Who Stole the Zen King's Buddha Heart?

The Zen King of Wanchan Abyss has never taken a life.

His name is Situ Jiyuan. It's not that he lacks the power to kill; he simply doesn't. He ladles porridge with his own hands, an old scar running from the web of his thumb to his palm. He issued the "Benevolence Edict," setting no borders and imposing no limits on provisions. Refugees, prisoners of war, even the people of enemy states, all are welcome.

The court is on the verge of madness. The people call him a living Buddha.

Then one day, a rumor begins to spread: the Zen King's Buddha-heart has been stolen.

The refugees say his compassion is gone. The caravans say there's a traitor within. The gentry say the Zen King has lost his way. No one has ever seen what a Buddha-heart looks like, yet everyone talks about it.

Wei Guiyan arrives at just this moment.

A physician, carrying an old medicine bag, she has traveled a long way. She hasn't come to pray to Buddha or make a pilgrimage to Wanchan Abyss. She only wants to know if there's any ruler in this world who doesn't weigh human lives on a scale.

She finds one.

Outside the porridge tent, the monk ladles out porridge, his old scar sinking into the mud. At the Dharma assembly, the monk sits high above them, his plain robe without a crease. In the dead of night, a sheet of yellow paper slips under the door.

Little by little, she understands. There was no thief. No one stole anything.

The people who had been saved, the people struggling to survive, the people who believed in him and protected him, each carrying their own sense of justice, had spoken that boundless compassion out of existence, one mouthful at a time.

He hasn't gone mad, turned evil, or lost his memory. He understands every step he takes. At each step, he can only choose the lesser of two wrongs. To save people, she too has learned to calculate. To weigh a hundred thousand lives against three thousand, to decide who deserves to live.

They love each other, but dare not grow close. A little closer would mean a much greater sin.

The incense still burns, and the statue still seems real. Only the fragment of the original scripture, placed on its shrine, still bears a line no one dares to read.

This path may be shown to others, but must not be used to bind oneself.