Why Min chose to follow Rennie from the marketplace was a mystery to him. She shadowed him to the autobike letting place, and surprised him by booking one for herself. “Going somewhere?” he queried.
“I’m going with you.”
Blinking, he recoiled. His time in the woods was his own and he was not fond of sharing it. “What? Why?”
She shrugged. “I have nothing better to do. Besides, I like an adventure.”
“But, lass, ye dinna even know me. I could be a strangler.”
She laughed. “Tung-Bai will have your neck before you have mine.”
“Oh?”
“And I can fight. Do not let my small size fool you.”
It crossed his mind to tell her to take a hike, but he hardly got a word in edgewise.
“The best thing that ever happened to me is that I got sold,” she went on. “I was only six. Oh, sure, I was afraid at first. But I have no love lost for the witch that sold me. Also known as my stepmother. She was evil. Didn’t even feed me. The man who bought me treated me like a daughter. Even though he was a man capable of killing. And he taught me how to fight. I’ll fight dirty, I’ll have you know. See my saber here? It’s my lucky charm. Though the Christian religion tells us not to put our faith in luck, but in the Almighty. I can’t say I am a Christian, not yet. I haven’t had any sacraments. But the idea that you can be forgiven for all your sins is a real deal-maker.”
Rennie gaped.
“Besides,” Min summed up, “—something tells me I will not have to worry about where my next meal is coming from, with you.”
Outdone, Rennie shook his head with resignation. “Let’s be on our way,” he said.
They soon found themselves dashing along a country road, on nimbly-shaped, steam-powered scooters, their metallic clatter measuring the miles. Two abandoned brass autobikes appeared by the side of the road, and Rennie rode on by, but then he discovered that Min had pulled over, about fifty feet away from the parked scooters.
With a clench of his jaw, he turned his bike around and rolled to a stop beside her. “What in the hell are ye doing?” he asked.
“Have you no curiosity?” she asked.
“Nae, no’ a speck.”
“We can make new friends.”
“I dinna want any new friends.”
“Then, we can rob them.”
Rennie rolled his eyes.
***
Jiàn, Tala, Shaohua and Daiyu had their eyes trained on the flying automatons. The clacking and squawking sounds of Cedarheart and Shiyun rose in pitch, mounting in desperation, and then the two fliers darted off into the trees, towards the road.
“What should we do?” Daiyu asked.
Jiàn had already broken into a jog. “Follow them!” she called.
***
“You’re no fun,” Min said to Rennie.
A rustling in the leaves turned their heads. A cedar drone shaped like an owl, and a whisperbird—that very much resembled the one Daiyu had acquired—emerged from the woods. The two automatons came hurtling towards Rennie and circled him as if he were prey. They hooted as if they had found the motherlode, and then dashed off. Paused in mid-air, they faced Rennie once more and voiced chirps that rang like demands, before proceeding on their way.
Rennie felt a warmth on his back, through the material of his satchel, as if something inside had heated up. “What the—?” he muttered to himself.
Then, to his astonishment, a young woman in Hanfu robes, with a blade at her side, burst from the trees. On her heels came Daiyu, and a girl in tribal leathers, and then a shortish man with hair down to his waist. The deliberate group seemed on a mission. They snapped their eyes to Rennie and Min, but did not call out any greeting. Briefly, they talked amongst themselves, then mounted the bikes. Daiyu and the woman with the blade got on one, and the man and the girl got on the other.
Daiyu called back, over her shoulder, to Rennie. “Well, come on! Are you coming?”
And they took off, in pursuit of the drone and the whisperbird.
Rennie gaped at the unusual turn of events.
“Hey,” Min said, “wasn’t that your lassie?”
He turned a scathing look to her. “I’ve told ye, till I’m aye blue in the face, ye bampot,” he grumbled, “—she isna my lassie.”
“Are we going?”
He blew out his breath. “Aye … aye, we’re going.”
***
The Chunhua Monastery, Jixi County, Anhui (about 250 miles west of Shanghai)
Shan, aged nineteen, anxiously rubbed his hand over his shaved head. He hadn’t quite mastered the quality of tranquility. He and his elderly teacher, Shīfu, sat on a bench in a garden pavilion. At their backs, wind whispered through a bamboo grove, and before them a gurgling, spring-fed stream bordered the white-washed walls of their sprawling residence.
Shan was a novice monk. Chin up, he tried to concentrate as Shīfu recited from the Tao Te Ching.
Always without desire we must be found,
If its deep mystery we would sound;
But if desire always within us be,
Its outer fringe is all that we shall see.
"Shīfu," Shan asked, “is that a moral guide?”
“Desire is a thief,” Shīfu replied.
“How so?”
“It steals your pureness. It steals your stillness.”
“Why is action a sin?”
“Not all action. Only action that reveals your sharp points.”
Shan’s long-lived desire to avenge the murder of his parents was a sharp point inside of him. But rather than discard it, he wished to hold it closer, so that he may better strike.
Shīfu went on, “Only still waters may clear.”
Perhaps that were so, but it was not as though uncountable desires burdened Shan’s soul. Only the one set it aflame.
“Be subtle,” Shīfu said, “not hard.”
Shan blew out his breath. “You present too many mysteries—”
“Ah, my dear boy. Be aware—the deepest gate of the mystery is found in the stillness.”
Shan felt as though he was being asked to give up the most important part of him. But he refused to deny what had happened to his parents. To embrace stillness seemed the most selfish thing he could do.
Perhaps, he was not suited to the life of a monk, at all.
Shīfu stood. “Now, return to your chores,” he bade. Warmly, he smiled upon Shan, and imparted a piece of ancient wisdom. “Before enlightenment—chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment—chop wood, carry water.”
Shan returned the smile, and headed over to the woodpile.
***
The handle was smooth and the blade sharp, and Shan heaved the axe with great force to the timber. Without pause, he stood piece after piece on their ends on the chopping block and cracked them in two with all his might. His momentum sped up and each swing earned a grunt, a clench of his teeth, and a new bead of sweat.
His sharp points fed the violence of the axe. Chopping wood was one of the few activities at the monastery that allowed the animal inside him to be let out. Crack, crack, crack, went the axe, and the wood fell, and the anger that had been planted in him years ago flared. It could not be uptorn, not by the way of the Tao, nor by any civilized means. It could only be answered by cracking a sharp axe into the heads of the ones who had taken his parents from him.
Alarmed by his own murderous thought, Shan paused, his chest rising and falling. He closed his eyes and tried to get a hold of himself by recalling a verse from the Tao Te Ching.
To him by whom this harmony is known,
The secret of the unchanging Tao is shown,
And in the knowledge wisdom finds its throne.
All life-increasing arts to evil turn;
Where the mind makes the vital breath to burn,
False is the strength, and o'er it we should mourn.
Shan’s eyes popped open. No! His strength could never be false! The falsity would be in blunting his sharp points.
He dropped his eyes, and blew his breath out. The monastery had probably saved his life but, like a dragon, it was not in his nature to be kept as a pet.
