Wind and Snow Across the Land

There is no spiritual energy in this world, only a tower whose summit no one has ever seen.

The tower doesn’t judge your bones, only your lamp. The lamp oil is what you owe from this life: a life, a promise, a love left unreturned, an unsettled debt. When the lamp burns, the door opens. When it goes out, you fall from the tower and splatter into mud no one remembers.

That’s why every powerful person in this world has betrayed someone. The Sword Immortal who cleaved open three thousand miles of river once sold an entire city’s people. The merciful Bodhisattva monk who saves the suffering carries seventeen hundred thousand lives on his back. The people kneel before them, and fear them too.