The night wind brushed through the wild grass on White Tiger Ridge, stirring a soft rustle.
The skeleton, lustrous as mutton-fat jade, knelt before the bluestone, his two bony palms pressed tightly together.
He raised his empty eye sockets slightly and spoke in a clear, tranquil voice:
"Thank you, holy monk, for delivering the wronged souls."
White Bone slowly bowed, his smooth forehead touching the ground with a faint, muffled thud.
"Thank you, holy monk, for destroying the Corpse Demon."
He straightened his spine again. Deep within his empty sockets, there seemed to linger a sorrow that would not dissolve.
Xuanzang sat upright on the bluestone, his monk's robe stirring gently in the wind. Not a trace of injury remained on his left arm. Gazing quietly at this skeleton, utterly devoid of demonic aura, he asked slowly:
"You thank this humble monk for delivering the wronged souls, and for destroying the Corpse Demon. But what of you?"
White Bone fell silent for a moment.
"This humble monk does indeed have one question left unanswered. I hope you will dispel my confusion, holy monk."
With that, he bowed down again, placing his elbows, knees, and skull against the ground in turn.
Only after completing the full prostration did he rise, press his palms together, and begin speaking slowly, as though he had become another person:
"My family was well-to-do from my earliest childhood. I was born with a handsome outer shell, and a reasonably clever mind. My elders taught me to treat others kindly, so I often opened our granaries to relieve the poor in the countryside."
"But I was not happy."
White Bone's lower jaw opened and closed slightly, his voice steeped in profound weariness:
"Perhaps I saw too deeply, understood too clearly. If I gave them a measure of