“Others can say that, but not you,” Meng said. “What a pity for someone of your status to be so passive and negative.”
With his head in his hands, Zhuang said that he had indeed fared better than many other people, but in name only. Now that he was living a different life, why not keep at it? It was no small feat to find a place like the House of Imperfection Seekers in Xijing, and he wouldn’t mind joining them if Meng had friends over, but he had nothing to share and would not be a good speaker. Meng encouraged him to at least show up at the gatherings.
He invited some people who were into metaphysics to talk about qigong, but not only were their friends puzzled, they thought the speakers were strange, that they must suffer from some sort of mental disorder and lived with a different mindset, which was why they could produce qi to cure illness and predict the future. Zhuang’s circle of friends decided to let them keep talking, for it was amusing, if nothing else. One day, Meng invited another “guru,” a man who claimed to belong to the Mount Tian School. He opened with a self-deprecating remark about his inferior powers. According to him, his master, who was 125 years old, could rise up with the wind and travel under the ground. After looking at Xijing from a distance one day, his master concluded that the one-time capital should be a site with a denser concentration of unusual talent, but there was too much yin circling the city, making it impossible to see if that could be so. So the guru was sent by his master to check out the place. After his arrival, he met all sorts of people, including Master Zhixiang at the Yunhuang Temple, but that only made him lament the fact that true masters, like his, had yet to descend to the mundane world. Someone asked him to share his views about the future world. That spurred him into a seemingly endless monologue: how the universe had started; how the sun and moon were formed; Darwin’s theory of evolution; the idea of being one with nature promoted by Laozi and Zhuangzi; the mystery of the Egyptian pyramids; the riddles in the rock paintings on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau; the effects of the moon’s phases on ocean tides; the impact of the tides on women’s menstruation; how the man from Qi worried that the sky would fall, something that had already happened once; and how Mao Zedong practiced qigong, which was why he could make a million Red Guards cry with a wave of his hand at Tiananmen Square.
Though what he was saying seemed absurd and preposterous, his listeners weren’t sure what to think of him, since he peppered his talk with modern technical terms. “What is a philosopher?” he demanded. “And what is a man of letters?”
No one had an answer, so he smiled. “It’s simple. A philosopher knows everything before everyone else, a shepherd sent by God to watch over the others. As for you, the writers and poets, you are at best sheepherding dogs.”
“The master is a font of knowledge,” someone in the audience said. “You’re so different from others we’ve met before, who could only spout nonsense and crazy ideas.”
“Don’t call me master. I’m just my master’s disciple. There’s nothing I loathe more than those who claim to be qigong practitioners but actually deceive others with their tricks. Do they know qigong? They do. But qigong is in the lowest rank of our field of practice. An elementary school student has a fountain pen in his pocket and a middle-school student has two, but can we argue that the more you know, the more fountain pens you need in your pocket? Writers like you have no pens, so what do you call those who have three or four pens in their pockets? Pen repairers! Chinese traditions are the best in the world, but sadly, the heirs to these traditions have a most annoying problem, and that is boasting. As the saying goes, He who is all talk does nothing, he who does things makes no noise. The true masters have a vapid appearance but great intelligence. Nowadays in Xijing there are many magic power sacks and magic belts. Television ads peddle products to strengthen men’s kidneys and increase their sexual prowess, or to cure women’s ailments they cannot talk about. In the parks and along the city wall, you see people breaking stone steles with their heads and splitting bricks with their bare hands, but can that solve humanity’s problems? Those are insignificant skills that real men would not deign to practice.”
The others turned to look at Meng Yunfang, who was red in the face from embarrassment. “What you’re saying is all well and good,” he said, “but too lofty and distant, for we are just ordinary people who would like to know what will happen to Xijing in the future.”
The man was quiet, as if unable to extract himself from the scene he had just set. After a moment he finally said, “I don’t possess the power to know that.” That was met by sighs all around. “But,” he continued, “I can receive messages from outer space. Let’s give it a try.” Scrunching up his shoulders and puffing out his chest, he relaxed, took off his shoes and belt, and sat in the lotus position, head down. Making the shape of a lotus flower with his fingers, he randomly rattled off a string of numbers for about a quarter of an hour before opening his eyes. “There will be a drought in Xijing. Are there any signs of that?”
“Well, we’ve heard that Xijing once had eight rivers, but only four are left. The factories in the western suburb often have to cease operations due to water shortages, while residents in the northwest could not get any water to the second floor all summer long. Everyone lives in multistory modern buildings, and yet they must keep storage vats for water that will run for a few minutes only in the middle of the night.”
The man’s face came alive. “That’s it.” He asked everyone to face north, avoiding the south, the direction of Mount Zhongnan, where masters in the mountain would interfere with their field of qi. Then he continued to receive transmissions from outer space before blurting out something that scared them out of their wits: “All of Xijing will sink in a few years.”
Zhuang Zhidie, who had been listening attentively, fidgeted, as the man was sounding increasingly outlandish. Using a bathroom visit as an excuse, he walked out; when he heard two girls in the next room giggling softly, he went in to ask, “What are you two silly girls laughing at?”
“Xiaohong passed gas when the master was chanting his incantation. She was afraid of making a noise, so she forced it to come out real slow in tiny bits. It was so funny, we had to run out here to laugh.”
The second girl blushed and put her hand over her friend’s mouth. “Don’t listen to Cuiling. She’s full of nonsense.”
“Don’t overreact, Xiaohong. It’s just a fart in the wind,” Zhuang said, sending the girls into another laughing fit. With a straight face he looked out the window. Dusk was descending.
Their giggling finally subsiding, the girls walked up to the window. “You’re so funny, Zhuang Laoshi. We recognized you but didn’t dare approach you,” one of them said. “We came to listen to you talk about art, but the master monopolized everything.”
“Listen to me talk about art?” Zhuang said. “You two are the essence of art.” He leaned against the window to gaze at the night scene outside. The distant streets and lanes were brightly lit, and people could be heard talking, but the large area to the right was shrouded in darkness and completely silent. One of the girls asked him what the area was. Zhuang told them it was the Clear Void Nunnery, where the lights were turned off when the worshippers left. The dozen or so nuns had probably gone to bed a while ago.