Chapter Summaries

Zhou Yang and Gonpo were forced by Deqin to take Zhuoma’s body to the sky burial platform, where Gonpo taught Zhou Yang the offerings and explained the mani pile’s role as a sky burial master’s altar. As Zhou Yang sat beside it, he saw the vow power within and took an important step toward becoming a sky burial master.

• Naren and Quzeng tied the sheepskin bag shut while Gonpo warned that Zhuoma was becoming a zanmo.
• Deqin threatened Gonpo and Zhou Yang into taking Zhuoma to the platform, and Zhou Yang secretly took the Songha Dharma Protector’s Mantra Point from Deqin’s seal.
• Gonpo had Zhou Yang light sang at the platform and taught him about the earth, sky, and five-senses offerings.
• Gonpo placed the offerings beside a mani pile and explained that it served as sky burial masters’ altar and held the dead’s vow power.
• Zhou Yang saw warm white lights within the mani pile and sat beside it as Aji recognized his progress as a sky burial master.

Gonpo summoned the Dakinis with a shinbone flute as Zhou Yang opened the sheepskin bag containing Zhuoma. After protecting her from Naren and Quzeng and resisting Deqin’s attack, Zhou Yang urged Zhuoma to avenge the wrongs done to her.

• Gonpo explained the shinbone flute’s history, then played it to summon a vast flock of vultures, which he identified as manifestations of the Dakinis.
• Gonpo and Zhou Yang began untying the sheepskin bag as Zhuoma cried out from inside, and Deqin ordered Naren and Quzeng to stop her from coming back to life.
• Naren raised his club over the bag, but Zhou Yang made him freeze with a warning, then seized Quzeng’s wrist and beat both brothers until they fled.
• Deqin cast an invisible poison arrow at Zhou Yang, but the nine strands of Mindfulness between Zhou Yang’s brows caused it to disintegrate.
• Zhou Yang opened the sheepskin bag and told Zhuoma to avenge every grudge and repay every wrong with the blood of those who had wronged her.

Zhuoma emerged from the sheepskin bag as a Tsen Demon and attacked Deqin, while Zhou Yang studied the distinction between Mindfulness and Esoteric Nature. After Deqin used a mantra to drive Zhuoma off, Zhou Yang collected the Mantra Points from Deqin’s ritual implements and told Zhuoma to kill.

• Zhuoma emerged from the sheepskin bag, thanked Zhou Yang, and sent her skin-like arms toward Deqin.
• Zhou Yang refused Gonpo’s plea to flee and used the Knife Credit Ledger to examine Aji’s Esoteric Nature and Luodu Terma Mind Consciousness.
• Deqin’s Songha Dharma Protector Seal Prophecy failed to stop Zhuoma, who wrapped her arms around his neck.
• Deqin chanted the Ghost Lion Evil Fire Mantra, burning Zhuoma’s arm and forcing her to release him.
• Deqin displayed his ritual implements and advanced on Zhuoma, while Zhou Yang collected their Mantra Points.
• Zhou Yang calmly told Zhuoma to kill.

Zhuoma killed Deqin, Naren, and Quzeng before Zhou Yang called her back to her corpse with Gonpo’s prayers. As Gonpo prepared to perform the sky burial, he began teaching Zhou Yang to treat the work as visualization, and Zhou Yang asked whether a dakini could send the violently dead, skinless Zhuoma to heaven.

• Zhuoma strangled Deqin after his ritual implements failed, killing him when he fell onto the rocks.
• Zhuoma caught Naren and Quzeng as they fled, then killed them by reaching into Naren’s chest and destroying his heart.
• Gonpo chanted over and over at Zhou Yang’s request, and Zhuoma returned to her original form as a corpse on the sky-burial platform.
• Gonpo told Zhou Yang to watch him dismember Zhuoma’s corpse and explained that he could treat the work as cultivation through visualization.
• Zhou Yang asked Gonpo whether a dakini could send a person who died violently without skin intact up to heaven.

Zhou Yang gave Zhuoma a temporary covering of sheepskin, then used the Fat Mirror Lamp to restore her appearance before Gonpo performed the sky burial. As Zhou Yang endured the dismemberment through contemplation, a vulture perched on his shoulder and left him with a mysterious connection, while the Knife Credit Ledger showed a new change.

• Zhou Yang decided to sew sheepskin from Zhuoma's bag onto her body so the Dakini might carry her soul to heaven, and Gonpo gave him thread and a knife.
• Zhou Yang communicated with Zhuoma and stitched pieces of sheepskin over her body, with Zhuoma cutting and placing the skin for her face herself.
• Zhou Yang used the Fat Mirror Lamp to make Zhuoma's body look as it had in life, and she thanked him before Gonpo began the dismemberment.
• Zhou Yang fought his fear by contemplating the dismemberment and imagined Zhuoma whole as her flesh was given to the vultures.
• A vulture broke away from the flock, circled Zhou Yang, perched on his shoulder, and left him with a lingering connection before flying away.
• Zhou Yang opened the Knife Credit Ledger and noticed a change in his personal abilities.

After Zhuoma became a dakini incarnation, Zhou Yang received her bone and learned from Aji how to summon ghosts with a Binding Offering. As Zhou Yang and Gonpo left the mountain, Zhou Yang deduced that the temple had intended the sky burial to transform Zhuoma into something far more dangerous, and Gonpo feared the temple would question them for surviving.

• Zhou Yang sensed a connection with Zhuoma in the sky and accepted the vow-power-filled bone Gonpo gave him to place in his mani pile.
• Aji explained how to make a Binding Offering to summon a particular ghost, and Zhou Yang wondered whether a Guan Village product could replace human blood.
• Zhou Yang and Gonpo found Naren, Quzeng, and Deqin dead as they descended Narong Mountain, and Gonpo worried that Zongcha Gompa Dharma Temple would come after them.
• Zhou Yang reasoned that the temple had expected Zhuoma to become a zan demon and had sent Deqin to kill her at the sky burial platform to trigger a further transformation.
• Gonpo accepted Zhou Yang's theory that the temple expected Zhuoma to kill everyone after transforming again, then worried that their survival would draw the temple's scrutiny.

After Deqin’s death, Zhou Yang planned how to survive the temple’s investigation and learned that the lama had been trying to create a Secret Mandala from six Lung Demons. He decided to pose as a patient with Lung Madness Disease and make the temple believe he knew the secret of Zhuoma’s Lung Demon, leaving him and Gonpo with a possible way to avoid punishment.

• Zhou Yang told Gonpo they should stay put and wait for the temple to discover Deqin’s death rather than report it or flee.
• Aji explained that the lama had killed six people to turn their Tsen Demons into Lung Demons and use them to form a Secret Mandala.
• Zhou Yang connected the lama’s ritual to the ghost-making method he had heard about and realized his own unusual knowledge could be explained as an illness.
• Gonpo identified Zhou Yang’s condition as Lung Madness Disease, which could make a person mad while giving them new knowledge and greater cleverness.
• Zhou Yang told Gonpo to claim that Zhuoma’s Tsen Demon had caused his illness and to rehearse answers for the temple’s questioning.
• Zhou Yang planned to convince the monks that he alone knew the secret of Zhuoma’s Lung Demon, while preparing for both escape and the possibility of staying.

After returning from the mountain, Zhou Yang learned that black bones had no way to escape their status, so he resolved to rely on his own abilities. He built a mani pile and used Zhuoma’s remains to make a clay figure, forming a stronger connection with Little Zhuoma and changing the Knife Credit Ledger’s entry for her consciousness.

• Zhou Yang asked Gonpo how black bones could escape their status, and Gonpo said that even powerful tantric practitioners remained subject to the lords and lamas.
• Zhou Yang returned home with Gonpo and Big Zhuoma, then heard Gonpo explain that the dead woman Zhuoma had become a Tsen Demon and that Aji had dragon madness.
• At Gonpo’s instruction, Zhou Yang carved mantras into stones and built a mani pile outside the courtyard.
• Zhou Yang shaped Zhuoma’s remains into a clay figure, fired it, and placed it in the mani pile, sensing an invisible connection to Little Zhuoma.
• Zhou Yang told Little Zhuoma a fairy tale instead of reciting a rebirth mantra, and the connection between them grew stronger.
• Zhou Yang opened the Knife Credit Ledger and saw the entry for the Dakini incarnation’s original true consciousness (Zhuoma) change.

Zhou Yang learned that Zhuoma’s Primordial Right Consciousness could give her the potential to cultivate Mindfulness, while Aji taught him how to refine the Ghost Ruler into a vajra. After hammering his five collected Mantra Points into it, Zhou Yang left the weapon partway formed and needing more Mantra Points to continue.

• Zhou Yang realized that Zhuoma’s Primordial Right Consciousness had established a foundation for Mindfulness, though her Mindfulness remained at zero.
• Zhuoma worried that she and Zhou Yang had little food and no reliable work, while Zhou Yang reassured her that more demon-driving jobs might bring income.
• Zhou Yang summoned the Ghost Ruler and learned from Aji that refining it as a vajra required visualizing its form and hammering Mantra Points into it with their corresponding mantras.
• Aji projected a detailed image of a five-pronged vajra and taught Zhou Yang the order for visualizing its features.
• Zhou Yang visualized the vajra as Aji recited the five corresponding mantras, and the Mantra Points reshaped the Ghost Ruler into an antique-bronze form with separated arms resembling a vajra.
• Zhou Yang stopped refining the vajra after using all five Mantra Points and would need to obtain more before continuing.

Zhou Yang practiced visualizing Zhuoma’s dissection and discovered Jiawang Riba was using a secret mantra to offer the impurities of his six sense faculties to their corresponding demons. With Aji’s help, Zhou Yang redirected Jiawang Riba’s offerings to a ghost, then slept and woke to someone shouting that Zeweng had gone crazy.

• Zhou Yang resolved to train his mind by visualizing Zhuoma’s dissection before visiting the charnel ground, but Zhuoma sat up in his vision and chanted a secret mantra.
• Aji explained that Jiawang Riba was cultivating the Secret Yidam and would notice that Zhuoma, his Body Demon, was missing unless Zhou Yang concealed it.
• Zhou Yang followed Aji’s instructions and recited a mantra that redirected Jiawang Riba’s offerings to a ghost or spirit.
• Zhou Yang saw Jiawang Riba reciting the mantra in a cave and watched the ghost consume the turbid aura offered from his body faculty.
• Zhou Yang fell asleep, dreamed of playing with Zhuoma, and woke when a stranger shouted that Zeweng had gone crazy.

Zhou Yang accompanied Gonpo to examine Zeweng, a sky burial master who had suddenly gone mad. After questioning Zeweng’s wife and finding no sign of a ghost or Tsen Demon, Zhou Yang suspected that years of dismembering corpses had overwhelmed him.

• A visitor told Gonpo that Zeweng had gone mad, and Gonpo brought Zhou Yang to examine him.
• Gonpo introduced Zhou Yang to Jiekan, who carried corpses, and warned him that Jiekan was a fool.
• Gonpo introduced Zhou Yang to the locals as his apprentice, who could see and hear things others could not.
• Inside Zeweng’s house, Zhou Yang saw the bound man shout for someone before falling asleep upright.
• Zhima told Gonpo and Zhou Yang that Zeweng had shown no improvement after a mantra master’s visit and had recently dismembered many violent-death victims.
• After questioning Zhima and finding no sign of a particularly strange corpse or ghostly presence, Zhou Yang suspected that prolonged exposure to corpses had caused Zeweng’s breakdown.

Zeweng broke free of his bonds and tried to strangle himself, prompting Zhou Yang to suspect that a Tsen Demon had possessed him. After the demon temporarily vanished and Zeweng returned to himself, Zhou Yang warned that it could come back and asked whether the couple had encountered anything unusual; Zhima wondered if a strange living person might count.

• Zeweng tore through his ropes and clamped his hands around his own throat, while the others struggled to pull him free.
• Zhou Yang took hold of Zeweng's wrists and used his strength to separate his hands from his neck.
• Zhou Yang sensed that Zeweng was possessed by a Tsen Demon and used the Fat Mirror Lamp's ripples to search him, but found nothing.
• Zeweng regained himself and asked why everyone was in his house, and Zhima realized that he was no longer acting mad.
• Zhou Yang told Zeweng and Zhima that the Tsen Demon had only left temporarily and asked them to recall any strange encounters.
• Zeweng and Zhima denied encountering anything unusual, but Zhima asked whether a strange living person might count.

Zhou Yang investigated the Tsen Demon that had possessed Zeweng and learned it was connected to Quzha, a man who blamed the corpse dismemberer for separating him from his dead wife. The chapter ended with Jiekan comparing Quzha’s possessive treatment of his wife to the Master of Zhandui’s treatment of slaves.

• Zhima told Zhou Yang that Quzha brought his drowned wife Naqu to be dismembered, then tried to push Zeweng off the mountain and accused him of keeping Naqu away.
• Zhou Yang concluded that Quzha’s grief and belief that Zeweng had hidden Naqu’s soul were likely connected to the Tsen Demon’s cry of “Where is she?”
• Zeweng identified Quzha as a black bone from Manitang, and Zhou Yang questioned whether Quzha had caused his wife’s death or used a curse.
• Zhou Yang explained that Quzha’s refusal to let his wife go reflected possession rather than genuine care, while Zhima said she would let Zeweng depart peacefully after death.
• Jiekan compared Quzha’s possessiveness to the Master of Zhandui’s control over slaves, and Gonpo called it the relationship between a master and a slave.

Zhou Yang suspected Quzha’s dead wife was connected to the Tsen Demon possessing Zeweng, but he could not be certain because Quzha was still alive. As the group prepared to lure and track the demon, Gonpo began teaching Zhou Yang the Fire Ash Offering and proposed that Gemei become his second master.

• Zhou Yang proposed that Quzha’s wife’s soul might be the person the Tsen Demon sought, though Gonpo pointed out that Quzha was alive and the theory remained uncertain.
• Zhou Yang sent Gama and Pingcuo to discreetly check whether Quzha was still in Manitang, while Jiekan stayed to watch over Zeweng.
• Zhou Yang arranged to stay with Zeweng and had him tied up again in case the Tsen Demon returned; the others departed, leaving Zhou Yang, Gonpo, Jiekan, Gemei, Zeweng, and Zhima in the stone house.
• Gonpo explained that the Fire Ash Offering could draw in the hidden Tsen Demon and make its footprints visible in wood ash, allowing them to track it.
• Gonpo caught Gemei listening and suggested that Gemei become Zhou Yang’s second master and teach him one of his own offerings.

Gonpo accepted Gemei as Zhou Yang’s second master, and Gemei taught Zhou Yang the Square Offering while Gonpo taught him the Fire Ash Offering to help track and contain the Tsen Demon afflicting Zeweng. After the offerings were prepared and the group waited in Zeweng’s house, a gust of wind swept in through the doorway.

• Gonpo named Gemei Zhou Yang’s second master, and Zhou Yang accepted the cymbals Gemei gave him as a formal gift.
• Gemei taught Zhou Yang about the Square Offering, while Gonpo argued that Zhou Yang should learn his Fire Ash Offering first.
• Zhou Yang persuaded Gonpo and Gemei to teach him both offerings so they could track the Tsen Demon and trap it.
• Zhou Yang performed the Fire Ash Offering on Zeweng, and Gemei went home to fetch the unusual materials needed for the Square Offering.
• After lunch, Gonpo recited scriptures while Jiekan watched the drowsy, bound Zeweng and Zhou Yang waited in the darkness holding the warm Gangba Aga tsa-tsa.
• A sudden gust of wind swept through the doorway covered by a black felt curtain.

Zhou Yang pulled the Tsen Demon out of Zeweng just before it could bite Zhima, but the demon escaped after its corpse-like form broke apart in his ripple. Zhou Yang and Jiekan pursued its ash footprints, while Gama and Pingcuo returned with news that Quzha lived alone and had no wife.

• Zeweng's possessed body lunged at Zhima, but Zhou Yang's Ghost Ruler seized the Tsen Demon and pulled it out of him.
• Zhou Yang's ripple revealed the Tsen Demon's bloated corpse, covered in faces that wailed the name Sangsang, before the demon broke apart and escaped through the window.
• Jiekan raced after the Tsen Demon, and Zhou Yang followed its wood-ash footprints while telling Gonpo to watch over Zeweng.
• Gama and Pingcuo returned from Manitang village and told Zhou Yang that Quzha had no woman and lived alone.

Zhou Yang investigated the contradiction between Quzha’s denial and Zeweng and Zhima’s account of a drowned woman, using Zhuoma to follow the fleeing Tsen Demon to a river. He realized the events had happened in Quzha’s dream, and Quzha began recounting the dream that connected the woman, the river, and the sky burial.

• Zhou Yang sent Pingcuo to fetch Quzha and Gama to bring Zeweng’s household, then asked Zhuoma to track the fleeing Tsen Demon from the sky.
• Zhuoma’s vision showed the Tsen Demon’s footprints ending at a river, and Zhou Yang hurried there with Jiekan.
• Pingcuo brought Quzha to the river, where Zeweng and Zhima identified him as the man who had brought them a drowned woman, though Quzha insisted he had never met them.
• Zhou Yang determined that Quzha, Zeweng, and Zhima were all telling the truth, while Jiekan suggested the events had taken place in a dream.
• Quzha confirmed that he had dreamed of saving a woman near the Sangsang River, finding her drowned, and deciding to take her to a sky burial master.

Zhou Yang discovered that the Tsen Demon haunting Zeweng was connected to the Sangsang River and proposed performing a sky burial for it inside a dream. Using the Hallucination Offering, Zhou Yang, Jiekan, Zeweng, and Zhima entered a shared dream by the river, where the storm intensified.

• Quli's vivid dream matched details of Zeweng and Zhima's supposed sky burial, while locals recalled seeing no evidence that it had taken place.
• Zhou Yang concluded that the real Tsen Demon had used Quzha's voice and dream to accuse Zeweng of hiding its wife, and proposed another sky burial for Sangsang in a dream.
• Aji revealed the Hallucination Offering, and Zhou Yang gathered its ingredients while telling Gonpo, Gemei, and the others to remain outside and be ready to break the offering if needed.
• Quzha could not visualize the doors and enter the dream, so Jiekan volunteered to take his place; Zhou Yang prepared himself, Zeweng, and Zhima as well.
• Zhou Yang entered the dream and found the Sangsang River beneath a darkening sky, where Jiekan, Zeweng, and Zhima soon appeared beside him.

Zhou Yang entered the Sangsang River’s dream and used his Mindfulness to pull the Tsen Demon’s corpse from the water, briefly restoring her beautiful appearance. He sought to learn why Sangsang had died so he could resolve her obsession before giving her a sky burial, and Zeweng began recounting her past.

• Zhou Yang and the others confirmed each other’s identities with passwords and waited by the river for Sangsang to appear.
• A bloated female corpse seized Zeweng and dragged him toward the riverbed, but Zhou Yang, Zhima, and Jiekan pulled him to shore.
• Zhou Yang entered the river, where his Mindfulness dissolved the grasping arms, and embraced the corpse, which briefly returned to its beautiful form.
• Zhou Yang wrapped the corpse in his robe and said they needed to learn why Sangsang had died before giving her a sky burial.
• Zeweng said Sangsang had been dead for more than a hundred years and began describing how she had been betrothed before following a monk from Zongcha Gompa.

Zhou Yang uncovered the truth about Sangsang and the women whose heads were inside her body, then used the Fat Mirror Lamp to restore her and perform her sky burial. As the vultures departed, a Lion-Faced Dakini’s mantra reached him, and Aji cried out for help.

• Zhou Yang carried the suspected Sangsang toward Narong Mountain and learned that lamas had subjected her to esoteric practices at Zongcha Gompa.
• At the sky burial platform, rain revealed scriptures, a thangka, and the heads of women inside Sangsang, including Yangla and Dawa, whom Zhou Yang identified as victims connected to Zongcha Gompa.
• Zhou Yang used the Fat Mirror Lamp to remove Sangsang’s scriptures and thangka, then opened her body and restored the organs and flesh each trapped woman requested.
• Zeweng summoned the Dakinis, and Zhou Yang offered Sangsang’s body to the vultures, among whom he recognized Zhuoma.
• As a distant song attached something to Zhou Yang’s nature-soul, a voice chanted the Lion-Faced Dakini’s mantra and Aji suddenly begged to be saved.