Immortality in the Master's World

Xia Ren (Shrimp) tells a legendary story in "Ever Night". (The first ten chapters are pretty average. It’s my first time writing, so feel free to skip around. That’s life, isn’t it? If you don’t like something, just skip it.)

He traveled across this world. He saw Liu Bai’s sword sweep like a mighty river. He saw a man burn himself up in the darkness. He heard how a genius named Liansheng Thirteen was celebrated generation after generation. He was like Zhang San, Li Si, Wang Wu, like every other person, yet no one could sense his presence. He read every book in the world. He had no teacher, no students, and no talent for cultivation, yet through reading, he learned to make his words reality.

Until the day the sky over Chang’an City split open.

He thought of his grandmother’s braised pork. He remembered that the drafty, leaky thatched hut had actually been quite warm.

He said, “I don’t want this.”

And so the rain stopped. The flowers bloomed. The immortals retreated. Heaven returned to heaven, and earth to earth. After the crack closed, the streets of Chang’an were filled with petals, their scent mingling with that of locust blossoms, peach blossoms, osmanthus, and plum blossoms.

Many, many years later, there was a teahouse east of Chang’an City called “The Mortal World.” The owner was around fifty and wiped the bowls with great care. Now and then, he would tell stories himself, about what had happened here, about the world and all its people.

A man who could not die spent several hundred years learning just one thing: how to live well.

This is a book someone wrote for his own youth. For the boy he was when he read "Ever Night", and for every ordinary person still striving to love, to feel, and to remember amid the crush of the crowd.

If you open it late one night, perhaps it will quietly keep you company.

Please check out my new book, "In the Master’s World: A Taoist Comes from the South". I hope you’ll leave a kind word if you enjoy it.