The night over White Tiger Ridge was thick as ink. Dust and sand hung frozen in midair, as though pinned fast by some invisible force.
Xuanzang quietly watched the nearly crazed skeleton before him.
He neither rebuked it nor glared.
He stepped half a pace back, the hem of his monk's robe brushing the coarse gravel.
He pressed his palms together.
Then he bent his back and bowed deeply to the skeleton seething with venomous resentment.
"You are right."
Xuanzang's voice was deep, carrying a rare hoarseness.
"The world's great suffering is more than this poor monk can relieve. The world's great evil is more than I can deliver from darkness. Nor can I force the ignorant and unbelieving to have faith."
He remained bowed, each word striking the silent night like iron. "The pain you have witnessed is real pain. The injustice that enrages you is real injustice."
The skeleton abruptly froze.
The green flames churning deep in its eye sockets suddenly stilled.
It seemed not to have expected this response from Xuanzang. Its outstretched arms slowly fell.
Its hollow sockets stared fixedly at the monk before it, its jaw hanging half-open. It could find nothing to say.
Xuanzang slowly straightened. His gaze, like cold, distant stars, pierced the skeleton's empty sockets.
"When the Buddha walked this world, even he could not make those without affinity believe, could not instantly dissolve fixed karma, could not end all war and famine at once."
Xuanzang lowered his eyelids slightly, looking at the skeletal fingertips. "If the Buddhist Dharma could deliver everyone, the world would long since have been emptied of hells, of sentient beings, of suffering."
"You are right to condemn us. These are our failings."
Xuanzang paused. From deep in the night sky came a faint, ponderous rumble of thunder,