Chapter 6 – Nanming
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“Cheng Qian.”
Cheng Qian wasn’t sure why, but his mater always called Han Yuan “Xiao-Yuan”, while he called Cheng Qian by full name. He couldn’t tell whether his master favored him or not from his voice, but there was stress in each syllable.
Bewildered, Cheng Qian lifted his head, and folded his hands in sleeves into fists.
“Come.” Muchun Zhenren looked him up and down. Presently he seemed to realize he was too smileless. He dropped his eyelids a bit and turned back to the benign weasel. Then he said with his voice softening a little, “Come here.”
As he spoke, he raised his hand onto Cheng Qian’s head. The faint temperature of his palm and the incense of wood gradually permeated Cheng Qian’s body.
That didn’t help as a comfort, however. Cheng Qian remained in a fluster.
He was running his master’s comments on Han Yuan in his head and thinking anxiously, “What will Master say about me?”
In a fleeting moment, memories of Cheng Qian’s equally fleeting life flashed through his head. He tried to pick out his own shortcomings before his master, and get prepared for the coming preach.
He started reflecting in his heart, “Will he say I’m narrow-minded? Or unkind? Unfriendly?”
However, Muchun Zhenren didn’t point out his shortcomings as he did in Han Yuan’s case. The sect leader even hesitated for some time, as if he was having difficulty finding the appropriate wording.
Cheng Qian waited anxiously an unconscionable time until Muchun said solemnly, word by word for emphasis, “As for you, you know it well in your heart. So I’ll come straight to the point, I shall grant you ‘Free and Easy’ as your precept.”
The preach was so simple as to be vague and hard to comprehend right away. Cheng Qian frowned, all his mental preparations came to naught at last. But his tension didn’t ease, and conversely, strengthened.
“Master, what’s ‘Free and Easy’?” Cheng Qian blurted out.
But soon he regretted that he had asked, for he didn’t want to appear as stupid as Han Yuan.
Cheng Qian pulled himself together. With a little diffidence, he struggled to work out a far-fetched explanation and asked in a probing tone, “Does it mean to urge me to clear my distracting thoughts and focus on cultivation?”
After a pause, instead of giving a specific explanation, Muchun nodded and said vaguely, “For now… you could say so.”
For now? What about in the future?
And what was “you could say so”?
Hearing the answer, Cheng Qian was even more at a loss. He even scented a ghost of uncertain future from Muchun Zhenren’s words. And he could also tell that his master had no intention of going into details. Due to his tactfulness form precocity, he barely swallowed his doubts and made a formal bow to Muchun, saying “Yes, Master. Thanks for your edification.”
Muchun Zhenren sighed noiselessly. Though he looked like a man in the prime of his life, he was actually so old as to have very rich experience. And of course he could see things — even though Cheng Qian behaved with so good manners that he even called the Taoist child who took care of his living “Brother”, yet evidently it wasn’t because he reckoned others to be respectful, but he refused to damage the redundant “refinements” in front of “OTHERS”.
