Tarnished

Li Qi expounded the Dharma to Shariputra.

As Li Qi spoke, the scenes around them began to unfold. Water ran like foul discharge; famine descended upon the mortal world. The filth and stench of countless corpses, the unclean places of the dead, all began to appear. Countless emotions knotted together: greed and anger, sloth, lewdness, shamelessness, doubt and resentment, miserliness and jealousy, hatred, attachment, flattery, lack of shame, brazenness, envy, and dissipation.

Looking closely, two demons nearby were nearly starving to death. They had not eaten for a long time. Hearing that there was endless fish and meat here, they had staggered over step by stumbling step, covered head to toe in mud.

Farther away, infants covered the ground. This place had once been a school, but now it had been looted by bandits. The babies lay beneath horses' hooves and human feet, their livers and brains splattered across the earth, their cries filling the wilderness.

Farther still, in every ditch and pond, the slaughter had ended, yet corpses lay piled high upon the ground, hands and feet pillowed against one another. Blood, flesh, and remains fell into the ponds, turning them five-colored until the ponds were filled level.

Under the famine, great demons seized slaves. Countless lesser demons scattered about with their flesh exposed, their feet sunk shin-deep into the mud. Some people led many women away, while many demons had long ropes tied around their necks, linked together like strings of pearls, dragged toward the residences of the great demons.

Before this, the myriad demons had committed every evil deed, falling into evil destinies. Wrong views and turbulent thoughts spread like a black wind flooding the world.

All of this had been brought about by the heavenly disaster and famine.

That was why Cloud Whale had offered his