Where the Buddhist Temple had once stood, Great Radiance faded away. Jiang Zhiwei's senses returned, but there was no one else around. Meng Qi, Ruan Yushu, and Zhao Heng had vanished, as had Venerable Kasyapa's Great Arhat Golden Body. It was as if the stars had shifted in an instant.
This had nothing to do with the boundless light released when Kasyapa opened his fist. That had only affected perception; it had nothing to do with moving through the void. Someone else must have done this deliberately. And to make both Meng Qi and her vanish without either of them noticing, as if it were perfectly ordinary—even with Great Radiance interfering—was no feat any ordinary means could accomplish. Had they directly stirred the laws of heaven and earth, making them temporarily change? Jiang Zhiwei's thoughts stirred. Sword in hand, she hurried toward the Buddhist Temple, trying to find some clue.
She had taken only a few steps when the Buddhist Temple, tiled with colored glaze and built of golden bricks, suddenly collapsed on its own, as if crushed by a terrifying pressure from above.
Jiang Zhiwei looked up. Down the mountain path, where pitch-black fissures crisscrossed, a Green Lion was slowly descending. Its fur was patchy and riddled with signs of decay. Black qi and white mist burrowed in and out of its body. As it walked, it flattened the fissures and stilled the gale, treading as easily as if on level ground.
A Bodhisattva sat upright on the Green Lion's back. His face and body were pure white. He wore a celestial crown and had five topknots, symbolizing the five kinds of Buddhist wisdom: Great Mirror Wisdom, the Wisdom of the Nature of the Dharmadhatu, and the rest. They corresponded respectively to the first five consciousnesses, the sixth consciousness—the