(The update was rather late. Sorry.)
Ming Year 456, tenth month, sixteenth day. Minor Snow.
Inside the Monastery of Contemplating Mysteries, portraits of the Three Pure Ones were enshrined above a person-high incense table. A golden censer stood upon it, incense burning within.
A meditation cushion lay before the incense table, and Cheng Xinzhan sat upright upon it.
Today marked Minor Snow. In Yu Zhang, light snow should have been drifting down like willow fluff. But here in Western Kham, great flakes as broad as mats were already swirling through the air.
He looked outside the monastery, where the view stretched far and wide. Long ridges wound onward, the mountains white-headed, rising and falling like white dragons swimming through waves, all spread before his eyes.
Green pines dotted the ground near the monastery gate, standing proud amid the snow, retaining their green against the bitter cold.
Cheng Xinzhan smiled. An auspicious snowfall just as the monastery was completed-it was a good omen.
Something occurred to him. He counted on his fingers; the time had come.
He had killed Monk Han Shi on the twenty-eighth day of the eighth month. Today made exactly seven times seven, forty-nine days.
He brought forth the Gourd and released Monk Han Shi's Primordial Spirit.
Refined within the realm of fire, this Primordial Spirit had been reduced to a mere spark of true spirit, no longer recognizably human.
Monk Han Shi could no longer even speak. Only a faint remnant of thought reached Cheng Xinzhan.
"Have mercy, exalted immortal. This monk no longer asks for reincarnation, only a swift death!"
Hearing this, Cheng Xinzhan replied,
"Rest assured. I will fulfill my promise to you. But you harmed countless people throughout your life. To seek reincarnation without first enduring some suffering would let you off far too