The Opponents

There was also a Dratsang elder under the Granary Courtyard, who oversaw the academy's logistics.

These two elders were both great generals capable of holding their own. They were the highest-ranking monks in the entire Endless White Pagoda Temple who represented the interests of the Tusi lineages.

Neither spoke. They held prayer beads in their hands and chanted mantras beneath the oil lamps.

Both had once subdued malevolent ghosts as Dharma protectors, so traces of those ghosts lingered around them, altering the surrounding reality and producing one strange phenomenon after another.

The two would then notice these manifestations and suppress them with great magical power, or entice the ghosts with offerings so that they would not harm them.

No one dared disturb either of them, leaving them to gently turn the prayer beads in their hands as layers of uncanny visions appeared.

Only a few red-robed Lamas were arguing heatedly. Each spoke his own piece, yet clearly took in everything the others said. Thus, although the room was as noisy as the space beneath the Debate Tree, everyone's views came through clearly. In the end, only one red-robed monk was still speaking.

He struck his palm fiercely with the back of his hand, making a loud sound as he said, "The abbot didn't take us out with him this time. His intentions are already plain enough.

"That Sutra Student Monk named Zhasa learned something outside. When he returned, he smelled as though he'd fallen into the Charnel Ground. He went straight to see Zhiyun."

"Not long afterward, an attendant monk serving under Zhiyun went to the Granary Courtyard to become a horse-tending monk.

"This lifeline must have come from that Sutra Student Monk named Zhasa learning something and returning to tell Master Zhiyun. Master Zhiyun went out with the abbot and several sutra masters, all because of that Zhasa!"

"It might even have something to do with us. The Abbot Venerable took nearly half the temple's Duoduo Monk Soldiers and more than half its guardian Lamas. Something major must have happened. And he closed the temple gates, along with the gates of every academy, hall, and courtyard. After locking them, he blessed them with secret mantras. No one but the Abbot Venerable may open them."

"Many of us never went over there. That means this is something aimed at us. Otherwise, it couldn't have been such a coincidence that he specifically avoided us when choosing people."

The red-robed monk spoke irritably.

Glancing at this monk, the Leading Sutra Master, who had a Dharma seat even within the Great Sutra Hall, said, "Don't be anxious."

The moment he spoke,

everyone else fell silent.

"Elder Mingfa?"

The elder under the Granary Courtyard said softly, "Elder Mingfa, what insight do you have to offer?"

Elder Mingfa, the Leading Sutra Master, said, "I've already sent someone to ask. That Sutra Student Monk named Zhasa went to Gaqila Tusi's Official Fortress. Something must have gone wrong there."

"Zhiyun felt that this was an opportunity not to be missed, one that would never come again, so he hurried to tell the abbot. That was why the abbot took people away.

"This probably isn't a minor matter. If no wandering bandits have come into the vicinity recently, then it's a ghost calamity!

"Gaqila Tusi's household suffered a ghost calamity, so the Dzongben Nobles want to seize this opportunity to swallow up Gaqila Tusi's property."

In just a few words, Elder Mingfa had actually come close to the truth of the matter.

But at this point, Elder Mingfa suddenly stood up as he spoke and began pacing.

He seemed to have thought of something.

After a long while, he suddenly struck his forehead hard with his palm.

A loud smack rang out.

With some regret, he said, "No, no, it wasn't a ghost calamity. If it were, the Abbot Venerable wouldn't have gone to the Official Fortress overnight!"

"A single Tusi's Official Fortress wouldn't warrant such attention from the Abbot Venerable. It must be a bigger problem."

"This is bad, bad, bad!"

Even a hundred careful precautions could leave one gap.

From what Elder Mingfa knew of the Abbot Venerable,

the Abbot Venerable was not someone easily satisfied.

Leading a party out of the temple in the dead of night to visit a Tusi's Official Fortress-

there had to be something he did not know about.

Elder Mingfa looked at the irritable red-robed monk and said, "Zhiguang, did you send your Dharma protector to question and seize Zhasa?"

Seeing Elder Mingfa's expression, the red-robed monk named Zhiguang did not dare speak carelessly.

So he obediently admitted, "Yes."

He thought he was about to be reprimanded this time.

To his surprise, Elder Mingfa did not rebuke him. Instead, he said, "Go there yourself. I want you to bring that Sutra Student Monk back. I have questions for him!"

"I know that Dharma protector of yours. You haven't fully subdued it. Even though you steep it in grease day and night, you still get no peace. That's why I'm telling you to go yourself.

"Don't let the Dharma protector you subdued hurt him.

"I need to interrogate him about a few things!"

Zhiguang was somewhat taken aback, but still said, "Yes, I'll do it right away."

The Granary Courtyard elder, who had earlier merely addressed Elder Mingfa by name, spoke again. "And the Abbot Venerable?"

Elder Mingfa said, "He won't know."

Hearing this, the Granary Courtyard elder said no more. He recited Manjushri Bodhisattva's heart mantra, then closed his eyes in silence.

He merely kept turning the prayer wheel in his hand, like an ancient Buddha hidden in the shadows of the room.

Lu Feng still did not know that someone had set their sights on him.

But after making that decision, he knew he was firmly lashed to the boat of the Abbot Venerable's faction, becoming a thorn in the eyes and a splinter in the flesh of another group of monks.

Every abbot's passing into nirvana brought a great reshuffling within the temple. Even so, however fiercely the undercurrents surged throughout the temple, a surface calm would still be maintained. Without a doubt, if he failed to attain a safe position before the Abbot Venerable passed into nirvana, he would certainly be killed—or, more miserably still, suffer a full round of the Monastic Court's tortures before he died.

And merely thinking a little about the process of being killed sent a chill through him. Beheading, severing hands and feet, skinning, and breaking bones were all everyday affairs. As for some of the other tortures, Lu Feng had only heard of them and could not even imagine them.

But Lu Feng had no other choice. He knew that no safe path of advancement existed in this world. To take the stage safely, he had to make sacrifices. This Secret Dharma Region concealed far too many secrets, so many that a person could spend an entire lifetime pursuing them and still struggle to uncover them.

There was also one thing Lu Feng found strange. Judging by the monks' methods of chanting mantras, and such mighty powers as subduing malevolent ghosts and outer gods, binding them and making them the temple's Dharma protectors, those Lamas capable of chanting mantras ought to have enjoyed the blessings of freedom from all illness and a life of a hundred years. Yet, as far as Lu Feng knew, even this temple's titled Abbot Dharma Venerable could not live past a hundred. The other monks might live a little longer, or they might die unnatural deaths in their forties.

At this thought, Lu Feng felt as though his mind could actually be divided into four regions. Another region appeared in his mind to ponder a different matter.

Lu Feng thought of a book of miscellaneous reading he had once seen in this temple.

The book was called "Travelogue of the Esoteric Dharma Realm," a "travelogue" written by an old monk after "touring" the Secret Dharma Region.