(Alternate setting) 1. The Old Monk. “The bell has rung.” The old monk’s eyes had grown cloudy. He gazed at the corner of a stone terrace jutting out from the mountain. From his dwelling halfway up the slope, he could see the stone pavilion built on the platform. It was a superb location. Clouds and mist swirled around the mountain, but curled beneath the terrace. On the rare occasion they climbed higher, they merely brushed the platform’s edge, lending it an even more graceful, ethereal air, as though it were drifting through the clouds. At sunrise, golden light scattered across the pavilion, coating it in gold. A young man stood inside. The morning bell’s toll carried the weight and depth of time. This was the divine...
