“It’s not that he was being rude, rather Xu Fei was planning that if the four jade Arhats didn’t hold any special significance to Jingguang Temple and the old abbot, and were merely four valuable objects, then things would be much simpler.
Xu Fei could take the jade Arhats, use them as vessels for himself, and in return, spend an equivalent amount of money not only to help refurbish Jingguang Temple but also to assist in building a gilded Buddha statue.
Hearing Xu Fei’s question, Orchid roughly understood his intentions.
‘In the past, they might have just been that, but things are different now, I’ll go ask for you, perhaps Master will see reason, after all, Senior, you’re our great benefactor!’
With that, Orchid entered the main hall inside, where she saw her master wiping down the golden platform, preparing to carefully place the jade Arhats on it.
Orchid glanced outside, then walked over and explained all of Xu Fei’s thoughts to her master.
‘Alas, it seems these jade Arhats are destined not to belong to Jingguang Temple after all!’
‘Fine, fine, since Senior wants them, let him take them, if it weren’t for Senior, this entire temple might have been forcibly demolished by now, keeping these four jade Arhats by force wouldn’t mean much anyway.’
Xu Fei overheard all of this clearly from outside, and towards the end, he couldn’t help himself.
‘But Senior, aren’t the jade Arhats very important to Jingguang Temple? If they’re gone, who will people come to worship when they visit in the future?’
Hearing Xu Fei’s words, the old abbot suddenly gave a gentle smile.
‘Senior, you might not know the origins of Jingguang Temple, it’s not because of these four jade Arhats, but for another reason…’
Legend has it that long ago, on this Zangjin Mountain, there was a reincarnated Buddhist sage cultivating, accompanied by four Arhat avatars.
Later, the Buddhist sage successfully ascended through his cultivation, but since the Arhats were merely avatars, they didn’t ascend with him, instead, they sat in meditation on the spot and transformed into four golden Arhat statues.
That day, auspicious signs descended from the heavens, Buddha’s light shone everywhere, and even the stone platform the sage used for his ascension turned golden, emitting bursts of golden light at night.
The surrounding villagers saw this and pooled their money to build Jingguang Temple, coming every year to worship and pray for good weather and national peace in the year ahead.
Later, as times changed and turmoil erupted with warlords fighting and bandits roaming the mountains, the abbot of Jingguang Temple at the time, fearing the four golden Arhat statues would be stolen, took out raw jade dug up from the mountain years earlier and commissioned a master to carve four jade Arhats in the likeness of the golden ones.
Afterwards, the abbot secretly hid the four golden Arhat statues, placing the jade Arhats out in the open instead.
In the end, due to various coincidences, though bandits and robbers never raided Jingguang Temple, the four golden Arhat statues gradually vanished without a trace, their whereabouts unknown.
‘This is the story passed down through generations of abbots at Jingguang Temple.’
After finishing, the old abbot pressed his palms together and closed his eyes.
Orchid, standing nearby, was left stunned, in all her ten-plus years at Jingguang Temple, she had never heard her master tell this tale.
At this moment, Xu Fei couldn’t help but feel deeply shocked, he hadn’t expected such a dramatic story to lie behind these small jade Arhats.
But through his keen sensitivity to true qi, Xu Fei noticed faint traces of true qi lingering on the jade Arhats, as if they formed a line, and that line pointed straight outside the temple.
‘Perhaps for the abbot, whether it’s the golden Arhats or the jade Arhats, as long as the golden platform in Jingguang Temple isn’t empty, that’s enough?’
After some thought, Xu Fei turned and left Jingguang Temple.
‘Hey! Senior, wait! Orchid, hurry and catch up!’
Xu Fei moved incredibly fast and soon disappeared from sight, the old abbot, worried that Xu Fei had left in anger because he hadn’t handed over the jade Arhats, quickly urged”
