The Buddhist chants surged vast and mighty, like the chaos, absurdity, and fear of first hearing the clamor outside one's mother's womb at the moment of birth.
Zhang Fusheng felt as though he had fallen into a boundless place.
In a daze,
he saw a monk leading a white horse, crossing mountains and ridges, fighting tigers and killing bandits, walking barefoot along a westward road, devout and compassionate.
Cicadas chirped mournfully among withered willows; a great fire flowed westward.
He saw the monk pass by a river eight hundred li wide, its waters broad and fierce, turbid as flowing sand.
Then a demonic monster leaped from the river, devoured the monk's flesh and blood, plucked off his head, and made it into a bead.
Even before his death, the monk gazed devoutly toward the west.
Then came a second monk, a third, a fourth.
Nine monks in succession all traveled west, dying by the riverbank, dying in the jaws of the demonic monster, their heads strung into nine skull prayer beads.
Shi Zhengyuan's voice sounded beside his ear.
"Did you see it? That is the past reflected by the Zen staff. Nine monks journeying west, traveling the path to pay homage to the master of the staff. It was peril and tribulation."
"It is the doctrine handed down by my Buddha: to see the True Buddha, one must first undergo Nine Tribulations. Only after enduring all Nine Tribulations may one witness true devotion!"
Zhang Fusheng, immersed in the Buddhist chants and the illusion conjured by the Buddhist staff, was somewhat speechless.
He suddenly remembered where he had heard of the Nine-Ringed Zen Staff before.
Tang Monk's staff.
Wasn't this illusion the tale of Golden Cicada seeking Buddhist scriptures through nine lifetimes, only to be swallowed by Sha Wujing nine times?