Chapter Thirteen: The Art of Resurrection

Many readers are puzzled by the actions of the foreign monk, so before starting the new chapter, let me first explain the character of the foreign monk. He serves as a crucial link between past and future events—an important figure whose prototype is, in fact, the Indian ascetic.

Ascetics are called such because they see their bodies as vessels of sin and believe they must first “torment their wills, exhaust their bodies, and starve their flesh” in order to gain spiritual freedom and liberation of the soul. Upon first entering the path, ascetics must perform certain rituals, signifying that “all that was past perished like yesterday’s death, and all that is to come is like today’s birth.” This “birth” refers to entering a “sacred” new life.

According to their rules, ascetics must practice the “three abstentions”: no lust, no lying, and no killing. They abandon passions, cares, worldly success, and material joys, forsaking all earthly possessions in a single-minded pursuit to transcend reincarnation and seek liberation.

Unlike Chinese monks, Indian ascetics are not neat and clean. They let their hair grow uncut and unwashed for years, cover their bodies with ashes from hearths, and have no fixed abode. Some even go unclothed, belonging to the so-called “Sky-Clad Sect.” Their long, unwashed hair, lack of a permanent home, and acts of self-mortification—such as consuming toxins, smearing themselves with ash from corpses, or even self-mutilation—are all part of their pursuit of suffering.

Some claim to have attained the realm of the Buddha; thus, they engage in behaviors that ordinary people cannot comprehend, such as slicing their flesh with knives, burning themselves with fire, burying themselves in graves to be exhumed after a set number of days, or raising an arm and keeping it aloft for thirty-eight years.

For them, resurrection is but a frequent game. It is said that advanced yogis can easily dislocate their own bones; thus, a broken neck as mentioned previously is not something they would find incomprehensible.

I do not invent bizarre tales out of thin air; I merely exaggerate existing facts slightly—a process I call artistic embellishment, heh…

Tie Xinyuan was greatly interested in finding the foreign monk’s corpse and burning it, just to see if the monk could come back to life from the ashes.

Strangely, after experiencing a series of miraculous events himself, Tie Xinyuan found himself distrusting all the gods and Buddhas in the heavens. During his wondrous journey, he encountered neither any legendary beings nor mysterious figures.

Therefore, he doubted that the foreign monk would die so easily. Judging by the markings on the man’s face, he was clearly an Indian ascetic, though whether he followed Hinduism or Buddhism was uncertain.

Once the root cause was found, everything else became dull and uninteresting. Thus, Tie Xinyuan simply wished to kill that deceitful monk for real, finding no amusement in contending with him.

People of the Song dynasty could not comprehend the convenience and speed of the information explosion in later eras. If one wished, it would be effortless to access news from any corner of the world—a process requiring almost no effort.

Across the Imperial City Street, right opposite the Tie family, lived a household whose name everyone had forgotten; they simply referred to the man as Copper Coin, his wife as Copper Coin’s Wife, and their brawny son—who was as strong as a calf—as Little Copper.

Their family ran a print shop, so every day Tie Xinyuan saw them all stained black with ink from their work. Copper Coin appeared uninterested in his neighbors, and Copper Coin’s Wife only occasionally peeked curiously at the Tie family.

As for their chubby son, Little Copper, he coveted the beautiful fox Tie Xinyuan owned.

When Wang Rouhua first opened her soup noodle shop, she invited the Copper Coin family over for a meal, intending to fulfill her neighborly duties.

On that day, the entire Copper Coin family came, bringing a bag of pastries, and the three of them devoured a large bowl of noodles before returning home, satisfied.

To expect mutual aid among neighbors was still a luxury; Copper Coin’s greatest flaw was his love of money—once copper coins entered his house, it was a dream to get them back out.

Tie Xinyuan was an odd person; he would rather force down even the most unpalatable food his mother made than share any of it with others. Yet, he was completely indifferent to the delicacies brought back by the fox from the palace. He had noticed long ago that Little Copper often watched him eat mung bean cakes. Sometimes, when Tie Xinyuan carelessly dropped a mung bean cake on the floor, Little Copper would gnash his teeth in frustration. If not for the rule that approaching the city wall meant risking one’s life, he would have rushed over to snatch it.

One day, Tie Xinyuan accidentally tossed a walnut out his front door, and it rolled into the street. Suddenly, the otherwise empty road was swept by a whirlwind, and Little Copper appeared, proudly waving the walnut at Tie Xinyuan before popping it into his mouth and crunching it to pieces, savoring it with delight. Tie Xinyuan burst into laughter, prompting Wang Rouhua to poke her head out to see what her son was up to.

After eating the walnut, Little Copper squatted at his door, gazing longingly at Tie Xinyuan as he sampled various treats—some of which he had never seen before.

Fortunately, Tie Xinyuan’s small hands could not hold much, so some snacks inevitably fell. If they landed far away, they ended up in Little Copper’s mouth; if they fell closer, the fox would lazily rise and eat them.

Within half an hour, Little Copper’s affection for the fox had turned to fury. He instinctively believed that any food Tie Xinyuan dropped belonged to him by right.

As dusk approached and Wang Rouhua carried Tie Xinyuan inside and closed the door, Little Copper would be left on the opposite side of the street, deeply disappointed.

Nevertheless, Tie Xinyuan would always toss Little Copper the largest piece of food just before going indoors with his mother, flashing him a grin.

To deal with a seven- or eight-year-old child, Tie Xinyuan found that a few cakes and some nuts were more than enough to win his devotion—especially in the resource-scarce era of the Song dynasty.

Song people raised daughters lavishly and sons frugally by tradition. With a stingy father and a taciturn mother, Little Copper had no chance of enjoying a prosperous childhood like other children.

Every evening was the time Tie Xinyuan least looked forward to. He was teething, and each night his mother would press his head down on the table and scrub his teeth with a silk cloth as if polishing shoes, not stopping until every tooth gleamed.

“Good teeth make it easy to eat meat!” That was his mother’s reasoning; she wanted her son to be a meat-eater, not one who gnawed on salted vegetables. She believed in preparing for a future of eating meat from an early age—one of the most important things in her life.

With no clan or relatives, Tie Xinyuan’s first birthday celebration was held at home. His mother boiled eggs, giving him the white and keeping the yolk for herself. That was their simple but significant ceremony. His mother felt guilty for not doing more, but Tie Xinyuan considered it the best birthday he ever had, counting even his previous life.

As a baby, he had no voice. What he needed most now was the power to speak. His mother had already learned that the marinade needed constant replenishing, still using the spices the fox brought, preserving the Tie family’s signature flavor.

That foreign monk could not possibly die. Anyone with sense would burn his body, and only then might he truly return to the Buddha.

As early as the Tang dynasty, there were tales of Indian monks passing off inferior diamonds as Buddha’s tooth relics, only to have the fraud exposed when the great Tang official Fu Yi smashed them with an antelope horn.

Now, foreign monks had come to China again, operating more covertly than ever. Their art of resurrection was likely their main act.

Choosing him as a pawn was simply because his family was the only neighbor of the royal household—if something miraculous occurred, it would quickly reach imperial ears.

Tie Xinyuan loathed being used, especially in so revolting a manner. The Song dynasty was a crossroads of trade, not yet the time when all nations paid tribute—that distinction belonged to the Khitan now.

Thus, all sorts of people passed through the capital. More than once, Tie Xinyuan had seen envoys from Egypt, dark as black monkeys, bringing worthless trinkets to the emperor and reportedly receiving generous rewards in return.

Tie Xinyuan lamented that these people did not even know what Egyptians looked like, so how could they see through an Indian monk’s act of resurrection?

To deny the truth before one’s eyes required both extraordinary wisdom and thick skin. In this age before the dawn of natural science, people with great intellect rarely spoke up; they preferred to watch others be duped and laugh at their folly in secret, thus setting themselves apart from the ignorant.

There were many thick-skinned men in the Song dynasty, especially in official circles, but since the foreign monk’s trickery harmed everyone, they would not use their shamelessness to lie unless their personal interests were threatened.

Tie Xinyuan did not care if the fools of the Song court were deceived—what mattered was that the damned monk wanted to use him, which could bring harm to his mother.

As for matters of court, who could say? Perhaps the emperor, even if he knew he was being fooled, would prefer it—foreign envoys paying tribute proved his civilizing influence. If the emperor became enraged and killed not the fraudster but the one who exposed the fraud, that would be disastrous.

Tie Xinyuan needed a channel for his voice. No one would listen to the words of a child not yet two years old; even his mother would dismiss them as childish babble.

Conveniently, the print shop across the street belonged to the Copper Coin family, whose son would do anything for a bit of food.

Thus, Tie Xinyuan set his sights on the boy. If he could use their print shop, he would immediately have a channel to speak. And if he could get his hands on a simple set of movable type from the boy, his long infancy would not be so hard to endure.

P.S. Dear brothers and sisters, please continue to support me with recommendations and add this book to your collections. Thank you all. With respect, Jie Yu.