Ji Xun didn’t rush to leave. He turned back and, together with Huo Ranyin, began to carefully observe the Ananda statue.
But sometimes, the more you care, the easier it is to exaggerate minor issues.
Huo Ranyin, who had been carefully comparing Ananda to the other statues, overthrew his own previous theory. He rubbed his temples, seemingly trying to rub away the weariness of a sleepless night. “No, there’s nothing too special about it. It just looks brighter, likely because the sunlight outside happens to be hitting it at that angle.”
“Indeed,” Ji Xun agreed. “Although this statue has a bit more gold powder, several of the Arhats next to it have just as much; the kasaya is red, but the one on the Sakyamuni statue is, without question, the reddest.”
“Even if it really is a bit brighter, it doesn’t prove anything.”
Perhaps when it was repaired annually, the craftsmen favored this one more, or perhaps the monks in the hall just happened to take better care of it… Besides that, what else could it possibly mean?
“It has fingernails,” Ji Xun said.
“Having fingernails is also…” Huo Ranyin’s brow furrowed abruptly, catching the deeper meaning in Ji Xun’s words. “It has fingernails?”
“Exactly.” Ji Xun, who had just climbed onto the altar to inspect the statue up close, patted the dust off his hands and jumped back to the floor, clarifying, “Only this one has them. Neither the Sakyamuni statue nor the Kasyapa statue next to it does.”
This made things interesting.
Buddha statues are almost certainly carved in uniform batches. Numerous statues within the same hall are usually carved and painted by the same craftsman or workshop to ensure the appearance is harmonious and consistent.
Since this master did not carve fingernails on the other statues, it is highly improbable that he would suddenly have a change of heart for one specific statue and insist on carving them there.
Analyzing it from a more likely angle, perhaps…
“They are not from the same batch,” Huo Ranyin stated the answer.
Whatever the situation, guessing wouldn’t help. They had to ask the monks in the temple.
It was still too early for the monks to start ringing the bells for their morning routine, but the duo was anxious. They headed toward the monks’ quarters. Before arriving, they saw a parking lot filled with a row of high-end Mercedes and BMWs; there wasn’t even an Audi in sight.
Outside the door of one of the open rooms, a large monk was squatting and smoking.
The monk had likely just woken up. His monk’s robe was unbuttoned, and a thumb-thick gold chain hung gaudily around his neck. He was holding the latest Apple phone, watching a video while typing.
“Master…” Ji Xun called out.
“Wait a second! Busy!” The monk was focused, his accent thick with a Northeast flavor. “Can’t you see I’m scrolling through Kuaishou, doing some operational marketing?”
Even temples have to keep up with the times these days; monks have to do marketing.
Ji Xun decided to wait. No matter how urgent, one shouldn’t disrupt a person’s professional work. He stopped talking and waited patiently.
It didn’t take long—about ten minutes—before the monk closed his phone, remembered someone had called him, and turned back lazily. When he saw Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin, the monk clearly froze. Then, he whipped his head back around to hide his necklace, button his robe, and extinguish his cigarette. When he turned back around, his robes were fluttering, his demeanor was refined, and his accent was gone, replaced by perfectly crisp, standard Mandarin:
“Good morning, donors.”
“Good morning, Master.”
“Did you come up the mountain this early in the morning to burn incense or draw lots?”
“Neither,” Ji Xun replied seriously. “We wanted to ask you about the Buddha statues in the main hall.”
Ji Xun briefly explained the verification they were seeking.
However, the specific minutiae of one statue within a temple hall were not something even the monks might know. But just because one monk didn’t know didn’t mean others wouldn’t; behind one monk were a dozen more to help. Without Ji Xun needing to ask again, the monk took the initiative to find his seniors and juniors to deliberate together.
It just so happened to be breakfast time in the temple. The monks gathered in the cafeteria to discuss the issue.
“Ananda in the main hall…”
“I don’t have much of an impression.”
“It shouldn’t have been moved in recent years, right?”
“Not necessarily; maybe earlier. I’ve looked at your records: 1997, 2002, 2008, and 2011—they all had repairs,” Ji Xun interjected.
“Who remembers that? The monks responsible for the hall have been rotated several times since then,” the masters replied. But they helped Ji Xun find a new method—the monks might not remember, but the accounting books would.
Repairs cost money. A temple is like a small company, and all kinds of donations are managed by a specialized accountant.
One of the monks who finished eating quickly stood up, went to the back warehouse where various files were kept, and returned with a stack of ledgers, placing them in front of the group.
“All the ledgers are here.”
The other monks had to head to morning prayers, and the temple gates were opening as pious worshippers arrived. Only the large monk remained to assist. Ji Xun opened the 1997 ledger first. That was the year of the reconstruction. There were countless fragmented accounts; while a major temple event might only record “collective repair,” here, every expenditure was recorded. This meant that for a single statue, the body casting was recorded once, and the painting was recorded again.
One entry dated October 13 caught his attention:
“Vaiśravaṇa and Virūḍhaka bodies contaminated; treated as waste.”
Then, two days later, October 15:
“Vaiśravaṇa and Virūḍhaka bodies re-sculpted.”
Huo Ranyin asked: “How could they just become ‘contaminated’? How did you dispose of them after they were discarded?”
The large monk wasn’t very clear on this, but an elderly monk answered, “Finished Buddha statues are hard to break apart. They can only be buried in clean water or clean soil. The bodies from ’97 should have been sunk in the sea.”
“Both statues were sunk in the sea…” Ji Xun muttered to himself, flipping through the pages.
During the repair and reconstruction period, there were no other records of statue re-sculpting besides those two. Afterward, perhaps because everything was new, it wasn’t until 2002 that there were new expenses for repairs.
February 3, 2002: “Luohan statue paint stripped, re-lacquered.”
November 10, 2002: “Pagoda-holding Luohan arm broken, repaired.”
…
July 15, 2008: “Ananda statue re-sculpted.”
“Why isn’t there a reason written for this one?” Ji Xun pointed to the ledger.
“It might have been an ‘evil Buddha,'” the old monk replied.
“An evil Buddha?” the two asked in unison.
“On the outside, it looks fine, but there’s always something unexplainable that feels wrong. For example, it gives off a feeling of being fierce or terrifying, or it especially attracts insects and flies… This is a taboo committed in the dark.” The old monk answered earnestly.
“It was probably ‘cut corners’ in the dark,” the large monk muttered on the side.
The old monk glared at him. The large monk shut his mouth.
“So, was this one also sunk in the sea?” Ji Xun asked again. “Including the ones replaced later—were they all sunk in the sea?”
“No. After ’99, Qin City launched a near-shore water quality remediation campaign. Subsequent statues were no longer sunk in the sea; they were placed in the Thousand-Buddha Caves behind the mountain. It doesn’t just store our temple’s; all the discarded statues from every temple on this mountain are placed there.”
“…Are there these on all the other mountains?”
“Probably,” the old monk said conservatively.
Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin exchanged a look, both feeling a headache coming on.
Great. The police who had just gone home to rest would have to go back to every mountain and search the overlooked spots all over again.
However, no matter how troublesome, it had to be done.
Before long, Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin met Zhao Wu in front of the Thousand-Buddha Cave behind the mountain.
“Just you?”
“Just me,” Zhao Wu sighed, shaking the ultrasonic detector in his hand. “The other officers just got home; let them sleep for two more hours. If we can search two temples, that’s two temples cleared.”
After speaking, Zhao Wu covered his nose: “The sandalwood scent is so strong.”
“These are statues that have been bathed in incense every day in the temple. The fragrance must have soaked into the wood and cement,” Ji Xun replied casually.
Huo Ranyin raised his hand to cover his nose.
The sandalwood scent was too heavy—so heavy it seemed to be rotting.
There were quite a few flawed Buddha statues in the cave, arranged in layers, one behind the other. At a glance, there were twenty or thirty of them.
The three of them each held an instrument, divided the area, and scanned them one by one.
None of them held much hope. Therefore, when the imaging device, which had shown no reaction, suddenly displayed something while scanning one of the statues, Zhao Wu was completely stunned for a long while.
Then, he spat out a word through gritted teeth:
“…Fuck!”
In the cave, three people with three pairs of eyes stared fixedly at the complete human silhouette on the imaging screen.
Then, their gazes shifted upward, inch by inch, to the Buddha in front of them.
Ji Xun was closest to the cave entrance. Sunlight slanted around him, and bright spots of light illuminated the statue’s lotus base, the bottom of its kasaya, then its pressed palms and large, drooping ears.
Ananda was still smiling compassionately.
Suddenly, footsteps echoed. Zhao Wu walked quickly out of the cave to notify the bureau.
About half an hour later, police vehicles roared up, carrying professional excavating equipment and a forensic team. The people swarmed into the cave, moved the Ananda statue out of the cave, placed it on an open patch of ground, and prepared to excavate.
With a muffled “bang,” cracks spread from the Buddha’s head.
As the cement, still clinging to mottled specks of paint, fell to the ground, a stench akin to a chemical weapon swept out from the center of the Buddha, triggering a series of dry heaves among the police.
Ji Xun held his breath first and looked inward through the layers of police.
There, on the ground, the Buddha’s skull was shattered in half, revealing a brown corpse inside.
Half was Buddha, half was remains.
Half was a ghostly smile, half was a savage snarl.
…Only then did a spasm hit his stomach, and he felt the urge to vomit.
