Chapter 81: The Crimson Flame Sovereign and the Illuminating Buddha

They entered this place around one in the afternoon, just past noon. Through a small window set in the southern wall of the quiet chamber, a rectangular patch of white light fell precisely before the bed of the Venerable Red Flame. The floor was laid with natural pine planks, untreated and unvarnished, their simple grain revealing the rawness of the wood. The beam of light covered a single plank, roughly two feet long and one foot wide.

Guan Wen paid special attention to this plank because, since their arrival more than an hour ago, the light had not shifted an inch, steadfastly illuminating the same spot.

“Do not fear losing the most precious things in life,” the Venerable Red Flame spoke slowly. “Consider the rivers that flow from the snowy mountains. Along their journey, they gain and lose countless ice shards, pebbles, roots, and fish—rising and falling, floating and sinking—until finally, only a handful of clear water remains. Their life endures through movement, extending into every corner of nature. If life can be eternal, why cling to fleeting gains and losses? Do not fear; what is destined to come will come, unthwarted by human dread. Only by breaking through the barriers of darkness and releasing attachments can one reach the realm of eternal life, free of regret.”

“This is the only time in my life I have been unable to let go, the only time my heart clings to obsession. How cruel fate is to me, denying me even a single chance,” Gu Qingcheng’s tears fell, dropping onto the tips of her boots.

In love, men and women often fail to comprehend or see through their emotions. Even brief separations feel like small deaths to them. Moreover, if she were to open that box, Gu Qingcheng would confront an unknown destiny.

The Venerable Red Flame nodded with a faint smile. “Beauty fades, youth is fleeting. What if you were given another chance? What if you could love for another hundred years? In the endless river of time, loving for ten years or a hundred is but a fleeting glance. Child of folly, child of folly, if you do not return to the truest time, to correct the mistakes made, how can you restore order to the chaos of that era and reclaim peace and happiness today?”

His hand brushed through Gu Qingcheng’s long hair. His fingers, worn and cracked with age, bore the silent marks of time. Among the great monks of Tibet, few possess the wisdom, authority, and charisma he does—save for the high-ranking figure who previously brought Guan Wen here, none compare.

“Do you understand what I say?” he asked.

Gu Qingcheng shook her head in confusion. “I still don’t understand, but I hear strange noises, as if I am inside a vast tunnel, with clamorous sounds coming from the other end. Venerable one, how can this be?”

“If there is a passage, then walk through it. Face your confusion without fear,” the Venerable Red Flame encouraged with a smile.

“But I cannot see the path. How can I walk?” Gu Qingcheng’s bewilderment deepened.

From beneath his pillow, the Venerable Red Flame produced an old-fashioned pair of scissors wrapped in multicolored threads. He gestured for Gu Qingcheng to turn around. With a swift cut, her long hair was severed.

“Cut away the root of your troubles; what is left to trouble you? Child of folly, go forth,” the Venerable Red Flame laughed heartily.

Gu Qingcheng’s expression froze as if caught mid-blink, her eyes half-open, her body utterly still.

Guan Wen could only see her outward form, unable to penetrate her thoughts. Noticing her abnormal state, he worriedly asked, “Venerable one, how is she?”

“She has entered a current of history flowing backward, and within that history, you too exist. My wisdom alone can only fathom so much, only glimpse so many heavenly secrets. Now, we wait—for her awakening, and for the wheel of misfortune to brush past us,” the Venerable Red Flame said, staring at the scissors. The blade, a dull gray, bore rust, its handcrafted, ancient style marking it as over a century old.

Guan Wen stepped forward and picked up the strand of Gu Qingcheng’s cut hair.

In Buddhism, shaving one’s hair symbolizes renunciation and the attainment of purity, a mark of becoming a monk or nun. Hair is called the “filaments of vexation.” Once severed, the root of vexation is uprooted, freeing the mind from entanglements, allowing one to focus on cultivation and reach the realm where all worldly elements vanish.

“Is this right… or wrong?” Guan Wen held the glossy black strand, a sudden melancholy stirring within him.

Life is such that lingering thoughts bring sorrow, and forgetting one another brings another kind of sorrow. Thus, Li Yu, the last ruler of the Southern Tang, penned those aching words: “Snipping cannot sever, untangling only breeds confusion; this parting sorrow is a unique flavor upon the heart.”

“Right is wrong, and wrong is right,” the Venerable Red Flame answered slowly.

“What?” Guan Wen had clearly heard, yet sensing inexhaustible depth within those words, he looked up, meeting the Venerable Red Flame’s dim, unfathomable eyes and instinctively asked again.

“What?” the Venerable Red Flame echoed.

Guan Wen pressed on, “Venerable one, why does that patch of light remain unmoving? If the light does not move, does that mean the world outside is also motionless?”

The Venerable Red Flame shook his head. “I do not know. You ask, I am but a clear mirror; what is asked is what is seen, what is seen is what is obtained. The answer lies within your own heart.”

Guan Wen glanced back at the old wooden door, mottled and worm-eaten, yet lacked the courage to open it and see what was beyond.

The reason the world remains still can only be because time itself has frozen.

The highest Tibetan Buddhist practitioners achieve extraordinary “supernatural” states—clairvoyance of the mind, the eye, the ear. Beyond these lies the unknowable realm: mastery over breath, diet, life and death, and even time itself. While yogis in India can endure days buried underground without sustenance, emerging vibrant and undiminished, mastery over time remains legendary, never witnessed by mortal eyes.

Guan Wen smiled wryly. “So you are truly the wisest sage of the snowland plateau.”

He could say no more. To one who has attained the unknowable, praise and criticism alike lose all meaning.

“I am not,” the Venerable Red Flame shook his head. “I am but a lamp, lighting myself to illuminate others.”

Lowering his collar, he revealed a palm-sized, crimson birthmark shaped like a flame on his left shoulder.

“Mastery over time is the highest attainment of cultivation, yet many know it only as a skill, unaware of why it should be practiced or where it should be applied,” he sighed deeply, adjusting his collar and gazing solemnly at Guan Wen. “Like ancient warriors who devote their lives to dragon-slaying techniques, only to find no place to wield such extraordinary skill. Guan Wen, without her appearance, the skill of ‘controlling time’ is useless. Another example: if there were no night, what purpose would a lamp serve?”

Guan Wen involuntarily took a step back, his heart suddenly illuminated.

The Venerable Red Flame’s words meant, simply put, to unite all related people, each fulfilling their role with dedication and harmony, like a perfectly functioning football team—goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders, forwards—all faithfully performing their duties without greed, without dispute, without overstepping, striving together to win the match.

“Venerable one, I understand,” Guan Wen clasped his hands together, then corrected himself, “I understand what I ought to understand. To labor without asking for reward—that is what we must do now.”

The Venerable Red Flame did not rejoice at Guan Wen’s realization but sank deeper into thought. “Guan Wen, those who forget the past have no guide for the future. Do you truly understand? Or does everyone see only what they think they understand, blind to what they do not?”

Guan Wen pressed on, “Venerable one means, how can anyone know what they truly understand and what they do not? How can one tell what they mistakenly believe they understand? And how can one make others comprehend their meaning?”

Philosophers have debated such questions for millennia, like a chain of shackles locking human thought. Hence Confucius’s profound teaching: “Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.” He urged breaking free from theoretical traps and seeking answers through practice.

The Venerable Red Flame smiled with a snap of his fingers. “I said, I am a lamp—I only know how to illuminate others.”

The patch of light remained fixed. Guan Wen checked his watch; the hands were frozen.

According to the theory of “controlling time,” those within such a state do not lose a single second of life but enter a “multidimensional” mode, experiencing moments that can stretch from a mere second to ten thousand years within a microsecond’s difference.

“How much longer must she maintain this state?” Guan Wen asked, then realized time held no meaning here. No matter how far or how long Gu Qingcheng journeys, she must eventually return to reality, without any loss of time.

“What matters is not the length of time, but whether she has had an awakening. Look, you have held those strands of hair all this time. Do they mean anything to you now? Once her filaments of vexation, they have become your burdens and attachments, have they not?”

The Venerable Red Flame blew lightly, and the hair in Guan Wen’s hand burst into vibrant flames, instantly turning to ash.

“But this was her... last keepsake...” Guan Wen’s heart sank as the ashes drifted down.

“The scissors are yours,” the Venerable Red Flame waved his hand, and the ancient scissors fell into Guan Wen’s palm.

“What use are these to me?” Guan Wen smiled bitterly. He had lost Gu Qingcheng’s hair and was tangled in how to explain when she recovered, his heart awash with conflicting emotions.

“Why ask me? That cut was made by you in the mundane world. Have you forgotten?” the Venerable Red Flame retorted.

“Me? It was me…”

In that instant, Guan Wen felt the Venerable Red Flame rapidly retreating, while the patch of light on the floor expanded limitlessly, like the sun piercing through thick clouds to illuminate earth and sky—a natural light flooding mountains and rivers.

From the distant horizon came a deep, resonant chant, timeless and profound: “I possess a bright pearl, long trapped by worldly dust. Today the dust clears and light is born, illuminating mountains and rivers in myriad blooms.”

This was the famous verse of the Song Dynasty Chan Master Chai Lingyu, perfectly echoing Guan Wen’s heart. He sensed the patch of light was a passage to unknown dimensions, and the flame-shaped birthmark on the Venerable Red Flame’s shoulder truly possessed the power to illuminate past and present, to perceive the minutest truths.

Thus, his spirit and vision expanded boundlessly, soaring over countless mountains and rivers, traversing the vast river of history.