Azure Cloud Monastery

Biodata

Location and Grounds

The monastery’s buildings rise in tiers along the mountainside, with the highest main hall overlooking the lower grounds. Despite its reputation as a blessed cultivation site, its courtyard is plain and clean, without extravagant carvings or conspicuous supernatural radiance 105 106.

History

Early Coexistence with Black Snake

When Black Snake first observes Azure Cloud Monastery, he regards its gate and buildings as dangerous. Nevertheless, he settles nearby, drinks from the mountain’s water source, and listens to the morning and evening liturgies from outside. For several months, the monastery and snake leave one another undisturbed 55.

The early abbot rejects indiscriminate hostility toward nonhuman cultivators. When a disciple suggests seeking an expert to eliminate the mountain’s monsters, the abbot argues that such beings should be judged by their conduct rather than their origin. Later, the abbot refuses a visiting limping expert’s offer to exterminate Black Snake because he has caused no trouble 55 74.

This tolerance does not mean accepting every supernatural visitor. When White Deer stages an appearance as an auspicious beast and attracts an excited crowd, the abbot recognizes his attempt to gain entry under false pretenses and refuses to welcome him 58.

The Hundred-Year Agreement

Black Snake’s connection with the monastery develops through instruction and personal trust. He attends He Ning’s lessons, learns characters, practices swordsmanship, and reflects on the abbot’s advice that cultivation requires understanding and experiencing the wider world 67 71 113.

Before departing, the abbot asks him to protect Azure Cloud Monastery for one hundred years. He Ning explains that the agreement is deliberately limited: familiar people will eventually leave, old bonds may weaken, and Black Snake should have a life of his own 105.

After the abbot and companions depart, the monastery’s former spiritual brilliance and surrounding tales gradually fade. It continues receiving pilgrims but withdraws into quiet cultivation. Black Snake remains on the Back Mountain, concealing himself while honoring the agreement; only a few Daoists know of his presence 128.

Withdrawal and Wartime Survival

The monastery declines in prominence. Li of Mount Ding remarks that it is no longer what it once was, while its Daoists decline to intervene in a neighboring county’s Ghost Calamity despite receiving official documents from the government 129.

During renewed warfare, a cultivator arrives with more than one hundred soldiers and demands that the Daoists surrender their buildings. Black Snake follows the departing force and kills those responsible for the threat. Another group of more than seventy rebel soldiers subsequently approaches, but an elderly Daoist refuses to open the gate 134 136.

After ten years of intermittent fighting, only five gaunt residents remain. The halls fall silent, vegetation grows along the walls and steps, and the morning and evening chanting ceases. Black Snake continues gathering herbs and killing approaching bandits, resolving to fulfill the agreement even if no Daoists remain 137.

The monastery’s survival makes it an object of outside greed. Because it has escaped burning and plunder, wealthy outsiders assume the mountain possesses extraordinary blessings. After attempts at forcible seizure fail, buyers offer large sums; the five remaining Daoists refuse even a chest of gold bars 139.

Recovery and Protection Beyond the Promise

After more than twenty years of desolation, six Daoists arrive with returning villagers, bringing activity back to the mountain. The monastery eventually flourishes again, with growing numbers of residents and worshippers and young Daoists hurrying to Evening Liturgy 139 140.

By the time Black Snake is three hundred and eighty years old, he considers his hundred-year promise fulfilled. He nevertheless remains attached to the place 140 154.

Later wars again devastate the surrounding country while leaving the monastery intact. About a dozen elderly Daoists endure by growing food, repairing clothes, and maintaining the grounds, unaware that their survival still depends on an agreement that ended long before 159.

The New Abbot’s Rejection of the Legends

A new abbot takes charge at thirty-five after a war. She finds traces of the monastery’s hidden protector in library records, old notes, and stories handed down by elderly Daoists, but regards association with a demon as a danger to its reputation 178.

She forbids discussion of spirit monsters and supernatural affairs and intends to gather away the papers recording those legends. She also dismisses the recurring lightning above the Back Mountain as a natural property of the peak rather than evidence of Black Snake’s cultivation 178.

Siege by the Holy King Hall

After human cultivators lose a battle against the Holy King Hall, wounded cultivators and wealthy families crowd into Azure Cloud Monastery. The Ghost King sends a vast host of wandering souls and vengeful ghosts up the mountain to exterminate the refugees 181.

Black Snake confronts the army on the mountain path. Although he declares that his concern is the monastery and its Daoists, he refuses to stand aside even when the Ghost King offers to spare them while killing the outsiders. He opens the battle with a branching discharge of lightning 182.

The fighting reveals the truth behind the old legends. The abbot recognizes what has kept the monastery standing, and its residents witness Black Snake’s spirit form enduring sunlight 184 185.

Afterward, an old man invokes the separation of humans and demons to demand Black Snake’s expulsion. The abbot interrupts the confrontation and orders those wishing to fight to do so elsewhere. Two Mystic Sect masters later report that the Holy King Hall’s ghost forces have been almost entirely destroyed and urge her not to drive away a harmless protector 185 186 187.

Reconciliation and the Ghost King’s Revenge

The abbot begins reconsidering the monastery’s inherited ties with Black Snake. When he later brings a vulnerable girl to the mountain, she takes the girl inside, providing the alternative life he hoped the monastery could offer 187 191 192.

The surviving Ghost King subsequently kills two Daoists sent to the county seat. The abbot understands that the murders are intended to lure Jin Si into a trap and does not ask him to avenge them. Jin Si nevertheless enters the Underworld, kills the Ghost King, and returns 197 200 201.

The monastery mourns its dead even after their killer’s defeat. Visiting cultivators then debate whether its powerful guardian might eventually become another threat, showing that his service has not erased distrust of demon cultivators 204.

Jin Si’s Later Return

Xiao Yu later reports that Azure Cloud Monastery is doing well. When Jin Si eventually returns with six sacks of medicinal plants and gathered materials, he finds few Daoists and quiet grounds, but the main hall remains lit and morning recitation continues 254 284.

He stores the herbs in his old Back Mountain cave, where the charcoal drawings remain preserved, then clears and repairs an old grave nearby 284.

Organization and Practices

• Daily liturgies: Morning and evening chanting form part of the monastery’s routine, though prolonged war interrupts these observances 55 137 284.
• New Year rituals: Observances begin on New Year’s Day and can leave the Daoists hoarse and too busy to sit down for a proper meal 245.
• Study and cultivation: Residents study the Dao and religious texts; He Ning also teaches Black Snake literacy 113 128 140.
• Subsistence work: Daoists tend vegetable plots, gather mountain fruit, fetch water, and grow grain during difficult periods 55 73 159.
• Protective work: The monastery accepts a request to protect a feng shui master while the Mystic Sect pursues escaped supernatural beings 81.
• Refuge: Its grounds shelter people fleeing unrest, while the Back Mountain serves as a hidden refuge for nearby demon spirits 106 150 181.

Relationships

• Jin Si / Black Snake — Nominal mountain-guarding spirit beast and longstanding protector. His attachment outlasts his formal obligation, although he identifies himself as a rogue cultivator rather than a fully integrated member of the Daoist community 133 159 162.
• Early Abbot — Gives Black Snake protection, cultivation advice, and sword instruction. Centuries later, Jin Si still counts this abbot among the very few people he truly trusts 71 133 186 208.
• He Ning — Resident Daoist and Black Snake’s teacher; helps him learn and explains the limits and intentions of the hundred-year agreement 67 105 113.
• New Abbot — Initially rejects the monastery’s demon-related traditions, but later stops an attempt to force a confrontation on its grounds and reassesses its relationship with Black Snake 178 186 187.
• Mystic Sect — Cooperates with the monastery in supernatural affairs. Two masters later defend Black Snake’s right to remain so long as he harms no one 81 187.
• Mount Ding — Li acknowledges the monastery’s former reputation but uses its decline to encourage Black Snake to seek cultivation opportunities elsewhere 129.
• Holy King Hall — Hostile power whose ghosts besiege the monastery; its Ghost King later murders two resident Daoists to target Jin Si 181 197.