Chapter Twenty: The Enchanted Web of the Demon-Slaying Master

The first attempt to subdue the demon ended in a disastrous defeat. The witch's power was beyond imagination; every single one of the first wave of demon-quelling masters who charged in perished, consumed by the flames the witch spewed. The second group changed their ambush time and location, using the frigid, snowy night of the high plateau to extinguish the flames and finally trap her. In the struggle between good and evil, most of the demon-quelling masters exhausted their strength and became the puppets you see now. At that time, the two sides were evenly matched and locked in a long stalemate. It was a general surnamed Sun who, inspired by an eagle’s hunting, hid himself inside a sacrificial ox and allowed himself to be swallowed by the witch. Once inside her, he drew his blade and hacked away, forcing her to retreat into the earth's veins. General Sun did not escape unscathed; instead, he ignited explosives, plunging into the bottomless abyss in a blaze of fire. The remaining demon-quelling masters set up a soul barrier at this spot to guard against the witch’s return. Later, the next generation of demon-quelling masters added further protections: mandala seals, mani walls, mani piles, and watchmen along the plank roads, forming a demon-quelling circle. Yet, aside from that world-shaking battle, no one has ever seen the witch again...

Having recounted all this in one breath, Master Cheng coughed violently.

“What a harrowing story!” Guan Wen exclaimed, clapping his hands in awe.

From Master Cheng’s account, he could imagine the ferocity of that battle. The idiom ‘man can triumph over nature’ may sound simple in the dictionary, but in reality, to achieve it would force humanity to pay a tremendous price.

Master Cheng shone his light up at the puppets suspended above, sighing deeply. “Have you noticed that all their eyes are green?”

Guan Wen looked closely and saw it was true. According to medical theory, only those who have mistakenly ingested the deadly peacock gall will manifest such a total green transformation of the eyes.

After their defeat, the demon-quelling masters realized the witch could grow stronger by absorbing human essence—the more people died, the more powerful she became. So, each of them took the lethal peacock gall in advance. If the witch absorbed their essence, she would be poisoned instantly. Their calculation was correct—the witch fell into their trap and was poisoned while absorbing their energy. But the demon-quelling masters were left in their current state...

Guan Wen bowed three times respectfully to the puppets hanging overhead, fully aware that without the sacrifice of these selfless demon-quelling masters, the world might have become a very different place.

Since it was impossible to pass through the net of the soul barrier, Guan Wen and Master Cheng prepared to withdraw and return to their superior.

“As long as the witch remains trapped within the earth’s veins and cannot escape the soul barrier of three thousand demon-quelling masters, I am at ease,” Master Cheng said, a faint smile appearing on his gaunt face.

Suddenly, a tremor shook the depths of the earth. On the far side of the net, thick gray mist surged violently, flooding the narrow passage and pressing against the great net, blocking every opening but unable to break through.

The strange shrieks from before now sounded much closer. The gray mist began to churn and writhe with greater force, causing the net to shudder and all the puppets to sway together.

“Don’t be afraid.” Master Cheng flipped his wrist and drew a golden axe from his right side.

Guan Wen stared tensely at the spreading mist, unable to imagine what might happen next. He was familiar with the two demon-quelling Thangka paintings discovered among the relics of the Norbulingka; he remembered the image of the witch, lying on her back with claws bared. If that very witch were to suddenly emerge from the mist, he would no longer be surprised.

At that moment, the World-Honored One, from the crown of his head, emitted a dazzling light filled with treasures. From the light appeared a thousand-petaled jeweled bell. A transformation of the Tathagata sat within a lotus, radiating ten beams of light, each with countless treasures. Each light manifested ten rivers of vajra guardians, holding mountains and scepters, filling all of space. The assembly gazed up in awe and reverence, praying for the Buddha’s mercy, listening with undivided attention. The Buddha of Immeasurable Light began to recite a sacred mantra—

Master Cheng held the axe before his chest with his right hand, his left hand formed like a blade, thumb pressed to his brow, other fingers upright, palm edge forward, and began chanting the Surangama Sutra in a loud, resonant voice.

The mist thickened, probing the net again and again, seeming as if it might break through and rush at Guan Wen and Master Cheng.

“Close your eyes. If your sight is undisturbed, your mind will not be shaken!” Master Cheng called out, then raised his voice and chanted the Surangama Mantra, “Namo satatatha sukhagata arhat, samyak-sambuddha...”

Guan Wen closed his eyes. In his right ear, Master Cheng’s solemn and impassioned chanting of the Surangama Mantra rang out; in his left, the strange shrieks from the mist. The two sounds clashed in his mind like the forces of good and evil in fierce combat, rising and falling without end.

The origin of the Surangama Sutra lies in when Venerable Ananda was bewitched by Matangi’s daughter with an evil spell, and when Ananda’s precepts were about to be broken, the Buddha sent Manjushri Bodhisattva to rescue him with the Surangama Mantra. Saved, Ananda returned to the right path. Thus, the Surangama Mantra forms the core of the Surangama Sutra, and without it, the Sutra would not exist. The Surangama Mantra is the king of all mantras and the longest; its fate is tied to the rise and fall of the entire Buddhist tradition. Every Buddhist believes that as long as someone in the world recites the Surangama Mantra, the true Dharma will endure.

Guan Wen knew he had to join the battle, chanting the Surangama Mantra with Master Cheng to repel the encroaching mist and eerie cries. However, after uttering just a dozen lines, the image of Bao Ling’s face suddenly surfaced in his mind—her tearful eyes gazing at him.

In that instant, his heart trembled; he wished he could stretch his hands into his mind, cradle Bao Ling’s face, and wipe away her tears.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her in his heart, full of tender pity.

Bao Ling remained silent, only shedding tears quietly. Two crystalline streams rolled down the sides of her nose, and a few more tears hung delicately from her lashes, like raindrops clinging to the eaves after a summer storm. Even in silence, her fragile beauty—softer than fallen petals, more tender than the first lotus—captivated Guan Wen’s heart. In that moment, whatever she asked of him, he would do, even at the cost of his life.

“What are you trying to tell me?” he asked again.

Master Cheng’s chanting and the ghostly wails in the mist faded away. In Guan Wen’s heart and mind, only Bao Ling remained.

“What do you want me to do?” he pressed.

Suddenly, Bao Ling turned and began to walk away, about to vanish from his mind.

“Don’t go, don’t go—” Guan Wen called out involuntarily, opening his eyes.

Ten paces before him, the net trembled like a sail in a storm, bulging forward, then backward, the mesh stretching to its limit then shrinking tight. All the puppets swayed wildly with the net, like lead weights faithfully guarding their posts.

As soon as he opened his eyes, Bao Ling vanished from his mind. Yet out of the corner of his eye, he clearly glimpsed a shadow identical to Bao Ling standing on the far side of the net, back to him, slender and delicate.

He was caught in a waking dream, unable to tell reality from illusion, and cried out, “Bao Ling, come back! It’s dangerous over there—”

He sounded like a person talking in his sleep, half-conscious and mumbling.

But Bao Ling did not return; without looking back, she stepped deeper into the mist.

Overwhelmed by fear, Guan Wen lunged forward, grasping the net and shouting, “Bao Ling, come back! Don’t go, it’s dangerous—”

Before he could finish, he felt an immense force from the mist envelop him, dragging him toward the other side. In desperation, he gripped two puppets tightly, bracing himself to resist the pull.

Master Cheng’s chanting rose in pitch as he rushed to Guan Wen’s side, hacking into the mist with his axe. With each strike, the mist split open, as if it were a tangible creature rather than mere vapor.

The forceful suction, repelled by the axe, abruptly released Guan Wen and withdrew.

Guan Wen, who had been straining backward, lost his balance and stumbled. To his horror, his right hand, clenched too tightly, accidentally snapped one of the puppets.

Master Cheng cried out in alarm, “It’s over!”

Guan Wen’s heart sank—he knew he had made a grave mistake. From the net’s structure, it was clear that each puppet at the mesh intersections acted as a rivet, evenly bearing the impact of the gray mist. With one rivet broken, the mist had found a breach through which it could escape.

“Master, I’m sorry, I was too careless,” Guan Wen stammered. But at this point, any apology was meaningless.

“This is the moment Heaven has chosen for me to decide,” Master Cheng said softly, gazing down at his half-foot-long axe.

“What should we do?” Guan Wen asked anxiously.

“Don’t ask what to do. The hand of fate will push you forward to the crossroads of life, and then you must choose for yourself. Heaven gives you the right to choose, but will not choose for you. To become a demon, a god, or remain human—it all depends on your heart. If it were you, what would you choose?” Master Cheng raised his axe, resting the blade lightly on his left shoulder. The brilliant golden light from the axe bathed his hair and brows in a pale glow, making him resemble a golden Buddha on an altar.

“I don’t know,” Guan Wen replied through clenched teeth, regretting that his thoughts had wandered to Bao Ling.

“Many people don’t understand: at the dawn of creation, in the realms of humans, gods, and demons, the power of demons was the weakest. As long as humans kept their humanity, and Buddhas their Buddha-nature, demons would never have a chance, confined forever to the bitter cold depths beneath the eighteenth hell. Demons grew strong only by exploiting humanity’s weaknesses, awakening the ugliness within the human heart. Thus, when a person’s demonic nature prevails, he ceases to be human and becomes a demon. ‘Demons are born of the heart’—that is the truth. You are still young, easily swayed by temptations, unable to find calm. Without inner calm, you cannot subdue or suppress demons. Remember, if you dedicate yourself entirely to the cause of subduing demons, you must abandon all else and become part of the demon-quelling circle. If you try to suppress demons while remaining attached elsewhere, in the end, not only will you fail, but you yourself will become part of the demon—just as happened now. I could have resisted the mist alone, but at the critical moment, it invaded your mind, borrowed your strength, and reversed the situation, trapping us…”

After retreating, the gray mist continued to churn at the entrance of the narrow path beyond the net.