Buddha's Disciple, Hear Me Out!

Snow fell for three straight days at Jialan Temple. The Buddhist disciple Xuan Chen knelt before the lotus altar, turning his prayer beads when the string suddenly snapped. The sandalwood beads rolled across the bricks, like the sound of chains dragging across the floor beneath the Demon-Suppressing Pagoda. He had heard that sound for ten years. His heart should have been as still as water, but ever since he emerged from meditation three months ago, his mind-reading power had refused to quiet down. Instead of sutras and temple bells, he heard the endless muttering of A Ruan, the girl beneath the pagoda: complaining that the steamed buns tasted sour, watching him meditate, and worrying that she’d be beaten to death if she touched his shaved head... Xuan Chen knew she was the girl branded a “demon star,” foretold to destroy the world at eighteen. But what he heard was a soul that grew upset when hungry and delighted at the sight of birds in flight. As snow tapped against the window lattice, A Ruan’s cry of pain rang through his mind-reading power. The chains were tightening. Xuan Chen sprang to his feet and stared at the golden Buddha statue, his throat bobbing. The Buddha taught that all beings were equal. But when the fates of “all beings” and “one person” overlapped in his ears, he no longer knew whether to save the world or the “demon” crying out in hunger in the darkness. A sob came from the direction of the Demon-Suppressing Pagoda. At last, he took a step, crushing the snow beneath his feet, along with twenty years of strict discipline.