by Grace Lin
“You’re playing with a toad,” Rendi said with a note of disgust. Peiyi rolled her eyes. “It’s more fun than you,” she said.
He began to respond with a rude insult, but suddenly the image of the cold, grim stone tablet came into Rendi’s mind. He closed his mouth.
“Rendi,” Madame Chang said as he paused, “Peiyi says that you haven’t ever smiled since you’ve been here. Is that true?”
Rendi shrugged.
“Yesterday, I noticed that you seemed to enjoy my story,” Madame Chang said. “Am I right?”
Rendi nodded grudgingly. “It was interesting,” he said.
“Well, I want to make a deal with you,” Madame Chang said. “If I can make you smile… no, if I can make you laugh with this next story, then for every story I tell, you must tell one of your own.”
“I don’t know any stories!” Rendi protested.
“Oh, I’m sure you do,” Madame Chang said, smiling at him in a teasing way. “You’ve just never shared them before. And I’ll give you plenty of time to think of one—you can tell yours at dinner.”
“I want to hear the funny story!” Peiyi said. Mr. Shan nodded, and the toad croaked as if in agreement. Even Master Chao, standing at the back of the room, seemed to be looking at Rendi.
Rendi shrugged again. “Does it have to be a good story?” he asked.
“Any story you want,” Madame Chang said. “We won’t complain.”
“I will!” Peiyi said, but Madame Chang ignored her.
“Is it a deal?” Madame Chang said, looking at Rendi.
He hesitated.
“Oh, Rendi!” Peiyi said, irritated. “You’re not going to laugh anyway.”
“All right,” Rendi said. Why not? he thought.
Madame Chang smiled. Unexpectedly, she turned her head and looked at Master Chao. He had been pretending that their conversation was unworthy of his attention, but it was plain to see that he had been listening closely. He quickly looked away and pushed the beads on his abacus, as if he were deep in calculation. Madame Chang’s smile grew larger, and she began the story.
THE STORY OF THE OLD SAGE
Once there was an old man who lived on a mountaintop. Some thought he was a crazy old man. Others thought he was the Mountain Spirit or even an immortal. But most believed he was a sage of great wisdom.
Many sought him—some for answers, some for advice, and some to be his students. The old man answered all the questions and solved all the problems, but he shooed away all the hopeful students. However, one student named Tiwu refused to give up. He returned over and over again, begging and pleading, until finally the sage agreed to teach him.
Tiwu was an eager pupil. At the sun’s first light, the sage would share the old stories and teachings, and they would spend the rest of the day in deep contemplation. But at night, when the moon climbed into the sky, the old man ignored his student and, instead, read to himself from a large book.
Tiwu wondered about this. It was obvious to him that there was great wisdom in the book that only the sage read. What special knowledge was in it? He yearned to know. But the sage never offered him even a glance at one of the pages.
However, Tiwu was a reasonable fellow. He will allow me to read the book, he thought, when I have mastered everything else he has taught me. So he set his mind on his lessons, learning in earnest.
And with such effort, his progress was quite considerable. Soon, when people came to the old sage for answers, Tiwu was able to give them. Before long, Tiwu also began to gain the reputation of being a wise man.
Encouraged by this, Tiwu finally gathered the courage to ask the sage about the book. One night, as the old man read silently, Tiwu asked, “Master, what are you reading in that book?”
“The page I am reading right now,” the old man said without looking up, “is about the secret to attaining peace.”
The secret to peace! Tiwu was in awe. Only the wisest and greatest of sages would know that. The book was full of wonderful secrets! What other extraordinary answers were in that book?
“Master,” Tiwu said, “may I read the secret to peace too?”
The old man looked at him. “Do you really wish to know the secret to peace?” he asked. “Or do you simply wish to read the Book of Fortune?”
Tiwu thought carefully and then said honestly, “Both.”
The sage said nothing, stroking his beard in thought. Tiwu could sense his doubt. Finally, the sage said, “Do you really believe you are ready?”
“Yes,” Tiwu said confidently. In his mind, the only thing that kept him and the sage from being equals was the knowledge in the book.
“I am not sure,” the old man said.
“I am!” Tiwu said. “Please, how can I prove it to you?”
The sage sat thoughtfully for a moment and then said, “At the bottom of this mountain, you will see a tall tree overlooking a lake. Climb the tree to the highest branch and sit there in contemplation for ninety-nine days and nights. If you are able to do that, you may read the Book of Fortune and the secret to achieving peace.”
Immediately, Tiwu traveled down the mountain, and he found the tall tree overlooking the lake. The tree was smooth and straight, like a giant paintbrush, and seemed almost as tall as the mountain he had just left. With great difficulty, Tiwu wrapped a rope around the trunk of the tree and made his way up to the highest branch.
At the top, he sat in complete confidence. He was sure he could meet his master’s requirements and return to learn the great secret. The sun rose and dropped, the moon filled and emptied, and Tiwu watched it all from the top of the tree. Nearby villagers, finding it easier to call up questions to someone in a tree than to climb a mountain, sent him baskets of food, which he hauled up using his rope. Soon, he began to bestow answers and advice to a steady stream of followers.
On the ninety-sixth night, there was a terrible storm. The wind shrieked and screamed, and the thunder’s roars echoed for miles away. Lightning slashed the sky, and rain attacked like vicious arrows. The tree swayed and bent, but Tiwu, remembering his master’s teachings, did not panic. Even as nearby branches cracked and fell and rain and wind slapped his face raw, he sat silently, like a stone statue.
The next morning, everyone crowded around the tree to see Tiwu sitting calmly up in the branches. “He is, without a doubt, a great sage,” they said to one another. “Only one who has achieved real enlightenment could be unmoved by that storm.” And they hailed and honored him from the ground.
Tiwu heard their praises and felt quite satisfied. I have truly proven myself, he thought, and wrote a poem:
Like a mountain of stone,
The most powerful wind,
The most thunderous noise,
Cannot move me.
Steadfast my mind,
Deliverance my gain.
This he decided to send to his master, the old man on the mountain. One of Tiwu’s admirers quickly brought it to the sage. The old man read the poem and smiled. Then he flipped the paper over and wrote in dark characters:
BURP
And sent it back to Tiwu.
Tiwu quickly read the reply, expecting praise from his teacher. When he saw what his master had scrawled on the page instead, Tiwu was very insulted. “ ‘Burp’!” he said indignantly. “I speak of sacrifice and great knowledge, and he returns this? What does he mean?”
Offended, Tiwu rushed down the tree and up the mountain. With every step, he felt more resentful of his master’s response. So when he finally saw the old sage sitting calmly, Tiwu immediately began to berate him. “What is this?” Tiwu said, waving the message angrily. “ ‘Burp’! What did you mean?”
The old man waited until Tiwu paused for breath. “You said the most powerful wind and the loudest noise could not move you,” the sage said with a smile. “But it took only one burp to bring you here.”
With those words Madame Chang finished the story and looked at Rendi. His mouth had curved, and a noise snorted out of his nose
. It was only when the sound joined everyone else’s that he realized he was laughing.
CHAPTER
12
After lunch, Rendi went to collect water from the Half-Moon Well. Ever since he had arrived at the Village of Clear Sky, all his time from lunch until dinner was spent doing this. Rendi walked back and forth on the twisting street between the inn and the well, until the sun sat right on the horizon like a balancing egg yolk.
The Half-Moon Well was divided by a crumbling stone wall. It had been the wall of a courtyard, protecting a wealthy home when the Village of Clear Sky was rich and prospering. At that time, the owner must have been generous, for he had dug half the well beyond the wall so that poor peasants could use it too. To them, the split well had looked like the half circle of the midmonth moon, so they called it the Half-Moon Well. However, now, with the wall in ruins, the well looked more like a full moon with a scar down its center. Rendi cursed it daily.
The Half-Moon Well was an awkward shape to haul water from, the dividing wall making the openings too small for buckets. Rendi was forced to use a small hollow gourd to draw up the water, which he emptied into the large buckets he carried to and from the inn. Every day, Rendi had to gather enough water for the garden and the inn, and he often felt as if he were trying to fill a lake using a spoon.
Today, however, Rendi did not curse the well. He did not think of the wails in the sky that gave him no peace at night. He did not even plot or plan how he could leave the village. Instead, he was busy trying to think of a story to tell at dinner. He tried to remember old fairy tales told to him or to make one up, but his mind remained empty. “Why did I agree to tell a story?” he groaned to himself. “Why does she want me to tell a story, anyway?”
So while his head was empty, the rest of him was full of anxiety. Even as he filled the oversize buckets with the gourd, his thoughts were turning and twisting like dough deep-frying in oil.
Perhaps that was why, when Rendi had finished the tiring process of filling the buckets, he paid less attention to his feet than he should have. He had just balanced the carrying stick on his shoulders, still thinking furiously, and was stepping over the well, when his back foot caught on the partition wall. In that instant, Rendi tripped—his buckets swung madly like crazed pendulums, splashing water in large waves, until everything, including Rendi, crashed to the ground.
“Owww!” Rendi cried.
He lay facedown on the hard, dusty earth. Pain flashed through him, and a bump was already forming on the back of his head where one of the buckets had struck him. But it was anger that was burning through Rendi like a hot fire. Already, the spilled water—the water that took him so long to collect—was drying in the sun.
“Stupid, stupid wall!” Rendi roared, jumping up and kicking the partition with his foot, resulting in new stabs of pain. With a yelp of anger, he began attacking the wall with all his strength.
Boiling rage seemed to have bubbled and burst inside him. His every muscle throbbed with red fury. The air seemed to shriek in his ears, and the fierceness of his anger felt like explosions inside his head. His pole cracked and the buckets bounced from the wall, but Rendi still felt as if he were ablaze with a thousand bee stings. He fell to his knees and grabbed a rock with each hand and raised them to strike.
But suddenly, his hands froze in the air and the rocks dropped to the ground.
For, unexpectedly, he saw his reflection in the well. The water on both sides of the well mirrored him, showing him in a way he had never seen before—roaring with anger and filled with rage.
“I look like… I look like…” Rendi gasped, “my father!” He felt as if a searing knife had been stabbed into him, the reflections in the water revealing a likeness he almost could not bear. For a moment, he was blinded by a mix of memories, pain, and regret.
When his vision cleared, Rendi was staring again at two images of himself. The faces that looked back at him were troubled and uneasy. He felt tired, as if he had been running for days. Tears stung his eyes. But the water and the stones of the wall were as still and unmoved as if they were the empty sky above.
CHAPTER
13
During dinner, Rendi could sense everyone waiting for him. He had been late, for not only had he had to refill his buckets, they had also sprung leaks from his abuse, and he had to carry them by hand, as he had broken his pole. So when he finally entered the inn, the expectant eyes weighed upon him even more than the thick, sticky summer air.
Mr. Shan and the toad both croaked eagerly, and Master Chao was unusually attentive while Rendi picked at the rice in his bowl. The thick dark bowl, the color of burned wood, weighed heavily in Rendi’s hands as he tried to avoid looking at Madame Chang.
She said nothing, letting him push the grains of rice with his chopsticks and chew air long after everyone else had finished their meal. The sky darkened and grew heavier and heavier. Rendi cringed inside. The night would soon begin its crying, which would not help him with his storytelling. Perhaps he could make an excuse or pretend… Peiyi gave an impatient sigh.
“Come on, Rendi!” Peiyi said. “Stop trying to think of a trick to get out of telling a story.”
“I’m sure Rendi is still just thinking of what he wants to tell,” Madame Chang said. “Whenever you are ready, Rendi.”
Rendi flushed at the truth of Peiyi’s words. Madame Chang’s kindness made him feel ashamed, but, suddenly, as if by magic, “I have a story to tell,” Rendi said.
“Really?” Peiyi said in disbelief.
“Yes,” Rendi said, and began.
THE STORY OF THE DANCING FISH
Once there was a powerful magistrate. Even though his son and daughter were not supposed to have heard, they knew that everyone called their father Magistrate Tiger. It was a fitting name, for the magistrate always seemed to be roaring—at his servants, his wife, and even his children. And whenever he roared, all jumped to do his bidding.
“The blood of the greatest ruler and hero pumps in us!” Magistrate Tiger would thunder to his young children, the green silk of his sleeves flapping. “We must make the world bow to us again!”
Of course, Magistrate Tiger’s children did not know what their father meant, and they were, in fact, too frightened to ask. But they knew that their father was always working to become more powerful and that he even hoped the emperor himself would acknowledge him. Often, Magistrate Tiger made trips out of his district, trying to get closer and closer to being accepted by the imperial family. His children never knew if he was successful, but they did enjoy his frequent absences—the sight of a waiting carriage made his son feel like a bird about to take flight.
The only people Magistrate Tiger did not roar at were his superiors. To kings and dukes and princes, his voice was silky and smooth. But perhaps they still would have called him Magistrate Tiger—to them, he purred like a cat.
And he did more than purr, his son found out. One day, Magistrate Tiger arrived home with an expensive qin. Magistrate Tiger had never shown interest in music before, so the entire household was surprised to see the stringed instrument in his hands—and they were even more shocked when Magistrate Tiger began to teach himself how to play.
After mastering a few simple songs, Magistrate Tiger called his children to him. Wearing a robe of brilliant green, he gave each of them a bowl of rice and, carrying the qin, had them follow him into the garden.
They stopped in front of the pond, where dozens of bright orange carp waved in the water. Magistrate Tiger stationed his children on either side of him and, as he began to play the qin, instructed them to throw rice out into the water. The fish, seeing the food, began to jump up to eat the rice.
Every day they did this. As Magistrate Tiger played the qin, the children threw rice and the fish rushed for the food. Magistrate Tiger urged the children to throw the rice higher and higher, and the fish began to leap from the water to catch the grains. The children laughed and it was, the son thought, the most enjoyable time he ha
d ever spent with his father.
But one day, when the son was playing up in a tree next to the pavilion of the fishpond, he saw his father, wearing his customary green silk robe, walking with his qin and a strange man. The man walked as if his neck could not bend toward the earth, and, judging from the fineness of his clothes, he could only be a grand official or some sort of royalty. The son, who was not supposed to climb trees in the garden, quickly found a branch that hid him from view.
“Ah, Duke Zhe,” Magistrate Tiger was saying in his smoothest voice, “I am so honored that you have finally accepted my invitation to visit.”
“When I heard you are a connoisseur of music, I felt obliged to come,” the duke said.
“Did you?” Magistrate Tiger said in surprise.
“Yes,” Duke Zhe said. “Music reveals much about a person’s character, does it not? Emotions and thoughts are communicated by it.”
“Oh, yes,” Magistrate Tiger said, nodding. “I’ve heard you follow the ancient philosophy of music.”
“I suppose I do.” Duke Zhe smiled. “And not just music but sound itself. If a listener truly understands, he can hear what others cannot. Sentiment and sound cannot be separated.”
“I’ve often thought the same,” Magistrate Tiger said, and stood by the fishpond as if in deep thought.
“Ah, but I’m not here to spout philosophy,” Duke Zhe said. “I’m here to hear you play! The finer the music, the more noble the person—is that not true?”
“My playing is elementary,” Magistrate Tiger said humbly. “But I do try to convey my most noble thoughts with it.”
And without any further words, Magistrate Tiger began to strum the qin. As his familiar chords rang through the air, the fish began to jump out of the water, expecting the rice that had always been there before. They leaped again and again, as if dancing to the music. They shimmered in the sunlight, soaring and diving like cascades of orange and gold rainbows. It was beautiful.
Slowly, Magistrate Tiger stopped playing. The carp slowly stopped jumping. As the qin rested silently, the pond was calm. Duke Zhe looked amazed and, without a word, bowed to Magistrate Tiger.