Inside a monastic residence at Famen Temple.
Master Sengjia was unsurprised to hear that Princess Taiping and Lu Changfeng wished to pay their respects to the Buddha Bone, and readily agreed.
He took an object straight from his sleeve.
It was a precious casket carved from thousand-year-old bodhi wood. The wood was smooth and lustrous, with a faint radiance shining through it. Its natural grain uncannily echoed the Sanskrit symbol "卍," exuding a peaceful aura that soothed the heart and stilled the mind.
Wrapped around the casket was a fragment of a seven-treasure brocade kasaya. Intricate scriptures had been embroidered upon it with gold thread, colored glass, giant clam shell, agate, and the other Buddhist treasures. Its precious radiance lay hidden within, sumptuous and solemn.
These two treasures were already rare ritual artifacts in their own right, yet here they served as nothing more than a container and a wrapping.
His expression solemn, Master Sengjia gently undid the knot in the seven-treasure kasaya, then carefully opened the bodhi-wood casket. The instant a sliver of a gap appeared beneath the lid-
Hum!
An incomparably gentle yet vast Buddhist presence spread through the room!
Within the quiet chamber, it seemed as though countless Sanskrit chants echoed soundlessly. The air grew clear and sacred, cleansing the mind and sweeping away every stray thought.
A relic roughly the length of a finger joint lay quietly upon the brocade inside the casket.
It was a translucent, glasslike gold, flawless and softly lustrous, radiating warm, gentle Buddhist light filled with compassion.
"Amitabha."
Master Sengjia pressed his palms together, his voice sounding all the more solemn in the Buddhist light. "This Buddha-Finger Relic is one of the sacred objects left by the true body of the World-Honored One, Shakyamuni Buddha, when he manifested nirvana. Yet the true