by Jeremy Bai
That was how Sunan began to learn about that special energy.
It was on that same night that he had a strange dream, a dream of golden statues and shining light. Normally Sunan did not remember his dreams, but this one was different. The following morning, he could remember it in detail. And that wasn’t all. It felt… real. However, he had more pressing concerns than a dream about golden statues, so he dismissed it and concerned himself with more practical matters.
Strangely, the following morning, he noticed a strip of gray cloth hanging from a branch near where he had been sleeping. Looking down at his clothing, he realized that his garments were slowly deteriorating into rags. And yet that strip of cloth didn’t seem to have come from his own garb. It was a mystery to be sure, but it only occupied his mind for a short time before he pushed the matter aside.
In the following weeks, he continued to drink from the pond water, to live as part of nature, and to learn more about that energy. Soon he realized that the energy had come to be part of him because he had been drinking the pond water. However, as more energy built up in him, and he became more skilled in manipulating it while meditating, he realized that it could be absorbed in other ways.
Furthermore, by controlling his breathing in certain ways, he could improve the rate at which the energy flowed into and through his body. Soon he reached the point where it wasn’t even necessary to drink the pond water, except as a source of refreshment when his tongue was dry.
As time passed, he became more proficient in manipulating the energy. However, other than the invigorating effects it had on him, Sunan wasn’t sure how it could truly benefit him.
Eventually the weather started to turn cold. Autumn was about to turn into winter. If he stayed by the pond, he would very likely end up stranded by a winter storm, and then he would surely die.
Now was not the time to be complacent.
Without a backward glance at the pond, he headed down out of the mountains and made his way toward the nearest city.
Daolu.
Chapter 2: Five Spades
Sunan was not used to cities, but considering his circumstances, he didn’t pay much attention to his surroundings. After the long trek down from the mountains, he was famished.
After months of living off the land, as soon as the fragrant smell of sweet buns and fried food reached his nose, his stomach began to scream at him. He spied one dish that appeared to be made from long strips of very thin bread, all piled together, and it looked delicious.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have even a single spade of money to his name, which meant that if he wanted to eat immediately, he would have to steal or worse, beg.
His eyes flickered as he took in the sights and sounds while strolling along the busy streets. From his observations, he soon realized that the beggars in the city were organized. He learned that the hard way, of course. At one point, he decided to rest by squatting down on a street corner, only to be accosted by an angry beggar who told him, “Get lost, this is my street corner!”
At first he was confused as to why he would be taken for a beggar, until he remembered that he’d worn the same set of clothes his entire time in the wilderness.
The longer Sunan walked to and fro, the more his stomach grumbled. He began to glance at the food stalls out of the corner of his eye, and he even started to eye the bulging purses tied to the belts of passing merchants and aristocrats.
In the end, he was the type of person who couldn’t bear to lower himself to the criminal element.
He would rather be a dog than a thief.
And that was how he ended up squatting in an alley, picking through a heap of trash. He found some half-eaten buns, a bottle gourd with a bit of yellow wine sloshing around in the bottom, and a few other miscellaneous items.
After sating his hunger, he crossed his legs and meditated for a bit to calm himself. Then he left the alley and began to explore the city.
The city had a long history that Sunan remembered reading about once upon a time. In the ancient dialect of Classical Fei, the name of the city meant “Road of Blades,” and there were numerous legends and stories about why that was the case.
It was part of one of the last sovereign nations in the land, the Hen-Shi Empire, which was the shrunken remnant of the Hen-Shi Dynasty that had ruled Qi Xien decades before. And yet Demon Emperor soldiers, who Sunan learned were called the Lions of Peace, could still be seen occasionally in the streets.
Like most old cities, it was well organized and laid out, sturdy and built to withstand the ravages of war. Sunan found a few locations such as restaurants or inns that were hiring staff. However, after only two inquiries, he learned that such establishments required that all new staff members provide paperwork to establish legal residency in the city, stamped with an official seal.
His heart sank. Honest employment seemed impossible to acquire, leaving him with few choices. He could resort to crime, or he could try to join whatever guild or sect the beggars ran.
He had just decided to seek a way to join the beggars when he noticed that across the crowded square from where he stood was a small booth with a banner hanging next to it that read: “Scholar Sun Mai’s Sundry Services.”
Sitting behind a rough wooden table was a young man dressed like a scholar, frowning as he read a bamboo scroll. His robe was disheveled, his hair unkempt, and his face was smudged with ink. Spread out on the table in front of him were various scholar’s instruments, including sheets of paper, brushes, ink, and the like. Furthermore, leaned up against the table next to him was a guqin, a type of seven-stringed zither that was the signature instrument of a true scholar.
After seeing the young man sitting there, an idea bloomed in Sunan’s mind. Eyes glinting shrewdly, he strode across the square until he stood directly in front of the table.
“Greetings, scholar,” he said, clasping his hands respectfully.
“Mm-hmm,” was the reply from the young scholar, who stared intently at the bamboo scroll for a moment before inserting his thumb into his mouth and beginning to chew it slowly.
Sunan cleared his throat. “I’m in need of certain services. Sundry services, perhaps?”
“Sun Mai’s Sundry Services,” the young scholar replied.
Sunan frowned. “Are you Sun Mai?”
“I am Sun Mai. Sun Mai I am.” The young scholar looked up from the bamboo scroll. “Perfect.”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you know what perfect means? Perfect.”
Sunan was a bit taken aback. “Umm… I believe so.”
“You believe so…”
Sunan began to back up slowly. Perhaps this hadn’t been the best idea after all. “Sorry, I mistook you for someone else,” he said. “I’ll be taking my leave and—”
Sun Mai slapped his hand down onto the table. “Perfect and imperfect. They’re just states of mind, opinions, impressions. Beliefs! You believe so, and therefore you know.” A profound gleam appeared in his eyes, and he looked Sunan square in the eyes. “You, sir, are potentially a genius. Did you know that? Genius! How could I have overlooked this?”
He pulled out a sheet of paper and a small brush and began to furiously write down a steady stream of characters, muttering incoherently as he did. “Perfect… imperfect… beliefs are just systems… the sky… moon and sun… Dehua… interesting, interesting, interesting… YES!” He leapt to his feet and held the paper aloft with a triumphant smile.
“This is it! The beginning of my classic scripture!” He looked back at Sunan. “Of course, it won’t be classic until much later, so it will start out as an ordinary scripture. But one day, my friend, one day, it will be a classic. A classic, I tell you!” He blinked as if just noticing Sunan. “Who are you?”
Sunan stared in shock for a moment before regaining his senses. “Fan Sunan, but… just call me Sunan.”
“Sunan? I’m Sun Mai.” The young scholar clasped his hands and bowed. “I’m in your debt for this bit of enlightenment. How
can I repay you? Do you need a poem written for a lover? Music for a feast? A painting, perhaps?”
Sunan felt a bit put on the spot. He wanted to simply turn on his heel and walk off into the crowd, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to be so impolite.
“I need some writing done,” he said finally. “Something similar to… proof of residency in the city. Do you happen to have official sealing stamps on hand?”
Sun Mai cocked his head to the side for a moment, after which he chuckled and lifted his left eyebrow. “Ahh, a recommendation letter. So, you need that type of writing.” He chuckled. “Of course I can accommodate you.”
He sat back down and began to shuffle through his brushes. “You know, back when the Hen-Shi Empire was really on top of things, I would never have done something like this. It is most… inappropriate. But Emperor Tian really ran things into the ground, and times are tough. So, in this one case, I will bend my moral compass to help a soul as equally destitute as myself. Oh, by the way, the cost will be a total of five spades.”
Sunan cleared his throat again and was just about to launch into a counter proposal when he noticed that he was not alone at Sun Mai’s booth.
A tall, muscular man was now standing next to him on his left, and to the right were two shorter men. Although Sunan had grown up in a village, it was obvious to him that these men were ruffians. From the way they held themselves to the expressions on their faces, he knew that they were people he couldn’t afford to offend.
“Sun Mai, Sun Mai,” the tall man said, “please tell me you have good news for me.”
Sun Mai looked up, and when he saw the tall man standing next to Sunan, his face went a bit pale.
“G-g-green Tiger Zheng,” he stammered. “Long time no see! How can I help you?”
“Long time no see?” Green Tiger Zheng replied. “I was here yesterday afternoon. And my patience is running thin. Where is my money?”
“Money?” Sun Mai said. “Er, money, oh… right… money! Money.” His face brightened. “Well, as a matter of fact, I do have some money. What do you say to a ten percent payment, right here and now!”
Green Tiger Zheng’s eyes narrowed. “Ten percent? That’s only five spades.”
Sun Mai tilted his head up, and a solemn expression appeared on his face. “Sir, I assume that you are not very familiar with Dehua, but allow me to point out that Kong Zhi said, ‘Strive to be poor but joyful, wealthy but civilized.’”
Green Tiger Zheng stared at Sun Mai for a moment. “As far as I’m concerned, you can take that brush and stick it up Kong Zhi’s—”
“Hey, hey!” interrupted Sun Mai, throwing his hands up in air. “Please, sir, show at least some respect for the ancient sages. I have five spades to give you today. Isn’t that better than nothing? And I promise that… I promise that I’ll provide the same amount every other day until the whole amount is paid off!”
“Why should I believe you? You haven’t paid a single spade back for the past two months!”
Sun Mai cleared his throat. “I have a wealthy new patron,” he explained. “I am very much looking forward to paying back your fifty spades.”
Green Tiger Zheng’s hand closed around the handle of the wooden cudgel he had strapped to his belt. “Very well. Five spades now. Five more in two days, and the same until your debt is clean.” He held out his hand. “Now give me those spades.”
Sun Mai nodded solemnly and then pointed to Sunan. “He has them.”
Sunan’s eyes went wide. “Me?” he blurted.
“Of course,” Sun Mai said. “Didn’t you just hire me for my writing services?”
“I don’t have any money! I was just about to tell you when—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Sunan saw a blur of motion out of the corner of his eye.
The tall burly man was reaching for him, clearly intent on grabbing him by the shoulder. For some reason, Sunan found his hands, feet, and waist falling into that same move that his master, the soldier, had taught him. He twisted to the side, leaning just the right way, and then pushed.
Before he even knew what was happening, the tall burly man was flying through the air. He crashed into Sun Mai’s table, crushing the entire thing and sending paper, ink, brushes, and all his scholarly tools flying up into the air.
“My table!” Sun Mai exclaimed with a choked cry.
The burly man groaned, and his two companions stared in shock for a moment. However, it didn’t take but a moment for the two of them to pull cudgels from their belts. No words were spoken, but it was clear what was happening.
Sun Mai’s eyes went wide, and Sunan stood there gaping. Despite Sunan’s intelligence, he was not a streetwise person. Sun Mai was.
“Run!” he cried, scooping up his zither, some scattered papers, and a few brushes. He leapt over the groaning man buried in the rubble of the table.
Sunan was simply too stunned to react. Before he could start running, one of the other ruffians took a swing at him with a wooden cudgel. Acting on mere instinct, Sunan leaned his head back to avoid the blow, then managed to reach out and grab ahold of the man’s wrist. Then he leaned backward quickly, simultaneously kicking at the man’s knee, another move he remembered learning from the soldier.
The ruffian collapsed face-first onto the dusty street.
Sunan had recovered his senses. Not waiting for the third man to make a move, he turned and began running as fast as he could in the other direction.
Off in the distance, Sun Mai was scrambling around a corner into an alley, juggling his zither and writing utensils the entire time. Sunan followed, speeding into the same alley moments later, whereupon he just managed to catch sight of Sun Mai ducking into a dark door.
For the subsequent quarter hour, Sunan followed Sun Mai as he fled in and out of buildings, alleys, streets, squares, stables, a library, a cricket shop, and even a brothel, before finally coming to stop behind a temple dedicated to Supreme Judge Yu. There, he plopped down beneath a cypress tree, dumped his zither and other items onto the ground next to him, and pulled a rag out of his sleeve, which he used to wipe the sweat from his face.
“That… was… a… close… one…” he said, breathing heavily the entire time.
Sunan rested his hands on his knees and gulped in huge lungfuls of fresh air. All of a sudden, he realized that he was starving again. He was of half a mind to curse Sun Mai, but for some reason, he felt that it wouldn’t do any good. After catching his breath, he dropped down cross-legged and said, “This was not how I envisioned my first day in the city.”
Sun Mai sighed deeply. “My apologies. Although if I were you, I would refrain from swindling others in the future.”
Sunan’s eyes went wide. “What did you just say?”
Sun Mai stretched out his hands placatingly. “Sunan, listen to me. The past is the past. It can be changed no more than the pigeon can restore the egg from which it just hatched.” He stopped talking and cocked his head to the side. “Say, that makes a lot of sense! Maybe I should write that one down to include in my classic scripture.”
He looked back at Sunan. “Anyway, the point is, we can’t change the past, right? So why worry about it? The most important thing is that I figured out something very important. I know how to make some money, Sunan. Big money. You and I are going to be rich!”
Chapter 3: Benches
In the northwest corner of Daolu was the warehouse district, a place where the buildings were large, utilitarian, and filled with things like grain and cloth, even jade. Of course, there were street vendors, beggars, and the like, but generally speaking, it was a quieter area than the other parts of the city.
One of the buildings in that area was different from the others. It looked like a warehouse, but it wasn’t. Most buildings in the warehouse district were well guarded, but this one had double the amount of guards. There were lookouts posted on nearby buildings who had special whistles fastened to their wrists that they would use if the wrong people approached.
Inside the main door of that building were more even more guards. Furthermore, the building had four secret entrances and at least seven secret exits.
Upon first entering the main door, you would think that you were in a packed warehouse, but that was just a facade. Beyond the facade was a stone wall with a tightly locked door. After the door was a staircase that led down below ground level.
When Sunan and Sun Mai knocked on the main door of the building itself, their hearts were pounding in their chests.
The sound of the knock echoed out into the streets and slowly faded away until everything was silent.
“Are you sure this is the place?” whispered Sunan.
“Of course I’m sure!” hissed Sun Mai. “I’ve lived in this city for years, and you just arrived. I’m a scholar, for heaven’s sake. You’re what, a vagabond at best? I’m street smart, do you hear me? Worldly wise! Did you know that once—”
Before he could finish speaking, the door opened a crack. Faint light spilled out, making it impossible to clearly make out the features of the face that appeared.
“The word?” growled a gruff voice.
Sun Mai tilted his chin up. “Green elephant eating rice!”
Sunan’s eyes went wide, and he stomped his foot down onto Sun Mai’s toe. “It’s sesame, you moron!”
Sun Mai grunted, cleared his throat, and then said, “Green sesame eating rice!”
Sunan’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. “You fool! Not the elephant. The rice!”
Sun Mai slowly turned to look at Sunan, his eyes flashing. “Please! There’s no need to be so insulting!” He turned back to the shadowy face in the door. “Green sesame eating sesame!”
Sunan quickly grabbed Sun Mai by the shoulders and nudged him to the side. “Hey, friend,” he said to the shadowy face. “My friend has just… had a bit too much to drink. The word is ‘green elephant eating sesame.’” He chuckled. “Sorry about that.”
The shadowy face snorted and closed the door. Shuffling and clanking sounds could be heard, and then the door opened.