Before them a colossal dragon coiled around the towering palace, ring after ring, its immense head raised high above the great hall, its gaze pinned upon them! Yet it was a dragon's skeleton, a vast framework of bone stripped of flesh; even its teeth stood taller than Qin Mu's head. It had been dead for who knows how long, yet its might was undeniable, and it must once have been a being of enormous power.
Qin Mu opened his Shenxiao Heavenly Eye, and the bones came alive, divine light shooting to the heavens as the dragon seemed to writhe and glide. It was plainly dead, yet an air of grandeur clung to it that made it seem alive still!
"Dragon King of the Yong River... a true dragon..."
Qin Mu stared at the skeleton, his heart stirring, and thought of Old Ma's boxing arts, of that move among the Eight Thunder Moves, the Nine Dragons Reining Wind and Thunder. In that move, qi divides into nine layers of force: first the Raging Dragon Charge, then the Twining Double Dragons, each layer adding one more dragon's might.
Qin Mu practiced under Old Ma from childhood, drilling this move no one knew how many times, yet never grasped its essence. Only recently, as his cultivation advanced by leaps, had it grown mightier, and even so, when he clashed with the little monk Mingxin, he came off worse.
Part of that was because he had not obtained the Tathagata Great Vehicle Sutra of the Great Thunderclap Monastery. But the greater part was this: his fist-force merely resembled a dragon - dragon-like without being a dragon, an outward shell without substance - and so it shattered at the first touch.
Had his fist-force been that of a true dragon, even without the Sutra his move would have been genuine lineage! For its principle was to mimic how a true dragon reined in wind and thunder, lofty and crushing, divine dragons pouncing from within the thunderclaps. Could one achieve that, the Sutra mattered little!
"Nine Dragons Reining Wind and Thunder... Nine Dragons Reining Wind and Thunder..."
Qin Mu studied the skeleton bit by bit, his feet moving of their own accord. His eyes held only the bones of this true dragon; he traced its form and bearing, pondered its essence and spirit, more and more forgetting himself as his arms and torso imitated its every motion.
His qi, too, coursed through him unawares, as though a true dragon glided within, round and round, adding ever more detail. And in his Spirit Womb Divine Treasury, his Spirit Womb moved with him, breathing in and out, undergoing wondrous transformation. The qi he breathed out did not pour back in but coiled about him as a small dragon; as he breathed in more, it grew until it stood taller than a man, twined about his Spirit Womb.
Hu Ling'er had been afraid at first, but as time passed her terror ebbed - only that Qin Mu, absorbed in the skeleton, quite forgot her. In a while her stomach rumbled, and carefully she slipped down from his back and crept out of the dragon palace, not from fear of disturbing him but from an instinctive dread of dragons, afraid the least sound might startle the skeleton.
Half an hour later the white fox returned clutching a sack of strange dandelion-like creatures. Battling her fear of the skeleton, she walked into the fog, climbed back onto Qin Mu, and stuffed one of the creatures into his mouth. Utterly oblivious, he opened his mouth and ate it tamely. She fed him more than twenty before she set about eating, smacking her lips.
Still Qin Mu showed no sign of waking; he wandered on, eyes fixed upon the skeleton, at times clambering onto the bones and pacing across that vast framework. On his Spirit Womb a green dragon had coiled, crackling with lightnings - only he, absorbed in the skeleton, never noticed.
Thus two days passed; his body had grown foul long since, and still no sign of waking. Patient Hu Ling'er tended his meals, cupping water in leaves when he thirsted, catching the passage's strange creatures when he hungered - though each trip meant crossing the pool where the monstrous fish lurked, and one careless step could see her swallowed whole. Happily she was clever and came to no harm; when he relieved himself, she made herself scarce.
On the third day she was about to fetch water when suddenly his voice came, startled: "Why am I so dirty?"
Hu Ling'er was both startled and overjoyed: "You've been standing here three days! How could you not be dirty!"
"Three days?" Qin Mu started. "Blast it! I've been gone three days - the villagers must be frantic! Quick, we must hurry back!"
Then he stopped. "If I go back now, I'll be scolded, and maybe forbidden to come out again. Since I'm here, I might as well look around the dragon palace. Who knows - I may find treasure."
Brimming with enthusiasm, he walked deeper into the dragon palace, Hu Ling'er following at his calf, too timid to wander off. This great hall too was cloaked in thicker fog, dim and boundless.
"Odd. What gives off this fog?" Qin Mu was baffled. This was no water mist; even his Shenxiao Heavenly Eye could pierce it only a little way. The deeper he went, the heavier the fog, the shorter his sight, and the greater Hu Ling'er's fear, until she seized the hem of his trousers and let herself be led along.
Then a strange sound came - soft and long-drawn, yet sorrowful, like someone singing a heartbreaking song within the fog, its words unintelligible, in an ancient tongue as arcane and abstruse as the speech of gods and demons.
Qin Mu listened on until, touching his cheek, he found tears streaming down his face unawares. The song felt like a woman drifting through the fog, singing a tale that would break her own heart.
All at once the golden rings of his Khakkhara staff clanged aloud, clattering fiercely.
"Grandpa Ma said the rings of the Khakkhara disperse stray and evil thoughts - when the heart stirs, the rings stir. Now they are ringing like beans rattling out of a sieve. Do I truly have so many stray and wicked thoughts?"
Qin Mu lowered his head and could not help but laugh and cry at once. Hu Ling'er was shaking like a leaf, clutching his leg for dear life, her tail dangling against the Khakkhara. His heart had not stirred at all; it was the little fox's heart in turmoil.
"Ling'er, move your tail out of the way." She flicked it aside and kept trembling.
Qin Mu frowned. Even so, the golden rings went on swaying and clanging. "Could there be a third person here besides us? One rife with evil thoughts - could it be that woman singing?" The rings rang ever faster. This could only mean a third person was present, so burdened with restless evil thought that the Khakkhara would not stop ringing!
In the air the song drifted to and fro, sadder and sadder. Qin Mu looked down and started. Out of the fog a gaunt, bony hand was reaching toward the Khakkhara - before it touched the staff, it trembled as though struck by lightning and silently drew back.
He looked about, his brows twitching. From every side, withered, starved hands reached out for him, only to draw back as they met the Khakkhara. The soft song grew clearer, as though it sang at his very ear.
"What hides within this fog?"
A chill ran over his scalp. Hu Ling'er scrambled up his trouser leg to his back, then burrowed into his chest and hid in his clothes, no more than her fluffy head poking out as she peered about, shivering. The sight was horrific, and Qin Mu's heart too was shaken, but the rings steadied his mind, and it soon calmed.
So many hands - plainly not one person's.
"Whatever you are, begone!"
Qin Mu made his qi surge into the Khakkhara. He raised the staff and struck the ground, and with a great clang it blazed with light in every direction. Behind him rose a Buddha seated in the air.
"Thus have I heard!"
The Buddha's mouth rang with the voice of Brahma: "All beings, from beginnings without beginning, bound to birth and death in ceaseless succession, because they know not their constant true heart and cling instead to delusion. Because these thoughts are not true, therefore there is turning - turning - turning - turn -"