Daomu Biji: A Thousand Faces - Chapter 29

It was hard to describe this enlightenment in words.

From that moment on, Long Immortal began to practice medicine to save people. Although he knew that for every life he saved, his own disease would get more serious and that he would grow taller, he continued with it anyways.

By the time Pan Boda saw the news and came to the village to investigate him, Long Immortal had already become another person. He was no longer an idle man in a fishing village. He had read nearly three thousand books covering a variety of subjects and was silent and quiet.

When Pan Boda asked him why he had given up his life to save others, Long Immortal told him: It was meaningless.

He had already passed judgement on his life. He had watched the sea from the shore, looking ahead year after year and already seen the end, which he felt was meaningless. Even if he could save people’s lives around him, life was barren and useless. It didn’t matter whether his ability and good karma existed or not. If they couldn’t benefit enough people, then they wouldn’t cause any waves in time and space.

Although he didn’t know what the consequences would be for treating so many people, he knew that it was only by using his power in this way that it could at least have some meaning.

In the beginning, he was afraid of being hurt. Humans had always enjoyed the benefits of his power while being disgusted with his appearance. They didn’t even dare to look him in the eye. It had happened so many times that he wasn’t able to empathize with others. He only physically touched them. But after a period of time, he started feeling these patients’ lives, feelings, joys, and sorrows with his whole heart. He experienced their excitement when their illness was healed, their renewed hope of love, and their affection for their relieved family. He opened all of his feelings to experience the vicissitudes of life. He didn’t have any burdens and was ready to calmly head towards death. But during the process, he felt a strange and mysterious emotion in his heart.

It was joy.

Pan Boda felt like Long Immortal had become a Buddha. There was probably no other word that could describe him more accurately since he was in a state of eternal enlightenment.

However, the darkness and destructivity of human nature were much more terrible than Pan Boda had expected. In this village, a religious sense derived from Long Immoral gradually took shape, and more and more people used him to earn money. It was said that God’s grace was like the sea, God’s punishment was like a prison, and compassion without deterrence would breed evil thoughts in human nature.

Even if you were a good Bodhisattva, humans always had a way to shape your weaknesses and shortcomings. They felt sorry for themselves, sympathized with themselves, and always thought that they deserved everything they had obtained. Humans always thought that God was allocating resources and that they deserved these resources even more, but they never realized that they were born to have nothing in the first place. Anything you gained was just a worldly possession that you should be grateful for.

But when the heavens rained down pearls, those that had only picked up one would definitely blame God for not being able to pick up ten.

There were full-on competitions going on around Long Immortal. The village chief used Long Immortal’s income to subsidize the villagers according to how much each person assisted Long immortal. Although the original intention was good, some villagers simply made food and put it at Long Immortal’s door to prove that they had offered tribute before requesting the largest share when the chief distributed the subsidy. There was no way that Long Immortal could finish all of the food, so it just piled up and rotted. Some people opened restaurants around him and some sold amulets saying that he had blessed them. There were thousands upon thousands of bamboo sticks that Long Immortal was asked to sign every day. If one were to give a thousand yuan to Long Immortal for signing these sticks, another would offer him two thousand. If someone from another village asked Long Immortal for a signature, they would be discriminated against because they weren’t from the same village. Envy, jealousy—some people even wanted to poison Long Immortal to balance the rich and the poor.

But God’s arrangement was always clever. Once Long Immortal reached thirty, he was over three meters tall after treating so many patients. This wasn’t gigantism. Pan Boda, who had stayed in the village for two years, now realized that this clearly wasn’t gigantism. It was an unknown disease.

Long Immortal was at death’s door. He was very weak, but he was also very eager to usher in his own relief as soon as possible. But when he started treating patients again, their diseases became even worse.

After several visits, the patients died rapidly. But Long Immortal’s condition was, in turn, getting better and better.

His power had reversed. It now matched his appearance, thus turning him into a veritable demon. Even after he had saved countless lives, his inability to save patients—even if it was just one of them—meant that all of the malice in the world rushed towards him.