Yang Yan watched in bewilderment. In this empty, silent hall, for the first time in his life, he seemed suddenly to hear the sound of time flowing.
After a long while, he dazedly came back to himself. The old man before him smiled as though sighing softly and beckoned. "Come here."
Yang Yan obediently stepped forward.
"Come beside me."
Yang Yan took a few more steps and sat down beside the meditation cushion. Leaning so close, the boy's heart was instantly filled with a warmth he had not felt in a long time.
He remembered how, when he was little, whenever blizzards and gales raged outside the hall, the old man would light a small nighttime stove before the cushion and gather him into his arms. The old man sat while he stood, their heads, one large and one small, just level. They held a Buddhist scripture together as the old man told him magnificent, magical stories of the Buddha subduing demons. Amid the orange light and gentle voice, the dark, violent weather outside was shut out completely.
Only now, he stood half a head taller than the old man.
"I hear you've been fussing over that eagle of yours these past few days?" the old man asked with a hoarse, aged chuckle.
Yang Yan was startled. He had actually hidden it well every time, yet somehow the old man knew everything without ever leaving his room. For a moment, he secretly resented the imagined informer. But he reacted quickly now, hastily lowering his head as though admitting he had let playthings sap his ambition.
Yet the old man offered no further reprimand. Smiling, he asked about all sorts of details and even shared the essential lessons of his own experience back then, every inch a seasoned hand.
Yang Yan