Hou Niao bowed deeply. "Greetings, Daoist Xi. Forgive my unannounced visit. Is this a convenient time?"
"Turn yourself around wherever you stand, and wisdom can give rise to skillful means; with no past dust obstructing a single thought, you can return to the doorway in the end.
"What is there to be convenient or inconvenient?"
Hou Niao knew that trading words with a recluse like her could only end in defeat, never victory. He simply came straight to the point.
"I drift like duckweed, with nowhere to settle. Passing through Liuyang this time, I thought of the few friends I still had in the city. Who knows when I'll return next?
"Is the child doing well?"
Everything about Daoist Xi was fine except her fondness for cryptic repartee. She would have liked every sentence to take ten twists and turns. Listening to her was like trying to solve riddles-the kind with no right answer.
"What is good? What is bad? A willow by the roadside is grass to a mountain, but a tree to an ant..."
Hou Niao scratched his head, conceding defeat. "What I mean is..."
Daoist Xi interrupted him. "What you mean is not what I mean. I think she is doing well, but you might not agree. If you use only your ears and eyes, without engaging your heart, how can you speak of good or bad?"
This time, the rough-hewn Hou Niao finally understood. Daoist Xi was hinting that he should not pass her door without entering. Hearing a hundred accounts was no substitute for seeing once. Having come all this way, he was only making roundabout inquiries, without even the courage to meet her. A cultivator should not evade his own heart.
But that was not his concern. "I'm worried about stirring up the child's