C7 Part2

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A Taoist priest from Linqiong visited the capital. He was able to summon spirits with a focused mind.

The emperor asked the priest to search for her soul. The priest was moved by the emperor’s anguish and attachment for his lover.

He ran like lightning as he parted the skies and rode high through the air. He ascended to the heavens and dove down to the earth, looking for her everywhere.

He searched thoroughly in the blue beyond, and down in the Yellow Springs below the earth, but didn’t spot her in the vastness of either place.

——A Taoist Prepares (1)

The man who waited for arrows.

Zhang Qianjun Wanma was only four years old when he entered the mountains. His master told him that his only task in life was to wait for cloud-piercing arrows, and he was to comply with any request those who shot the arrows made. (2)

His master was a Taoist priest who only ever saw two cloud-piercing arrows shoot out from the depths of the mountains. His master became very energetic when he talked about the arrows and didn’t look like an extremely old man who was about to die.

When his master turned a hundred and ten, Zhang Qianjun didn’t think he would be able to make it through the year, since he no longer got out of the bed and didn’t drink alcohol anymore. All he would do was sit at the door of the Taoist temple every day, looking at the white snow outside as if he was waiting for someone to pick him up. His master ate and spoke very little that year, and they often passed the evenings in silence.

When his master turned a hundred and fifteen, he was still the same. The winter of that year was extremely cold and the mountains were very cold and wet. Zhang Qianjun Wanma had a high fever for a month and felt as if his master just might outlive him. He was too weak to get food, but his master didn’t seem to need food at all.

That night, there was a bowl of plain noodles with a few bitter radishes placed at the head of his bed. His master had made them. That was when he realized that not only could his master get out of bed, but he could also cook noodles.

He used to wonder why his master would want to live like this, but he immediately understood after thinking about it carefully.

At this stage in life, his master was in a very awkward position. Death could come at any time, so his time was running out. It was too late to do big things since he had no more strength left in him, but doing things that didn’t matter was too annoying.

The most terrifying thing was that at this age, everyone—including himself and others—wouldn’t make any demands of him. It was already a fortunate thing that he didn’t bring trouble to others.

The hundred-and-fifteen-year-old man was definitely experienced, so his noodles tasted delicious.

Zhang Qianjun miraculously recovered in the spring, but his master finally died. Before he died, his master looked outside the door and said to Zhang Qianjun, “It turns out she’s not coming back after all.”

Zhang Qianjun knew who “she” was.

As the people from the subsidiary branch of the Zhang family, they were the main branch’s reinforcements in the mountains.

When the first cloud-piercing arrow appeared in the sky, his master knew that a team from the main branch was in trouble and was asking for help. His master went alone and only managed to rescue one person, a girl surnamed Zhang. She stayed in the Taoist temple to recover and left four months later.

At that time, his master was fifty years old. The old man was in love, but he fell in love with a formidable girl. She told him that when she returned, she would shoot a cloud-piercing arrow to let him know.

In the five years after that, his master left signal arrows under every stone in the mountain. He would look up at the sky over the valley every day like a goose, which smoothed out the wrinkles on his neck. Even the whites of his eyes that were as muddy as old phlegm cleared up and looked as bright as amber.

Every time Zhang Qianjun found his master acting differently, his master would always laugh at himself, “All my cultivation has gone to waste (3).” But there wasn’t an ounce of regret in his voice.

The girl didn’t shoot the second piercing arrow. That person was irrelevant and the master didn’t mention the incident too much.

Zhang Qianjun asked his master how he could stay in the depths of the mountains his whole life just for something that may or may not happen.

His master told him that the arrows weren’t what he had been waiting for his entire life, but he wouldn’t say anything more.

Zhang Qianjun recalled being chosen to wait for the arrows and figured it was probably because he had looked pretty silly since he was a child.

Zhang Qianjun still couldn’t learn to speak by the age of seven. His master had said that he was so stupid, he wouldn’t be able to find a job when he grew up and that it was a good thing he had been practicing to become a monk.

After his master’s death, Zhang Qianjun suddenly realized that something was off. When his master adopted him back then, could it be that he was ready to run away and wanted him to be his replacement? But just when his master was ready to leave, he met that girl.

It was true he wasn’t waiting for arrows his whole life.

After his master died, Zhang Qianjun decided to think carefully about how he would spend his life.

His master seemed to have gained a lot of benefits from the main family back then, but after Zhang Qianjun started to wait for arrows, he never heard from them. He slowly felt that his life was like a self-entertaining story. He would replace the hidden arrows with new ones and scrape off the moss that covered the Zhang family’s marks every two weeks.

Then he would imagine the main family’s teams walking through the mountains every day, summoning him once they encountered difficulties.

There were two worlds outside the Taoist temple.

In one world, he was the family’s watchman. There was an undercurrent surging deep in the mountains and the endless people passing through all felt safe because they knew Zhang Qianjun Wanma was secretly watching and waiting for them to call at any time.

In another world, he was the only person in the mountains. No one would pass by here and no one would use these cloud-piercing arrows. He was the only person in this world.

It took him fourteen years to gradually accept the latter explanation. At that point, he finally allowed himself to pack his bags, put a bamboo basket (4) on his back, and prepare to leave here.

He decided not to wait for others to send fireworks to call on him. He wanted to become the firework himself.

That day, when he arrived at the foot of the mountain, a cloud-piercing arrow shot into the air and exploded in the scorching sky. The sunlight was so intense that no fireworks or sparks could be seen.

He was frightened, but his body immediately reacted. He moved like a monkey as he went along the bamboo forest and swung down the cliff to where the cloud-piercing arrow had been shot from.

That was the first time he saw Little Brother Zhang and Zhang Haiqi.

Zhang Haiqi looked disgusted when she saw Qianjun Wanma, “Why are you here? Where’s your master?”

<Extra 7.1><Table of Contents><Extra 7.3>

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TN Notes:

(1) These are actually sentences from the poem, The Song of Everlasting Regret (or Sorrow). It was composed by Bai Juyi in the year 806 and details the events surrounding the death of the lady Yang Guifei during the Anshi Rebellion in 755. Yang Guifei was the beloved concubine of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. Link here.

Note: This chapter is heavily influenced by Chiau Sing Chi’s movies. (The actor is also known as Stephen Chow.)

In King of Comedy, one of Chiau Sing Chi’s films, the main character is an aspiring actor who keeps talking about how he diligently studies a book named An Actor Prepares, which is the first of Konstantin Stanislavski’s books on acting. It has since become a famous running joke. Therefore, the sentence “A Taoist Prepares” is the author’s way of paying tribute to it. (There isn’t a book called A Taoist Prepares at all.)

(2) Qianjun Wanma means “Thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of horses” in Chinese. The name Qianjun Wanma and this paragraph are influenced by the movie Kung Fu Hustle, another Chiau Sing Chi’s movie. Qianjun Wanma makes an appearance in Chapter 6.13 of the 2017 New Years Special if you all don’t remember.

There is a famous quote from the movie, “When an arrow shoots through the clouds, thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of horses (Qianjun Wanma) will come to help you.”

(3) As a Taoist priest, it is important to try to get rid of any desires. It’s considered one of things that they need to cultivate.

(4) The bamboo basket was used to carry stuff. It looked like this:

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