Shi Feiyang had foreseen that Nun Xinru would come to force Master Youtan into nirvana, so he had hurried over beforehand to tell him. As it happened, Master Fentuo had also divined this and arrived early to make preparations.
But faced with the "crazed" Nun Xinru, they were rather helpless. She was using the banner of Buddhism to bewitch the world.
In a contest of true strength, neither of the two divine monastics could match Xinru alone. Even together, they were still no match for her with two supreme Buddhist treasures in her hands.
Nor could they compete with the benefits she offered people. Xinru proclaimed outright that anyone who took refuge in her would immediately be named an Arhat and granted a golden body and the fruit of attainment.
Fentuo and Master Youtan could offer nothing of the sort. They could only teach methods of cultivation. Even the first fruit, srotāpanna, had to be attained by practitioners themselves, step by step.
People could not distinguish the true from the false. Seeing that the other side offered more, they naturally flocked there.
Even if Fentuo and Youtan went to tell them that the golden bodies Xinru bestowed were false, that they had merely been blessed with a few divine abilities and some magical power, that everything was granted by Xinru and could be stripped away at any moment, and that it also entangled them in all manner of karmic ties, ultimately amounting to an illusory dream—once they awoke and their blessings were exhausted, they would be worse off than before the "dream."
No one would listen to any of it.
The two divine monastics could only sigh. "The Dharma Decline Age truly has arrived. Even with the true Buddhist teachings laid before them, no one believes anymore."
Master Fentuo was