Shiwu laughed. “Shen-langjun is our guest, and Shifu is always teaching us to mind our manners. I’ll go and help out shixiong!”
He scampered off before the abbot could reply.
“A child of bad luck!” the abbot muttered, thinking that he’d really been awfully unfortunate today. Not only were there no donkey-meat sandwiches, but they were even going to rob him of the tiny bit of flour he’d saved.
As if sensing his thoughts, Shen Qiao fished out a couple more coppers from his sleeve. He smiled as he handed them over. “I deeply apologize for making you spend so much on me!”
“Hey, hey, that’s not what I meant!” The abbot wasn’t shameless enough to accept the money and pushed it back toward him. At this close distance, he finally realized that there was something wrong with Shen Qiao’s eyes. “Your eyes…?”
“It’s due to an old illness,” said Shen Qiao. “They’re better in the daytime, but I can’t see very well at night.”
“Ah,” said the abbot. “Such a pity!”
He didn’t spend more time on the topic of eyesight. “By the way,” he asked, “how did this gentleman offend the Duke of Pengcheng County?”
Shen Qiao briefly told him about meeting Chen Gong while they were both in poverty and how they’d traveled together. When the abbot heard about Chen Gong bringing Mu Tipo to look for Shen Qiao, and how he’d wanted to pass his predicament on to Shen Qiao by recommending him to Mu Tipo, he couldn’t stop himself from cursing. “Repaying kindness with enmity! Shameless bastard!”
Thinking about the scene he’d just witnessed, he sighed. “If you want to look for him, Shen-langjun, make sure you make adequate preparations. A glance was enough to see that the servant was a vile man. He’s sure to exaggerate the events in his report to make Chen Gong resent you even more.”
“I’m grateful for the abbot’s reminder,” said Shen Qiao. “But there’s one thing I still want to ask. Has the abbot seen a group of people these days? There are two seniors among them, while the rest are young men and women, all of them very good-looking. They may or may not be wearing Daoist robes, but they should be carrying swords.”
Although he’d asked the boy priest earlier, he couldn’t quite bring himself to give up and had decided to ask again.
The abbot thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I have not. Daoism isn’t popular in Yecheng, though there are many Buddhist shrines and temples. When it comes to Daoist priests…other than our Bailong Monastery here, there aren’t many other monasteries. If they wished to stay in one, it’s almost certain they’d come here. And if they didn’t come here, they definitely wouldn’t go to another one. Perhaps they’ve changed their clothes and gone to stay at an inn. However, Shen-langjun, if you want to find someone, you can’t do it like this. If they were to deliberately hide their tracks, or not enter the city at all, it’d be very easy for you to miss them. Besides, are you certain that they’ve been heading north?”
Shen Qiao smiled wryly. “That’s true. I’m only clinging to a strand of hope myself.”
As they were talking, a boyish voice came from the kitchen. “Shifu, Shen-langjun, the food is ready!”
The abbot automatically quickened his steps, then remembered that Shen Qiao was still beside him. He stopped himself abruptly and smiled at him, embarrassed. “Come, come. Let’s go eat!”
Dinner couldn’t have been any simpler—flour and water, already in the monastery, had been kneaded and rolled into noodles. There wasn’t even a drop of oil in the dish, let alone any meat. Just plain noodles left dry, a smattering of chopped vegetables for toppings, and some homemade pickled radishes mixed in. But for the three priests, it was enough to make their eyes shine.
The abbot gulped down a mouthful of saliva, then said to the junior disciple, “Serve our guest first.”
“Yes, Shifu.” The disciple was an honest server—he immediately piled Shen Qiao’s bowl full of noodles, pickled radishes, and vegetables until it nearly crested into a little peak. The sight of this pained the abbot so much that he just had to object. “Enough, enough! If you give the guest any more, he won’t be able to finish!”
Shen Qiao smiled in agreement. “Yes, a little is enough for me. Don’t give me too much!”
While they were playing a game of deference, another series of knocks came from the monastery’s gates outside. In the quiet of the night, the sound was crisp and striking, and their hearts thumped despite themselves.
The two boy priests looked at each other. “Why a guest when it’s already so late?”
“It couldn’t be that bunch from earlier, back to make trouble, right?”
“Shifu, should we pretend we didn’t hear anything?”
The abbot was also somewhat perturbed. “Why don’t we wait a moment? Perhaps he’ll stop knocking after a while.”
“It can’t be them, Shifu,” the senior disciple said doubtfully. “If they were back to pick a fight, they’d have just gotten in by kicking the gates down. They’d at least smash the door in. Why would they just keep knocking like this? It couldn’t be…some kind of ghost?”
“Enough with the nonsense!” snapped the abbot. “You should learn something useful instead of constantly listening to those absurd ghost tales they tell beneath the bridge. I’m going to go see just who is causing a disturbance this late at night!”
“I’ll go,” said Shen Qiao. “You three go ahead and eat. No need to worry.”
The abbot stood with him. “No, it’ll be hard on your eyes…”
Shen Qiao pressed the abbot down by his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’m used to it now—I can still make things out. Just lend me a lantern.”
The junior disciple brought him a lantern straight away, and the abbot sat back down. On the inside, he was fretting over his cooling noodles, but his words were courteous. “Be careful, then. If something’s not right, call us for help!”
“All right,” said Shen Qiao. “You eat first.”
Carrying the lantern, he walked toward the entrance. Bailong Monastery was quite large, and he could still faintly feel the magnificence of its former years. But with the passage of time, it’d fallen into disrepair, and now the mighty monastery had only three priests left to watch it. Walking through those desolate halls in the night, a lament couldn’t help but stir in one’s heart.
Shen Qiao had also thought that Chen Gong had sent more troublemakers their way, but when he opened the door, the pitch-black darkness greeted him with neither clamor nor commotion—instead, there was a lone man standing there with his hands clasped behind his back, his figure and pose overwhelmingly familiar.
He didn’t even need to raise the lantern to know who the man was. Surprised, he blurted out, “Sect Leader Yan?”
“What,” said Yan Wushi. “Not happy to see me?”