"I should be going."
Su Nan bade the monk farewell. Just like the day they had met, it was another fair, tranquil day with light clouds and gentle winds.
The chanting stopped.
The monk opened his eyes and looked at Su Nan. After a while, he pressed his palms together and bowed. "Thank you, benefactor, for seeing me off all this way."
"It's nothing. We were headed in the same direction, that's all."
Su Nan did not know where she should go either. Perhaps she would quietly live alone somewhere for several decades, or perhaps she would find a city to settle down in. For most of this long time, that was how she had spent her days.
Perhaps she had already done everything she could, and afterward, she no longer knew what to do.
"We have traveled together for so long, yet I still do not know your name, benefactor."
"Su Nan. What is your name, monk?"
"Fa Zhuang."
Though she said she was leaving, Su Nan was in no hurry to go. At the very least, she had to see the monk to somewhere safer. In this desolate wilderness, perhaps the moment her front foot left, a demon would swallow the monk with its back foot.
Several more days passed, and they arrived at a Gobi wasteland.
Brownish earth and rocks covered the ground. The remains of dead vegetation swayed amid wind and sand like tombstones, and even the sky was dim and murky, tinged with a strange earthy yellow. It was utterly desolate.
"Have you remembered the things I taught you?" Su Nan had already put on her bamboo hat as she asked the monk beside her.
"I have." The monk nodded.
To avoid walking beneath the scorching sun, one could set a meditation staff upright in