Great Joy

To seek an audience with a Lama, one first had to seek an audience with the Lama's servant.

That was, a yellow-robed servant monk.

Lu Feng pressed his palms together and greeted Master Zhiyun's servant monk.

Yellow-robed servant monks were an exceedingly difficult lot to deal with.

They were the "mastiffs barring the road" between Lamas and ordinary monks, as well as other lower-ranking nobles.

This was no insult.

Attendant monks considered it an honor to serve as the mastiffs barring the road beneath a Lama's gate.

Throughout the Secret Dharma Region, the hierarchy was rigid to the extreme, among monks and nobles alike.

Thus, meeting Master Zhuogedunzhu had been Lu Feng's good fortune.

This great monk and great noble was the kindest person Lu Feng had ever met, without exception.

His status was exalted.

Yet his treatment of Lu Feng left nothing to be desired.

With Zhuogedunzhu's standing,

whether among clergy or laity,

his power reached everywhere.

For a student monk like Lu Feng, he could subject him to such tortures as "beheading," "gouging out the eyes," "severing the tongue," "chopping off the hands," and "drawing out the intestines."

The gulf between their stations was simply too vast.

On the territories of certain great chieftains and Dzongben Nobles, monks had their eyes gouged out, their tongues torn out, or their hands chopped off simply because the chieftains and nobles disliked them.

That was what happened when a noble's power exceeded a monk's.

The reverse also held true, with great monks forcing nobles to surrender their interests.

Such situations arose endlessly.

Had Lu Feng been on Zhuogedunzhu's territory,

he would have been like a helpless chick.

Only if Lu Feng donned red robes and a hat, becoming a Sixth-Rank Monk who could bestow empowerments on others and command a temple's Dharma lineage, might he have had the strength to resist.

As for the attendant monk now barring his way,

Lu Feng knew him.

His standing was above Lu Feng's, but below his Abhisheka Lama and the other Lamas.

He probably had not passed the "Kalyāṇamitra" examination and obtained the "Kalyāṇamitra" degree either.

This was another path.

Becoming a Lama's servant.

Escaping the status of student monk.

But this path, too, was fraught with danger.

Lu Feng had never considered it.

For an Abhisheka Lama held absolute power over his disciples.

That absolute power included the right to grant life or death, take whatever he wished, and demand "offerings" and "alms."

Among monks, the bonds of dependency were even stronger.

That went doubly for attendant monks. Under the control of a Secret Mantra, an attendant monk might one day become material for a spell, and Lu Feng would not have been surprised.

At the sight of the foul-smelling Lu Feng,

the yellow-robed attendant monk held his whip and shouted as though driving cattle or sheep, "Go, go, go!"

He shouted at Lu Feng, deftly cracking his whip through the air with a crisp snap.

Those improperly dressed,

and those who smelled,

could not see the Lama.

Moreover, whenever a student monk sought an audience with a Lama, an "offering" was required, and the attendant monk could take a share of it.

Lu Feng pressed his palms together and bowed. "Senior brother, I have an important matter to bring before the Lama."

He also presented the embossed paper with both hands.

The attendant monk did not recognize it.

But Master Zhiyun "saw" the embossed paper and immediately said, "Please invite him in."

Upon seeing the object, the Lama immediately told the attendant monk to bring Lu Feng in, even using the word "please."

Hearing the Lama's words,

the attendant monk shuddered all over.

Fear suddenly seized him.

He knew that this time he had probably made a grave mistake, and serious trouble was coming.

But this was no time to ponder such things.

The attendant monk immediately invited Lu Feng inside, not daring to show the slightest neglect.

Lu Feng entered the courtyard.

By now, the sky had grown somewhat dim.

The great sun of the Secret Dharma Region descended from the sky, spilling a blood-red afterglow.

It shone upon the Great Snow Mountain in the distance.

But inside the room,

there was no sign of anyone lighting a lamp.

Through the gloom, Lu Feng could vaguely make out someone seated inside.

The man remained silent until Lu Feng approached. Only then did he tell the attendant monk to take the embossed paper from Lu Feng and place it in his hands for careful examination.

Only after a good while

did Lu Feng finally make out Master Zhiyun inside.

Master Zhiyun sat in his scripture room.

He did not come out.

Even standing outside, one could smell the thick scent of offering incense wafting from the room.

The small windows were all shut, and behind him stood a statue of some unknown Buddha.

Beneath earthen-red curtains steeped in incense smoke over many days and months sat a monk who was emaciated to the extreme.

He was the scripture teacher Lu Feng had come to find this time.

Lama "Zhiyun."

He resembled a skeletal corpse demon, rolling a string of prayer beads in his hand. A Malevolent Ghost seemed to lurk beside him, giving off a heavy aura of corpse energy.

Lu Feng knew.

Beside him was a Malevolent Ghost he had subdued.

His entire body was huddled inside his red robes.

It seemed that the moment he stood up, he would slip out of those red monastic robes like a creature shedding its shell.

"Zhasa."

Zhasa had supported Master Zhiyun with offerings for a time, so Master Zhiyun recognized Lu Feng at a glance. After carefully identifying the object Lu Feng had brought, his manner suddenly became exceedingly kindly.

It was utterly different from before.

In the past, even when Lu Feng and several other monks pooled enough tuition to ask him to expound the scriptures,

he had barely acknowledged them.

But now, he was like a compassionate elder.

Even his expression had softened considerably.

"What brings you to see me?"

Lu Feng pressed his palms together and quickly delivered the account he had worked out on the way to Master Zhiyun.

This time,

even Master Zhiyun could not treat it lightly.

Once Lu Feng finished,

he abruptly rose to his feet. In that instant, it was no illusion: Lu Feng felt as though he had become one with all the darkness in the monastic chamber!

He became a manifestation of great terror.

He paced back and forth.

Having heard Lu Feng's account and seen Zhuogedunzhu's proof of identity,

joy rose to his brows!

This great monk of the Endless White Pagoda Temple naturally understood what an immense opportunity awaited him.

Delighted, he said, "Good, good, good! Zhasa, you've done well!

"If what you say is true, you have rendered a great service to the temple this time!

"Once this matter is settled, untold wealth, honor, and great opportunities will surely await you.

"Your future prospects will know no bounds!"

He knew this was the opportunity the Lunbei Lineage had dreamed of: a chance to bite a chunk of flesh from the Tusi Lineage.

All because, in this matter,

an "Outer Dao" practitioner had appeared!

By rights,

a chieftain whose domain harbored an "Outer Dao" practitioner had to face adjudication by a temple.

Likewise, when disputes arose between chieftains and Dzongben Nobles,

Lamas from a temple mediated them.

And the largest temple nearby was the Endless White Pagoda Temple.

Apart from the Endless White Pagoda Temple, the only alternative was for the nobles here to take their lawsuit farther afield, to the greatest northern temple among those of the "east, west, south, north, and center," and ask the "Khutuktu" bearing the title of Venerated Great Wisdom at Zajuben Temple, First in the North, to adjudicate.

Otherwise, the other chieftains coveting Gaqila Tusi's lands, pastures, estates, and slaves

could only swallow their anger,

and suffer this loss!

At this thought, Master Zhiyun immediately understood the intricacies involved. He glanced at the attendant monk beside him, who instantly panicked, knowing he had heard something he should not have.

Before he could kneel, speak, or beg for mercy, Master Zhiyun acted!

He looked at the trembling attendant monk beside him and demanded sternly, "What did you hear just now?"

The attendant monk answered, trembling, "This disciple heard nothing at all."

Master Zhiyun immediately recited a Secret Mantra. The attendant monk curled up on the floor in agony, begging loudly for mercy.

The Lama ignored him.

As the Secret Mantra manifested,

the darkness beneath Master Zhiyun's feet swallowed the attendant monk outright.

When it spat him back out,

the attendant monk had suddenly become dazed and muddled, like a walking corpse, an imbecile whose memories had been washed clean.

Master Zhiyun said flatly, "Go to the Granary Courtyard and tend my fine horses.

"If the slightest harm comes to my horses, I'll flay you."

Just like that,

a perfectly sound attendant monk

had suddenly fallen from the heavens to the earth.

Watching this, Lu Feng

felt no pleasure in his misfortune at all.

Instead, he felt only the sorrow of the fox mourning the rabbit's death.

This attendant monk had once barked orders at student monks like them.

He had seemed a mighty figure who held their lives and deaths in his hands.

But before a truly great monk,

he was no different from a pig or a dog.

At another's mercy.

Simply because he had heard a secret.

Yet such things were commonplace among attendant monks.

To become a great monk's attendant,

one had to be placed under a Secret Mantra, forbidden to speak the Lama's secrets.

Nothing the Lama saw or heard could be disclosed.

Even so, he had not escaped disaster.

To guard against any possibility,

the Lama had activated the Secret Mantra.

Then, because the Secret Mantra had ravaged him and rendered him useless, he had been sent straight to the stables to become a horse-tending monk.

His fate, life or death, remained unknown!