Chapter 178 — An Ill-Fated Bond

"But Uncle-Master Pu Zhao would not hear of it. He said that to return to the Brahma Sound Temple and see us all once more, he had already taken the Three-Day-Death Pill; within a day and a night he would surely die. Before he died, he had matters of the utmost importance to tell Master and the uncles, and great trusts to lay upon them. If we would not hear him, he could not rest easy even in death."

"When we heard this we were both shocked and anxious, but before Uncle-Master Pu Zhao we had no way out; we could only let him speak. I had thought that, so grievously wounded, he must be wandering in his mind; yet when he spoke, what he told was a deed so contrary to the Buddha's heart and to all human decency, a sin so boundless, that—"

Master Pu Cheng sighed softly and, joining his palms, murmured, "Amitabha!"

Fa Cheng heard, and likewise joined his palms and chanted the Buddha's name; then he looked at Ming Li, watching his face turn slowly to iron-grey, and went on: "Uncle-Master Pu Zhao clung to Master's hand, and as he spoke the tears ran down his old face. We who stood by listened, and the more we heard the more we were appalled, until our hair stood on end. Uncle-Master Pu Zhao said: to fulfil his hope of joining Buddha and Dao in one understanding, some days before he had gone up Canglan Mountain once more to see the Canglan Sect's presiding master, the Perfected One Daoyan, and set out his view; but the Perfected One Daoyan refused him. In his disappointment he wandered down the mountain and came to a little village at its foot, a village by the name of Willow Temple Village..."

"Crack!" A dull sound, almost upon the words "Willow Temple Village," and it was Ming Li—his hand on the table, and in the turmoil of his heart he had wrung off a corner of it outright, crushing it to powder that sifted fine between his fingers.

Fa Cheng glanced at the table and sighed inwardly, but his mouth went on: "That day Uncle-Master Pu Zhao came into Willow Temple Village and rested awhile in a broken-down little shrine at the back of the village. There he chanced to see a group of boys at play; but two of them quarrelled, and boyish pride would not let it rest, until it nearly came to a tragedy of death. Uncle-Master Pu Zhao intervened in time, and so saved the life of one of them."

Ming Li's expression shifted again; his fists clenched tight, and in his eyes pain showed plain.

"Uncle-Master Pu Zhao thought nothing of so small a matter, only that the sky was grim and a storm seemed near, and so he meant to rest the night in that ruined shrine before going on. But that night, trouble came..."

Ming Li bowed his head deep, so that no one might see his face.

Memory is a knife, and it had cut deep into his heart; the blood welled up like a spring, and could not be stayed.

Fa Cheng's voice echoed slowly on. "That night Uncle-Master Pu Zhao woke suddenly from his meditation and found that a black-clad sorcerer had slipped into Willow Temple Village, meaning to carry off a boy of rare natural gifts. Uncle-Master Pu Zhao could not stand by and do nothing; he struck out and saved the boy. But the affair was strange: the black-clad sorcerer was vicious and cunning, and had used the boy only as a screen—his true aim was Uncle-Master Pu Zhao himself. He had hidden on the boy's person the deadliest venom under heaven, the Seven-Tailed Centipede, and with one stroke poisoned Uncle-Master Pu Zhao; then, while his mind was in confusion, he struck him down with the demon cult's sorcerous arts. Only then did Uncle-Master Pu Zhao understand: all the black-clad sorcerer's cruel devices had been for the sake of that creature of utmost ill omen sealed upon his person—the Blood-Devouring Bead."

Ming Li's shoulder moved, but he did not raise his head; from within his sleeve came faintly the familiar chill breath of the Blood-Devouring Bead...

When a thousand feelings and ten thousand loves and hates all rise at once in your heart—what then is it that you feel?

He was silent, wordless; only his whole body drew taut, and in spite of himself he trembled slightly...

"Cunning and cruel as the sorcerer's arts were, Uncle-Master Pu Zhao's cultivation was, after all, very deep. Grievously wounded as he was, the old master still brought the great powers of the Buddha's teaching to bear, and in the fierce struggle both were shattered; though he himself was hurt nigh to death, he yet succeeded in driving the sorcerer off for a time. But in the course of it Uncle-Master Pu Zhao discovered, to his amazement, that the man knew the Daoist true arts and strange powers of the Canglan Sect; plainly he had a thousand ties to Canglan Mountain."

"While Uncle-Master Pu Zhao fought the sorcerer, for some reason the boy whose life he had saved that day had crept quietly into the ruined shrine; in the clash he was caught up in it and fainted away. After the fight, Uncle-Master Pu Zhao had driven the black-clad sorcerer off, but he too was spent and deathly hurt, and had no choice but to swallow a Three-Day-Death Pill he had chanced upon years before, to prolong his life."

"For one thing, the old master knew he must die; his mind was in turmoil and he could no longer deal calmly with matters. For another, he feared the sorcerer would surely come back to silence all witnesses; he himself did not fear it, but the many villagers of Willow Temple Village—he dreaded lest they be slaughtered to the last by that savage villain, and then what monstrous sin would be his. He had it in mind to seek help from Canglan Mountain, but the sorcerer plainly had the deepest roots there; should things go amiss up on the mountain, he did not fear his own death, but would he not again be the death of many more?"

Fa Cheng's face was bleak, as though he too grieved for the hopeless pass Pu Zhao had come to. He sighed. "Years before, Uncle-Master Pu Zhao had wandered the world, and in the great marshes of the west he had chanced to subdue that creature of utmost ill omen, the Blood-Devouring Bead. In his heaven-given mercy, by the powers of the Buddha's teaching he **suppressed that evil thing, and carried it on his person day and night, lest it bring harm to the world. But the Blood-Devouring Bead's malevolent nature was inborn; though the Buddha's teaching shielded him, it had still crept quietly into Uncle-Master Pu Zhao's mind and will. Only, with the Buddha's power to uphold him, it did not show."

"That day, Uncle-Master Pu Zhao stood at the end of his road: he must die, and there were others entangled with him; and the great vow of his life—to join Buddha and Dao in one understanding—seemed about to come to nothing. His heart was shaken and he grieved bitterly. Then, in what seemed utter hopelessness, the old master—he actually... in a flight of wild fancy he thought of another road, another way to fulfil his vow."

Ming Li's breathing slowly quickened.

Fa Cheng paused, then said slowly, "Uncle-Master Pu Zhao conceived the thought of secretly teaching a boy the Brahma Sound Temple's supreme true Dharma, the Great Brahma Prajna, and then having that boy find a way to be taken into Qingyun—and so his lifelong vow might be fulfilled. At the time his mind was wholly possessed by the matter of joining Buddha and Dao; the thought came to him like a drowning man catching at a straw, and he would not let it go. Weighing all, he chose that boy whose life he had saved, taught him the true formulae of the Great Brahma Prajna, charged him to breathe no word of it to any other, and laid the whole hope of his life upon that boy."

"Heh, heh heh... heh heh heh heh..." Ming Li's laughter, crushed down to the utmost, trickled from his bowed face and lips, carrying a note of desolation, a note of bitterness, and more than a little of choking grief.

Who could say whether he mocked Pu Zhao, in wrath that would not be appeased, or railed at heaven, and grieved over his own fate?