I’m fifty-five this year, and in my first year of retirement, I went to stay in my old house in the countryside. One day, while wandering in the mountains, I found a man. He wore a ragged robe, had hair long enough to braid, and his first words were, “Who art thou?”
I thought he was mentally ill and tried to run. He waved his hand, and the entire bamboo grove bent sideways. That’s when I learned he was an ancient wind god named Feilian, who had been sealed away for ten thousand years and had just been freed.
He said he wanted to repay me. I told him to go, that I was doing just fine on my own. He refused, saying he knew nothing about the human world and only knew me. I let him stay, thinking I might as well keep him like a dog.
So what happened? I grew vegetables, and he summoned the wind. My crops grew better than anyone else’s. I went to the market, and he carried me on his back, faster than an electric scooter. When I couldn’t sleep, he sat beside my bed and blew a gentle breeze over me. It felt better than air conditioning.
The old ladies in the village were so jealous. They asked where I’d found my old man. I said I’d picked him up in the mountains. They asked which mountain, and if it was too late to go there now.
Later, my daughter came back from the city and nearly called the police when she saw him. I spent ages explaining things to her. She said, “Mom, get a grip. He’s a god. Sooner or later, he’ll have to go back to heaven.”
That night, I asked Feilian, “Are you going back?”
He said, “The wind has no fixed home. It makes no difference where I go.”
“Then why stay here?”
He looked at me and answered seriously, “Because there’s smoke rising from the chimney here.”
I’m over fifty. I stopped believing in that sort of thing long ago. But that night, I made him a bowl of noodles.
