144: Please, senior brother, go to your death.

"Senior Brother, there is a severe drought across the land, the locust plague is rampant, and the common people are living in misery. What should we do?"

Xu Le looked at the monk who had suddenly run in, feeling increasingly familiar with him.

Where had he seen him before?

"Hiss... isn't this that picture from the mural?"

Xu Le looked around and discovered that he was indeed inside the temple from the mural. This scene right now was the fourth one.

Divine Eye!

The information of the young monk instantly popped up:

[Name] Kong Cheng (Li Ergou)

[Age] 18

[Life] 40 / 40

[Strength] 4

[Agility] 5

[Physique] 4

[spirit] 6

It was a very simple panel; because he hadn't changed classes yet, many things were missing.

Being able to see Kong Cheng's attributes, he couldn't help but be greatly shocked.

This meant that what was before him was real.

But wasn't this a mural before him?

Or was it that the Rank of this mural was very high, higher than the Rank of his Divine Eye, so what he was seeing wasn't the truth?

"Senior Brother?" Kong Cheng called out softly, extremely anxious, as his Senior Brother was currently distracted.

Xu Le regained his focus and said indifferently, "I know."

???

And then?

Is knowing the point?

What should the hundred thousand plus common people do?

Kong Cheng immediately became anxious: "Senior Brother, the people are living in misery!"

Xu Le waved his hand: "If you are not in that position, you do not plan for its policy. This matter is the responsibility of the County Magistrate and the officials of the Imperial Court to plan and resolve; why would they need our help?"

"No! The suffering of all living beings is great; we should do our utmost to help. This is cultivating good karma."

"Moreover, the common people down the mountain often worship the Buddha daily and have supported us. How can we ignore this life-saving grace?"

Kong Cheng kept talking, analyzing from the perspectives of Buddhist scriptures and the principles of being a person. In just a few short minutes, he had rambled on for over a hundred sentences.

Xu Le felt his head spinning and finally thought of a Buddhist scripture.

"Enough! We monks are detached from the four elements. That... all conditioned phenomena are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, and shadows; like dew and like lightning, thus should one view them."

Kong Cheng shook his head: "Senior Brother! Saving one life is more meritorious than building a seven-story pagoda. If over a hundred thousand common people are saved, wouldn't that be equivalent to building a million pagodas? We..."

"Enough! I said, you are not allowed to go!"

Xu Le directly interrupted. It was hard enough for a non-professional to win an argument against a professional, let alone one who was a monk skilled in eloquence.

He directly played his trump card, using his identity as Senior Brother to pressure the other party.

Kong Cheng's expression changed drastically as he looked at Xu Le in astonishment: "Senior Brother, your shadow."

Xu Le looked back and discovered that his shadow was standing up. It was clearly a two-dimensional existence, but it was about to upgrade and become three-dimensional.

Divine Eye!

[Item] Shadow

[Grade] legendary grade

[Item Details] A plain and unremarkable shadow, under the influence of the World Deviation Value, is about to undergo Awakening for its own life.

World Deviation Value?

Xu Le immediately understood that this was because he had deviated from his character setting, leading to the creation of the World Deviation Value. If he let it develop, the result would definitely be bad.

"What the hell?"

"Clearly, it was a relatively normal world in the mural, yet suddenly a World Will appears?"

"This is trying to force me to act according to the plot of the mural."

"But, why should I!"

"You have your rules, but I have my attitude!"

Xu Le had originally intended to save the little monk beside him, but unexpectedly discovered the existence of the World Will, so he became even more determined to disrupt the plot.

Rather than letting the World Will slowly strip him away, it was better to engage in close combat directly; whether he lived or died, he would give it a shot.

"You, go back and chant your scriptures properly. If you keep nagging, I'll beat you up!"

"..." Kong Cheng was confused and left, wiping away tears.

That night.

In the dead of night.

Kong Cheng, carrying the incense money collected over the years, secretly crept toward the mountain gate.

A cold voice suddenly rang out: "Junior Brother, where are you going?"

"Senior Brother, I..."

Kong Cheng wanted to explain, but Xu Le directly grabbed his ear, beat him up, and locked him in the woodshed.

Three nights later.

Xu Le heard sounds outside the door. He went out to look and saw a group of disaster victims killing and setting fires as they stormed into the temple.

The leader of the disaster victims was exactly that person from the mural.

"Your temple sits on thousands of acres of fertile land, with piles of gold and silver and granaries full of rice. You all eat until you are fat and bloated, yet you can't bear to take out a single grain of rice to provide disaster relief. How do you have the face to keep talking about saving all living beings? Are you waiting until we are dead to save us?"

"Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill..."

The remaining disaster victims were sallow and emaciated. Their knuckles were white as they gripped their sickles, and their eyes were filled with fierce glares.

Kong Cheng was in extreme pain, his eyes full of resentment as he looked at Xu Le.

He had originally intended to provide disaster relief!

Now, the temple was gone, and the Master and Junior Martial Uncle who used to chant scriptures and discuss Buddhism were also gone.

All of this was caused by this overbearing Senior Brother!

Xu Le shook his head. They were just a bunch of NPCs from a mural; it was pointless to argue with them.

Kill!

With a simple straight punch, a large hole was blasted into the leader's chest, and it was clear he wouldn't survive.

"You still dare to strike?" The disaster victims were enraged and all charged at Xu Le to kill him.

With Xu Le's current Physique, no matter how many ordinary people there were, they were just a number; taking them out one by one with a single punch was easy.

Those disaster victims had no power to resist at all; it was difficult for them to even touch the corner of his clothes.

In less than three minutes, triple-digit numbers of disaster victims had turned into corpses, and the rest were so terrified that they were either trembling on the spot or fleeing for their lives.

Another figure came slashing over with a sickle. Xu Le easily dodged and was about to smash the person's head with a punch, but he stopped.

His fist had reached the person's forehead; just a little bit more, and it would have smashed the person's skull.

"Kong Cheng, is it you?"

"It is me!"

Kong Cheng was overcome with grief and indignation, pointing at the corpses and blood all over the ground, "Senior Brother, are you still human? They are just innocent disaster victims. Because of hunger, a single moment of weakness, do they deserve to die?"

"They do not," Xu Le shook his head.

"Then why did you strike with such cruelty? Is it because of the shadow behind you? Or have you already been replaced by the shadow?"

Xu Le looked back. The shadow behind him was polluted by blood, growing countless heads—some happy, some sorrowful, some desperate, some painful, some resentful...

Those faces were incredibly similar to the disaster victims and monks who had died miserably on the ground, as if they had transformed into them.

Xu Le directly ignored it and said as a matter of course, "Because they took the initiative to attack me."

"Just because of that? With their strength, could they have harmed you, Senior Brother, in the slightest?"

The more Kong Cheng spoke, the angrier he became, the hatred in his eyes growing more intense. "Please, Senior Brother, go die!"

Not only Kong Cheng, but all the living monks picked up the weapons on the ground and charged at Xu Le.

Thirty seconds later, the last monk fell to the ground, stopping his breath.

Between heaven and earth, a gust of wind drifted from afar. The blood on the ground merged its color into the wind, quickly dyeing the entire world red.

Click!

Xu Le heard the sound of a door closing, and immediately after, he was squeezed out of the mural.

Opening his eyes again, he was back in the tomb.

On the last mural, one could faintly see a monk standing amidst piles of corpses in a sky filled with blood.