Chapter 60: Extra Story (II)

Snow never melts on the western peak of Mount Sumeru, where the Guardian King resides. There is not a single tile to shelter him; he meditates on a lotus platform beneath a lone pine tree. Before him, on a small table, sit ten bowls of water, an incense burner, and a string of prayer beads. As he opens his eyes, the ten bowls boil without fire, emitting a wisp of red light and demonic aura.

His gaze is as clear as crystal, yet when he brings his hands together in prayer, he finds himself unable to utter even a single line of "Amitabha." The pure eyes with which he observes and protects the world snap open, and he sees a reckless snake demon descending the mountain. Unafraid of the Buddha’s radiance, she storms up the peak, audacious and brash. "I am Qingdai, the snake demon, requesting an audience with the Guardian King!"

The disciples guarding the mountain rush over, wielding their Buddha staves, sternly attempting to drive her away. She pays them no mind, repeating her call: "I am Qingdai, the snake demon, requesting an audience with the Guardian King!"

In the end, he cannot let go of this little demon. With a sigh, he transforms into a giant Buddha, appearing before Qingdai.

"Snake demon, rotten wood," he says.

The mountain disciples respectfully withdraw. Qingdai steps forward, gently picking up the corner of his sandalwood robe scattered on the ground, nuzzling it against her face, lingering in its warmth and tranquility.

She kneels lightly at his feet, hands pressed together, looking up at him with devotion. "Buddha King, I have come to show you my enlightenment. You must watch closely."

With those words, tears fall from her eyes, and she slowly smiles. "You said that when I could shed tears, I could become Buddha on the spot. Look, I have achieved it. But, Buddha King, you were wrong. In my heart, I still long for your kiss, for you to sleep beside me, for you to share those desolate years with me forever. So, what does it matter that I can cry? I am still myself, uninterested in becoming an immortal or seeking enlightenment."

Her expression turns cold. She rises from the ground, her robe sleeves fluttering loudly in the wind. "King, I have traveled through the ten worlds you built in my dreams, but what cannot be broken simply cannot be broken. King, please do not waste any more effort on me. King, I am tired. So, I will no longer hold onto you. I wish to forget you, forever and ever. From now on, you pursue your Buddha path. I... I wish to reincarnate, to become a real human who understands the steely resolve to say to a man: ‘If your heart is not with me, then let us part.’"

With that, she reveals her true form—a great snake, tens of feet tall, colored deep indigo. Half of her scales have turned gold, the color of Buddha’s light. But with a single mighty leap, she sheds her cultivation, shrinking from tens of feet to a small snake, resolutely hurling herself against the sharp rocks of the western peak.

He is finally terrified. The lotus platform beneath him suddenly turns black. He leaves his Buddha form, descending in a rush to stop her, but it is too late. The little snake collides, her skull shattered, dying tragically beneath the western peak, drifting in the water, floating away toward her freedom.

His eyes nearly burst with grief, and on his once-clean scalp, three feet of indigo hair suddenly sprout. As he falls from the sky and lifts the snake from the water, his white Buddha robe tears apart.

Thus, he—the remnant of ten lifetimes of longing—finally becomes whole.

There is no longer a Guardian Buddha King on the western peak of Mount Sumeru.

He was a Dharma Protector, his powers boundless; to revive a little snake would be effortless. Yet the one who awoke was no longer her.

She was only an ordinary snake, lacking spiritual intelligence, lazy as ever, audacious beyond measure. She bit deeply into his brow, causing the mark of demonic descent to vanish instantly. How familiar this scene was.

He finally shed his Buddha robe, let his indigo hair fall loose, and took her to her flower valley, settling there.

Her home was a cave, an eccentric, labyrinthine place; each step risked kicking something—a dazzling crystal, a giant seashell, massive chunks of gold and silver. On the cave walls hung several crooked landscape paintings. This was just like her, living as she pleased, never bound by rules.

Her sleeping place was a bed of warm jade, five yards long and three yards wide. He lay down, holding tightly to the snake determined to escape. Perhaps catching his scent, the restless snake finally calmed.

Seeing this, he released his grip. The snake slowly slithered across the bed, sniffing here and there, as if at last discovering home. It twisted joyfully and danced.

He smiled gently, his face as pure and elegant as a lotus. He teased her tail with his fingers. She hissed, baring her teeth in threat, biting his finger and refusing to let go, venom flooding his veins, numbing and painful. Yet he could not summon the will to resist with magic; instead, he tenderly stroked her head. "Qingdai, be good, let go."

Seeing her opponent offer no retaliation, the little creature grew even bolder. She released his swollen, bitten finger and crawled up his arm to his neck, sinking her teeth into the pulsing artery.

This time the pain made him frown, like an addict succumbing to poppy’s poison—he felt only release.

Looking up at the cave’s ceiling, he noticed some crooked writing, daily notes by Qingdai herself.

"On such-and-such day, I beat up a carp spirit because it was naughty."

"On such-and-such day, I beat up that carp spirit again because it didn't give me fish snacks."

"On such-and-such day, my neighbor Little White left. I miss it very much."

"On such-and-such day, I heard from the flower demon that Little White was made into soup by someone. I’m a bit scared—who will save the snakes?"

"..."

"On such-and-such day, when I turned a thousand, I met the King. He stepped on my tail, and I bit his brow."

This line was already so blurred it was barely legible, but he remembered that day clearly.

He had transformed into a wandering monk in the mortal realm, hearing of monsters troubling a nearby village. He went into the mountains as directed by the villagers and accidentally stepped on her tail.

On her tail grew a shy organ for reproduction; this little creature, fierce as ever, turned and bit him right at his brow. He remembered saying, "I want you to help me cultivate."

He wandered the world, appearing to have seen through love and desire, returning with no attachments, but never for a moment had he truly let her go.

She was a soft-hearted, muddle-headed demon, coming down the mountain to play, forgetting to take human form—no wonder the villagers called for her capture and death.

Her kind, even doing nothing, merely flicking her tongue from a treetop, could terrify mortals.

"On such-and-such day, he became Buddha, told me to cultivate well, but I only wanted to miss him. Have I seen him somewhere before? His scent is so familiar."

Memories surged like mountains and seas, and he suddenly recalled that he had once saved a nearly frozen indigo snake. At that time, he had not yet attained enlightenment. He cradled her, warming her under his robe, meditating beneath the pine tree for years without counting. He only knew that the snake had grown from the thickness of a child’s arm to the thickness of his wrist, her body stretching several yards.

So it turned out, their karmic entanglement ran deep—he had been the first to provoke her.

The snake coiled around his neck must have tired her jaws, for she released him and fell off his shoulder with a drunken stupor. He stroked her belly—round and full; she had drunk her fill.

Measuring her length, she had grown half a foot longer in an instant.

His blood was more potent than the flesh of golden cicadas.

"Qingdai, drink up, grow quickly."

He spared no blood, believing Qingdai would soon return. But a hundred years passed, then a thousand, and the snake in his arms never awakened spiritual intelligence.

She rejected it deeply, even unconsciously.

He raised her for a thousand years, but she always sought to escape him. Every time he forbade her, she bit him again and again.

He finally understood how deeply he had wounded her.

Even with consciousness sleeping within the body, she refused the warmth he offered.

Perhaps, to her, what he gave was always poison.

Drinking poison to quench thirst leads only to a dead end. She would never try again.

He finally understood what longing meant.

He finally understood what it meant to meet but not recognize.

He finally understood the pain of waiting and searching.

She wrote on the cave ceiling: "Night falls, I am so cold."

Today, even with a body full of hot blood, his heart was cold as ice.

"Qingdai, when will you come out to see me again? I know I was wrong."

The valley was so quiet it suffocated. He placed ten bowls before himself once more, entered dreams with the snake, but in them, Qingdai never truly shared his heart.

Who knows how many ages passed. The spiritual energy here thinned, and all the Buddhas across the heavens tore through the void and departed. Holding Qingdai, he stood at the cliff’s edge, gazing at the boundless sea. "Qingdai, you were right. These years are desolate."

With that, he transformed into a golden dragon, Qingdai into a long indigo snake. Their tails entwined tightly, and together they fell into the deep sea, settling into eternal slumber.

"Qingdai, when you open your eyes again, it will be in my embrace. Will you be happy then?"