23 A Disobedient Disciple

Immediately I drag that child to me and ask: 'Who else knows that Huian Xingzhe has come here?'

The child says: 'Not really. He is not a bad one. I don't need to tell everyone about this. He always visits here during these years, so no one really goes after him anymore.'

...What do you mean by "Always"? How many troubles have been done by this naughty child during these years that I am not aware of?!

I hurry to order this child: 'No matter how hard that furry face Thunder god mouth monkey asks you, do not tell him that Huian Xingzhe has come here. Remember this.'

The child doesn't understand why but he will listen to the words said by the Guanyin bodhisattva. He just keeps nodding right after.

I glance at Sun Wukong who is still busy with asking for the Wind-freezing Pearl and the Flying-dragon Staff around and he shall not notice me at this moment, so I immediately leave here for Nanhai without looking back.

What a sin! Longnv has told me to watch Huian. Why did I not listen to her?

As soon as I arrive at Nanhai, I see my disciple sitting by the lotus pond. He rests his chin on both hands and his eyes are looking at the void of somewhere. He is not aware of my arrival at all.

I walk closer and he notices me. He barely turns his face a bit to me and nods to me to show his respect. Then, he squeezes out: 'Shifu.' Then, he turns his face back to the void and goes back to his trance.

His attitude to me makes me feel like as if I was a dog of his that I was hungry, and I went out to hunt, and I idled back, and he nodded to show that he knew it.

I really don't know what is in my disciple's mind.

Sometimes, I think he has turned old mentally before he actually gets old physically. Although he is young, his eyes are old as if he has gone through a vicissitude of dooms. Sometimes, I think he has never grown up. He is thinking about fighting someone all day long like a child that these several hundreds of years have been wasted.

I ask Huian: 'Where did you go during the past two days? What did you take?'

Huian is daydreaming resting his chin on his hands. After he hears my words, he turns his face to me slowly. He stares at me for a while and says confusedly: 'Didn't I tell you already?'

I want to die out of my anger and ask: 'When did you tell me where you went? When did you report to me?'

Huian says bored: 'Shifu is all-knowing anyway. What do you not know? I ask you every time I am going to do something. If you don't stop me, I believe that you support my action, so I will do it. I have been asking for your suggestion, but you have never responded to me.'

???

Are you referring to the times when you were hiding in a corner and murmur to yourself: 'Shifu, I am going to make havoc in Heaven' and you expect me to know this?

You are really a grown child.

I have realized that my disciple has misunderstood my ability. Even though I am all-knowing, I will not watch him all the time. What does he think I am? A camera?

Even if I am watching, I will be watching Sun Wukong. I will be watching if he is causing any trouble to me. Why do I have to watch Huian?

I am totally defeated by his logic.

I say: 'Huian, although I am your shifu, I always support the idea that you have the right to do your own stuff. I will not watch you all the time. If I do so, what is the difference between I and a villain who always peeps at others after a crack? If you don't tell me anything, am I no different from a stranger of yours?'

Huian is shocked for a while and asks me: 'Shifu doesn't know it?'

I say: 'No, I don't know.'

He doesn't seem to believe it: 'Not at all?'

I say: 'Who knows that you took away the Wind-freezing Pearl and the Flying-dragon Staff before Sun Wukong came to ask for them from Lingji today?'

Huian seems to want to say something. He moves his lips but he doesn't say anything.

I just stand here and watch my disciple by the lotus pond. He still has that bored face. Now, I am thinking: it has been a few hundreds of years that I am living with Huian. Unexpectedly, I don't know him at all. He doesn't understand me either. How have things gone so far?

I used to think that the Heavenly King Li was too strict with children, so as a shifu I shouldn't be so strict with him. I thought his manner could improve by that. Who knows that my action is even worse than his father the Heavenly King Li.

I want to get angry at him but I don't know what I should say. I say: 'Where are the Wind-freezing Pearl and the Flying-dragon Staff?'

Huian says: 'They are just in the Treasure Storage of Nanhai.'

I want to lecture him but I am afraid that he will dislike me. I just say: 'Although you have broken a precept, you shall not break anymore precepts. If you are willing to promise me that you will never do it again, I will not blame you this time...'

Huian was resting his chin on his hands by the lotus pond but he stands up straight after he hears my words. He says: 'I didn't steal. I asked Lingji and he answered.'

I say: 'Nonsense. Lingji fell asleep five hundreds of years ago. How did you ask him? How did he answer you?'

Huian wants to argue with me. After a while, he just murmurs: 'Even if he is asleep, I can ask him. Anyway, he agreed.'

...Were you asking him when he was asleep: Lingji, let me take your most precious treasures away as my toys. Do you agree?

Then, you thought that he was like me. You thought we knew what you said in the corner. You thought we agreed if we didn't say no?

...Your logic is really imperial.

I say: 'Taking away stuff without asking is stealing. Do not do this anymore. I am not blaming you. I am just telling you. It is my fault as a shifu that I didn't tell you this. Do not do this again.'

I thought I was kind enough by saying this, but Huian still isn't moving and stares at me. He wants to say something but he doesn't. His weird temper has made it impossible to force him to speak if he decides to hide it.

After a period of time in which we just stared at each other, he suddenly says: 'Then, according to shifu's logic, I have also broken the precepts of killing and sex. Punish me.'

...???

I thought that him stealing had been a great hurt to me, but before I could recover, he said he also had broken the precepts of killing and sex.

When!!

I ask him shockedly: 'What precepts?'

Huian stands still and says each word out loud: 'Killing, Sex, Greed, and all other precepts that I could have broken. Since then, why don't you banish me to the Earth as well to be yokai?'

I put my hand on my chest to keep myself from fainting and supporting myself by a tree: 'It is okay. It is okay. Tell me who you killed. Let shifu hide the corpse for you first...'

Huian: '...'

Humans aren't grass or trees. They can never get rid of their feelings. He is my disciple. It is my fault that I didn't teach him well. I shall take the punishment for whatever he has done wrong—I promise, that I am not the only partial one in either Western Paradise or Heaven. Also, although he works in Western Paradise, he came from Heaven. You know that their law is that: Jade Emperor will not blame you even if you have killed everyone in a city if he is happy at the moment; Jade Emperor will blame you if you just drink water if he is not happy at the moment.

I barely keep my balance by the tree and say to him: 'No matter what you have done in the past, as long as your shifu is still alive, no one can banish you to be a yokai on Earth. However, we need to clarify this thing. We need to clarify this thing NOW. I have to fix your weird way of doing stuff—'

Before he could move his lips, a sudden coldness strikes me. I feel I had fallen from the sky and a tinnitus rises in my ears. I hear the cry of that little monk: 'Guanyin sister, come to save me quickly! The yokai is going to eat me now!'

...Then get eaten!

Yet, that voice is like an alarm that keeps ringing. Its vibration is making me uncomfortable: 'Guanyin sister, I am going to die!'

...Go to die soon! Die and no one will bother me!

Really, I must have owed this Golden Cicada in my previous life that he keeps bothering me now. In the past when he was in Western Paradise, he bothered everyone. We were all annoyed at him. Now, he only remembers me, and he only bothers me. This is never going to end.

What can I do? Can I just watch him dying?

No, I can only curse him in my mind and curse him to die early. When it is time to save him, I have to drop everything and just go.

I have no choice but to say to Huian: 'Stay here for now. I will come back after solving the shit of Sun Wukong's shifu. Stay in Nanhai like a well-behaved child. Understood?'

Huian doesn't walk. He just squats back by the lotus pond slowly and quietly with the rod in his hand, playing with the lotus leaf in the pond.

I say: 'I will come back soon. Stay here and wait for me. We will clarify everything here after I save the Tang monk.'

Sometimes, for me, I think being all-knowing is like a curse. Sometimes, I hope I didn't know, but when things happened, I hope I knew it. Even though that I know if once I know the end, I can never change it.

Therefore, I always lie to myself and cover my eyes. I avoid seeing or listening to the designated fate. I thought, by doing so, I could escape from the cause-and-effect.

However, I often feel regret when I think about the thing happened that day. I often think: if I knew that Huian was going to disappear, I would not care about the status of Xuan Zang. Anyway, a chatterbox like him usually lives long.

Yet, I am used to it. I am used to the fact that my disciple has been waiting for me just like what he has been doing for the several hundreds of years when he is still here. I don't know when he has changed. He is no longer that child who flopped after me happily. Something has changed him, just like something had changed me in the past, but as a shifu, I am not aware of it at all.

I know he has been disappointed at something, always, at his father, or at the environment in which he grew up, or at all the buddhas in Western Paradise, or even, me.

But I don't know, except for Nanhai or Heaven, where he can go, I always believe that disappointment is unavoidable when children grow up. The world is like this, no matter for humans or deities. To reveal the truth, everywhere is a pile a shit. This world is a pile of shit. Who isn't coming to the world with hot blood in their chest and leave the world disappointed, leaving a pile of cold blood, and slowly rotting in the soil?

From then on, three years after I told him to stay in Nanhai and wait for me like a well-behaved child, I have never seen that disciple who I always wanted to drive away.

But, I at that time, knew nothing about this. I just hurried to take the Wind-freezing Pearl and the Flying-dragon Staff out of the Treasure Storage in Nanhai and then hurried back to the Little Sumeru Mountain.

Before I could enter the courtyard, I hear the sound of things being dropped and thrown to the ground. I feel things have gone wrong and I hurry to go in.

I hear Sun Wukong shouting: 'You a bodhisattva! Tathagata ordered you to watch that monster and you fell asleep! You spoil that monster to eat humans! Now you don't want to save my shifu! What receiving scriptures from Western Paradise! All are lies!'

This disobedient monkey is making trouble whenever I am not looking.

Probably, Lingji has said something to annoy him because he detests him being a yokai and he doesn't know him either. That disobedient monkey can never keep his anger down. He probably gets mad as well after Lingji's words.

'What are you, Lingji! If you cannot show me the Wind-freezing Pearl and the Flying-dragon Staff today, I will destroy your mountain! I will catch all your disciples, the children, and your gate watchers, ONE BY ONE to the funeral of my shifu!'