The sound of the Buddha echoed like the chaotic, absurd, and fearful noise heard for the first time outside the mother's belly at birth.
Zhang Fusheng felt as if he had fallen into a boundless place.
In a trance,
He saw a monk leading a white horse, crossing mountains and rivers, fighting tigers and killing bandits, walking barefoot on a westward path, devout and compassionate.
The cicadas chirped among the fallen willows, and the great fire flowed westward.
He saw the monk passing a great river of eight hundred li, wide and fierce, turbid like flowing sand,
And then a wicked demon leaped out from the river, consumed the monk's flesh and blood, and took his head to make a bead.
Before dying, the monk was still looking devoutly towards the west.
Then came the second monk, the third, the fourth...
A total of nine monks, all headed west, dying by the river, dying in the mouths of wicked demons, strung together into nine skull prayer beads.
