Lang Jiuchuan’s purpose in coming to Huguo Temple to seize Cong Bian’s soul and find assistance meant she had naturally brought along all the necessary implements for setting up a ritual altar. Whatever was lacking, Huguo Temple could supply.

But the most important item of all was still the Hundred-Blessings Infant’s Garment she held in her hands.

Abbot Xuanneng found a Buddhist courtyard for her to set up the altar, and also summoned several temple monks to assist. Gong Qi, following Lang Jiuchuan’s instructions, helped arrange the altar, while Lang Jiuchuan herself fashioned a small straw figure by hand, wrote Cong Bian’s birth date and hour upon it, and then took up the Hundred-Blessings Garment to inscribe the talismanic glyphs.

She had come in haste, and had just recently expended a great deal of her spiritual power setting up arrays and drawing talismans — a considerable undertaking. Though she had taken the medicinal pill that A’Piao gave her, she hadn’t yet fully recovered her breathing rhythm, and the hand holding the talisman brush was trembling faintly.

“Amitabha.” Abbot Xuanneng had arrived at her side without her noticing, and looked at her with a gentle and compassionate expression. “Female patron,” he said, “you are of great virtue, and you have a profound affinity with our Buddha. Would you permit this old monk to recite a sutra for you?”

Lang Jiuchuan was startled. Her fingers curled slightly. Looking at the compassion in his eyes, she lowered her gaze, pressed her palms together: “I am grateful for the abbot’s effort.”

Abbot Xuanneng smiled. He sat down cross-legged right then and there, took his prayer beads in one hand, gently struck his wooden fish with the other, and let the scripture begin to flow from his lips.

During these recent days, when Lang Jiuchuan had been nurturing her soul, contemplating the Dao, and cultivating within the Small Nine Pagoda, she had also studied the teachings of Master Luobo. So the moment Abbot Xuanneng’s scripture and incantation sounded out, she recognized immediately which text it was.

The Great Compassionate Heart Dharani Sutra.

In other words — the Great Compassion Mantra.

This incantation holds inconceivable merit and power. For those who receive its recitation, it can bring peace to the soul, bestow lasting blessing and wisdom, and dispel disaster and calamity.

As the scripture’s chant rang out, melodious and winding like a sound descended from heaven, its voice resounded through the ten directions.

The monks who were helping paused their hands involuntarily, one after another turning to look over, pressing their palms together and bowing slightly in this direction, silently reciting a Buddhist invocation.

Gong Qi was stunned. He looked at Abbot Xuanneng seated before Lang Jiuchuan, reciting the Great Compassion Mantra, while she sat composed and still — her eyes gently closed, her slight and slender frame held bolt upright — her expression like that of a devout believer, serene and unhesitating in receiving this gift.

He suddenly felt a strange blur in his eyes. He rubbed them, and it was as if he could see the scripture of the Great Compassion Mantra transform into golden light and surge toward Lang Jiuchuan — swirling around her in circles before sinking into her body.

Gong Qi found himself suddenly and unexpectedly envious. He quietly moved to stand behind her, relaxed his body, stood still, and closed his eyes to listen.

Abbot Xuanneng’s chanting voice was not particularly loud, yet every word was crisp and distinct, entering the ears clearly, like a spring breeze through willow boughs.

His expression was focused and serene, filled with compassion, guiding those present through the sound of his chanting to immerse themselves in the scripture.

Within the rhythm of those recited sacred words, Lang Jiuchuan felt as though she were enveloped by warm sunlight, her whole body at ease. Listening to the syllables, she could not help but form hand seals with her fingers, her seal-signs shifting in tandem with the changes in the scripture.

An invisible force enveloped her from all sides. Abbot Xuanneng seemed to faintly perceive it — he opened his eyes slightly. Seeing a faint radiance emanating from between her brows, his eyes widened in quiet astonishment, and the compassion and serenity in his gaze deepened even further.

Amitabha.

When one passage of the Great Compassion Mantra came to its end, the lingering resonance of the sacred words did not dissipate for a long while. Lang Jiuchuan slowly opened her eyes and looked at the abbot seated across from her. She pressed her palms together and bowed deeply before him: “This devotee gives sincere thanks for the abbot’s bestowed blessing.”

Abbot Xuanneng smiled, pressed his palms together, and returned the bow.

Lang Jiuchuan picked up her jade-bone talisman brush again, spread open the small garment, dipped the brush in cinnabar mixed with meteoric rock powder from the celestial winds, and began to inscribe the spirit talisman upon the garment.

Her brush strokes were supremely steady, her mind undisturbed and focused. Very quickly she completed a Soul-Seizing-Across-a-Thousand-Li spirit talisman upon it, and in the moment the final stroke fell and golden light surged forth, Abbot Xuanneng’s eyes fixed upon her with fervent intensity.

Lang Jiuchuan set down the talisman brush and met the abbot’s gaze. Her hand paused: “Abbot?”

Abbot Xuanneng pressed his palms together: “Amitabha. Female patron, you have a profound affinity with our Buddha. In the future, when the myriad entanglements of the mortal world have been set aside, you might consider taking refuge in the Buddha…”

Cough, cough, cough.

Gong Qi suddenly erupted into a thunderous coughing fit right above the abbot’s head — the sound of it like a great bell striking, ear-splittingly loud. As though afraid that Abbot Xuanneng hadn’t heard him well enough, he even bent forward at the waist, angling himself as if to cough right next to the abbot’s ear.

He had been here to recite scriptures — how had it turned into persuading someone to take religious vows, to spend her days in devotion beside a blue-light oil lamp?

You’re the abbot of a Buddhist temple, and even you shouldn’t be doing this!

The coughing struck Abbot Xuanneng’s head like a resounding clang that left his ears ringing. He turned, and looked at Gong Qi with helpless exasperation: “Young fellow Daoist Gong, please stop coughing — this old monk’s ears have nearly gone deaf from the sound.”

Lang Jiuchuan inexplicably wanted to laugh, but she suppressed it, cleared her throat lightly, picked up the straw figure, and wrapped the small garment inscribed with the talisman around it. She then used her talisman brush to dot the straw figure’s head to give it eyes.

Everything was ready.

The ritual altar was already fully arranged. Lang Jiuchuan addressed Abbot Xuanneng: “I trouble you to recite the Soul-Beckoning Sutra on my behalf. This person carries an entire life’s worth of karmic debts, and I fear he has already become a malevolent ghost. Once he is summoned, if my strength proves insufficient, please lend your hand to suppress him.”

“Amitabha.”

Lang Jiuchuan then turned to Gong Qi: “Read the situation as it unfolds. When the moment comes, please also deploy your Crimson Flame Soul-Locking Chain.”

Gong Qi nodded and detached the soul-locking chain from his waist, holding it in his hand.

Only then did Lang Jiuchuan wash her hands, light incense, burn a talisman to formally declare her intentions before Heaven and Earth, and after completing the entire sequence of meticulous ritual steps, she finally picked up the straw figure bearing Cong Bian’s name and birth date with both hands and began to tread the Daoist soul-summoning Plough Steps around the altar.

Om.

The Buddhist Soul-Beckoning Incantation also arose. Several monks sat behind Abbot Xuanneng and recited the scripture together with him.

Wind began to howl and rise.

Gong Qi looked at the straw figure cradled in Lang Jiuchuan’s hands, and his expression grew solemn and deadly serious.

At the Ridge of Fate-Seizing, Cong Bian — who had been in the midst of absorbing the sinister yin energy — suddenly stiffened all over. His eyes flew open, and his gaze was filled with shock and horror.

This was bad!

Someone was summoning his soul.

It was the one who had attacked him before — they were pressing him relentlessly, step by step.

Sensing that his soul was no longer quite fully under his own control, Cong Bian hurriedly channeled his cultivation power to resist, and rose up from the Ridge of Fate-Seizing, drifting swiftly toward the quarters where Princess Zhao’an was housed.

Lang Jiuchuan felt the ritual suddenly slow and stall. The wind grew stronger, whipping the candle flames on the altar back and forth uncontrollably, sending the yellow ritual papers billowing and flying chaotically.

He still had the strength to resist.

Abbot Xuanneng’s brow twitched slightly. He snapped his prayer beads toward the empty air, and an invisible force spread through the courtyard — the candle flames went still and steady, and the sound of the chanting grew deeper and weighted with authority.

“With this talisman as my proof, with this incense as my guide, with a mother’s intent, I summon the soul of Cong Bian — come at once before this altar, by sacred decree!” Lang Jiuchuan struck a spirit talisman against the straw figure.

The golden light sank in, piercing through a thousand li of space, and descended upon the wandering ghost Cong Bian.

Cong Bian let out a sharp and piercing cry. It was as if he heard a mother’s voice calling to him with tender, aching love, and his soul actually began to follow the trail of golden light back toward its source.

“No!” Cong Bian was seized with horror. He mustered every last ounce of the dark sinister energy within him to resist, struggling with tremendous effort toward the house that was now almost within reach. Whether the timing was right or not — he had to enter the womb.

He had barely managed a few lurching steps forward when another wave of soul-beckoning scripture rang out, suffused with pressure and authority, as if descending from the distant heavens — one phrase after another, throwing his soul into utter disarray and chaos.

Cong Bian was terrified to the core. He raised his eyes and saw a corpse-puppet standing atop the rooftop of the house. Its twin eyes fixed upon him, and it extended a hand: “Wretched creature — come here at once.”

The corpse-puppet’s entire body radiated sinister yin energy. It stood perfectly motionless.

Cong Bian raged. Just as he was about to marshal every last shred of power contained within his ghost-soul, his spirit form suddenly ached, and he looked down — only to find a blaze of celestial fire igniting across his body, like a flaming rope piercing through space and time to bind him fast.

No!

His form was forcibly dragged into a pillar of golden light.

Ding, ding, ding — the wind-chimes hanging at the eaves of the rooftop suddenly rang out violently.

Gong Qi looked toward the Buddhist courtyard, where gale-force wind had abruptly erupted, and his eyes sharpened — it’s here!