Chapter 49: Daoist Mayi
Chapter 49: Daoist Mayi
March twentieth, the Spring Equinox festival.
For the vast majority of people, this day meant the beginning of the busy farming season, sowing seeds of hope while awaiting the autumn harvest. For countless scholars throughout the land, this day marked the most crucial turning point in their lives. According to the laws of the Tongtian Dynasty, this day held the Metropolitan Examination, the entry-level test for all scholars and students.
The Metropolitan Examination, colloquially called the Children’s Exam, was a scholar’s very first hurdle. Passing it meant earning the title of Xiucai, gaining the right to study at a local prefecture’s Scholastic Palace in preparation for the next stage, the Provincial Examination. Failure spelled the effective end of the scholarly path – its significance was paramount.
Early that morning, an antiquated courtyard front gate within Jianning City was already jammed with scholars arriving from every direction. Some relaxed comfortably within large palanquins, attended by scholars’ attendants and servants. Others arrived with imposing entourages of numerous bodyguards. Others, travel-stained and weary from arduous journeys, gulped down mouthfuls of hard rations amidst the chill breeze. Besides the assorted scholars, vendors selling breakfast, writing brushes, calligraphy, and paintings were too numerous to count. Even fortune tellers showed up bright and early to join the bustle.
Shangling Terrace!
Jianning City’s designated examination hall was packed from early morning.
“Young master! How about a fortune reading?”
Mu Feng was hurrying towards the outskirts of Shangling Terrace when a shabbily dressed, down-and-out elderly Daoist unexpectedly called out from beside him. Clad in tattered, hemp cloth robes, his beard a wild tangle of grey, he cut a pitiful, destitute figure. Throngs of people flowed past at the Shangling Terrace entrance. Other fortune tellers enjoyed booming business, their words flying fast and furious. Yet his stall remained utterly deserted; not a single passerby stopped.
Even tricksters required technique. Without the gift of the gab, without the ability to spin tales and plausibly explain things, business was naturally sparse.
“No need!”
Mu Feng swept a glance at the hemp-robed Daoist by the roadside, shook his head faintly, and continued forward.
The moment his foot stepped forward, a hoarse, ancient voice sounded from behind. “You… lost your father in childhood. Poor and troubled.”
First guess was right?
Mu Feng shook his head with a wry smirk and kept walking. As soon as his second footfall landed, the hoarse voice reached him again. “You… suffered damaged meridians since childhood, destined never to cultivate. Only in this, your sixteenth year, did fate finally shift!”
Coincidence? Or had this old man inquired about his past deliberately, intent on deception?
Hearing this second assertion, Mu Feng couldn’t help but pause. His third step descended naturally, slowly. The old man’s voice reached him once more. “Though your fate has begun to shift… you are destined for much hardship and calamity in this life. No noble patron awaits you; instead, traps lie everywhere, demanding vigilance with every step!”
“Who are you really?”
Mu Feng whirled around, leveling a cold stare at the unremarkable hemp-robed Daoist. His green robe shifted without wind. A sharp killing intent gathered within him, tightly reined-in.
“My humble surname is Ma. Given name, Yi. I calculate only one hexagram per day. One hexagram reveals one day.” The hemp-robed Daoist’s voice was calm, exuding a tranquility and stillness uncommon amongst ordinary fortune tellers. His deep-set eyes held not the slightest trace of avarice. He gazed steadily at Mu Feng before saying slowly, “Young master… do you believe in fate?”
“And if I do? And if I don’t?” Mu Feng neither confirmed nor denied, continuing his cold scrutiny of this Daoist whose origins seemed somewhat odd.
“Good! Well said!”
The old man named Mayi laughed heartily, giving Mu Feng a thorough once over. “Fate, and Destiny… are actually two distinct concepts. Death is fixed first, life afterward. Each person’s Fate – their Ming – is set, unchangeable, before they are born. What we can alter is our Destiny – our Yun – navigating towards fortune and away from harm. Think of it like a pitch-black rainy night. A carriage races uncontrollably towards a cliff. The carriage plunging over is beyond alteration – its Fate. But the sleeping person inside… if they awaken in time… they might leap out just as the carriage plummets. The carriage is destroyed, but they escape.”
Interesting!
Mu Feng’s eyes brightened. The killing aura gathered around him gradually dispersed. As a learned scholar, he had read many books on geomancy and fortune telling. But such an explanation of fate’s mystery? This was the first he’d heard of it.
“Very well then, honorable elder, please divine a hexagram for me!”
Mu Feng bowed respectfully. He pulled a single copper coin from his robes and gently placed it before the hemp-robed Daoist. “This is the very last copper I possess. Pray, do not take offense!”
“Young man… I have already calculated for you.”
Daoist Mayi offered a faint smile. He reached out, gently pushed the copper coin back towards Mu Feng. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he produced a rather worn writing brush and smoothed out a yellowed sheet of paper. “Young man, I do not want your copper. I only want you… to write a single character.”
Write a character?
Mu Feng started again. His look at Daoist Mayi turned more intense.
The writing reflects the person. Viewing the characters is akin to tasting tea! A true master could, through a single piece of calligraphy, infer a person’s character, their strength, even the broad strokes of their life story. One might offer a few extra copper coins. But personally inscribed calligraphy? That should never be given lightly!
“What? Young man? So frugal with your strokes that a single character is now beyond you?”
Seeing Mu Feng silently weighing this, Daoist Mayi simply smiled faintly. He showed neither anger nor impatience, sitting serenely in the chill dawn wind. Numerous pedestrians passed by, yet he didn’t regard a single one, as if blind to them. It was as though, for him, only he and Mu Feng existed under heaven at this moment.
“Fine. What character?” Mu Feng nodded. He asked himself whether, while his life might not be perfect, he was at least forthright. If he acted justly, why fear ghost knocks?
“Dao! (The Way)” Daoist Mayi uttered a single word.
Dao? The Way?
Mu Feng picked up the writing brush from the table. He gently dipped it into the ink beside him. Just as he prepared to write, Daoist Mayi’s words made his right hand freeze mid-air.
Dao. A single, simple character. Yet, savored slowly, it contained boundless, profound mysteries.
The Way of Heaven, the Way of Immortals, the Way of the Sorcerer, the Way of Mortal Life… each was a Way. A single strand of hair, one little blade of grass – each possessed its own Way. The Way that can be spoken of is not the true Way. Ever shifting, ever transforming.
The same event, viewed by different people, produced different interpretations. This was what the ancients meant by “Old Sai loses his horse – how is one to tell if it is fortune or misfortune?” Moreover, even the same person, at different times, would see the same event differently. Truly, “Difficult it is for waters of the Cang Sea to be merely waters; save for the clouds of Witch Mountain, no other clouds suffice.” Once experienced, other experiences pale.
“Dao… ultimately… What is it?”
Mu Feng questioned his own heart. The brush in his hand felt like a thousand catties. He stood frozen, brush poised, delaying execution. Memories surfaced: childhood innocence, the poverty and striving of his youth, the bullies’ taunts and his mother’s care… all surfaced in his mind.
Not complain at life;
Not regret at death;
What fate ordains shall naturally arrive;
What fate denies cannot be forced.
…
Seeing Mu Feng lost in thought and silent, Daoist Mayi didn’t rush him. Seemingly from nowhere, he produced a battered erhu, twanging its strings with discordant, creaky notes. Grey beard, wretched poverty. At a single glance, he projected an air of unknown hardship, loneliness, and desolation.
“The mountain is precisely the mountain. The water is precisely the water. Then, when my name tops the golden list, when I stand atop the Cultivation Peak… the mountain is not the mountain! The water is not the water!”
Mu Feng murmured to himself, his thoughts mingling with the plaintive, creaking erhu music. Then, the brush in his hand came down with force. He wrote a single character: “Dao”. Every stroke was vigorous, piercing the paper. It flowed freely, without pause, like dragons danced and phoenixes flew.
This character ‘Dao’ embodied his current understanding and realization of the Way.
To him, the so-called Dao was the conventions people adhered to, was the unchanging patterns of myriad things over aeons; it was also an invisible shackle. When his own power reached its zenith, the shackles upon him would become meaningless constraints.
Much like his hatred. No matter how deep, charging alone into the depths of Mu Manor right now to sever the head of that bully, Mu Qingyuan, before all was near impossible. But when he reached the Elite Realm, or even the True Human Realm… then he could act without constraint. Killing him would be as easy as crushing an ant. Who could stop him? Who would dare?
“Good! Excellent! A truly fierce ‘Way’ character, ha ha ha!” Daoist Mayi let out a hearty, old laugh. “Young man, within one month, you shall face fatal calamity. This small cloth bundle holds your hexagram’s fortune concerning this impending disaster. Keep it carefully. Remember! Open it only when your heart pounds with dread, when your forehead throbs with an unnatural pulse!”
Daoist Mayi rolled up the paper. Tucking away his battered erhu, he drifted off. By the time Mu Feng lifted his head, the man had vanished without a trace. Only a distant, hoarse echo remained.
Fatal calamity?
Mu Feng’s heart clenched violently. Where would this prediction strike? Would it land upon the menacing bully, Mu Qingyuan? Or upon the vicious Ghost Mother? Or perhaps… upon his grievously ill mother? The terrifying image of the ferocious Twelve-Winged Golden Cicada surfaced in his mind, bringing with it a sudden, intense wave of disquiet.