A great bell tolled across the heavens and myriad worlds!
That wisp of lifespan seeping from Ksitigarbha's neck suddenly stopped spilling outward. It remained firmly tethered to His neck, like a fluttering strip of red silk, like a crimson snake clinging to the marrow, never willing to leave again.
During those years within Moon in the Fengchan Well, He had indeed raised His head to gaze at the moon—one moon through all antiquity and the present, all beneath heaven sharing this bond.
A bond was itself a circle.
Through the cracks in the seal He had struggled so bitterly to create, how many times had He watched the three bells! He had slowly caressed them with His gaze, painstakingly carved upon them with the blade of Heavenly Will. No matter through whose hands the three bells passed, there had always been a beginning and an end.
The beginning belonged to the World-Honored One; the end belonged to Him.
The World-Honored One expounded the Dharma, and it resounded through all heavens. The three bells followed at His side, their glory manifest across myriad worlds. He imagined that to be an age He longed for.
Born from the World-Honored One's corpse, yet never having known the World-Honored One's preciousness. What He had gathered were eternal regrets; what He carried in His breast were shattered dreams of unwillingness.
The three bells rang for Him. Across infinite time and infinite space, every Buddhist scripture would carve His name.
He was Hidden Light Tathagata, Zen Master Xiong, Buddha Patriarch of ten thousand ages... and Calamity Without Heaven.
"Let there be such completion!"
The smoke from the Mortal World Heaven-and-Earth Cauldron gradually thinned. The Celestial Path scroll depicting Emperor Qi Wu drifted silently, slowly losing the essence of a world.
The signs of withering and flourishing