Uneasy Heart

Ji Yuan, who was boiling water, looked up toward the distant road. He had not cared at first, but after some thought, he still pinched his fingers and calculated. With a slight frown, he swept his sleeve, clearing all the filth from the water vat beside him. Then he pointed into it, and under gathering water vapor, water appeared from nothing within the vat. The water level slowly rose until it reached two-thirds full, then stopped.

At this moment, the Xiezhi Scroll hung from the wooden pillar beside the stove. The image did not move, yet it gave the sense of a gaze fixed upon the pot. Seeing Ji Yuan fill the water vat, Xiezhi chuckled.

"You do have a kind heart, but you are not the shopkeeper of this tea stall."

"I never said I would entertain them."

Ji Yuan had matters on his mind. After glancing twice more toward the end of the road, he replied casually and began arranging his tea set. He placed tea leaves in the teapot, added a little honey, then poured the boiled spring water into it—not a drop too much or too little, exactly one pot. Before the faint tea fragrance could drift out, Ji Yuan covered the pot with its lid.

Xiezhi on the scroll looked at the teapot in Ji Yuan's hand and suddenly murmured.

"The universe fits within a sleeve, while long days and months dwell within a pot..."

Those words were the guiding principle of Ji Yuan's derived book, Universe in the Sleeve. Of course, he knew them. He glanced at Xiezhi and asked with a trace of pride.

"Well? Does Ji's Universe in the Sleeve meet the discerning eye of Xiezhi?"

"Yes, it is exceedingly impressive."

That answer from Xiezhi amounted to extremely high praise for Universe