White Hawk and Sable Swan: A Martial Romance of the Far Future - Part X

This is the tenth part of an ongoing serial, written in honor of the Swords of St. Valentine initiative. Here are Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight and Nine. Updates every day.

“But of course I don’t regret dropping out of school.”

Li Wei took a bite of his piping-hot sausage and looked at her. They were both dressed in winter garb, he in a thick white coat, she in a padded black jacket with a pink beanie. Around them, the shopping pagodas and sim-palaces of Eighty-Eighth Street towered to the sky, graced along every glass door, step and threshold with a noisy street-stall or two.

“Are you sure about that, Your Highness?” he asked. “I mean, I never had the chance.”

“Well,” grinned Xu Hai, “you can read and write, can’t you?”

Li Wei frowned, screwing up his brows in mock-effort.

“With great aid from my predictive keyboard,” he concluded at last, “yes.”

“And that’s all you need,” said Xu Hai, spearing a pan-fried dumpling with her toothpick and eating it with aplomb. “Who needs maths, anyway?”

It was almost the Winter Festival, on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month. What exactly the Winter Festival celebrated, no-one knew - but the Council had closed off almost all of Eighty-Eighth Street for the street vendors, which was always a cause for celebration.

Even the population of Neo-Quming had a limit on how many garish ads they could take, after all.

“Personally,” said Xu Hai, blowing a billow of steam into the air, “I’m just glad I don’t have to look at all of those anymore.”

She pointed her chin, meaningfully, at the rows and rows of holoprojectors on either side of them, lined up along every spare centimeter of plasticrete and aerosteel. On normal nights, the augspace here was so congested that shoppers usually popped the lenses from their eyes - and even that wouldn’t save them from the thousands of retailers and small Net vendors who had bought meatspace light-ads.

“Well, you know what they say,” mused Li Wei, putting his sausage-stick behind his head. "I’d rather shop myself blind than miss a bargain. Things like that. I guess it’s the only way to get people to go places anymore.”

“Like you’d know,” snorted Xu Hai. “I bet you can pay the premium on same-day delivery for your toilet paper.”

Li Wei waved a dismissive hand.

“As a matter of fact,” he said airily, “I buy it square by square. Although I am trying to cut down. Please forgive me, Your Highness.”

Xu Hai brandished her dumpling-caked skewer.

“I will stab you,” she warned, lips struggling not to curl at the edges.

“Ah, yes,” said Li Wei, “but then I’d roll you down the street. And in that get-up, you’d probably bounce…”

“Alms,” came a voice. “Alms for a poor monk, charity on this day. The blessings of the Bodhisattva will be on you in your next life. Alms for a poor monk.”

“Well, what d’you know?” said Xu Hai, ribbing him with her elbow. “Turns out our poor and chaste friends celebrate the Winter Festival, too. Care to spare a few tokens?”

No response. Li Wei was staring at the monk, at his bare feet on the icy road and his simple orange garb.

“Hey,” frowned Xu Hai. “Li Wei?”

“I don’t have any tokens,” said Li Wei, distractedly, already walking forwards. “Wait here. And hold my sausage.”

“Ancestors,” groaned Xu Hai, staring skeptically at the half-eaten skewer. “You couldn’t find a better way to put that, could you?”

#####

“I don’t suppose you take wallet transfers,” said Li Wei, hands in his pocket.

The monk looked up, a beatific expression on his face. He was seated on his mat, cross-legged. His left arm hung by his side, as if useless, but his right palm stayed in front of him, motionless, like a flickering flame frozen by the cold. He looked surprisingly young.

“Amitābha,” he said, bowing his head. “No, young master. As you can see, this begging bowl is only brass. There is not one thinking-circuit on my person; neither in my robes nor in my eyes. It is part of our vows.”

“What,” smirked Li Wei, “to stay stuck in the Stone Age?”

The monk’s calm eyes surveyed him, blinking wetly. He looked right back, probing. Trying to see beneath the mask.

“The Buddha said: ‘We live in illusion and the appearance of things.’ How true and noble a saying! This life is but a dream, young master. Why then waste it in the pursuit of pleasure? Why wrap your fantasies in the false visions of another? We will all suffer in our turn, whether in this life or the ones to come.”

Li Wei took his hands out of his coat-pockets. His eyes were flat.

“You know, I was wondering the exact same thing. I’ve been in a rut for a while.”

“You are a man of violence,” noted the monk. “I see it in your bearing.”

“You’re not too shabby yourself,” said Li Wei, eyes hard. “Tell me, do they still teach shaolinquan in the monasteries?”

The monk stood, the picture of serenity. His rosary-beads clacked quietly as he lowered his hand. Li Wei raised his fists and set his jaw, preparing himself for the fight about to follow.

“You have dispensed with your desires, young master,” said the monk. “Your wish for fame and fortune, your lust for the wiles of unknown women… all these, to you, have become dust in the wind.”

Li Wei blinked and lowered his fists.

“You’re not going to fight me,” he said.

“Why would I?” smiled the monk. “I overcome my carnal desires every day. That is war enough. It has been hard. I have not been in this life for long.”

“Well, I suppose I should thank you for the lecture, then. Do you want one coin, or two?”

Again, a pointed jab, an attempt to break the other’s guard with a thrust of calculated cynicism. But the monk only blinked placidly, joyously, as immovable as a statue in snow.

“Amitābha. Your offer of alms is gratefully accepted. But if you wish to be enlightened, young master, there is one more attachment that you must break.”

Li Wei froze, struck by a sudden chill in his heart. It radiated out, frosting the insides of his pants and shirt, like a blizzard in miniature.

“What… what do you mean?”

The monk turned his head, calmly, and nodded at the girl behind them. The girl with a skewered sausage in her left hand and a paper box of fried dumplings in her left, tapping her foot on the ground at Li Wei in obvious impatience.

“You seek fulfillment in her,” said the monk, “but you will not find it. If you cleave to her, you will never be free.”

“I… that’s not… we don’t even…”

“You do not lust for her body, it is true,” said the monk, “but you lust for her heart. You want her to fill your emptiness. Is that not, in itself, a selfish desire?”

Li Wei stood, silent.

“I guess we’re all full of selfish desires, then. Aren’t we?”

“Do not misunderstand me,” said the monk. “My only wish is for you to seek the Path.”

“She has a wish herself,” said Li Wei. “I’d rather she saw it.”

“But you know where that leads, do you not, young master? I will not stop you. You did much for me, in your way.”

“That’s a funny way to put it,” said Li Wei. “We’ve only just met.”

The monk rustled his rosary and bowed, smiling. Li Wei put a hand in his coat pocket, knelt, and dropped a handful of netael tokens into the Red Arhat’s bowl.