The great sun emerged above the golden mountain. The red-robed monks around the monastic quarters came out of their rooms and went about their business, but none noticed that the yellow-robed monks outside the nearby quarters had all become malevolent ghosts-malevolent ghosts merely draped in human skin.
These yellow-robed monks walked up to Lu Feng's door, knocking and calling in eerie, hollow voices, "Yongzhen~ Yongzhen~"
"Zhasa~ Zhasa~"
Every slap left a deathly white handprint on the door of Lu Feng's room, which then vanished like tracks in deep snow swept away by the wind.
But the intense, deathly white ghost resonance would not disappear.
This intense, pale ghost resonance seeped into the room from every direction, flowing through every inch of it, seeking traces of Lu Feng. They turned into wind, murmuring Lu Feng's name.
Yet Lu Feng could see nothing and hear nothing.
The great compassion resonance gently soothed this deathly white ghost resonance beneath his feet, like a mother's broad hands comforting her child's soul.
It was even more like a turquoise stone set before the Buddha, protecting people's souls, dispelling calamities and resolving hardships.
Within the deepening, ghastly green light of the butter lamp.
The prayer wheel creaked, and creaked, and creaked, giving off an eerie rhythm as it turned.
In the end, the ghostly souls of six eminent monks appeared in the room. They surrounded Lu Feng and began circling him clockwise, as though circumambulating a sacred mountain.
Reciting the Six-Syllable Great Brightness Mantra, they began their circumambulation.
Lu Feng seemed to have become that mountain, the mountain that appeared in the hearts of the malevolent ghosts those eminent monks had become.
They circled the mountain, and the great compassion resonance spiraled down from it, flowing from top to bottom like the bone-piercingly cold waters of a snowy mountain.
It continually washed away the impurity in the room.
And Lu Feng, who was the mountain.
Within the chakra beneath Lu Feng's umbilical cord, the seventh lotus petal began to tremble slightly.
As though the light of the newly risen sun had shone upon the first trembling, dew-covered lotus blossom, the lotus petal opened slightly. The great compassion resonance gradually spread out from the room, pushing back the yellow-robed monks like a gentle tide.
It also pushed back their anxious cries.
"There is no attendant here. Leave this place."
A malevolent ghost formed from an eminent monk suddenly spoke toward the door.
Yet the malevolent ghosts outside refused to let the matter rest.
They continued slapping the door in frantic haste. The door was not tightly shut, but they could not open it and enter.
And so things reached a stalemate.
The stalemate lasted until someone came over.
"What are you doing? Why are you loitering here instead of working?"
From a distance, Monk Yongqing, who had come to oversee affairs here, saw the scene. He raised his hand, wound with one hundred and eight strands of amber prayer beads, and rebuked them outright.
Unexpectedly, the yellow-robed monks who ordinarily feared him like a tiger paid him no heed at all.
Monk Yongqing flew into a rage at the sight, but after taking two steps forward, he abruptly stopped.
His face instantly turned grave and deathly pale.
After sensing the unusual scent in the air, he turned and took to his heels without hesitation. The yellow-robed monks paid Monk Yongqing no attention whatsoever. An invisible pair of enormous hands pushed them back again and again, but as they struggled, their flesh and blood remained where they were. As for their bones, their bones forcibly burst out of their bodies, clinging intact to the door and pounding on it madly!
"Yongzhen, Yongzhen, are you in there?"
"Zhasa, Zhasa, Zhasa! I know you're in there."
"Don't run."
"Don't run, don't run, Zhasa. We're all waiting for you here. We're all waiting for you here."
"Come to the Rear Mountain Stupa Burial Ground. We'll be waiting for you there. We'll be waiting for you there."
"Zhasa, Zhasa, ha, ha, Zhasa."
They whispered, their dense ghost resonance outlining one white stupa after another. Inside the room, the malevolent ghosts formed from the six eminent monks continued walking around Lu Feng, utterly unconcerned with any of it.
Only Lu Feng.
Lu Feng seemed to have truly seen something. He "saw" the malevolent ghosts outside. They seemed to have linked up with the ghost resonance throughout the ground below. Intense ghost resonance steamed toward the surface like dark clouds, only to disappear just before emerging.
Beside him, the ghost resonance of the malevolent ghosts formed from the six eminent monks was gradually tamed beneath Lu Feng's great compassion resonance.
Wisp after wisp of milky-white light swam into Lu Feng's "opened" "consciousness storehouse."
The malevolent ghosts formed from those eminent monks suddenly stopped circumambulating the mountain. They surrounded Lu Feng, pressed their palms together, and paid homage to the Venerable One.
Then they sat cross-legged and prayed for blessings for the Venerable One.
As the Venerable One.
Lu Feng's figure gradually appeared.
His hands formed the Meditation Mudra.
Then they changed to the Inner Lion Mudra.
Then to the Outer Lion Mudra.
The Demon-Subduing Mudra.
The Teaching Mudra.
The Wisdom Fist Mudra.
Mudras were a form of bodily mystery. Before chanting mantras, one was not permitted to study mudras. Lu Feng did not know any mudras, but now, sustained by the offerings of the malevolent ghosts formed from the six eminent monks, he suddenly learned them.
He sat cross-legged on the floor. The ghost resonance suppressed by the great compassion resonance sensed Lu Feng's appearance and surged toward him all at once, scrambling to seize him and carry him away.
Lu Feng opened his eyes and looked at the eerie rhythms before him. Suddenly, he formed the Wisdom Fist Mudra, imagining a sharp sword condensed from supreme wisdom within his consciousness storehouse.
It was not a physical object, merely a product of increased wisdom. Its appearance served only to sever the impurity around him.
He did not know what secret mantra he should recite.
Lu Feng knew only two.
One was the Dharma Protector Mantra that Zhuogedunzhu had expressly permitted Lu Feng to use, which the White Vajra Wrathful One beneath Jade Mountain could use.
The other was the "Six-Syllable Great Brightness Mantra."
So Lu Feng used only a single-syllable mantra, condensing his increased wisdom and vajra cutter into this one utterance of the secret mantra.
That utterance.
Was "Mi."
He did not know why it was this single-syllable mantra either, but as the mantra and mudra went forth, Lu Feng felt everything around him suddenly become "pure and still."
In other words, great luminosity manifested once more.
After that single utterance of the mantra, Lu Feng felt extraordinarily drowsy.
Only the Ancient Scroll in his arms, heating up madly, kept him awake.
The malevolent ghosts formed from the six eminent monks joined hands to protect their Venerable One, and the six kinds of dharma implements returned to the six great malevolent ghosts.
The six great malevolent ghosts became dharma protectors.
They safeguarded the Yidam.
As for Monk Yongqing, who had gone to report what had happened.
Halfway there, he suddenly felt excruciating pain begin throughout his body.
An eerie rhythm seeped into his skin.
Like ten thousand tiny knives slicing his skin, cutting open his human hide, cutting open his muscles, cutting his bones free of his body. By the time he had run another two steps.
He felt as cold all over as raw iron beneath the moonlight.
He looked back.
He saw his "person" standing steadily in the distance, still poised to run.
As for he himself.
He looked down and found, to his horror, that he had already become a skeleton.
An unspeakable fear was born in his heart. Once it appeared, it could not be restrained. Even his "immovable mind" could not halt such great terror. In an instant, he became a malevolent ghost, and deathly white ghost resonance emerged from his body!
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