Crashing waves roared, churning like a blizzard made of water. Foam drifted down like fine snowflakes. The monk stood upon the sea of desire, forever refusing to be subdued. He heard the tide’s roar transform into human voices—the cries of countless souls who had once knelt before the Buddha, pleading earnestly:

　“I miss you, can you hear me?”

　“I’ve waiting for you, why haven’t you come back?”

　“Have you forgotten me?”

　“Do you still remember me?”

　Amidst the swirling snow, a young man descended from the crest of the wave. Step by step he traversed the sea spray until he stood before the monk. “I’ve come to you… do you still remember me?”

　The monk pressed his palms together in silent prayer. After a single breath, his hands parted gently. His left hand remained in position, while his right stretched out flat, forming a gesture that resembled the 请 character for ‘please’—yet it was not a welcome, but a farewell. The wailing cries of those adrift upon the sea of desire dispersed. The sorrowful yearnings of countless parted souls sank once more to the bottom of the sea.

　The youth before the monk dissolved into water vapour, falling like the last snowflakes upon this now-calm sea.

　The monk raised his hand—Tanshan raised his hand, groping until it rested behind the head of the figure resting upon his knees.

　The monk clasped his hands together once more, standing solemnly in the centre of the sea of desire, like a Buddha statue poised to stand like this for a thousand, ten thousand years.

　Tanshan gently smoothed the hair of the person resting upon his lap. With Buddha dwelling in his heart, his touch carried an indescribable tenderness.

　“Yonglan,” he murmured softly, “Linu has returned. Go and open the window for it.”

　The Marquis of Wanjiang who had been patted on the head by the monk, was quite pleased. He rose nimbly, strode over to open the window, and called out to the little beast: “Mimi[1]?”

　“Ang-ang!” The damp little creature paid no heed to having acquired yet another nickname. It happily leapt into the Marquis’s embrace, seemingly acting spoiled but secretly sneaking the chance to rub its fur dry against him.

　Bian Yonglan rubbed the lynx’s plump little belly, teasing, “So it really isn’t just fat.”

　The little creature pushed his hand away with a paw, then flattened it with its damp little paws. Like a house cat coughing up a hairball it stretched its neck almost as if it was trying to spit something into his palm.

　“Swallow it back,” Tanshan remarked in his usual emotionless tone, though his voice unexpectedly deepened. He silently chided the creature for its lack of discretion, thinking that were it not for their shared telepathic understanding, he would have to clean up yet another mess it had created.

　“Yonglan, bring Linu over here. Whatever’s in its belly, you’d best not touch it.”

　“Here.” The Marquis of Wanjiang brought the little creature with its ears pricked up as if on the verge of vomiting to the bedside. Tanshan extended his hand, and Linu let out a soft whimper before expelling a dark, shapeless object into the monk’s palm.

　The thing, freshly expelled, seemed momentarily disoriented. It spun dazedly twice in Tanshan’s palm before finally regaining its bearings and flapping its wings to take flight, but the monk held it firmly between his fingers.

　“Judging by its size, this should be an origin gu,” Tanshan cautiously opened his mind to capture the creature. After carefully scanning his consciousness and confirming his mind was calm and free of anomalies, he opened his eyes to examine the thing between his fingers which seemed like an insect but was not. “Since it’s still alive, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find the person who raised it.”

　“…Does this mean you don’t have to remain blind?” Marquis Wanjiang’s heart skipped a beat upon seeing his eyes open. Yet upon closer inspection, those eyes were merely black and white[2], with long lashes like precisely drawn ink lines. The corners drooped slightly. Though strikingly beautiful, they were ordinary eyes, devoid of the abyssal depths of emotion that had once resided within.

　“Since the restrictions are now meaningless, so be it,” Tanshan remarked indifferently. Yet moments later, he raised the gu with a hint of resignation. “Do not look at me. Look at it.”

　“What’s so good looking about it?” the Marquis of Wanjiang scowled at the gu, clicking his tongue. “It looks really ugly.”

　The gu was scarcely larger than a fingertip, covered in dozens of tiny, dense legs. Entirely pitch-black, it possessed neither mouth nor eyes, but it could still make sounds. Whether out of loathing for the monk or offence at being cursed for being ugly, it emitted a shrill, drawn-out hiss.

　“It possesses rudimentary sentience,” Tanshan reasoned, though he’d never studied the art of cultivating gu. “Knowing it must flee if its strike misses, it likely retains a will to survive. Since the gu cannot stray far from its master, let us harness that instinct to survive to guide us.”

　“Linu,” the monk called to the small creature that had been rubbing against Marquis Wanjiang’s leg, “come and swallow it.”

　“Won’t it give a stomach ache, swallowing this thing?”

　“Though Linu is little more than a living corpse, it differs from that town’s living corpses,” Tanshan offered no further explanation of their distinction, merely stating, “With the gu within its belly it shall suffer no harm, and the gu itself shall remain more docile.”

　“Did you hear that? Go swallow it,” The Marquis of Wanjiang gave the little creature, which was reluctantly rubbing against him and hesitating to swallow the gu, a helpless expression before adding, “Otherwise, where do you expect us to put this thing?”

　“Ang!” Seeing no one would back it up, the lynx reluctantly swallowed the gu. Then, bounding off, it scampered to the daybed outside the guest room to lie sprawled out, licking its fur, probably bearing a grudge against both of them.

　“Do you recognise the person who raised the gu?” Marquis Wanjiang, though preoccupied with the monk, remembered the matter at hand. “It’s likely connected to whoever set the array. Could well be the same person.”

　“I wouldn’t say I recognise them, but it does confirm a suspicion I had before setting out…”

　The monk was about to elaborate when the Marquis of Wanjiang, who had just spoken of serious matters, interrupted: “No hurry. I hear the rain outside is nearly over. Now that Linu has returned, you’ll be safe enough. I’ll go fetch someone to buy you a couple of sets of clothes.”

　Tanshan assumed he’d be back shortly, yet it was more than half a shichen before he returned.

　“Go on then,” The Marquis of Wanjiang offered no explanation for his absence, merely settling at the table and brushing the dampness from his shoulders. “What are your conjectures?”

　“You once mentioned my sect possesses many peculiarities. Yet beyond Buddhist cultivation, its ancestral teachings require mastery of but three disciplines,” Tanshan formed a ‘三’ with his fingers, “Visualisation, Deduction, and Sealing.”

　“When my shifu found me at Tanshan Temple, I must have been five,” Tanshan did not elaborate on the profound meaning of these three disciplines, but instead spoke of his origins. “The monks at the temple said I had no parents, having been found by the stream while they were fetching water. As a child, Buddhist teachings came to me without instruction, as if heaven had born me and earth had raised me. I was destined for cultivation from birth. ‘I have but twenty years left in my fate. Come with me now’—these were the words my late shifu spoke when he took me from the temple.”

　“…………” Upon hearing the phrase ‘I have but twenty years left in my fate,’ the Marquis of Wanjiang startled. Upon catching the latter half of the statement, he inwardly rolled his eyes and exhaled a sigh of relief.

　“My shifu once told me that when I could divine my own fate, I would naturally know where to seek the next heir to the sect,” Tanshan stated bluntly. “My shifu’s sect is unlike ordinary temples; it has always been one shifu, one disciple, passed down through generations.”

　“Then at Changgeng Temple…” The Marquis of Wanjiang was about to ask whether the other monks at Changgeng Temple were not part of his sect, but before the question left his lips, Tanshan reached into the inner pocket of his monk’s robe and drew out an object. Upon closer inspection, it was a small bronze statue.

　The figure stood but a finger’s breadth tall, its head completely bald, clearly depicting a monk. Though the eyebrows and eyes were not finely chiselled, it possessed a strangely lifelike quality.

　“When worshipers enter the temple to offer incense, the attendant monk they see is this very statue,” Tanshan said, cradling it in his palm. “It can manifest as one, or multiply into ten. How many it can conjure depends entirely on the depth of one’s cultivation.”

　“…………”

　Before the Marquis of Wanjiang could fully process this extraordinary revelation, the monk continued: “The sealing techniques of my sect cannot bind living beings. This bronze statue is inanimate, and the monk it conjures is not a living person. You need not fear that it holds the soul of a living person within.”

　“…No,” the Marquis of Wanjiang replied almost apathetically. “You’re telling me the monk I saw in the temple wasn’t actually alive either. That doesn’t make it any better.”

　“Why not regard them as wooden oxen and flowing horses, or mechanical statues?” Tanshan remarked, noticing the man by the table staring blankly at the bronze figure in his palm, and casually offered a joke. “Yonglan, I had thought your courage of late had grown considerably. It seems you still require more experience.”

　“Hehe.” The Marquis of Wanjiang gave a cold laugh, granting the monk the courtesy of a response, while inwardly scoffing: So your entire temple, apart from one old bald-headed monk and one young bald-headed monk, contains no other living souls? Dashi, it seems you’ve brought the entire temple with you on your person.

　“Do you recall me mentioning my shifu’s rather free-spirited nature?” Tanshan resumed his serious tone. “During my training under him, I once heard him recount an old tale. Our sect traditionally passed down knowledge from shifu to sole disciple through generations, yet his own generation broke that rule.”

　Tanshan’s shifu, whose Dharma name was Miaochang[3], shared a similar background to his disciple, yet their temperaments could not have been more different.

　Monks ought to be untouched by worldly emotions, yet he had complained to his disciple more than once: “Why did I ever take on such a stubborn, tight-lipped gourd for a disciple?”

　Miaochang, too, had been found by his shifu in a deserted temple as a child. Yet after four years of training under him, he grew discontented and insisted on leaving the temple.

　“Shifu!” the eight year old monk protested with powerful conviction, “Look at our temple—besides you and me, there’s not a living soul left to breathe. Is this appropriate?”

　“Shifu, I want a shidi[4]…” After his tantrum, he turned to pleading, “Look at this snowfall in the capital—the heaviest in years! That beggar boy outside is nearly frozen stiff at our temple door. We won’t take many, just this one. Is that alright?”

　Having made his plea, the young monk continued with reasoned argument: “You taught me to cultivate compassion, that all beings suffer. But if we won’t even save the one right before our eyes, how can we save all the people? If you won’t let me take him in, at least let the child stay through this winter in our temple. If not, I’ll leave this dilapidated place this very moment and never again practise that ‘sentient beings’ with you!”

　And so, on a snowy winter’s day, the eight-year-old little monk brought home a beggar boy two years his junior. By the time winter gave way to spring, the two children had grown inseparable, as close as brothers. Thus, this young monk, known by the Dharma name Miaochang, single-handedly shattered the centuries-old traditions of his own sect through sheer stubbornness and persistence.

　“The Aspects of All Beings is a secret technique that can only be passed to one destined to receive it. Yet my shifu’s shidi, whom I never met, seems to have grasped some of its contemplation, deduction, and sealing techniques,” Tanshan concluded his tale of past karma, adding, “Though he scarcely deserves the title of shifu’s shidi—I never met the man. After his shifu’s passing, Miochang’s shidi took his leave and returned to secular life.”

　“And your shifu simply let him go?” Bian Yonglan exclaimed in astonishment. “Setting aside the arts of visualisation and deduction, your sect’s sealing array’s must surely be peerless skill…”

　“There is no such thing as only allowing entry and not allowing exit,” Tanshan remarked calmly. “When karmic ties are severed, departure must follow the flow of circumstances. Moreover, my sect possesses another method for discerning true nature and rectifying the mind, known as the ‘Nine Questions of Bodhi’.” The monk shook his head. “My shifu was merely of a free-spirited nature, not careless or reckless. Before his shidi left the monastic life, he had already passed the trial of the Nine Questions of Bodhi. This clearly demonstrated his upright character; he should not have been a wicked individual.”

　“So your speculation before I left earlier…”

　“I suspected that this individual is connected to the loss of the imperial seal,” Tanshan nodded. “This speculation may now be substantiated.”

　“…………”

　The Marquis of Wanjiang fell silent, reflecting that one capable of such utterly depraved acts against an entire town could scarcely be described as merely ‘wicked’. Were your shifu to learn of this in the afterlife, he would surely be overcome with anguish, regretting having saved the wrong man all those years ago.

　“Do you know that man’s name?” Bian Yonglan deliberately avoided mentioning the town’s affairs, fearing the monk might blame himself. “If he truly returned to secular life, having a secular name would make him easier to track down.”

　“His original Dharma name was Miaowu[5]. When he returned to secular life, my shifu gave him a new secular name. Though I cannot say if he still goes by it now,” replied Tanshan. “That man is called—”

　“Xia Chunqiu! Do you know why I gave you that name?”

　As bonds began and ended, the young monk stood by the roadside, watching his shidi—who had journeyed with him for twenty years—grow ever more distant. Of course, as of now he would no longer be his shidi. Suddenly, he called out loudly: “From now on…”[6]

　He raised his hand and waved vigorously, heedless of the passers-by on the main road. With a smile, he shouted: “May you always have enough to eat! May you always be warmly clothed! And live well!”

　I hope from now on you will be well-fed and warmly clothed, safe and joyful for one hundred years. And from now on, only three seasons will pass, with no winter that I know you don’t like.[7]

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[1] Name for a cat, like calling ‘kitty’

[2] 黑白分明 idiom, clear and distinct

[3] 妙常 lit. always clever

[4] 师弟 Junior martial brother. Not based on age but on time spent cultivating

[5] 妙无 lit. wonderful nothing

[6] 夏春秋 Miochang gave him this name because 夏 for summer, 春秋 for the spring and autumn period

[7] The four seasons mean new beginnings, growth, change and ending.