at you! You should learn more about how to deceive people from the old monk!"

"Yes, yes, yes, you're right, sir," the monk immediately agreed.

The bandit stopped bothering the monk, simply kicking him over and holding the broken bowl out to Meng Chen.

Since the other side had more people and was on the water, and he also had to take care of the bluefish, Meng Chen didn't plan to confront them head-on. Since he had only brought about a hundred coins with him, he simply took out the money and threw it into the bowl.

"What's in the bundle?" the bandit demanded.

Meng Chen opened a corner of the bundle, revealing yellow paper and dates, and said, "For grave sweeping."

The bandit stopped asking questions, and even stepped over the bluefish to hand the bowl to the person who was trembling the most.

The more money you carry, the more afraid you become, and the more you tremble.

"Take it out now!" the bandit roared, pressing a gleaming knife against the man's neck.

Sure enough, the man took out two silver ingots from his person.

After receiving the silver, the bandits collected money from each other in turn. Perhaps the bandits knew that the passengers were ordinary farmers with little to no profit, so they didn't make things difficult for them and quickly collected the money before disembarking.

Once the bandits left, the passengers felt relieved, but they couldn't help but start cursing again.

The man who lost two ingots of silver cursed the most, but dared not raise his voice; he could only grit his teeth.

"These people used to just collect fish, but now they're robbing people? What a world!" someone exclaimed.

"I told you monks weren't allowed on the boat, but you, old Kuai, insisted on taking a few coins! The monks are all monks, everyone's empty-handed!" someone complained to the boatman.

"Brother, am I right?" Qingyu whispered in Meng Chen's ear, adding, "My dad always listens to my mom."

"It's no one else's fault." Meng Chen didn't think it was the monk's fault. He also knew that Qingyu wasn't blaming the monk, but rather using the situation as an excuse to spout some baseless nonsense.

The people on the boat were crying and cursing, and finally they all looked at the monk who hadn't paid.

People weren't afraid of being robbed, but they were afraid of being robbed unfairly. Of everyone on the boat, only the monk hadn't paid!

"Amitabha, it seems this humble monk has truly made a mistake." The monk was indeed about to be stared at to death. He put his hands together, sighed, and then stepped out and jumped off the boat.

But even after people left the boat, it didn't move an inch, not even a sway.

Looking at the monk again, they saw that he hadn't fallen into the water, but instead, he was touching the surface with his feet and heading towards the departing bandit boat.

The bandit boat was already a hundred paces away, but the monk, like a dragonfly skimming the water, landed on the bandit's awning boat in just a few leaps.

An extra person appeared out of nowhere on the awning boat, yet it didn't sway at all.

This is no disheveled monk; he's clearly a master!

Meng Chen was dumbfounded, and the passengers were also frightened.

Just when everyone thought the monk was going to do a good deed and retrieve the stolen money for them, they saw him kneel down on the bandits' boat.

"Amitabha! Just now, a benefactor asked me if I had any money. I did have some, but I lied and told a big lie in front of all the benefactors." The monk knelt on the deck and kowtowed repeatedly. "I hid three taels of silver in my shoe, intending to buy myself some new clothes. This has already been a sin of greed."

The monk took off his worn-out shoe on his left foot, poured out a piece of silver, stuffed it into the bandit leader's hand, kowtowed three times, put on the worn-out shoe with his toes showing, turned around and jumped off the boat. He was still like a flying immortal, walking on water in mid-air, and returned to the ferry.

When the monk left the bandits' awning boat, the boat didn't move an inch. When he returned to the ferry, the ferry didn't rock at all.

"Amitabha." The monk bowed to Meng Chen and the other passengers, saying, "It takes a hundred years of cultivation to share a boat ride. This humble monk has also paid his share, so I am sharing this hardship with you all."

He used to call himself "this humble monk," but now that he has paid the bandits, he naturally calls himself "this poor monk."

Everyone on the ferry was dumbfounded, and the bandits on the covered boat were also at a loss.

The reeds swayed in the shallow water along the shore, and the sounds of wild ducks courting each other could be heard from within.

No one on the boat made a sound, except for the monk who kept chanting sutras in a low voice, as if to entertain the wild ducks.