As darkness fell, Lin Xiao slowly arrived at the temple gate. He walked and stopped along the way, his mind preoccupied with the matters of Heartfire and Tao Yuhan, and he didn't pay much attention to the path.
He entered the mountain gate and walked along the corridor toward the main hall, wanting to say goodbye to the Ancient One.
But as soon as he arrived at the main hall, he found the door ajar. Lin Xiao pushed the door open and went inside. It was dark inside, except for the two oil lamps in front of the offering table, their flames thin and long. He scanned the room but did not find the Ancient One.
Just then, Wang walked in through the side door, saw Lin Xiao, and nodded as a greeting.
"The mage isn't here; she's in seclusion."
Lin Xiao paused for a moment.
"Seclusion? When did that happen?"
"You went into seclusion early this morning before you left." Wang rummaged in his sleeve for a while, then pulled out a book and handed it to him. The cover was yellowed, the edges were frayed, and three characters were written vertically, " The Śūraṅgama Sūtra." "The Dharma Master said she would give this to you if you came to see her."
Lin Xiao took the book and opened it. The pages rustled crisply. He stopped when he turned to a certain page. There was a line of words circled in red ink, the handwriting extremely fine and the circle very light, with a corner folded off. He glanced at it, took a deep breath, and slowly closed the book and put it in his pocket.
What else did she say?
"She said," Wang thought for a moment, his tone flat, "That what you're looking for is in the book."
Lin Xiao nodded, then turned and glanced towards the meditation room at the back of the hall. The door was tightly closed, and there was no sound.
"Alright, if my godmother says she won't see me, then she won't." He put his hands in his pockets, his fingertips touching the cover of the book. "Please pass on a message: I'll come again next time, and I'll introduce her to my daughter-in-law then."
Wang's lips twitched slightly, but he didn't reply. He turned and left.
Lin Xiao stood in the hall for a while before going out. He walked along the stone steps toward the side hall, where Peter and Ned lived. Before he even arrived, he could hear Peter's voice, talking animatedly about the breathing technique the king had taught him that day.
Peter and Ned were squatting on the steps, eating steamed buns, with a dish of pickled vegetables in front of them. Peter saw him first, stood up, and dusted off his trousers.
" Uncle Lin! You've arrived. I heard from Wang that you were leaving?"
"Okay, we're leaving first thing tomorrow morning." Lin Xiao walked over, snatched the steamed bun from Ned's hand, and stuffed it into his mouth. Ned opened his mouth, his hand still outstretched in mid-air, looking a little aggrieved.
"I plan to stay a little longer," Peter said.
He felt himself getting better and better lately, his connection with the Fool was deepening, and he was becoming more and more confident. He would look people in the eye when he spoke, unlike before when he would constantly look down. "Wang said I'd just gotten the hang of it, and then I'd break it off."
Lin Xiao glanced at him. Peter's the Fool was dozing on Peter's back, his eight legs neatly tucked in. The face pattern on his back was fainter than before, floating quietly behind him, unlike before when it would constantly emit a yellow glow. He didn't say much, but reached out and patted Peter's shoulder. Peter slumped down when patted, baring his teeth but not pulling away.
"And you?" Lin Xiao turned to look at Ned.
"I'll stay too." Ned swallowed the last bite of his bun, dusted the crumbs off his hands, and said matter-of-factly, "I suddenly don't find learning magic so boring anymore, except I made a small mistake while practicing a spell today."
What went wrong?
Ned opened his mouth to speak, Peter chimed in from the side, "He burned Mordo's hair."
Lin Xiao paused in his pocket. He looked at Ned, Ned was serious, his eyes sparkling, completely oblivious to the trouble he had caused. Mordo's hair, though thin, wasn't so much that it could be burned off easily.
"Burned?"
"It only burned a tiny bit." Ned gestured with his finger to indicate a very small distance. "I didn't control the heat well; I pronounced one syllable of the incantation too quickly, and the flame jumped up half an inch. My master reacted quickly, and it didn't burn his scalp, just his hair. I apologized to him, and he said I had to copy the Calming Mantra thirty times as punishment."
He finished speaking and then added, "But I think it's quite fun."
Lin Xiao stared at him for three seconds, a slight smile playing on his lips. He took two White Rabbit Creamy Candy from his pocket, giving one to Peter and the other to Ned.
"Don't be too harsh on your master; he still needs to teach you skills."
"I know, I know."
"Once you've finished your training and are back in New York, I'll take you out for hot pot."
Ned's eyes lit up. "Cow dung hotpot?"
"Copper pot hot pot."
Ned pursed his lips, but didn't insist, and lowered his head to unwrap the candy. Peter put the candy in his mouth, looked at Lin Xiao as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he didn't say anything, and just nodded.
Lin Xiao gave Peter and Ned a few more instructions, then turned and walked towards his meditation room. It was completely dark, and the wind in the bamboo forest was cooler than during the day, making one want to shrink back. He returned to his meditation room, closed the door, and sat on the bamboo bed by the moonlight streaming in through the window.
He took the Śūraṅgama Sūtra out of his pocket, opened it, and placed it on his lap. The line circled in red ink was not very clear in the moonlight, so he leaned closer to decipher it word by word. The passage was short, but it essentially said that sentient beings cannot see the truth because they mistake their deluded mind for their true mind. He read it again and again, but still didn't quite understand. However, at the folded corner, the words "seeing one's true nature" were written, and next to it was a very small annotation, seemingly in the handwriting of the Ancient One: "To establish knowledge upon knowledge is the root of ignorance."
Meanwhile, in New York.
In a makeshift isolation ward, a phonograph played old-fashioned jazz, and a newspaper sat on the windowsill, dated 1945. Fury stood by the window, his fingers tapping silently on the windowsill, his gaze fixed on the person on the bed.
The person's eyelashes trembled slightly.
His fingers twitched. Then his eyelids fluttered. After a few seconds, his blue eyes slowly opened, staring straight at the ceiling, his lips pressed into a thin line. He turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the gramophone, over the newspaper, and finally landing on the Black Baldy beside the bed.
The silence lasted for several seconds.
"That one-eyed guy? Where is this?"
Fury's face darkened, and his lips twitched. He had prepared three sets of statements before coming: an official one, a conciliatory one, and a backup one. But he hadn't expected Captain America's first words upon waking up to be this; his words were truly sweet.
" Captain Rogers." Fury took half a step forward, standing beside the bed, his tone as calm as possible, "My name is Nick Fury. You're safe in New York now."
Captain America didn't reply. He glanced around the room again, his gaze lingering on the newspaper on the windowsill for two seconds, a bitter expression on his face.
"So much time has passed, I feel like I missed a date."