Chapter Summaries

At the Sutra Academy’s Dharma Assembly, Gyatso drew a one-against-five Debate against leading competitors, prompting suspicions that the strongest contender was being targeted for the prize. He calmly proposed “A White Horse Is Not a Horse” and began dismantling his opponents’ arguments, while Namkha’s principled objection to the unfair matchup led him to join the debate anyway.

• The School Monitor opened the Courtyard Competition Dharma Assembly, where Scholar Monks debated in matchups determined by lots.
• Gyatso drew a one-against-five Debate against Gama, Dunzhu, Tsering, Namkha, and Jiumo, and Rinchen explained that the competition’s rewards included completion empowerment and a path to becoming a Geshe.
• Namkha objected to the unfair matchup, but the Iron Staff Lama threatened him with forfeiture, so Namkha took his seat after Gyatso invited him to stay.
• Gyatso proposed the thesis “A White Horse Is Not a Horse,” and Gadeng and Dunzhu challenged it.
• Gyatso used Dunzhu’s agreement that having a yellow horse meant having a horse to expose the inconsistency in his reasoning about a white horse.

Qu Zan defeated five opponents in the Sutra Academy debate by arguing that a white horse was not a horse, earning first place. After the Courtyard Competition Dharma Assembly, the Abbot recognized him and arranged a teaching for him, and Qu Zan collected the substantial rewards for the top ten.

• Qu Zan defeated Namkha, Jiumo, and the other debaters, while Tsering conceded that a white horse was not a horse.
• The Sutra Academy Abbot declared Gyatso first in Debate, and the crowd erupted at his victory over five opponents.
• Namkha congratulated Qu Zan and admitted he had underestimated him.
• The School Monitor announced the assembly rankings and led the top ten to pay their respects to the Abbot.
• The Abbot recognized Qu Zan by the saddle-shaped ring, praised his past help against Ghost-Fallen Guanyin, and ordered a good teaching to be selected for him.
• Qu Zan received clothing, provisions, writing supplies, and a hundred taels of Secret Silver as his competition rewards.

Qu Zan learned how Binding Monks controlled Vengeful Ghosts as the steward led him toward his Dharma-transmission Empowerment. The chapter left him approaching a row of ominous, sealed stone houses.

• The steward invited the monks to attend a seven-day Dharma Assembly at Nagarjuna Victory Temple in Rika City and told Qu Zan to stay behind.
• The steward took Qu Zan to receive his Dharma-transmission Empowerment, and Qu Zan asked about the Ghost-Fallen Guanyin and the monk it had escaped from.
• The steward explained that Binding Monks sealed Vengeful Ghosts in bodies or objects, using Offerings, Ghost Medicine, and Binding Artifacts to restrain them.
• The steward told Qu Zan that the temple had few Binding Monks and that its academy head was one of them.
• The steward led Qu Zan past heavily guarded buildings to windowless stone houses with vermilion doors and scripture drapes.

Qu Zan underwent a secret empowerment ritual and received the Lion-Headed Dakini’s power, along with the Reversal and Obstruction Method. After leaving the chamber, he fused his new curse seal with the Lion’s Roar Heart Mantra, improving its progress.

• Qu Zan entered the secret chamber after monks covered his naked body in scripture written with ghost blood.
• An old monk summoned the Lion-Headed Dakini, which clawed Qu Zan and infused him with its power.
• Qu Zan experienced a vision of becoming a Ghost Lion, then awoke with a black mark around his shoulder and neck.
• The old monk warned Qu Zan that using the ghost’s power could make him lose control and granted him the Reversal and Obstruction Method.
• Qu Zan left the chamber and chose to fuse the Lion Ghost Curse Seal with the Lion’s Roar Heart Mantra, raising its progress to ten percent.

Qu Zan survived the uncanny-power ritual and prepared to study Mìdì’s four methods under a reclusive Jomo. As the Dharma Assembly continued and his debating fame spread, Dongzi’s Zongben discussed damaged Mani Piles and presented offerings to Corpse Camel Temple.

• The steward told Qu Zan that some people who entered the red door never returned, then explained the Binding Monks and arranged for a Jomo to teach him the four methods.
• Qu Zan returned to his quarters and happily unpacked his prizes, including a hundred taels of secret silver.
• During the Dharma Assembly, Huode urged Qu Zan to keep studying the Five Great Treatises, while Rusu and Chima discussed his growing reputation after he defeated five debaters.
• At a reception hosted by Corpse Camel Temple, Tshewang praised the Dharma Assembly and reported that Mani Piles along his route had collapsed and their contents had rotted.
• Tshewang said he had ordered manor owners to repair the Mani Piles and asked the Sutra Academy to provide replacement scriptures and incantations, then presented the monastery with a document of offerings.

Tuya and Dzongben Caiwang returned from a banquet, while a Vengeful Ghost dragged an Attendant Monk into a chest of ritual implements. Qu Zan saw a ghost in his tea and was transported from Corpse Camel Temple into darkness, where he steadied himself and prepared to find a way to see.

• The chief stewards questioned Caiwang’s tribute, and he explained that more carts carrying gold and secret silver would follow.
• Tuya noticed the skull ring on Caiwang’s hand and spoke affectionately with him on their way back to the Lay Buddhist Courtyard.
• An Attendant Monk found blood seeping from a chest of copper ritual implements, and a dead hand dragged him inside it.
• A monk shut the chest and ordered laborers to carry it into the storehouse without noticing that blood began seeping from it again.
• Qu Zan saw a Vengeful Ghost’s face in his tea, then found himself in darkness outside his quarters and calmed his fear with mindfulness.

Qu Zan used the Lion Ghost Curse Seal to see through a vast underground cavern, where he found two mutilated corpses and was pursued by a Vengeful Ghost dripping corpse oil. He escaped by transforming into a ghost lion and fleeing toward a terrifying aura, then found himself on a boulder above a scene that left him horrified.

• Qu Zan transformed his eyes with the Lion Ghost Curse Seal and explored the cavern, finding the corpse of a Corpse Camel Temple monk surrounded by strange footprints.
• Qu Zan discovered a villager’s corpse beneath a boulder and continued searching the seemingly endless cavern.
• Qu Zan heard dripping corpse oil behind him and realized a Vengeful Ghost was pursuing him.
• Qu Zan transformed into a white ghost lion and ran, but the ghost continued to follow him.
• Qu Zan sensed a terrifying aura ahead, leaped down a slope, and escaped the pursuing ghost when it did not follow.
• Qu Zan returned to human form on a boulder and stared in horror at the scene below.

Qu Zan discovered a Four Continents Zan Dho ritual built to suppress a terrifying uncanny hand, then found a way through a rock wall to reach Doje, Tuya, and their companions. The group mistook Qu Zan for a Vengeful Ghost when he emerged, but he calmed them and Doje lent him a robe.

• Qu Zan examined the Four Continents Zan Dho and saw a severed hand pinned to its central platform by a demon-subduing vajra.
• Qu Zan left the ritual site, found an orange-red glow behind a rock wall, and recognized Doje and Tuya's voices on the other side.
• Qu Zan passed through the wall, where a Rebudian Chieftain attacked him with a curved blade.
• Qu Zan deflected the attack with the Lion Ghost Curse Seal, then let the curse's power recede and explained that it had burst his clothes.
• Doje gave Qu Zan his outer robe to cover himself.

Qu Zan reunited with Doje and a group of travelers inside a Vengeful Ghost’s Ghost Domain, where he pieced together how they had been drawn in and urged them to investigate the cause. The group learned their arrivals may have been linked to reflections, while Zuo Qian’s revelations about killing runaway slaves left Qu Zan silently watching him.

• The Dzongben recognized Qu Zan as the Scholar Monk from the Dharma Assembly debate, while Zuo Qian distrusted him and Doje defended him.
• Qu Zan said he had inferred that three Vengeful Ghosts were involved, then asked the group how they had entered the Ghost Domain.
• Tuya explained that she, her father, and their steward had been pulled in while trying to save Zhuoma from a bronze vessel, and Doje said he had been urinating by a wall.
• Qu Zan deduced that reflections had drawn them into the Ghost Domain, and Zhuoma recalled strange light and shadows on the vessel she had been polishing.
• Zuo Qian claimed that his torches had saved the group, and Doje revealed that the torches were made from thighbones taken from corpses in the Ghost Domain.
• Zuo Qian admitted that he had killed runaway slaves, while Qu Zan silently watched the flames reflected in his eyes.

Qu Zan and Doje left the group to search the dark ghost domain, where they found many corpses and humanlike black sheep. They encountered an old man from the market beside an upright black goat, and the old man said he had been swept into the ghost domain too.

• Qu Zan chose to keep searching for people, and Doje left with him while Zuo Qian kept the torch.
• Doje told Qu Zan that the Rebudian Chieftain carried human organs as offerings and recalled how a Rebudian Chieftain had tortured his uncle to death.
• Qu Zan sensed that Zuo Qian was powerful and led Doje through the darkness using his unusual eyes.
• Qu Zan and Doje came upon many corpses and four black sheep with human organs and limbs.
• Qu Zan spotted an upright black goat, then recognized the old man who appeared beside it from the market.
• The old man said he had also been swept into the enormous ghost domain.

Qu Zan learned from Basang that a deadly Vengeful Ghost had killed most of his group and that no exit from the Ghost Domain had been found. Believing the suppressed hand might help him control the ghost and escape, Qu Zan returned to it and felt it pulling toward his left hand.

• Basang introduced himself as a Chöd School monk and explained that he had survived a Vengeful Ghost attack that killed twenty-two people in his group.
• Basang told Qu Zan and Doje that the Ghost Domain had no known exit and that the temple might not send anyone to rescue them.
• Qu Zan proposed that the exit might be connected to the Vengeful Ghost and planned to use the suppressed ghost hand to control it; he asked Basang and Doje to search for the ghost.
• Qu Zan returned to the Four Continents Zan Dho and found Zhuoma and Zhunnie dead near the spot where he had passed through the wall.
• Qu Zan approached the suppressed hand and felt his left hand being drawn toward it.

Qu Zan bound Indra's Hand, discovered its abilities and the danger of its rapid revival, and fed it the eyes of the dead to suppress it. He reunited with Doje and Basang and said he had a twenty or thirty percent chance of defeating the Vengeful Ghost.

• Qu Zan pulled the vajra from the ghostly hand and endured intense pain as he bound Indra's Hand.
• Qu Zan learned that using Indra's Hand hastened its revival, that eyes could delay it, and that an object of control might grant perfect control.
• Qu Zan discovered the hand's [Thousand Hands] and [Hand Mound] abilities, but its revival level rose to 30% after several uses and left him fatigued.
• Qu Zan dug out the eyes of Zhuoma and Zhunnie and other dead people, lowering the revival level to 1%, where it would not drop further.
• Qu Zan followed Doje's scent and reunited with Doje and Basang, telling them he had a twenty or thirty percent chance of defeating the Vengeful Ghost.

Qu Zan discovered how the Vengeful Ghost used the midpoint between two people to kill them, then devised a plan to catch it by making himself and Doje its only targets. He and Doje waited against a wall, ready to grab the ghost as it passed between them.

• Basang, Doje, and Qu Zan compared the victims and suspected the Vengeful Ghost killed people in pairs, but Caiwang and Tuya's survival showed their theory was wrong.
• Tuya described the ghost as an old woman with tangled white hair and a bronze mirror, while Caiwang said Zuo Qian had fled and shoved them aside.
• Zuo Qian led the Vengeful Ghost toward Qu Zan's group, and Qu Zan saw it emerge from the wall before it killed people in pairs.
• Qu Zan realized the ghost moved through walls and killed two people by passing through the midpoint between them; people joined together counted as a single point and survived.
• As the survivors scattered, Qu Zan held Doje close and explained that they could escape by catching the ghost when it passed between them.
• Qu Zan and Doje stood facing each other against a wall, leaving themselves as bait so Qu Zan could grab the Vengeful Ghost.

Qu Zan suppressed Mirror Granny long enough to escape the Ghost Domain with Doje, Basang, and Dzongben Caiwang, while Zuo Qian was killed after trying to force his way out. Back at Corpse Camel Temple, the Sutra Academy Abbot contained the bronze mirror, and a monastery steward demanded that Caiwang explain how it had entered the temple.

• Qu Zan used Indra's Hand to restrain Mirror Granny and opened a door to the Real-World Mìdì, allowing Doje, Basang, and Dzongben Caiwang with Tuya to escape.
• Zuo Qian tried to bargain with Qu Zan using Little Fragrance, then drank it and attacked; Qu Zan killed him with ghost hands.
• Qu Zan collected the dead people's eyes as offerings to counter Indra's Hand's revival, then left the Ghost Domain as Mirror Granny sank into the wall.
• Qu Zan emerged from the chest in the storeroom at sunrise, where the Sutra Academy Abbot and others had gathered after Caiwang reported the ghost attack.
• The Sutra Academy Abbot sealed the bronze mirror in a gold box, and a monastery steward questioned Caiwang about bringing it into the temple.

At Corpse Camel Temple, the monks questioned Dzongben Caiwang and examined Qu Zan’s bound ghost hand after the Vengeful Ghost rampage. Qu Zan chose to keep the hand, while the temple ordered repairs to the Mani Piles and began investigating the calamity without disturbing its meditating temple master.

• Dzongben Caiwang said he did not know how the uncanny object had entered the temple, and the monks kept Basang at Corpse Camel Temple for safety.
• Qu Zan described finding the ghost hand sealed by a Demon-Subduing Pestle in the Ghost Domain and showed the monks his left hand and Three-Pronged Vajra.
• The Sutra Academy Abbot confirmed the ghost power was stable and compatible with Qu Zan, and the chief steward explained that it could be expelled by cutting off his hand.
• Qu Zan chose to keep the ghost hand, and the chief steward returned the Three-Pronged Vajra as its Binding Artifact.
• The chief steward ordered the temple to repair and build Mani Piles, but decided not to interrupt the temple master’s meditation.

After Qu Zan learned that Meiduo and Duimu were safe, Corpse Camel Temple discovered that the Ghost Mirror had been used to infiltrate the temple and steal its sealed uncanny objects. The monks found the Rabbit Character Room flooded with blood and emptied of its contents, and began questioning whether the other chambers had also been robbed.

• Two Binding Monks stored the Golden Box in the Rabbit Character Room of the Demon-Subduing Hall.
• Qu Zan learned that Meiduo and Duimu were safe and was told to meet the Sutra Academy Steward the next day to visit the ritual master.
• A soldier reported that a convoy led by Caiwang had been destroyed by Vengeful Ghosts in Gawa Canyon, though the temple believed Dzongben Caiwang was staying in the Lay Buddhist Courtyard.
• An attending monk reported that Dzongben Caiwang, his followers, and the ritual master had vanished from the courtyard, while Madam Dzongben and her daughter remained.
• The Chief Steward and Qiong Re Ganbu opened the Rabbit Character Room and found it filled with blood and corpses, with all its sealed uncanny objects missing.

After the monastery discovered that uncanny objects had been stolen, its leaders suspected a group calling themselves Hell's Beings and sent warnings to other temples. Qu Zan learned that Dzongben Caiwang had been dead for days, then went with Jiduo to bathe before meeting the eccentric Jomo master.

• The Sutra Academy Abbot and the monastery's chief steward concluded that intruders had exploited a momentary distraction to steal uncanny objects and leave the message “Hell's Beings.”
• The chief steward decided to warn the Great Dzong Temple, the Ancestral Temple, and nearby temples, while sentencing the two Binding Monks to lose a year's stipend and serve a year in the Servants' Courtyard.
• Qu Zan and Doje heard that Dzongben Caiwang and his party had died six days earlier, and Qu Zan worried that he would not receive the promised payment.
• Qu Zan met Jiduo, who told him to bathe before meeting the cleanliness-obsessed Jomo master at the Corpse Camel Temple.

Qu Zan met Dharma Master Duo'erna and secured work as her attendant in exchange for a chance to learn spellcraft and secret pharmacology. After leaving her residence and returning to his quarters, he found a hooded figure waiting at his door.

• Steward Jiduo brought Qu Zan to Dharma Master Duo'erna's private residence and asked her to teach him the four arts.
• Duo'erna questioned Qu Zan's knowledge and watched him perform Sang Offering incense fumigation, then pointed out several mistakes.
• Duo'erna initially refused to take Qu Zan as a disciple, but hired him as an attendant for four hours each day, offering ten taels of secret silver a month and warning him to keep her formulas secret.
• Jiduo praised Qu Zan's quick thinking and said serving Duo'erna, who came from west of the Vast Sea, would benefit him.
• Qu Zan returned to his monastic quarters and found a hooded figure standing at his door.

Tuya visited Qu Zan to thank him and ask about clues to the false Dzongben, then Qu Zan absorbed Fortune Essence from her antiques and improved his Patience talent. The next morning, he began working for Duo'erna, studied medicinal herbs, and started reading about spellcraft.

• Tuya brought Qu Zan fifty taels of gold and four antiques, and asked whether he had noticed anything about the false Dzongben, whose black stone skull ring bore the words “Hell's Beings.”
• Qu Zan admitted he had no clues, and Tuya left disappointed after explaining that the monastery was investigating the murder and the theft from its underground palace.
• Qu Zan absorbed Fortune Essence from three antiques and raised Patience to level 3, gaining the ability to heal injuries and purge possessing evil spirits by remaining patient and unmoving.
• Before dawn, Qu Zan arrived early at Duo'erna's residence and cleaned the rooms while waiting for her.
• Duo'erna instructed Qu Zan to process Red Moon Jing and left him books on medicinal herbs and spellcraft; after studying the herb book, Qu Zan gained Secret Medicine Identification and prepared the roots to dry.
• Qu Zan finished his courtyard chores, washed his hands, and sat down to examine Introduction to Spellcraft.

Duo'erna taught Qu Zan the principles of the four activity arts and demonstrated how a small spark could be amplified into a powerful spell. After Geshe Danba arrived to buy processed red moon stonecrop, he recognized Qu Zan as a Candidate Geshe and gave him a prayer-bead bracelet.

• Qu Zan explained his understanding of the four arts, and Duo'erna clarified that each art could be applied in unexpected ways.
• Duo'erna amplified a tiny spark into a pillar of fire and warned Qu Zan that wrathful spells could rebound on their caster.
• Geshe Danba visited Duo'erna to buy one jin of her processed red moon stonecrop, and Qu Zan weighed and packaged it.
• Duo'erna revealed that Qu Zan was her apprentice and a Candidate Geshe, prompting Danba to congratulate her and praise the boy.
• Danba gave Qu Zan a prayer-bead bracelet as a welcoming gift, and a notification appeared on Qu Zan's panel when he accepted it.