"Let all troubles fall away, and leave the mortal world behind."
The voice was low and gentle. Its lingering echo drifted through the ruined Main Hall, seeming to carry far away amid the roaring rain and the steady patter of drops. The place was empty, quiet, and serene.
Mu Yunle was utterly stunned. She felt something wash over and strike her soul, much like when she had accompanied her mother to a Buddhist temple to fulfill a vow in her youth. She had stayed the night, laughing and making merry until the whole courtyard rang with noise. Then she had suddenly heard the evening drum and morning bell—the dang, dang, dang of it seeming to wash the dust from her heart, leaving it ethereal and crystal-clear, filled with great peace and purity. From then on, she had become far quieter.
She had heard maxims like "Let all troubles fall away, and leave the mortal world behind" many times, but never had one moved her as it did today. Thinking carefully, she realized that when other monks recited those words, it was often while shaving the heads of others—shaving the heads of worldly people who had grown disheartened and seen through the mortal world. Wisps of incense smoke veiled their faces. There was admonition and expectation, solemnity and gravity, but little of the emotion that had come from Zhending, the gray-robed monk, as though he had just ferried himself through countless tribulations. There was little of that true sense of the Green Lamp Ancient Buddha.
All the loneliness, all the sorrow, and all the hopes had been buried in those words.
Let all troubles fall away, and leave the mortal world behind.
It was quite some time before Mu Yunle came back to herself. Only then did she realize that she