After midnight, Nick heard someone playing a xiao flute in the courtyard.
No matter how beautiful the tune was, playing it so late at night was disturbing. He got out of bed, opened his door, and walked into the courtyard. He remembered that there had only been a bodhi tree there during the day, but now it had become a wisteria tree, covered in blooming purple flowers.
Beneath the tree stood a lovely woman, playing the xiao flute. The irritation of being woken up immediately vanished, and Nick stood in the doorway of his room, listening to her performance.
After a while, a monk approached. Perhaps he had also been awakened by the music. He stood beside Nick and listened to the woman play.
"Where have you come from, benefactor?" the monk suddenly asked.
"The west," Nick replied in halting Chinese.
"The Western Heaven where Great Thunderclap Monastery stands?" the monk asked.
Nick smiled. Great Thunderclap Monastery was called Nalanda Monastery in India. In Journey to the West, Tang Monk obtained the true scriptures from there under the protection of his disciples. In real history, Xuanzang had indeed studied at Nalanda Monastery.
"Yes," Nick answered flippantly. He really had been to India.
"Is the starry sky there the same as the one here?" the monk asked.
Nick froze for a moment. He had thought the monk was going to ask whether he had seen what the Tathagata looked like.
He instinctively raised his head.
"Do you know why the place where the emperor lived was called the Forbidden City?" the monk asked, then pointed at the sky. "The ancients divided the stars in the heavens into three enclosures: the Supreme Palace Enclosure, the Heavenly Market Enclosure, and the Purple Forbidden Enclosure. The Purple Forbidden Enclosure occupied the center, while the