Yanhua Temple also covered a large area, even bigger than the village they had just visited. However, half of it belonged to uninhabited areas that had already fallen into ruin, with only necessary maintenance being carried out.

During Yanhua Temple's heyday when incense burned brightly, it was often overcrowded. But over the past few hundred years, Yanhua Temple hadn't had its former glory. Although the incense offerings were still decent, it was far inferior to its peak period.

Of course, this wasn't really anything special. There were still monks and pilgrims here!

Xiaoyao didn't care whether there were still people inside. He was interested in touring the entire temple, and no one stopped him, because no one cared where he went. Although that area was uninhabited, it wasn't forbidden territory either.

"Eh, this place..."

In one hall, Xiaoyao discovered something. This was a hall where pilgrims no longer came—only the temple monks continued lighting incense. Inside was enshrined a Buddha statue. It wasn't that this Buddha statue caught Xiaoyao's attention, but rather that this hall seemed to contain some secrets.

"Donor, why are you here alone? No one has come here for a long time. If you're here to worship, please offer a stick of incense," a monk appeared at this moment, speaking to Xiaoyao while also preventing him from continuing to investigate what he had discovered.

"Yes, since I'm here, I'll offer incense," Xiaoyao took the incense, lit it, bowed, inserted it into the incense burner, then took his leave.

...

...

They didn't seem to want outsiders to know this secret, so there was no need for him to investigate. Everyone had their own secrets, and temples were no different.

Xiaoyao wandered around some more, but at this point, he felt he was being watched. Wherever he went, someone was watching him. It was just that this watcher never appeared, always staying in the shadows. If not for his keen senses, he wouldn't even know he was being watched.

Xiaoyao pretended not to know while also not stopping his sightseeing because of this. He continued looking around everywhere—as long as places weren't locked, he visited them all, even climbing the tall tower inside to overlook the entire Yanhua Temple.

Xiaoyao's natural behavior made his watcher even less likely to think he'd been discovered. In fact, the watcher thought it was impossible to be discovered. Xiaoyao was just a King Level nobody, far too inferior compared to him. He could kill Xiaoyao with one finger—being discovered was almost a fantasy.

Xiaoyao also knew this watcher wasn't simple. This Yanhua Temple didn't seem to be an ordinary temple. But he didn't pay much attention to it. With Yanhua Temple's inheritance over so many years and having experienced glory, having some foundation was very normal.

Finally, Xiaoyao began heading to the area where incense offerings continued. At this point, the watcher disappeared—there was no need to pay attention once he got there.

Xiaoyao hadn't gone to the continuing incense area initially because those young masters and ladies had all been worshipping the gods and Buddhas, and he didn't know how long it would take for his turn. So he had staggered his timing.

Now there were indeed far fewer people—almost no one could be seen. Xiaoyao toured around very smoothly without obstacles, no need for crowding.

"Le Xiaoyao, I finally found you," Luo Baochai appeared before Xiaoyao once again.

"What's the matter?" Xiaoyao was a bit confused. Why do you keep looking for me? We're not familiar with each other.

"Of course it's to find you to eat together! We didn't eat together at noon, so we must tonight!" Luo Baochai said with a very serious expression, as if whatever she said she would do had to be completed.

"You're still thinking about this? It's really nothing," Xiaoyao hadn't expected Luo Baochai to still care about this matter. He was somewhat surprised.

"No, we must! I'm following you now. It doesn't matter if you don't eat with everyone else, as long as you eat with me," Luo Baochai said, still with that serious attitude.

"I'll eat with everyone. At noon I just didn't catch up. Here, we'll definitely be eating the vegetarian dishes—I won't miss it," Xiaoyao said with a smile.

"The vegetarian dishes here are quite good. We've already had them prepare more than ten tables for us, so there shouldn't be any problem," Luo Baochai said.

"Before eating, I'll tour around some more. You can go play with your companions. They don't seem to like being with me very much," Xiaoyao glanced at the companions who were standing somewhat distant, and smiled. How could he not see their intentions? He was a household servant—observing people's expressions was something he excelled at. Sometimes he just pretended not to know.

"No need. I'm afraid you'll disappear again. Although they don't like you much, they won't dislike you too much either. Honestly, you should try harder! This is a blind date gathering to help you find a partner. With your current performance... sigh..." Luo Baochai seemed to say with some regret. She somewhat regarded Xiaoyao as one of her own—they were all Luo family people.

"My performance is very normal..." Xiaoyao said indifferently.

"You call this normal? Wearing clothes like this..." Luo Baochai said irritably.

"Isn't this a spring outing? And now we're mountain climbing. This kind of clothing is appropriate," Xiaoyao remained the same, making Luo Baochai feel helpless.

"This isn't a simple spring outing. Don't you know that even Buddha needs gold decoration!" Luo Baochai said, taking advantage of the environment.

"Do you know that the Bodhisattva before you says to put down appearances? Even if you change your appearance, you can still save all beings equally," Xiaoyao said nonchalantly.

"Buddha says: when in Rome, do as the Romans do," Luo Baochai said.

Although this saying should have originally come from Daoism, the classic story came from Buddhism. Often, Buddhist and Daoist teachings couldn't be clearly distinguished, but no one paid too much attention to this—the meaning was roughly the same.

"...Do you know what the original story behind 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do' is?" Xiaoyao looked at Luo Baochai and asked.

"I don't know. What is it?" Luo Baochai shook her head and asked.

"If you knew and could do as the Romans do, I could only say I admire you," Xiaoyao said.

"What is it? Tell me!"

"Once there was a place called the Naked Country, where people didn't wear clothes—they were nude. Then two brothers came there to trade. The younger brother said they should do as Romans do and took off his clothes to communicate with them, but the older brother said this violated propriety and wouldn't change his moral principles because of their customs."

"Then the younger brother gained the Naked Country people's affection, and they all came to buy his goods. But the older brother wouldn't undress and even criticized the locals, so he was hated by them. They robbed his goods and wanted to expel him. Later the younger brother pleaded for him, avoiding greater disaster. When the brothers left the Naked Country, the younger brother was seen off warmly while the older brother was cursed."

When Xiaoyao got to this point, he suddenly asked: "Do you want to be the older brother or the younger brother?"

"Of course the younger brother... ah, no! You're tricking me!!" Luo Baochai initially answered naturally, but then realized something was wrong. If she were the younger brother, wouldn't that mean taking off all her clothes? She couldn't accept that.

"So will you still do as Romans do?" Xiaoyao asked with a smile.

"This... I..." Luo Baochai couldn't answer. However she answered wouldn't be good.

"Doing as Romans do is fine, but only within acceptable limits. Not everything can be accepted. The story above actually isn't focused on doing as Romans do—there's more to the story," Xiaoyao said with a smile.

"What story?" Luo Baochai asked, while the companions nearby were also getting interested and unconsciously moved closer to Xiaoyao.

"The story is that the older brother resented the younger brother and wanted to be irreconcilable with him, while the younger brother always helped the older brother. It teaches people to learn the younger brother's gentleness and forbearance," Xiaoyao continued.

"I see. You know quite a lot," Luo Baochai said.

"Naturally. I know a great deal. Buddhist teachings are also very profound," Xiaoyao said with a smile.

"I praise you once and you start bragging again. This is also one of your major problems!" Luo Baochai said irritably.

Xiaoyao smiled and shook his head, saying: "Without the ability, it's bragging. With real substance, it's just stating a fact."

"Fine, I'll test you. Let's talk about Buddhism..." Luo Baochai began looking for questions, all found on the spot—either asking about the origins of Buddhas in the halls, or the sources of Buddhist sayings, etc. Whatever she saw, she asked about.

The result was that she and her companions were all stunned, because they discovered that Xiaoyao knew everything. No matter what they asked him, he could answer and even tell them which books it came from, what classic stories were involved.

Had he been a monk before? Otherwise how would he know so much about Buddhist matters?

If he wasn't bragging about this matter, then what about previous things? Were those also not bragging? This was impossible. Those things all seemed like bragging. Perhaps he just happened to hit upon something he was good at this time.

At the same time, when Xiaoyao spoke about Buddhist teachings, they suddenly felt like Xiaoyao was a learned monk proficient in Buddhism. They even felt Buddha's light appearing behind Xiaoyao, and surprisingly felt their mental states had improved greatly.

This seemed too incredible!

At this moment, looking at Xiaoyao, he seemed much more pleasing to the eye than before. It was no longer like before, and when Xiaoyao was just talking about Buddhist matters, they also began asking this and that, no longer in that state of not speaking to Xiaoyao at all.

The more they asked, the more they marveled at Xiaoyao's profound Buddhist knowledge. This guy could practically become the abbot here, even open his own temple.

Of course, the prerequisite was that others knew his level of Buddhist knowledge, but probably very few people would know about this.

(End of Chapter)