Dreams had once been within reach. Shi Qingjue raised his arm, still able to catch the intoxicating scent, like the fragrance of grass and trees drifting through a courtyard after the Garan bells had rung on a midsummer evening. Whenever that happened, the footsteps of the many young monks would quicken slightly, and the chanting during evening lessons would gain several more layers of rise and fall.
Back then, Shi Qingjue did not know where that vague emotion came from. Under his master's guidance, he had treated it as a demonic thought taking advantage of a weakness, spending enormous amounts of time learning how to resist it. At last, he awakened to the truth: he not only had to accept the demonic thought's embrace, but take the initiative to throw himself at it and embrace it in return. If fire lay ahead, he was willing to turn to ashes alongside it. If a cliff lay beneath his feet, he was willing to savor a moment of pleasure before being smashed to pieces.
Yet the demonic thought had played a huge joke on him. The first "witch" to stir his heart had been a dead woman—he had first succumbed to worldly passion amid the fervent recollections of the wealthy merchants mourning Xiao Fengchai. His second, and far more unforgettable, object of infatuation had died just when the future had seemed brightest.
Perhaps this had been the Buddha's arrangement, a special punishment for him, a man of wavering will who had abandoned the monkhood halfway through. Shi Qingjue pressed his palms together and silently recited several lines, then shouted at the idol he had worshiped for half his life, "Go screw your grandmother's balls."
More than a dozen Iron Mountain leaders were arguing with all their might, spittle flying as their arms