From God of Lies to Lord of All Worlds

Chapter 236: The Lamp of Kindness Extinguishes, the Wooden Fish Sounds

After walking outside with his son for a while, Sur began to feel the pangs of hunger. After all, he had given half of his meager rations to that Buddhist monk.

In this realm, a Dalit could only afford two meals a day. Having just returned from exhausting manual labor, that pitifully small half-portion was naturally nowhere near enough to fill his stomach.

However, he did not regret his actions. He had done it willingly.

It was just like decades ago, when another Buddhist monk had tossed down a ball of food, saving his mother's life.

Sur felt that he had done the right thing. The debt owed for his mother's life was his to repay.

Nevertheless, he still harbored some worry, uncertain if that Buddhist monk would be able to survive in this place.

What if the people around here ended up killing the monk?

This was the slum, the place where they had lived their entire lives, and to outsiders, it was a terrifying cage!

Sur had once seen it with his own eyes: a foreign female tourist wandering through for fun was deliberately tripped, and after falling, she never got back up again.

Even when the police swarmed the area later, they failed to find a single trace of her. It was as if she had vanished into thin air.In the end, the police casually grabbed two random scapegoats to close the case. Word went around that those two died in prison, and that was that.

This was the slum: a place that devoured countless people, a place of uncalculated murders, a place where no one ever knew who would disappear next!

Sur hoped the man would survive. After all, the monk had eaten his food, so he ought to harbor some expectation for a good outcome.

If the monk did not survive, wouldn't he have starved himself for nothing?

Pushing the thoughts aside, Sur endured his empty stomach and continued walking with his son. He planned to head to the Ganges River to give his boy a proper bath, aiming for the slightly cleaner waters so he could wash up thoroughly.

That way, when they went to buy things tomorrow, they might face a little less extortion and hopefully endure a few less beatings.

However, the slum today was destined to be far noisier than usual.

Hearing the commotion outside, Sur and his son stepped forward out of curiosity to see what was happening. Following the gaze of the crowd, they spotted a police officer!

He was a big-bellied man clad in a brown police uniform, currently investigating a case right here in the slum—a missing persons case.

"It must be you pariahs who hid that woman! Release her immediately! Otherwise, once I find the evidence, every last one of you is going to prison!"

The police officer bellowed, trying to extort some clues, but all he received in return were the silent, deadpan stares of the surrounding crowd.

This was the nature of a Dalit. Their eyes were lifeless and dull, devoid of even a sliver of light. They would not speak up for themselves; they only watched.

This scene made the police officer even more furious, and naturally, even more arrogant. "Not talking? Very well!"

He marched right up and swung the baton in his hand, smashing it across the faces of everyone in reach, sending them stumbling. "Are you going to talk? Are you? Speak!"

Under these circumstances, Sur naturally could not escape unscathed. He was struck by the fat police officer, and because he hadn't eaten enough, the blow sent him staggering before he collapsed entirely to the ground. The sudden violence completely terrified his young son, leaving the boy frozen in shock.

"Waaah!" The little boy burst into tears. In this place, such crying was no different from a death warrant—at least, that was how the police officer saw it. Without the slightest hesitation, he stepped forward and brought his baton crashing down hard onto the boy's head.

In an instant, the crying ceased, leaving behind only a suffocating silence.

Sur struggled to peel himself off the dirt. When he saw his child crumpled on the ground from the vicious strike, his mind went completely blank!

"Son? My child! It's papa! Are you alright?"

He frantically threw himself over the boy, desperately trying to wake him. But... there was no breath left. Only the blood pooling out from the boy's head remained to tell the cruel truth—his son was dead!

Cradling his child's body, Sur was entirely at a loss.

He had lost his parents in his youth, and his wife in his middle age. All he had left was this son, who had been barely three months old when his wife passed away. Sur had endured unimaginable hardship to raise the boy to this age.

Fortunately, the child was obedient. During the day, the boy would hide silently in their shack without making a peep, and at night, Sur would return to care for him. The boy was the only beacon of hope he had left in this miserable life.

He had even planned to take his boy into the city tomorrow to buy a piece of candy. He wanted to give his young son a glimmer of hope for the future, so that the boy might find the will to keep living long after Sur was gone! But now... because of this senseless disaster, his son was dead!

The man named Sur could not even shed a single tear. The tragedy that had long shattered his family had taught him a bitter lesson: tears were utterly meaningless and only invited further abuse from others.

But he had always been so kind! Why did this still happen to him? Why did he still have to encounter such profound sin?

'Oh, Vishnu, what am I supposed to do?' He was completely lost.

Looking at the unmoving child, the fat police officer realized he had probably struck too hard. Unbothered, he simply stepped forward, hauled Sur up by the collar, forcefully grabbed the man's hand, and dipped it directly into his own son's pooling blood. Then, he viciously slammed Sur's hand against the wall of a nearby shack, leaving two bloody handprints!

"Hmph! Pariah! I knew you were the one who committed the crime. Move, you're coming with me to the Police Station!"

With that declared, he dragged Sur away. As for Sur's child, the boy was left casually discarded on the dirt floor, treated like nothing more than a lump of mud.

The surrounding onlookers watched the scene unfold. Knowing that the immediate danger had passed, they silently dispersed.

And as for the child on the ground... Heh, what child?

This was the Dalit slum. There were no children here, only a free source of morbid wealth.

The crowd scattered, vanishing at lightning speed. Soon, the only one left in the alley was a Buddhist monk, leaning heavily on a wooden stick he had picked up from the ground, limping his way over.

He saw the fresh blood on the ground and naturally deduced exactly what had just transpired.

"Heh..." Zanluo let out a soft sigh, not finding anything particularly unusual about it. This was the realm, this was the city, and these were the people who lived here!

Just as he had surmised: a scarce fraction of kindness could never conceal the greatest evil!

The people of this city were villains brimming with pure malice!

"If they didn't know better, they might actually think I'm a true Buddha!" Zanluo remarked. Leaning on his makeshift crutch, he resumed his limping advance toward his destination.

Since there was nowhere else to go, he might as well take a trip to the Police Station. The truth wasn't important, and human lives weren't important either, but he needed to see the man—that was the crucial part!

In this city, while he was in such a hunched, wretched, and utterly useless state, anyone who could show him genuine kindness was demonstrating true goodness!

After all, based on his understanding of this city, the most likely reaction from these people upon seeing his weakness should have been finding a way to harvest him from head to toe for a good price. They absolutely shouldn't have given him food and hoped for his recovery.

"Good is rewarded with good, and evil is met with evil. It is not that retribution will not come; its time has simply not yet arrived!" Zanluo murmured. He opened his palm, and a flickering soul emerged, glowing faintly within his grasp.

It was the soul of the innocent little boy. He was a youth who should have harbored kindness, yet right after witnessing a rare act of grace, he had been ruthlessly crushed!

However, he was also fortunate, for he had met Zanluo. The great monk flipped his palm, securing the young boy's soul safely within his robes. Then, dragging his battered body, he inched his way step by step toward the Police Station.

And during this grueling, drawn-out journey, his distinct appearance was finally noticed!

"Is that a Buddhist monk over there?" Some of the community auxiliary police spotted the shaven head struggling through the crowd, their eyes immediately flashing with a peculiar, greedy gleam!

The High-Castes had just issued a bounty: anyone who found this monk would be instantly rewarded with a hundred thousand rupees! For these low-ranking police officers, that was a massive, life-changing sum of wealth!

However, others nearby—the actual, formal police officers—had already rested their hands on their waists. They had received an even more secretive, high-level notice: if anyone managed to kill this monk, they would receive a bounty exceeding five million rupees!

This hit order naturally originated from those High-Caste individuals who had already fled the country. They deeply resented this monk for forcing their frantic departure, so they were incredibly eager to see him die violently right here on the streets of Kolkata!

Thus, the execution bounty was handed down. Even if this monk turned out to be a Transcendent Being, it didn't matter. The only ones who would die fighting him were a bunch of low-caste police officers anyway, and they couldn't care less about such expendable lives!

Coincidentally, the police shared a similar mindset—they fully intended to butcher the monk.

As to whether this was actually the specific monk described in the bounty, that was completely irrelevant to them. As long as he wasn't a monk from the Xuanzang Temple, killing him wouldn't cause any diplomatic friction. In that case, wouldn't it be easiest just to kill every monk they saw?

Therefore, while the auxiliary police impatiently drew their batons and charged at the unidentified monk, the formal officers standing behind them swiftly raised their hands. Drawing their guns in broad daylight, they aimed squarely at the monk before them and pulled the triggers!

Bang! The sharp crack of gunfire echoed through the street, transforming into a terrifying note that struck fear into the hearts of everyone present. Many of the low-castes were completely stunned, staring blankly at the gun-wielding officers.

They couldn't comprehend it. Killing them usually only required a wooden stick or baton. Why on earth would the police resort to using a gun?

But the vast majority had already dropped to their knees, desperately praying that the impending slaughter would not spread to them.

Dalits did not know how to rebel. Anyone who ever dared to fight back had been eradicated centuries ago. Through generations of systematic culling, these people had long since been stripped of the very willpower to resist.

Everyone gazed numbly at the source of the gunfire, watching the monk who had collapsed to the dirt the moment the shots rang out!

He looked as though he was about to die...

Yet, just as everyone shared that exact thought, the crisp, resonant sound of a Wooden Fish suddenly echoed through the streets!

"Tock!"