Chapter 15 Disordered Reality

Feeling puzzled, I asked them, “What sutra?”

I was ok when it came to the “Diamond Sutra”, but I couldn’t memorize the “Bat Sutra” or “Hundred Thousand Dragon Scriptures”.⁽¹⁾ I did have a recorded backup of the “Bat Sutra” on my cell phone, though.

The person said something that sounded like Tibetan, but I didn’t know what it was. Noticing this, they said to me, “Then you can just repeat after me.” I suddenly realized that this person’s accent was Tibetan Mandarin, which meant that they probably weren’t a member of Xiao Hua’s team.

“Why?” I asked while thinking to myself, did a herder enter here by mistake and wind up trapped? But how can they have the same watch as Xiao Hua’s team?

“If you don’t recite it, you’ll be eaten,” the person said.

“Who are you?” I ask again. It was a really strange situation to meet someone in a place like this.

“Who am I?”

“Answer me,” I said to them. “Otherwise, I’ll think you’re crazy.” As I spoke, I approached the crevice between the rocks and carefully looked at the other party.

Of course, there were a bunch of rocks between us and there seemed to be no lighting on that side at all, so it was too dark to see anything.

“I don’t remember who I am,” they said, “but I know that I’m a pet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m being kept here. That thing won’t kill me and just keeps feeding me. I don’t know how long it’s been,” the person responded. “What about you?”

“It’s a long story.” After listening to his words, I felt a little creeped out.

“I told you something, but you didn’t tell me anything at all. You’re very arrogant.” The person’s tone immediately became angry.

I wasn’t in the mood to deal with other people’s emotions right now, so I simply said, “I’m not a pet. I think I’ll be eaten later.”

“You have to recite the sutra. If you do, you’ll be treated as a pet.”

“I don’t know it.”

“I already told you, just repeat after me. Oh, by the way, you need to bring something with you. I’ll help you look for it,” the person said.

I shined my flashlight into the crevice, thinking that I would see that person’s shadow moving around, but there was nothing at all.

At this time, I suddenly heard the sound of dense rocks shifting around. The sound passed through the gaps in the rocks above my head in an instant, just like a subway moving through a tunnel.

I didn’t speak and just listened as the sound quickly passed.

The person on the other side also stayed quiet for a while. Then, an object was suddenly thrown through the gap that was separating us. I picked it up and found that it was a tooth.

I froze for a moment as I realized that the tooth was covered in blood—fresh blood.

“What’s going on?”

“That’s for you.”

“To do what with?”

“You have to put it under your tongue and then recite the sutra. It will think that you and I are the same type of person and will let you go. It likes people like me.”

I shined my flashlight on the tooth, “Is this your tooth?”

“Yes, now stretch out your hand and I’ll give you the sutra. You can still see it now so take it and memorize it.”

I took a look with my flashlight and found that, sure enough, a very old book wrapped in a prayer flag had been stuffed into the crevice.

The pages of this book were made using very special pieces of paper, but I still couldn’t see anyone at the edges of the crevice.

Finding it odd, I examined the tooth more carefully and realized that it wasn’t actually a human tooth. But it was impossible for me to say what kind of tooth it was.

“Is this your tooth?” I asked again.

“Yes,” the person said with absolute certainty.

I looked at the tooth again. I had studied human teeth before, so I knew that this was definitely not a human tooth. It was, however, really fresh. I was feeling more and more baffled while at the same time feeling that something was strange.

I immediately turned to look at the gap and saw that the sutra was actually being pushed through the hole by a brown, dead, branch-like “hand”. The fingers of this hand were very slender—about three or four times that of a normal person’s fingers—and looked like claws. It only took one look to know that this was definitely not a human hand.

“Come and get it,” that voice said from the other side.

<Chapter 14><Table of Contents><Chapter 16>

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TN Notes:

(1) The “Diamond Sutra” is a Mahāyāna (Buddhist) sutra from the genre of Prajñāpāramitā (‘perfection of wisdom’) sutras. Prajñāpāramitā refers to a perfected way of seeing the nature of reality, as well as to a particular body of Mahāyāna scriptures/sutras which discusses this wisdom. The “Bat Sutra” and “Hundred Thousand Dragon Scriptures” are Bonism sutras/scriptures NPSS probably made up. Dragon Scripture was first mentioned in “Sea of Lights” Chapter 78 while Bat Sutra was first mentioned in “Ten Thousand Mountains” Chapter 78.

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*ahem*