Waiting for Someone

In the southeastern reaches of Treasure Bottle Continent, a white-robed young man stopped deep within wild mountain woods. Before him lay an inkstone riverbed that had been abandoned for years, its traces of quarrying obvious. Yet it was no famed old-pit stone. The stream had long since dried up. Cui Dongshan jumped into the riverbed and vigorously scraped aside stones and mud. In the end, he dug out a stone slab, barely suitable for making a board inkstone. He bent a finger and lightly tapped it, then listened with his ear cocked. The sound was quite good. He brushed away the mud and liked it more the longer he looked. Things stumbled upon by chance were the most endearing—things money could not buy. Cui Dongshan breathed on it, blowing smooth the wrinkles and tiny cracks in the stone grain, then rubbed it with his cheek for quite some time. The inkstone's patterns grew ever finer beneath his touch. Cui Dongshan carried it in one hand, while the child squatted on the bank, his eyes dull, seemingly unable to understand what Cui Dongshan was doing. When Cui Dongshan climbed ashore, he smashed the inkstone slab onto the child's head. Then he went up onto the bank and made the child walk with the slab balanced on his head, forbidden from using either hand to support it.

Looking back at the riverbed, Cui Dongshan clicked his tongue. "Down into the water, back up onto shore—truly a hero."

They wandered all the way until they spent the night at a mass grave in the wilderness. Lying prone on the ground, Cui Dongshan used a slender blade of grass to carve an inscription onto the inkstone.

Then a young scholar appeared. Squatting beside him, he smiled. "I've seen the person. Not bad, a fine