Chương 103: “Sir Ozy (4)”

The boy walked into the gap between the two buildings, with his thin shoulders hunched and his head down, and when he saw the creature waiting for him, he stopped. The scars were still there. The ribs still showed through his skin. But his eyes went wide and his mouth opened and he dropped to his knees and reached out with both hands. In the dream, the creature ran to him, and they started a new life. The monks were kind. They brought the boy to the pavilion, and the elders allowed him to stay.

He was given robes, though they were too large for him, and a place in the outer district as the lowest disciple. He swept the courtyard in the mornings and carried water from the well, doing laundry well into the late evenings. His hands were rough from the work but no longer shaking from hunger. Little Friend would follow and try to help, and the young boy would laugh whenever Little Friend tripped.

When it was time for bed, Little Friend would curl up beside him, and both of them would sleep within each other's warmth as they always had. A tiring life. But theirs. Over many years, they would have built something. A place where neither of them had to be afraid of anyone. A place where no one hurt them or forgot they existed. A warm home... But he woke up. The ground beneath him was still cold and damp. The cloth overhead was the same one it had always been.

The gap was still dark, but the sky beyond its edges had begun to pale. It was dawn, and the only sounds were frogs from somewhere nearby, crickets in the grass beyond the road. Little Friend lifted his head. His body was stiff from sleeping on the mud, and the fur along his belly was damp where it had pressed against the ground all night. He stood on all fours, shook the damp from his fur, and walked out into the early light. Where was the boy? Did something happen to him?

Out of desperation, Little Friend found the monks in the morning, and asked them to help him find the boy. The two senior monks went door to door, describing what Little Friend had told them: a boy, small, scarred, living in a gap between two buildings. However, no matter who they asked, it seems that no one knew where he was. They tried other streets, other shops. The answer was the same each time. Little Friend watched from a distance. The woman who sold rice near the road shook her head.

The old man outside the teahouse waved a hand as if brushing off a fly. He told the monks about the older boys, the ones who had beaten the young boy, the ones who had thrown Little Friend into the river. One woman had even spat on the ground when she heard them. But it seems that the boys had left the village months ago. No one knew where they went. Little Friend sat in the gap for a long time after the monks finished asking.

He sat where the boy used to sleep, on the same damp ground, and he looked at the cloth overhead. When they returned to the pavilion the next day, Little Friend went to Elder Jie's room. The old monk was seated on his mat with his eyes closed. He opened them when Little Friend padded in and sat before him.

"Elder Jie," Little Friend said.

"No one in the village knows where the boy who saved me is." Elder Jie looked at him for a long moment. Then he nodded, slowly.

"He did not make a mark in anyone's heart." Little Friend's head tilted.

"What does it mean to make a mark on someone's heart?"

"The heart is not unlike a garden path, Little Friend. Every person who walks upon it leaves something behind. Some leave footprints that wash away with the first rain. Others are able to press stones into the mud that remain for years. A kind word spoken to a stranger may leave a shallow mark, but spoken every day, it becomes a groove worn into the ground. An unkind act cuts deeper, though even cruelty fades if it is not repeated." He paused.

"To love someone is to plant something living in their path, one that grows whether they tend it or not." He looked at Little Friend.

"The boy who saved you left no mark on the village. But he left a deep one in you. That is enough for one life to have achieved merit in one's heart." Little Friend did not respond right away. He sat with his paws flat on the ground, his eyes lowered. The monks here. The ones who had fed him and spoken quietly to him in the evenings. Those marks were warm. The boy. The one who had picked him up from the gutter with both hands and given him milk bought with coins he had begged for.

That mark was the oldest and went the deepest. And the other boys. Little Friend's face scrunched. His front paws pressed harder into the ground. The ones who had beaten the boy until he stopped moving. The ones who had carried Little Friend to the river and thrown him in… Then he looked up.

"Elder Jie, I have seen the outside world. But I am worried."

"What worries you so, Little Friend?"

"Without a core, I have no way to protect myself." Elder Jie's mouth moved slightly upward.

"Little Friend," he said.

"A core is a means to an end. It is but one path." He gestured at the creature before him.

"You achieved enlightenment without a core. Why would the next step require one?" Little Friend said nothing. He had not considered it that way.

"There is an old text in the library," Elder Jie continued.

"It has been here longer than I have. It is called The Ten Steps of Enlightenment. Most of the monks here have read it, though few have found it useful, it describes a method of growth that does not rely on cultivation. Instead, it teaches the practitioner to use their own consciousness to interact with the world around them. No one has gleaned insights from it." He looked at Little Friend.

"It may have been written for someone like you." A knock came at the door. One of the younger monks leaned in.

"Amitabha, Elder Jie. Dinner is being served." Elder Jie nodded and rose from his mat. He adjusted his robes and looked down at Little Friend, who had not moved.

"Come, Little Friend. We should eat." Little Friend stood. His legs were stiff from sitting. At the doorway, Elder Jie paused. He turned back.

"The boy you are looking for," he said.

"Do you know his name? It would make finding him much easier." Little Friend tilted his head.

"Is 'Young Boy' not his name?" Elder Jie looked at him. For a moment, his expression was difficult to read. Then something in it softened.

"That is not a name, Little Friend. That is a description." He placed his hands into his sleeves.

"A name is something given. It is tied to a person's karma, what binds them to the world and to themselves. A name is how the world knows who you are, and how you know who you are." Little Friend tilted his head again.

"Is that why everyone calls me Little Friend?" Elder Jie opened his mouth to respond, then he stopped. His brows furrowed. He stood in the doorway for several seconds. Then he began to laugh.

"We forgot," he said, still laughing.

"We never once asked you your name." He shook his head, and when the laughter passed, his voice was warmer.

"Little Friend was simply what we called you because we did not know it. What a simple thing to overlook." Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. He composed himself and looked at Little Friend standing before him.

"Do introduce us your name soon, Little Friend." Then he walked out toward the dining hall. Little Friend did not follow; he stood in the room alone. The evening light came through the window and lay in a thin band across the floor. A name. What was the boy's name? Little Friend tried to remember. The boy had never said it, or if he had, the creature before his enlightenment was unable to understand such a concept. And… What was his own name?

If a name was what bound a person to the world, what defined who they were, then what did it mean to have none? Who was he? For the first time since his enlightenment, the animal impulses that still ran beneath his thoughts, the need to eat, the need to sleep, were gone. There was only the question, and the frustration of not having an answer. From the dining hall, he could hear the faint sounds of bowls and conversation, and then those faded too. He did not go to dinner.

Instead, he padded out of Elder Jie's room, down the long corridors, and into the library. With the help of an old monk stationed there, he found the book Elder Jie mentioned. The Ten Steps of Enlightenment. He struggled to open it with his paw, and began to read. He read through the night, turning pages with his paw until the dark outside the window began to pale. By the next morning, Little Friend was gone. The monks looked for him in all his usual places, and he was not in any of them.

Within the next three months, word reached the pavilion from travelers on the mountain roads. A story had already begun moving through the Jianghu, passed from teahouse to teahouse with every retelling. A small, ugly beast had been seen on the road south. It had found a group of young men. And it had flattened them into fine paste. Elder Jie received the news in his room, seated on his mat. He listened without expression.

When the young monk who delivered it had finished, Elder Jie closed his eyes and pressed his prayer beads between his palms.

"Amitabha," he said quietly. * The months outside the pavilion taught him things the scriptures could not. He traveled on foot, which was slow. His legs were short and the roads were long, and he rested often. Sometimes travelers passed him going the same direction, and when they did not run from his face, they walked with him for a while. A merchant gave him dried meat from his cart. A woman carrying her child on her back laughed when she saw him and told her daughter to look at the funny beast that could talk.

The majority of those who he had met simply saw him as a naive beast with a core, travelling around the world. Though it was an unusual sight, the beast was too small to warrant any danger. He had brief friendships on the road. They lasted a day, sometimes two, and then the person would turn down a different path and Little Friend would continue alone. He did not mind the partings. Each one left a small mark, the way Elder Jie had described. He saw beasts, animals living in the forests and fields along the road.

Little Friend watched them with the strange awareness that he had once been no different. A stray dog in a village looked at him and barked; Little Friend looked back and did not bark in return. The distance between them was vast now, and the dog could not know it. He was not entirely naive, he kept to himself when the company felt wrong. Then, one day, a familiar scent reached him, carried on the wind. What happened after did not take long.

When it was done, he stood among what remained and felt a sense of satisfaction he could not name. The scriptures said many things about anger and release, and none of them could fully describe what he truly felt in his chest. He cleaned his paws in a stream and continued walking. Many months later, he was on his way back, having experienced many things in the world outside. The scent of the pavilion reached him far before he reached the gates. He was looking forward to telling them everything.

He wanted to sit in Elder Jie's room and describe the merchant who shared his food, and the dog in a village that barked at him as though he were still just a dog. He wanted to talk until the old monk fell asleep first, for once. He reached the gates and barked multiple times. A short, rough sound. Several minutes passed. Then the gates opened. What appeared was not what he expected. Five senior monks stood in a line behind the gate.

Little Friend had learned to read these expressions during his time outside, and what he saw made his ears drop. One stepped forward. His hands were in his sleeves, his posture rigid.

"Little One," he said.

"You have committed a grave sin and violated the ways of the sect. We urge you to turn yourself in and submit to penance." Little Friend's head tilted. Little One. Not Little Friend, but Little One. He had been thinking about names for months. What they meant. How they bound a person to the world. He understood immediately what the change meant. They no longer considered him a friend. Why? What had he done? Little One straightened.

When he spoke, the words came differently now when compared to before he left the pavilion.

"Fellow Daoists," he said.

"What sin did I enact that must require such a punishment?" Several of the monks exchanged glances, clearly surprised at the eloquence of language. The senior monk who had spoken did not look away. His expression was firm.

"All life is sacred under the Heavens," he said.

"To take a life in defense of one's own survival is a burden that may be forgiven. To take a life out of anger or vengeance is a sin the Heavens do not overlook. That is a violation of the path you are following." Little One did not lower his head.

"The Heavens?" he said. His voice carried across the courtyard.

"The same Heavens that gave me this face? This body?" He took a step forward.

"Then why did the Heavens not stop me? If what I did was a sin, why did they not intervene?" His ears were flat against his skull.

"Why did the Heavens not save Jun?" The name meant nothing to the monks. Little One's lips pulled back, his teeth showed.

"Is that not sophistry?" he said.

"My enlightenment is proof that I walk the path the Heavens intended. Or does the sect choose which blessings to acknowledge?" The senior monks did not answer, but one of them looked toward the gate. The others moved aside. Elder Jie walked through the gap they made. He was slower than Little One remembered. His robes were the same. His face was the same. But something in the way he was walking had changed… or perhaps Little One was only now old enough to see what had always been there.

He stopped several paces away and looked down at him.

"Little One," he said.

"Leave. I will allow your discourtesy this once, in respect to what we once were." One of the senior monks stepped forward.

"Elder! We cannot allow someone who has violated our doctrine to walk free after studying within our sect!" Elder Jie turned his head, the look he gave the monk was brief and carried nothing but silence. Elder Jie turned back to Little One.

"We will hold you dear in our hearts," he said.

"For what you were to us. But from this day forward, we cut our ties with you. You are no longer welcome within the Shaolin." Little One looked at them. At Elder Jie, who had spoken to him in the evenings until he fell asleep. Frustration blossomed in his heart, and beneath it was something quite unexpected. They would at least remember him. These monks, this sect. They would carry him in their hearts, even when it was one filled with regret or grievances. And that meant Jun was there too.

As long as Little One was remembered, then Jun had not left the world without a single mark. He lifted his head.

"My existence," he said, "is one the world will remember. And one day, you will regret casting me out." Elder Jie closed his eyes. When he opened them, he shook his head slowly. Little One turned and walked away from the gate. His stubby legs carried him down the mountain path, and he did not look back. The morning air was cold against his face, and the path ahead was longer than he remembered. Elder Jie watched until the small shape disappearing into the distance. The other monks stood behind him at the gate.

"Amitabha," he said quietly. * Celestia opened her eyes. She saw centuries compressed into moments. The world Sir Ozy came from was one of Murim. Sects and heavenly law. Blessings proved righteousness, and curses proved you had earned your suffering. He climbed The Ten Steps of Enlightenment, each one demanded more than the last, and Sir Ozy learned to develop his consciousness as cultivators used Qi. As he grew stronger, he learned something else. Strength alone did not make people remember you.

A beast could be powerful and still be forgotten. What people remembered was presence, one that was built. So he gave himself titles that were illogical. He claimed territory, declared himself emperor of a sect so small it barely warranted the name, and held court with a theatricality that even strangers or his enemies could not stop talking about.

He spoke in a register no beast had ever used, using a cadence no one used in this world, formal and absurd, because a creature that spoke with theatrics was harder to forget. He gave himself a name, a grand one. A name that lodged in one's memory whether it was complete or not. Even as he matured, as he learned the weight of life and saw learned the concept of status between humans, understanding that there was nobility in ordinary people doing ordinary things, the need did not leave him.

He was still, beneath all of it, a small beast pressing his face against the world and demanding to be seen. A child throwing a tantrum in the language of emperors. He pushed for the final step. The tenth. The pinnacle, where a being shed its mortal form and became divine. A spirit worshipped, a name carved into the world itself. An existence that even the Heavens could not erase. To be noble was to exist. And to exist was to be remembered. But… He reached the threshold and failed.

The details came vague, and ultimately, what Celestia understood was this: he had come close enough to see the other side, and his consciousness collapsed; he fell into the abyss between the mortal and the spiritual plane. He slept, not knowing how long. Until he saw something… A life in an unknown world. A girl who was arrogant, sharp-tongued, living to be accepted by others. When she was stung by betrayal, she tried to live for herself.

Then when she tried to live for others again, she was betrayed yet again, only to die and be given another chance. She wanted a purpose. And what was his? It was always the same. So he answered her calling. New information flooded his consciousness. Another world he did not recognize, and a Tower that reached into the sky. His mind took it in like a starving creature. He opened his eyes.

"Lo! At last mine slumber endeth." A new world. New mortals who had never heard his name. A new chance to be remembered.

"Hark, ye trembling mortals, for thy sovereign awaketh!"