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In a small Taoist temple, a slightly plump middle-aged man wearing round black sunglasses was fiddling with a few copper coins.
The old copper coins fell haphazardly onto the sand tray before him. Now and then, the middle-aged man narrowed his eyes and pushed up his sunglasses, gathering the coins with one hand and calculating with the other. He sighed, lamenting his poor luck with money today, then said that tomorrow's fortunes would be bad and he absolutely must not go out.
The temple stood in a deserted area. Going ten days or half a month without anyone coming to offer incense was commonplace. He leaned against a faded altar table, with a piece of apple beside him that everyone had shared after the offerings were done, and a segment of tangerine still between his lips. Enshrined behind him was a wooden figure statue with an indistinct face and something like a smile. The wooden figure wore Taoist robes. At first glance, its features seemed discernible, but a closer look revealed no distinguishing features at all. Yet it also seemed to be watching you from every angle. Rather than the compassion for all living things found in myths, its expression conveyed a carefree whimsy, as though it treated the mortal world as its playground.
The slightly plump middle-aged man sat casually on a meditation cushion, then suddenly picked up a pear and threw it toward the entrance.
The temple doors stood open. Someone abruptly appeared out of thin air at the entrance and caught the pear perfectly.
The lean middle-aged man who had appeared out of nowhere took a bite of the pear without standing on ceremony and strode up to the altar table. The man in sunglasses stood as well. With practiced ease, the two emptied and cleaned