The Peach Tree in Bloom Part 1

The eighty-third spring of the Kunlun era.

On the third of the fourth month, five days before the Buddha's birthday, the inns of Buddha City were already full, and pilgrims who could find no room lodged in the homes of ordinary folk. For the next seven days the city would blaze with lanterns, bright as noon, the din carrying through till dawn; stalls and shops kept no rest by day or night, and the stream of visitors never slackened.

He Dasong had lived since boyhood in the countryside on the outskirts of Buddha City. His father worked a few acres of poor land, and his mother mended monks' robes for others at home, earning a little spare coin. From the age of seven He Dasong helped his father in the fields, and for that reason, thin as he was, his body had grown hard and tough. He had two younger brothers and a little sister below him. The year he turned seven, a great snow came, and the newborn baby brother could not pull through; he was simply gone. After that his mother bore no more children. Five mouths remained in the household, and feeding them all was hard enough; if anything was left over, by the time the land tax was paid, and the yearly oil offering as well, they generally still came up short. The oil offering was Shaolin's head tax, levied so that Shaolin might light a blessing lamp for each of its people, watching over the safety of every soul under its care. He Dasong always tried to eat less so his brother could eat his fill, but his mother said that he worked, and only a full belly would give him the strength.

Prices in Buddha City were high, and life was lean. Sunrise to sunset, the work was always the same. Only at the Buddha's birthday each year did his parents take him into the city to pay homage, and there were so many fine things there: solemn statues of the Buddha, grand estates, street performers singing and reciting, the smell of cooking drifting out from teahouses and dining halls.

But none of it belonged to him.

What he wanted most was nothing more than a stick of candied haws, the one extra treat he might ever hope to receive.

The year he turned eight, he finally gathered his courage and asked the price.

Five coppers a stick.

He told himself that when he came back to Buddha City the next year, he would have saved up those five coppers.

But he could not put aside even a single copper. His days were carrying water, splitting wood, gathering deadwood, driving off pests, threshing grain, minding his brother and sister, and on top of it all snatching a little time to learn a few characters. Even when he had a spare moment, he had no idea where to earn money. At nine he came to Buddha City still empty-handed, and stared in secret longing at the candied-haw vendor's stall.

At ten he carried firewood for a wealthy household in Buddha City. Each load earned a reward of ten coppers, and every copper went to his parents. One day the master of the house had a son. He Dasong delivered firewood as usual, and the gatekeeper guarding the manor asked him, "How many in your family?"

"Five. Three big, two small." He Dasong had counted himself among the big ones.

The gatekeeper nodded, brought out five pieces of pastry, and said, "The master's just had a son. Everyone who comes to the gate gets a gift. Here, take these five festival cakes."

"Four is enough for me," He Dasong said. "Could you give me coin for the last one instead?"

Puzzled, the gatekeeper asked, "How much do you want for it?"

"Five coppers would do."

The gatekeeper burst out laughing. "You don't know what you're holding, boy. That cake's worth twenty coppers at least, and you'll take five? All right. I'll go and ask for you."

He went inside, and after a while came back with four boxes of cake and five coppers. "The master says you're to have five coppers."

Back home, He Dasong claimed he had eaten his own piece on the road, and no one in the family thought to doubt him. That night the He family's supper was those four cakes, and He Dasong went hungry the whole night.

He sewed the five coppers into his clothes and waited for the next Buddha's birthday.

When the day came, he slipped away while his parents burned incense and prayed, and took his brother and sister running to the candied-haw stall.

Seeing the way his brother and sister stared, mouths watering at the candied haws, he did not forget to warn them, "Don't tell Ma and Pa, or your big brother will get a beating."

They nodded eagerly.

"One stick of candied haws." He Dasong held out the money. The vendor frowned. "Not enough."

He Dasong started. "What do you mean, not enough? Isn't it five coppers a stick?"

"That was last year. It's six now," the vendor said. "You're one short."

"I only have five coppers," He Dasong mumbled. He looked at the haws; each stick held three. "Sell me just two, then? My little brother and sister want some."

The vendor shook his head. "Can't do that. These are skewered already. Who'd buy the leftover one?"

He Dasong begged him again and again, until at last the vendor said, "Fine. Two, then." He pulled one haw off, skewered it onto another bamboo stick, and handed the rest to He Dasong.

He Dasong said to his brother and sister, "One each. No fighting."

His brother asked, "Aren't you having any, big brother?"

He Dasong shook his head, looked at the candied haws, and could not help saying, "Your brother will just lick it a couple of times."

He put the haw in his mouth, and it was cool and smooth and sweeter than anything in the world, the most exquisite taste ever known. His eyes narrowed and his whole face broke into a smile. Afraid he might swallow it without meaning to, he hurriedly handed it back to his little brother. "There. Go on, eat."

Watching his brother and sister happily share it, he felt happy himself. At least he'd had a lick, He Dasong thought. Next year, he'd come again.

With his brother by one hand and his sister by the other, he wandered the nearby lanes, circling a few times, until he judged it was about time to head back to the assembly grounds to find their parents. "Let's go," he said.

He had just turned around when he collided with a girl. She gave a little cry, and a string of something fell from her hand.

Beside her stood a youth, who cursed, "Damn you, are you blind?"

He Dasong looked again at the girl. She wore her hair in two long braids, and her face was a pretty flushed round, lovely beyond words. He stared, dumbstruck.

"It's all right, it's all right," she said quickly, and crouched to pick up what she'd dropped. It was a stick of candied haws.

A stick with four haws on it, the very same that would have made up the one he'd come up short to buy.

"They're filthy now," the youth said. "Throw them away."

"Don't waste them," He Dasong said quickly. "Give them to me."

The youth snapped, "Get lost!"

"Lang, don't be cruel to him," the girl said. She hesitated a moment, then wiped the dust from the haws with her silk handkerchief and held them out. "Here, for you."

He Dasong took them: a full stick, four haws. He was so happy he could have flown into the sky. "Thank you," he said to her hurriedly. "Thank you!"

The girl flushed red and walked quickly away. He watched her receding figure as if entranced.

After that year, he had one more longing. Every Buddha's birthday he would search for that girl, and every year, somehow, he would catch sight of her. She was a devout believer, and each year on the Buddha's birthday she came before the Buddha's relic bone to receive the monks' blessing. He had only to keep watch there, and he would always glimpse her once.

But unlike the candied haws, the candied haws being a small happiness he could win with hard striving, that girl was like the deep courtyards of the rich man's manor, a world that did not belong to him.

To see her this once was enough, he thought.

Two years later, someone took an interest in their fields, wanting to buy the land to grow tea, and the family came into a little money and began to think of leaving Buddha City to seek a living elsewhere. But moving five people away from their home, the travel money might not stretch, and his parents thought of selling his little sister as a maidservant.

He Dasong told his parents that he would enter the temple as a monk of his own will, to ease the family's burden. He took the Proper Monk Liaoxu as his master, kept his given name, and took the dharma name Bensong. Liaoxu was a supervising monk who had not entered a hall, and lived in the Nameless Temple within Buddha City.

After that came the evening drum and morning bell, sutra lessons at dawn and dusk. He did not know whether it was for his sister's sake, or so that he might stay in Buddha City and see that girl once each year.

Two more years passed, and he heard from his master that the monk Liaoxin had brought back a simple-minded child. Now and then, when Liaoxin was away on temple business, he would leave the boy in the care of Bensong's master. He remembered that the child was called Ming Buxiang, and was uncommonly well-behaved.

Ming Buxiang grew up little by little, and so, of course, did the girl. He himself slowly grew from a boy of ten into a youth.

The girl became a young woman, blossoming into grace and poise.

Still he searched for her each Buddha's birthday, and each year he was not disappointed.

No words, no nearness, only a stolen glance from far off.

At eighteen, the great monk Liaoxin entered a hall, and Ming Buxiang left Buddha City.

At nineteen, he saw the girl with her hair pinned up, and knew she had married.

After the Buddha's birthday that year he fell gravely ill and nearly died. When he recovered, he did nothing but chant the sutras.

At twenty, Liaoxu died of illness in the Nameless Temple, having never in his life entered a hall.

At twenty-six, Bensong passed the trial of skill and earned his Hero's Warrant. Juejian assigned him to serve as a supervising monk in Hebei, but he insisted on staying in Buddha City to carry on the work of his master Liaoxu. Each Buddha's birthday, as an incense monk, he kept watch before the Buddha's relic bone, burning incense and offering prayers for the faithful. The faithful were many, and incense monks like him numbered more than twenty. Glancing left and right, he could always find that girl somewhere in the line before him.

By now she was a young wife. She came down the long line to stand before him, pressed her palms together, and bowed her head.

"Amitabha." He chanted the holy name, and traced a circle with his right hand above the young wife's head, almost touching her glossy black hair. But he did not presume; he prayed for her with a devotion he had never known before.

Every Buddha's birthday the inns filled to bursting, and many came as whole families on pilgrimage. To accommodate the pilgrims, the Nameless Temple gave up its monks' quarters for them to lodge in, and the monks moved into the inns. Bensong's old room went to a pilgrim family of six, and he himself took a room at the Puguang Inn in Buddha City. It was an inn of ordinary size, with a row of peach trees planted in the back courtyard. At night, looking down from his second-floor room, he could see that row of peach trees just below.

To his surprise he saw a familiar figure standing beneath the peach trees, gazing quietly at them in the pale moonlight. The moon's shadow and the peach blossoms set each other off, and she was lovelier in that light than ever.

It struck him with wonder, and moved him too. This year he had seen her one more time than ever before.

So he sat quietly at the window, the candle snuffed out, watching her figure, until her husband called her inside.

He had never seen her husband. Curiosity stirred in him, but in the end he held himself back and did not spy. This was enough. The more one knows, the more one suffers. He took up the sutras and chanted them silently, but he could not still the swarm of stray thoughts.

At twenty-seven, as in years past, by coincidence he prayed for her again, by coincidence he lodged at the same inn, and watched her figure beneath the same moonlight.

At twenty-eight, it was the same once more.

If year upon year, month upon month, I might know that you are well, this life would be enough.

But if I should know that you are not well, then what?

This year, this day, Bensong was twenty-nine. The fourth of the fourth month, four days before the Buddha's birthday.

"Brother Ming?" Bensong looked at the youth before him in astonishment. "You've come to Buddha City too?"

"Head Monk Jueming sent me to help," said Ming Buxiang.

This was the first time Ming Buxiang had been sent to take part in the Buddha's birthday festival. While Liaoxin lived, he always had business to attend during the festival and so kept Ming Buxiang within the temple. After Liaoxin was gone, Ming Buxiang's standing was too low for much: he was given only the sweeping of the temple grounds, was never assigned to receive honored guests, and Buddha City had no need of his labor. Only this year did Jueming, wanting the boy to see something of the world, deliberately send him to help.

Bensong smiled. "You surely won't remember me."

"You are Brother Bensong, disciple of Elder Liaoxu," said Ming Buxiang.

Bensong was taken aback. "That was ten years ago. You were only, what, four? Whenever Uncle Liaoxin went on a long journey, he left you in my care."

"It was kind of you, brother," said Ming Buxiang.

"It was no trouble at all. You were such a good child, never crying, never fussing. Well, I never thought you'd remember me. What have they sent you to do?"

"I'm a lay receptionist," said Ming Buxiang. "I show the pilgrims their way."

Bensong nodded. "I see. Hard work. Where do you sleep at night? Back at the temple?"

"I'm lodging at the Puguang Inn for now."

Bensong said happily, "Then it's the same inn as mine. We'll have a good talk when there's time."

"Damn it, chattering away here, can't you see everyone's working?" A lean, middle-aged monk came up leading several young monks. Bensong recognized him as Liaowu, master of Benyue. They were charged with guarding the Buddha's relic bone, and besides them, presiding here from the rear hall was the abbot of the Right Livelihood Hall, Jueji, who went by the nickname "the Brocade-Maned Lion."

Liaowu cursed, "Everyone else is working, and you two stand idle? So grand to be Proper Monks, are you? Leave all the labor to the Lay Monks while the Proper Monks see to eating and sleeping?"

Bensong said quickly, "Calm yourself, Uncle Liaowu. It was I who kept Brother Ming talking. I'll get to it at once."

He took Ming Buxiang by the arm to leave, but Liaowu barked, "Ming Buxiang, you come here!"

Ming Buxiang stopped and turned to face him. Bensong hurried to smooth things over, but Liaowu cut him off. "I didn't call you!"

Snubbed, and constrained by his station, Bensong dared say no more. Liaowu looked Ming Buxiang up and down. "Handsome as they say. A real little demon."

Ming Buxiang only kept silent, and Liaowu asked again, "Why don't you speak?"

"This disciple is a demon," said Ming Buxiang. "Should I open my mouth, I fear only demon's words would come out to lead the people astray."

Liaowu sneered. "Don't think that because Abbots Juejian and Jueming dote on you, you can climb to heaven! Two abbots are worth less than one head monk. I've got my eye on you. Don't put a foot wrong, or you'll see what happens." With that he led his disciples away.

Bensong said, "Brother Ming, don't take it to heart. His own disciple's gone mad, and he just wants someone to vent on."

"It's all right," Ming Buxiang said mildly.

The matter the four courts had debated, the renaming of the Lay Monks, was gradually spreading. In the four courts and eight halls, seven Proper and five Lay, the Proper Monks held the majority. It was said that even Abbots Juejian and Jueming, who had opposed the renaming, were wavering, and that the council would reconvene after the Buddha's birthday, by which time the renaming of the Lay Monks was all but settled. Shaolin Temple was in turbulent waters. The Lay Monks held that for years they had borne much of the temple's work only to be treated as a lesser order, and they were deeply aggrieved; the Proper Monks held that the Lay Monks had ruined the temple's good name and dragged them down with it, and now justice was finally being done.

The two factions were now as fire and water. Whenever they met, it was nothing but cold mockery and barbed words, and clashes broke out without end. There had been no brawls yet, no lives lost, but the strife was sharpening, wanting only a spark.

That night Ming Buxiang moved into the Puguang Inn. It was the first time he had ever stayed at an inn. The Puguang was no fine establishment, but it was far more comfortable than his quarters at Shaolin Temple. Ming Buxiang lit a candle, felt the quilt, and pushed open the window; in the moonlight the peach trees spread their leafy boughs.

He left his room and strolled out to the back courtyard. Raising his head, he saw that the window of Bensong's room next door was unshut, and the figure behind it was looking this way, yet gave him no greeting, as though lost in some private thought.

Ming Buxiang considered a moment, then gazed off toward Shaolin Temple in the distance.

. . .

At Shaolin Temple just then, most of the disciples had gone to Buddha City to help run the Buddha's birthday festival. Under cover of night, Liaojing went from the Manjushri Court to the Right Action Hall of the Samantabhadra Court. He climbed the courtyard wall, slipped past the watch monks, and came to the outside of Ming Buxiang's room.

Liaojing knew Ming Buxiang lived alone, with no roommate. Seeing the door unlocked, he was about to push it open, then thought better of it and circled to the rear window instead, confirming there was no one inside before pushing the window open and climbing in.

The reason he had gone around to the window was that he feared Ming Buxiang might have rigged the door so that an intruder would be detected. But when he afterward checked the door and window, he found no sign of any such device.

Ming Buxiang's room was spotless, a world away from his own. "A regular model child," Liaojing thought. He searched carefully. Apart from sutras, the room held nothing. The wardrobe contained only two worn single robes and two sets of undergarments. He looked under the bed; even there it was clean, not a trace of dust. He pulled out the desk drawer, which held only a needle and thread, small scissors, a small brush, an inkstone, and an ink stick, odds and ends of that sort.

Had he imagined it all, then? Come to think of it, what scheme could a fifteen-year-old be running, and to what end? Standing in the temple, or some other gain?

He was about to push the drawer back when a thought struck him.

"There's a brush, ink, and inkstone in his drawer. Why no paper?"

The sutras borrowed from the Sutra Repository allowed no annotation by the monks. He looked around again, and having confirmed there was no paper in the room, he thought a moment, then drew the drawer all the way out and raised the candle to inspect its underside. There, to his astonishment, was a notebook. He snatched it out, and for fear the lamp oil would soil it, set the candle on the edge of the bed and read by its light.

It was Ming Buxiang's notes. Unexpectedly, his hand was wild and careless, strokes often left half-formed. "So the fellow isn't flawless after all," Liaojing thought.

He read on, and the more he read the more his heart turned cold, until a clammy sweat broke out over him. Set down here was how Ming Buxiang had laid his secret plans: how he had watched and lured every move of Bugui; how Fu Yingcong had come to make overtures and been seen through, and then by a ruse been made to swallow a drug Ming Buxiang had brought, and delivered to the place arranged with Benyue; how Benyue had slaked his lust there, abusing and crushing Fu Yingcong; how Ming Buxiang had then, in Fu Yingcong's broken and dazed despair, goaded him on and lured him to take his own life. And there too, atop the snow mountain, was how he had forced Yao Yunda and another to fight each other while he watched the changes in them, and last of all, how he had used the Flower-Plucking Finger to play a ghost and drive Benyue mad.

Liaojing read with his scalp crawling. Had he not seen it with his own eyes, he could scarcely have believed such horrors existed in the world.

Mara Papiyan, the demon king. That was the first thought to rise in his mind. If such a monster truly walked the earth, it could only be Mara Papiyan come into the world to destroy the Buddha's law.

But however incredible, with this notebook in hand the wickedness in Ming Buxiang's heart could be exposed. Liaojing tucked the notebook into his robe and returned the drawer to its place.

The night's work was a rich haul, and Liaojing ought to have been well satisfied; yet somehow he could not shake the feeling that something was off. He went next door to the adjoining room, which was Liaoxin's.

Liaoxin's room was kept as spotless as Ming Buxiang's. Even with Liaoxin away, Ming Buxiang had let nothing slide. Searching carefully, Liaojing found beneath the bed a thick bundle of diaries tied with cord. He loosened the cord. Aside from records of Liaoxin's own practice, the diaries were a record of Ming Buxiang, the tenderness fairly spilling off the page. To read through them all, Liaojing thought, would take till daybreak. He worked back from the last volume, and saw that the final days held this: "These days my mind is dull and weary, stray thoughts swarming, evil demons troubling me from without, and I cannot master myself. My practice falls short, and so I am snared in desires I cannot pluck free of. I must hold to the precepts and chant the sutras, and press hard at my discipline."

"How has even Liaoxin come to this?" Liaojing thought. He turned back further, and the pages were mostly words of inner demons, of self-warning and self-rebuke. He turned all the way back to the day Ming Buxiang had presented the longevity peach, where it read: "Xiang'er offered me a longevity peach for my birthday, and my heart is comforted. More than ten years have flown by, and I rejoice that Xiang'er is clever, deeply gifted in the Buddha's wisdom, his future without limit. Today, for Xiang'er's sake, I broke thirty years of pure precept; and though I do not repent it, I am ashamed in my heart. Practice is hard by nature. Once a single thought arises, there is no end to it."

He turned a few pages further, and these too were mostly small matters. Liaojing was a slothful man by temperament, and tonight's labors were a diligence he had never shown before; having found his evidence, he did not linger.

Just then he heard the front door open. Liaojing's heart jumped. He blew out the candle and listened intently, catching faint footsteps, and guessed Ming Buxiang had come back. He quickly retied the diaries, turning over and over in his mind whether he had left any trace in Ming Buxiang's room.

He heard the sound of Ming Buxiang opening a window. To leap out the window and flee now would surely be noticed by Ming Buxiang next door. Liaojing pushed the diaries back into their place under the bed, gently swept up the dust that had scattered around, determined to leave not a speck. What he could not sweep clean he scattered with a long breath driven by his inner strength, all the while listening for movement outside.

Then he heard Ming Buxiang's footsteps drawing near. In that hush, the slightest sound would draw notice. Softening his every motion, he rolled under the bed.

The door creaked open. From beneath the bed he could see, by one feeble flame, only a pair of feet: Ming Buxiang coming in with the candle.

"Has he found the notebook gone?" Liaojing held his breath. "If he discovers me now and it comes to blows, am I Bugui, who broke into the room and would twist his head off with one claw, or Lü Changfeng, riddled with dozens of holes by his Flower-Plucking Finger?"

True, he was more than ten years Ming Buxiang's senior, and the foremost of the Liao generation, but Ming Buxiang was a genuine demon. Without full certainty, better not to risk it.

The room was dark, lit only by the candle in Ming Buxiang's hand: the enemy in the light, himself in the dark. Catch him off guard and there was a chance to escape, and even a chance, with a single strike, to kill the demon. But with the evidence already in hand, why come to a hard clash?

His thoughts whirling, unable to decide, he saw Ming Buxiang turn slowly, walk out the door, and close it. A moment later came the sound of the front door opening and shutting; Ming Buxiang seemed to have gone off into the distance.

Liaojing let out a long breath, rolled out from under the bed, touched the notebook in his robe, and slipped away through the window.

That night, Liaojing lay in bed turning over how to deal with the notebook. By rights it ought to go to Juejian, abbot of the Right Action Hall, or to Jueming, abbot of the Right View Hall, where Ming Buxiang had entered. But both elders favored Ming Buxiang, and the notebook might not be enough to condemn him; it would only stir up fresh trouble.

Better to give it to his own master, Liaojing thought.

Though the root of disaster might at last be torn out, Liaojing still felt a thread of unease. He was a perceptive man, and knew that what he called unease was in truth an instinct sensing some flaw or oversight, only he had not yet found where the fault lay.

For that thread of unease, the next morning Liaojing did not go straight to Abbot Jueru. He knew Ming Buxiang was staying in Buddha City, and waited until after the evening meal before going to see Jueru.

"It isn't my birthday. What brings you again?" Jueru asked. "If you've too much time on your hands, Buddha City's lively enough just now."

"I simply missed you, Master, and wanted to spend a little time with you," Liaojing said. "We see so little of each other. It's a rare thing to meet, and your disciple wanted to show a little filial care."

"Ah, Shaolin Temple's fine in every way, but the Manjushri and Avalokitesvara Courts are too far apart. You can't get from one to the other without a year and a half on the road," Jueru teased, then asked, "What would you like to eat?"

"Is there any of that osmanthus-and-chestnut cake left from last time?" Liaojing asked.

"Gone moldy long ago," said Jueru. "Someone sent loquats. Care for some?"

"Sure. Whatever you've got, Master, suits me fine."

Jueru took a sack of loquats from the cabinet and said, "If you're so fond of your master, why not come back and study under me? Good fruit every day, and you can learn a bit more skill on the side. I promise you'll make great strides."

Liaojing pondered a while. "Learn skill, eh."

"What is it? Got your eye on some Upper Hall Martial Arts?" Jueru asked.

"If someone mastered the Flower-Plucking Finger Art at fifteen, what level would that be?" Liaojing asked.

Jueru burst out laughing. "Are you joking? Fifteen? A man of poorer talent couldn't reach it at fifty!"

"Just talking," Liaojing said. "If there were such a genius, how formidable would he be?"

"That is Abbot Jueming's signature art. He began the Flower-Plucking Finger at twenty-eight. By the temple's records, the fastest anyone ever mastered it was twenty-three. Fifteen, that would have to be Bodhidharma reborn."

"Or Papiyan reborn, who knows," said Liaojing.

"Whether Papiyan's been reborn I couldn't say, but the temple has no shortage of Papiyan's disciples," said Jueru.

Liaojing knew his master meant the Lay Monks. On this point he did not share his master's view. To his mind, let those who would cultivate cultivate; everyone labored for Shaolin's sake, and the Proper-Lay quarrel was truly needless.

"What makes you ask about this?" Jueru said.

"Nothing. Just curious," said Liaojing. "Is there any art made to break the Flower-Plucking Finger?"

"Nothing made for it as such, but you can break it through its forms and nature. The Kasaya Demon-Subduing Art is rooted in softness and applied through hardness; it can ward off the formless finger-force of the Flower-Plucking Finger, and would be the best choice. Want to learn it? I could write you a letter of instruction."

Liaojing waved his hands hurriedly. "No, no. Too lazy."

"If you weren't so lazy, you might've made abbot before forty. Give your master some face, let me bask a little."

Liaojing laughed. "Master, you're a Proper Monk. Letting yourself be burdened by empty fame, that won't do, won't do at all!"

"Lecturing me now?" Jueru pulled a stern face. "Turn around and let me kick your backside twice!"

Liaojing feigned alarm. "Master, you mustn't! When did you pick up this vile habit of going at people's backsides?"

Jueru laughed heartily, then went on. "Even if a man did master the Flower-Plucking Finger at fifteen, with shallow inner strength his power would be limited. To wield the seventy-two unique skills of Shaolin to their depths, you must have deep inner cultivation for a foundation. Only the successive abbots of the four courts and eight halls may practice the Sinew-Changing Classic. Both the original and the copy are kept in the Mahavira Hall, in the abbot's own keeping. As for the Marrow-Cleansing Classic, you know how it is. When the Wrathful King rose in revolt, the temple was caught in the fires of war, and the copy of the Marrow-Cleansing Classic was lost. The original survives, but over the years moths and ants have gnawed at it, and so many characters are missing that anyone who forced the practice would surely go mad. It's stored away in the Supernatural Power Vault, only to be looked upon."

Liaojing asked, puzzled, "They call them the two great divine arts, yet over these past decades quite a few have learned the Sinew-Changing Classic, while of those who learned the Marrow-Cleansing Classic, the records show scarcely any. Why is that?"

"Truly scarcely any. They say that practiced to their depths the two are evenly matched. But the Sinew-Changing Classic is easy to begin and hard to perfect. Practice it twenty or thirty years, even forty or fifty, and to reach the level of Head Monk Juekong is still not the end of the road."

Head Monk Juekong was not only the foremost of the Lay Monks; in martial prowess he was first in all Shaolin, and before Qi Zigai, Third Master Qi of Kongtong, rose to fame, most of the martial world reckoned him the first under heaven. But in these times the title of first under heaven counted for little; no one fought over it, no one cared, and it was taken for mere flattery.

"The Marrow-Cleansing Classic is the opposite, easy to perfect but hard to learn. Once a man enters the gate, the early progress is by leaps and bounds. Yet plenty have spent thirty or fifty years and never even crossed the threshold, frittering their time away for nothing, worse off than with the early stages of the Sinew-Changing Classic. If it were you, would you practice the Sinew-Changing Classic or the Marrow-Cleansing Classic?"

Liaojing asked, puzzled, "Over these hundreds of years the temple has had so many eminent monks of great virtue, no few of them brilliant and wise. Did not one of them ever master it?"

"They say the Marrow-Cleansing Classic is missing its opening method of entry. Some say it was never completed. Others still say the copy now kept in the temple is false, that the true text was destroyed more than two hundred years ago when the emperor of the former dynasty moved to wipe out the Buddha's faith." Jueru went on, "But it's said someone mastered it more than a hundred years back, which puts the rumor to rest, so the Marrow-Cleansing Classic can indeed be mastered."

"Who?" Liaojing asked.

"No idea," Jueru answered.

Liaojing's curiosity stirred again. "How is it you don't know?"

"The temple records this man, only it never gives his name. Strange, isn't it?" Jueru said. "In any case, don't dream of reaching heaven in a single bound. Any martial art, carried to its heights, comes out much the same, not only in power but in the difficulty of the next step up. The Sinew-Changing Classic is easy to learn and hard to perfect, yet no few reach great accomplishment in under ten years. The Marrow-Cleansing Classic is hard to learn and easy to perfect, yet at your master's level, to climb one step higher still depends on talent and fortune. Otherwise everyone would practice the Marrow-Cleansing Classic, and what would be the point of the Sinew-Changing Classic?"

Liaojing had been circling for a good while without ever coming to the point, his mind still on what felt wrong, and now at last he could not help himself. "Master, what do you make of this Ming Buxiang?"

"Why bring him up again?" Jueru looked Liaojing up and down. "Asking your master what he makes of him? Don't tell me, what are you after? If you want me to bless a marriage, you'd best return to lay life and find a proper girl first."

Caught between laughter and tears, Liaojing said, "Master, I'm asking in earnest."

"And I'm in earnest too. Who'd have thought the Lay Monks would corrupt even you, this neither-fish-nor-fowl business. It truly grieves your master, grieves him," Jueru said.

"I learned it from you, didn't I?" Liaojing spread his hands. "You just told me to turn around so you could have a go at my backside."

Master and disciple both laughed.

Jueru said, "In all seriousness, Ming Buxiang is a man of real talent. Never mind Abbots Jueming and Juejian, even Head Monk Jueguan now sings his praises. Handsome as a figure carved from jade, modest and clever, diligent and hardworking, never forgets a thing he's seen, and still mindful of his old bond with Master Liaoxin, living on in the Right Action Hall's old quarters. Strange, how is it I never got so fine a disciple?"

When Jueru said "never forgets a thing he's seen," Liaojing felt a jolt. There was no paper in Ming Buxiang's room because he never forgot a thing he saw and had no need of notes. And if that was so, why keep brush and ink ready, solely to record his own crimes? Did he expect to forget them? And if he would never forget, why write them down at all?

He turned around, his back to Jueru, and took out the notebook he had gotten the night before. In the bright daylight the writing was clear. Liaojing made it out carefully and found the hand familiar; looking closer, was this not his very own handwriting? Ming Buxiang had copied his hand to write this book. Had he foolishly handed it up, he would have sealed his own guilt as a man who frames the loyal and good, and in the clumsiest fashion at that.