Chapter 34: A Mess Everywhere

by cnwebnovels

Faced with questions about my family, Gu Qiutang clearly didn’t want to answer. “Some things I am not in a position to answer. I hope you’ll have patience for what comes next. Once you have sufficient ability, you’ll see them. Then you can ask them yourself.”

“What level of ability do you mean? And did my parents truly pass away?”

“By ability, I mean at least the ability to see them. Without sufficient ability, even standing before you, you couldn’t see them.”

Couldn’t see them? Were my parents invisible too? But Grandma who raised me was normal.

From Gu Qiutang’s expression, he obviously wouldn’t discuss my family.

Fine. I wouldn’t press him.

I knew enough already. Hard to digest. I was no longer the student who’d fled Liutan Town. Xuanhong’s thoughts still moved in my mind.

“Then what should I do next?”

“You still need to grow. Your ability is nowhere near sufficient. You need tempering, growth. Only when powerful enough can you handle what’s ahead.”

“How do I temper myself better and grow faster?”

“Didn’t you bring down the Zhuo Group? Start there. I want you to take part in the restructuring investment company. A temple is, after all, a place of quiet cultivation. Do not stay there too long. It is too idle.”

“You want me to run a business? I can handle technology, but investment management is completely outside my field. It would take up too much energy. I’d rather work alone.”

“Working alone feels satisfying, but tempering has many dimensions. How much do you understand society? Human nature? Do you have a team? All require tempering.”

“All right. I’ll follow your arrangements.”

That was what I said, but honestly, I was reluctant.

I had only just gotten comfortable at Tansong Temple.

Seeing that I had accepted his suggestion but was not really willing in my heart, Gu Qiutang pointed out: “Actually, your revenge against the Zhuo Group was a little too heavy-handed. Too many innocent people were affected, and the shock to society was too great. A mess everywhere. Granted, the root wasn’t your fault, but you chose how to solve it. You could have made a precise strike, subtle and unnoticed. Instead you shook the whole country.”

I nodded. He was right. I’d realized afterward.

“As they say—playing chess, look five moves ahead. How many moves did you look ahead? You threw a wild flurry of punches and felt great yourself. Did you think about how many unemployed people would be affected? Did you think about the industrial chaos caused by a market vacuum? Did you think about the consequences of alarming the Sweepers, especially the Soul Hunters?”

That hit where it hurt.

Had I thought about it?

Not really.

I had only thought about taking down the Zhuo Group as fast and brutally as possible.

When I cheated on the exam at Liutan High School, I had not expected Grandma to get dragged into it, much less that it would attract the Sweepers’ attention and leave me wandering in exile. Of course, that had to do with my level of understanding at the time. But now I was different.

This showed that I truly needed tempering. I needed to understand that many reactions are linked to one another.

“So the reason I want you to gain experience in business is so you can return to ordinary society and experience the warmth and chill of people’s lives. In the future, when you act, you will be able to put the people first and take human beings as the foundation. You cannot be like elite people, floating outside the world, enjoying every good thing alone. Responsibility and conscience are the greatest difference between elite people and those who fled. For this new enterprise, I plan to have Gu Kunling preside, with you as her deputy. Learn more from her.”

I was satisfied with this arrangement. “Your criticism is right. My action against the Zhuo Group was rash and poorly considered. I am willing to accept the new arrangement.”

Seeing that I had come around, Gu Qiutang said, “Before you leave Tansong Temple, you can go talk with the Du family first. After all, Chairman Du is an old veteran of the business world, and Xuanhong and Du Xinlang are deeply entangled as well. We will not interfere with your private life. In a few days, there will be new movement in the market. The business vacuum left by the Zhuo Group is also a major opportunity; it is not entirely a bad thing. Once the timing is right and business restructuring begins, I will notify you. Also, you must memorize the appearances and work units of these five Soul Hunters. They are the biggest and most vicious wolves around you. You will definitely encounter them. At least have a sense of it in advance.”

…

Leaving Gu Qiutang’s office, I suddenly felt immature. There was a long road ahead, and too much I needed to learn.

Back at the temple, things had been easy. I had my own courtyard, and everyone respected me. It was called quiet cultivation, but truthfully, I was being supported by others.

Thinking about it now, Gu Qiutang’s lesson was right. Without pressure, where would motivation come from? Fortunately, he did not make me take the top job by myself. Otherwise, I would have been doomed.

After leaving the Gu Group, I did not return straight to Tansong Temple. I drove to the Du residence.

Since I was going into business, I might as well follow Gu Qiutang’s suggestion—listen to Du Changfeng’s advice and talk more about business matters.

When Du Changfeng heard I wanted to leave the temple and go run a company, he felt secretly delighted. However famous I, Great Dharma Master Xuan, might be, ultimately I was still a monk. It would be rather hard to explain if his only beloved daughter married a monk.

Du Xinlang lowered her head shyly. I sensed she thought I was doing this for her.

I did not explain.

Since this was the road I had to take anyway, why say too much?

When it came to running a business, Du Changfeng practically poured out everything he knew. From top-level coordination to middle management, from financial accounting to task breakdown, he used the fewest and easiest words possible, yet spoke with great precision.

Du Xinlang occasionally added a sentence or two to warm up the atmosphere.

Xuanhong had worked as an architect at the Du Group, but he had understood nothing about management and operations. Naturally I, Xuanchen, knew even less. So I listened seriously. This pleased Du Changfeng.

At dinner, worried Du Changfeng would think I wanted to take over his position, I deliberately explained that my ancestors had quite a connection with President Gu of the Gu Group. My return to lay life was in response to Gu Qiutang’s invitation to join the restructuring investment company led by the Gu Group.

Du Changfeng immediately became displeased—someone was trying to poach me from him.

I’d almost forgotten Gu Kunling was also beautiful.

Du Changfeng argued that the Gu Group was nowhere near as powerful as the Du family. If a new business company was going to be formed, it should be led by the Du family.

I said that since the Gu Group had already laid out the plan and hired me to take part, it meant the work plan was already mature, and the next step was implementation. If there was anything I did not understand in the future, I would inevitably come to him for advice.

Du Changfeng obviously had not analyzed the formation of a new company at all. He was purely trying to poach me. After I said that, he could not very well say more.

Du Xinlang had more confidence in me, supported my going to the new company.

I understood in my heart.

For Du Xinlang, as long as I returned to lay life, that was enough.

Xuanhong’s running off to the temple had absolutely been a case of her forcing him up Liangshan. She had been trying all along to force him back.

…

More than four months had passed since the Zhuo Group’s collapse, but the aftershocks had still not subsided.

Because the Zhuo Group had caused massive shortfalls in the financial sector, and because it counted as a planned, systematic crime, the impact on the market—especially investment banking—had powerful transmission effects.

Wave after wave triggered small-scale subprime crises. Fragile asset bubbles and financial derivatives kept exploding, systemic risk spreading wider.

The collapse of weaker assets and the failure of institutions were still spreading like a plague.

As Gu Qiutang said, for a time the financial market became disordered and chaotic—like chicken feathers strewn everywhere.

I had never imagined that one person’s downfall would implicate a company; that one company would implicate an entire group; and that one corporate group would set off chain reactions involving a hundred companies. It was like dominoes, layer after layer, rolling bigger and bigger until they finally formed a tsunami.

Every wave of turbulence kept battering every node in the business chain, stretching on without end.

And I’d damn well set all this off in secret.

The problem was, I was still a monk.

I claimed to be an eminent monk who’d attained the Way, admired by many. On that point, I truly did not deserve it. Cultivation is not only an art—it is life.

So I began reflecting. Was I Xuanhong or Xuanchen?

In the end, I had to admit: I was Xuanchen. Xuanhong was only a supplement to my life; he did not occupy the center. Xuanhong’s experiences merely enriched my life; his cultivation hadn’t overcome my impatience and restlessness, much less controlled my thoughts.

Deep down, I wasn’t a monk.

At the same time, I received a message from Gu Qiutang telling me to choose an opportunity to return to the group and take up my position.

So I soon gathered Tansong Temple’s four halls, eight stewards, temple supervisor, duty monk, and others for a temple management council meeting. Before everyone, I sincerely repented before the Buddha and requested to resign as abbot and return to lay life.

All the monks present were greatly shocked.

Because in their eyes, my recent performance had been outstanding. I’d stabilized temple order, cleared unstable factors, helped many injured, ill, disabled, and weak, greatly raising Tansong Temple’s reputation. Every day, many people came to Tansong Temple hoping to see me. Even high officials and dignitaries hoped to make special offerings.

More importantly, my superpowers had a stabilizing effect on the temple. Xuanhong became abbot after only two years as a monk—not entirely from spiritual attainment. There were many eminent monks at the temple with profound attainment. The main reason was that he had superpowers.

The four halls’ senior monks urged me in unison to stay.

But I could not explain the reasons to them. I could only say my mundane ties remained unresolved, I was too deeply entangled in the dust of the mortal world, ashamed before the Buddha, and it was very difficult for me to continue bearing this heavy responsibility. I earnestly asked my senior brothers to wait until my karmic conditions for cultivation arrived, when I would renounce the world again and meet all of them once more.

Seeing that I had already decided to leave, the monks of Tansong Temple could not force me to stay.

I lingered several more days. Everyone was reluctant to part.

On the day I left, I deliberately chose to go early in the morning, before the worshippers arrived. But the temple monks had all come early to wait at the gate.

After pressing my palms together, I walked resolutely out through the main gate. Everyone followed in a long procession to see me off.

Entanglements and stories here need not be detailed.

After returning my ordination certificate and changing to ordinary clothes, I became an ordinary layman once more. In my heart, I could not tell whether I felt heavy or relieved. I inevitably felt a little lost.

The car the Gu Group had given me was parked by the roadside.

Before getting in, I pressed my palms together to bid farewell to the monks, then did not look back.

When I drove past the Sweepers’ small base compound, I deliberately sensed it with my consciousness. Sure enough, countless streams of information shot straight toward me, probing me.

That meant I had probably been assigned a number in their system—I was definitely someone under key surveillance.

From now on, I could only conduct myself carefully and act seriously.